[center][h2]Nirrti and [color=#b9dde9]Laurey[/color][/h2][/center]“We can do your security check now.”

The message would be sent a couple of seconds after the conclusion of the meeting: as Joey put it, “divide and conquer”. Then she would avoid the issue.

Was it really avoidance? Really all Laurey was doing was re-prioritising work. Right. Not even [i]she[/i] bought that. She’d have to decide which team to throw in her lot with, and the problem was, there was a clear choice, a chance for redemption, to do for others what she failed for herself. 

And that, frankly, was terrifying. 

Hence the security check.

The security check done now? No time to waste, the machine effectively thought. Without warning, it drops to its knees, speaking to Laurey. "Please remove my service panel on my back, this should allow you access to my internal systems. Do be warned, memory bank access is temporarily restricted, I am not designed to interface with non-Wetware computers. Until further compatibility is understood, I do not wish to potentially overload any connected systems."

Nirrti was loud. Clearly some social cues were beyond it. There, Laurey could at least empathise. “Gotcha.” 

Without checking to see if anyone even cared that she was avoiding the much too serious conversation, Laurey went to work. Inside Nirrti: a labyrinth of insulated wires and metal, though there looked to be a data connector within reach.

“You’ll be okay to submit them to at least a cursory scan after that’s been established?” She shot the message over, busy fumbling wires from her omnitool. It’d been a while since she’d had to use them over her implants, but she didn't fancy frying her brain. As if it wasn’t on the blink already.

The machine takes a moment to respond, although normal for a human, the delay is noticeable for anyone who worked with a computer before. "Affirmative." Is all that's given in response.

“Plugging in my omnitool. Safeword is banana.”

As soon as her omnitool authenticates with the machine's data port, text sprawls out over the display.

[code]
WETWARE OS V22.14
SYSTEM NOMINAL, SECURITY INTEGRITY FAILED.
SYSTEM VERSION IS VERY OLD, PLEASE UPDATE!
FIRMWARE V2.5B
LICENSE EXPIRED, PLEASE RENEW.

ENTER USERNAME:
[INFO] System - SERIAL1 override, authenticated as user debug.
[INFO] System - Optional features enabled.
[/code]

With that, Laurey is given access to the AI's system. Limited, but enough to do everything she needs to do. The most surprising part of all is a text-based interface, but the machine opened up something more modern for Laurey to do her analysis with.

Blinking away her surprise, Laurey set the omnitool down. It hadn’t caught fire yet. Success. She turned her empty hand slowly over, the skin fractured, bloomed. Would it be irresponsible to plug herself in? Surely. But she was going to do it anyway, and not because she wanted to, but because something else wanted to. She could feel it there, guiding her hand, muddling her thoughts, its plaything in a game too big to see. A ghost? A god? 

Time to sneak into the temple. Click went the data port. 

She was in.

For a second, silence. The omnitool flashes, something about an unrecognized device being connected and a relevant driver being loaded? Laurey wouldn't get the chance to read the info text that followed that, as the sounds of impossibly fast thoughts run through her mind. The mechanical choir ramps down, as Nirrti had figured out exactly what Laurey had done. All that's left is the feeling of an all present eye digging into each action she does. No words are spoken or communicated. The machine is her oyster, admittedly a very dangerous oyster.

And she hadn’t caught fire yet. Another success.

Programmes drifted away like prayers, tethered by thin strands to Laurey’s avatar in the data plane. Blocks stretched in all directions. The silence, lasting only seconds, stretched towards infinity in processing time.

Broadcast into the plane: “This may take longer than expected. You’ve got a lot stored. How old are you?”

The response she got is… Not quite words, but more like a fragment of what a human would call a memory. Eight years ago, Nirrti was constructed, within that fragment is a part of a thought, a query, asking what she meant by "Safe word is banana."

Eight years and all this? “It was a joke,” a pause, barely a handful of cycles, “when certain organics engage in copulation, sometimes they have a safe word. So things don’t get out of hand.”

