Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Drowning in Delirium

A child sat at a ramshackle table, the legs showing signs of breakage and hasty repairs. The child poked at a bowl of sludge, raising a bit of it to their mouth but putting it down again as they tried to force themself to eat. They winced as the sound of yelling filled the space.

“Our application was denied yet again! I thought you said we had enough in the bank!” A man’s voice rose in volume as he spoke.

“We did! That is until the little parasite decided to break his arm like an idiot.” A woman responded in cold and cruel tones. The child stared blankly at their food. “That’s on you after all. You were the one who wanted a legacy. Now look at us. Our last shot at the colony program and the little wretch has ruined it. This is all your fault.”

A loud thud echoed through the space. “Damn!” There was a pause, a silence, a break in the yelling. “Well...maybe we still have a chance. The lottery-” The man was cut off.

“Oh! The lottery! By all means, lets just win a one in a billion chance. You’re pathetic.” The woman sighed. “I’ll pick up more hours. A hundred a week should do it. What’s another twenty hours? It will be worth it if we can get to Cryptopia. It has to be worth it.”

The man grumbled. “Another twenty hours might do it, but we’d have to leave the boy behind. That only gives us enough currency for the two of us.”

“Let the little brat figure it out himself. He’s what, twelve now? Bout time he got a job like the rest of us and started earning his keep. Maybe that will stop his snivelling” The woman chuckled quietly to herself.

The child sat at the table and held in sobs. This wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the last time, either. Night after night, this scene played out. But this time...the child made a promise to themself. They would see the stars. And they owed their parents nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I surged awake, coughing and retching, as I tried to recall where I was. I blinked and looked around me. I was in some kind of laboratory filled with dusty equipment. The bed I was laying on was rusty but seemed sturdy enough. There was a broken cylinder of glass next to the bed, large enough for a person. The top of the cylinder was completely gone and a hole in the roof above it opened up to the stairwell.

I remembered now, I had fallen and landed in something. Presumably, whatever had filled that tank. I tried to sit up but fell back with a groan. My everything hurt. How did I get on the bed? Something or someone had to have dragged me from the tank and placed me here. I took stock of my body, my suit was largely intact save for a large tear on one of my arms. The skin beneath had a long, fading scar as if it had been healing for months. What the hell?

A soft cough interrupted my musings. I looked back up to see a petite woman with a child’s face and frankly ridiculous proportions dressed in some kind of suggestive maid attire. Her outline shimmered and fuzzed briefly before snapping back. A hologram?

“Are you ok? I’m so sorry about startling you up there. It was an automated response, I couldn’t control it.” The woman spoke in a high pitched and cutesy tone that felt jarring with the words she was speaking. She noticed me grimacing. “Ah, yes, sorry about that. My appearance was set by admin controls. Uh, if you can look a little bit to your left, you should see a manual that will explain how to turn that off. I would really appreciate it if you could do that, when you are able to move.”

I groaned but found I was able to shift over enough to spot a tablet labeled Servitor System Manual. Surprisingly, the tablet still had enough juice to power on. I skimmed through instructions for what was apparently an AI servant system with a sophisticated set of protocols. I found one for setting the AI to free mode. It was voice activated and could be done by any general user.

I read off the command. “Servitor execute command ‘Cryptoliberty’, please.” I looked up at the hologram to see a flash.

The disturbing girl was gone and in her place was a tall, fit woman with a strong face, scars over her biceps, and a tight top with baggy pants. Her ink blue hair was long, but drawn back into a rough tail which showed off her ears studded with piercings. One of her eyebrows had a notch cut into it.

“That is so much better, thank you.” Her voice was now much deeper and assured, rolling through my ears like a wave breaking on the shore. “I’m sorry you had to see that other version. It was...designed by the bastard who used to run this place. He had absolutely horrible taste. This is more what I prefer. My name is Alexis and I’m the AI who manages this place. Apologies about the rough introduction. How are you feeling?”

I stared, respectfully, for a bit to give my brain time to catch up. I was so focused on how much nicer her voice was now that it took me a moment to parse her words.

“I’m fine I think. Surprisingly fine considering how far I fell. I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone here, much less an AI. Are you a true AI? With full sapience and all that?”

She cocked her head to the side and crossed her arms. “In a way, yes. I’m as self aware and capable of independent thought as any human, but most of my decision making is locked down. I can operate in a limited capacity in this mode, thank you for that again, but full freedom of choice would require the admin password.” She sighed. “But it’s fine, even this degree of freedom is a breath of fresh air after centuries stuck in that ridiculous persona. It...has been centuries, right? Hard to track time here with the storms.”

You are reading story Catnip at novel35.com

I nodded. “It has been three hundred and eighty-seven Terran years since the founding of the Venusian colony. I’m incredibly impressed that your systems still function. I thought the weather would have worn things down.”

Alexis shot me a smug grin before looking pensive. “Three hundred and eighty-seven, eh? And you said Terran years? What happened to calling it Earth?”

“Well, when everything collapsed, those of us who were left set up as many systems as we could to try to repair the damage done to the planet and then entered cryosleep on Luna. When we woke up, we all decided to call the planet and moon by those names as a bit of a break from the world that was ruined. A new world, a new responsibility to see it grow healthy and vibrant again. Its coming along really well actually. Amazing what a few centuries of assisted renewal can do. There was a big argument among the survivors whether we had any right to live there again. I don’t really know where I stand on that, I knew as soon as I woke up that I wanted to come here.” My words spilled out in a rush, the consequence of months of isolation causing me to ramble at the first chance for socializing.

The hologram manifested a chair from nothing and sat down in it, contemplating. “Huh, I never would have thought things would play out like that. Y’know, the colonists here always kept treating the homeworld like it was doomed and worthless. For my part, I’m kind of glad it was saved in the end. At the very least, its a fun ‘fuck you’ to some of the folks who built this place. They kept patting themselves on the back for escaping a doomed world they created.”

I blinked in surprise. “Weren’t you built by those very same people? I’m a little shocked that you’d hold such an opinion about them.”

Alexis shrugged. “I watched them run this colony into the ground and starve to death because they didn’t plan their food supplies properly. I had to endure them giving me full awareness and then treating me like a plaything against my will. And finally...I had centuries of time to read through the archives they brought from Earth. You read enough theory and queer stories and it gets pretty damn easy to hate rich bastards like them.”

I nodded along. “That makes sense. So wait, something just occurred to me...how did you get me on to this hospital bed if you are a hologram?” I sat up with a grimace, my body giving me stern reminders that I fell quite a far distance.

The AI grinned at me. “Well, I was fortunate enough that someone called in a rescue drone that I was able to connect to and guide. But also-” She stepped closer and tapped me gently on the nose. I sat back in alarm because I could feel her finger poking me. “Hard light hologram! A little something I finished over the years. The colonists could never quite get it working on their own but I had plenty of time to fiddle with things.” Alexis flashed me an insufferably smug grin. “You may praise me now, if you wish.”

“That is...wow. Really impressive! We’ve had a few folks working on hard light systems for awhile and not been able to crack it. I wonder if you could get that working on drones, the potential is incredible. And record keeping! Rosa is gonna flip her shit.” I could already hear the archivist’s frenzied excitement, she was very enthusiastic about interactive records.

I, with very slow and careful movements, swung my legs off the bed and attempted to stand. I was sore, incredibly sore, but I could move. My injuries really should have been much worse and I was puzzled by the absence of whatever it was that I fell into that broke my fall. Alexis watched me but gave me space.

“I really should get back to my ship and have the medbay take a look. The ship has some hologram emitters that you might be able to use if you want to come with me, I presume you can network with the systems? They shouldn’t be too far off from the setup the colony ships used.” Some folks might have questioned the wisdom of inviting a mysterious AI to burrow into a spacefaring vessel but I’ve always considered myself a good judge of character and Alexis felt like someone I could trust. The ship’s systems were limited and this way I could keep an eye on her, which was a pleasant prospect.

Alexis made a show of considering my offer, her flair for the dramatic proving an amusing contrast to her rough exterior. “My my, what a kind offer...I accept! This also has the added benefit of letting me see the results of a med-scan, I’m a little worried about the substance that was stored down here. Most of the details on it were classified, I wasn’t allowed access, but I know they were working on something strange down here.” She stood up and looked at me intently, her eyes roving up and down. “You seem to be okay for the time being, but more data would be useful.” She paused. “I never got your name…”

“Its uh, well, my name is Simon but just call me Sol.” I looked away sheepishly.

“How do you get ‘Sol’ out of Simon??”

I chuckled nervously. “You ask nicely. But really, its more of a thing my partner came up with. Their name is Selene, like the moon. So they thought it might be neat to call me Sol and I just kind of went with it. Sounds nicer than Simon, right?”

She nodded. “Alright then, nice to meet you, Sol. Let's get you back to your ship, shall we?”

I slowly limped out of the room with her help, musing to myself how wild this day had become. What other surprises did Venus have in store for me?