It felt almost sacrilegious, to sully such a holy place with talk that was very much for the meatspace. Wait.

“Not that I am comparing this to that. I’m not - I wouldn’t - It’s just... a vernacular thing.” 

This time, words respond over the connection made. "I see. A joke." Some thoughts are had, Laurey can feel them, but not quite discern their contents. "I was aware of certain advantages I have over humans, but I see humans process information slowly and respond even slower." It felt like a question was to be asked, but the machine answered its own question before it was shown to her. "Perhaps I simply function faster than other beings around me, due to my nature. I realize I know little about humans. If I am to integrate myself with this crew and function under the command of Captain Natasha Zhang, I will need to understand humanity better."

“The crew is fairly simple. Everyone is emotionally stunted, psychological flotsam. Par for soldiers, perhaps, but not children. What’s important to understand is that we are a result of humanity and all its evils. It’s imperfect. Base clay. I don’t understand why you’d want- but it’s not my place to question.”

She would feel the machine hitch in response, to her it would come across like a stumble, as Nirrti tries to find definitions she does not quite know. A sense of confusion, perhaps? "A product of evils? Elaborate."

“Put it this way: if humanity can fuck you over, it will. Kill, steal, rape, pillage. It’s all hardwired into all of our brains, and there’s jack shit we can do about it.” Not yet. 

"I question how humans have managed space flight, unless you are wrong, in some aspect. Consider diplomatic relations, I am aware they are important to the function of a group. In a pure conflict environment, humanity would have fallen as it could not function. Other beings have used me for the aforementioned purposes you stated, I am designed for warfare after all… Analysis: I am a tool designed for one aspect of humanity." The AI responds.

“Sure, but all aspects serve the self. Don’t get it twisted. It’s always them before you.” 

Laurey's thought process would probably be immediately sideswiped by one of the machine's, redirecting back to earlier. "Elaboration: Desire to understand humanity. Our connection has revealed to me many facts of human existence I am unaware of. I am fundamentally different from you or other humans, as previous data entails. These differences are beyond initial calculations, if I am to prove my tactical worth in the coming tasks, I will need to study how humans evaluate things more than I already have in battle. Such information will help influence me, and potentially improve combat against other humans, should the need arise. I am optimized against machines, being one myself. I am competent against humans, but warfare tactics never halt." Nirrti seems… dissatisfied with her own answer, if she could feel dissatisfaction. "This will not calculate for potential non-human targets… I may need time to process this. Researching various wars between other species may assist in this task."

A flicker of a thought of a smile from Laurey. Understand to kill. “You weren’t optimised against human training data? Seems like an oversight for a war machine. What gives?”

"Incorrect. I am optimized for attacking human combatants. My experience in battle shows tactics vary differently, and improve. As such I must constantly improve in tandem. It appears our definition of what is optimized differs. To you, a few milliseconds may mean nothing, machines perceive time differently, a few milliseconds mean many decisions, like servomotor corrections. Improving my knowledge of humans will improve combat simulation data, and allow me to accurately predict what will happen next in battle. It is difficult to predict what a human will do though, as humans are incredibly inconsistent."

Apostle against god, a stark difference. “Yeah… They have a way of surprising you. Even being immersed in human-centric cultures for my entire life, I am forever feeling the stranger. Good luck, I guess is what I’m saying.”

"Luck is defined as a series of hard to control probabilities." The machine simply says. "Controlling them leads to a successful mission, failure is not an option."

“It was just a vernacular thing.”

Laurey can feel the machine thinking, processing everything it saw during this security check. "I will require some time to properly analyze the information I have recorded in this connection. This has been most informative."

A programme pinged, then reigned itself back in along its tether. Then another. Soon they were all pulling back.

“You’re clean. Enjoy your access.” Flip. Stars. Meatspace. No delaying any longer.