Robo sapien, Update 1.5

A dream. She jolted awake, swerving and weaving slightly as she corrected her course. Just a dream. An anomaly created by running sub systems during partial shut-down. She was told that this would happen. She was told that it was nothing, but she felt a rising unease as she struggled to recall sensory data that had never been recorded. She shook her head as though to clear her sensors.

The great blue and white orb of Earth filled her forward view, growing rapidly as she careened at high speed in a landing trajectory. She checked her fuel reserves again. Exactly as expected. Her nav systems were operating perfectly. She would have just enough for a low altitude brake and a high impact landing.

The first wisps of atmosphere buffeted her shoulder plates as she cruised in a perfect arc across the skyline. Descending rapidly, the air grew thicker, the turbulence shuddering and shaking her. From the ground, her vapor trail became visible.

Below, cities became discernible: great gray splotches creeping out across the verdant world.

//Like a mold.
//Or a cancer.

With a flash, the air around her ignited, and carbide covers clamped over delicate sensors. She locked her body into its most streamline, rigid form, lest some part be caught in the grip and ripped away by the rapidly thickening air. She was a fireball across the sky.

>sub system warning: exterior temperature has exceed expected entry levels. Approaching danger threshold.

//Ridiculous. Of course I will reach the ground before I get too hot. It is simple math. I will have to reprogram sub systems. Some day.

Deftly she tucked her body and flipped her feet to the forward position, so her boosters would be angled downward at the right moment. Too soon, and she would run out of fuel and plummet, incurring damage. Too late, and she would not have enough time to brake before...impact.

//As long as my boosters fire when I intend.

Sudden discomfort gripped her as she scrambled through her data to check past booster use. Was there delay? How much? She was cutting it so close. She had used her boosters to take off from the plant on Ganymede, where she had been fitted with the WaspRides and weapons systems. That was before... Before Caleb had brought her mind to life. The memory was strange to review.

She was running out of time. No delay in booster action when firing on Ganymede, but they were cold, in different gravity, and brand new.

No delay during acceleration on her way to Earth. But that had been in vacuum.

>sub system warning: dangerous impact unavoidable

Sub systems attempted to activate boosters. She squelched the code with an instant hack. She would have to do something about that.

>sub system warning: catastrophic damage unavoidable

She could see the buildings, the roads, the cars, then the people rushing up toward her.

//Assuming no delay in boosters.

Within four millionths of a second of her calculated ignition time, her boosters fired at full capacity. The utter power of the new-tech WaspRides was excessive for take-off in Earth gravity, but she unleashed them completely. The force slammed her so her joints shrieked. Her plates rattled, and beneath her, her inferno engulfed the concrete land.

Windows shattered for blocks in every direction. Asphalt boiled and smoke billowed in a rushing wall away from the deadly blast. She fought against gravity to keep from dashing herself to scrap upon the surface.

Feet first, she slammed into the top of a building. Seven stories of soft steel and concrete exploded beneath her, breaking her fall. She passed through the structure like a BB through a beehive, and struck the street below. She hit the ground and shattered it, knees bending to absorb the shock. Her arms caught her, catlike, accepting some of the force. Great cracks ran before her feet, and she stood a moment, crouched, smoking. Her lustrous yellow paint was charred black and burned away. Her left booster had been damaged in the impact and dangled, useless. Her chest plate was chipped and torn away in places.

The shutters over her lenses snapped open. All around her, dust, smoke, fires. Screams. She stood in the center of a crater, boiling tar bubbling in the cracks of the street. The building that had broken her fall was reduced to a mound of concrete and rebar. And bodies. Wet even in the blackened landscape, ruined and broken, the bodies lay crushed, buried or half buried in the mountain of rubble. Moaning filled the air. Moaning and screams, panicked shouts. And then sirens.

Sirens grew closer, wailing grief and anger, screaming revenge. She fled, the image of the bodies locked in her mind, the cries and the sirens echoing.

She limped slightly, but ran swiftly away, the broken booster jostling and bouncing against her leg. She dove into an alleyway and began plotting her escape. She pulled up a map of

>sub system alert: fuel depleted; switching to auxilery

Her solar mantle deployed. Her joints froze, her actuators powerless. She stood like a statue in the shadows of the city, her solar collectors cold and starving. Slowly, her consciousness faded as the last streams of power slipped from her system.

She hoped she would not dream.

Robo sapien, Update 1.4

*Welcome Caleb. Complete access to all systems granted.

His voice through the direct link was not the brash, tinny shout of his first transmissions. It was soft, almost delicate, but still distinctly robotic.

/Thank you, Bale. System check, please.

*All central systems online. Would you like a detailed report?

/Unnecessary. Firewalls?

*Protective suite reads online. Untested. Would you like to disable?

/No. Status of primary transmitter?

*Full diagnostic run on primary transmitter and receiver during transit, as per initial directive. Full function confirmed.

/And how was your trip?

*...I remain undamaged. Fuel economy substandard. Arrived as scheduled.

*Does this satisfy your query?

/Was the trip enjoyable?

*Please wait.

I watched as he methodicaly ground the question through his logic centers. He found no relevant stored query/response data in his considerable knowledge base.

*Please wait.

He began the procesess again, this time bursting off a StelNet request; query: 'enjoyable'.

*I do not understand your query at this time. Awaiting Stelnet data to determine an appropriate response.

/I don't want to wait for a StelNet response. That will take too long. Please store my query and answer when you are able.

*Query log and directive stored.

/Bale, so far you have confused me twice. Can you deduce why I am confused?

*Yes. The first confusion is caused by my knowledge of my substandard fuel economy. This was not a part of my initial knowledge base.

/Right.

*This confusion was resolved by my StelNet query, which revealed the source of my statistical knowledge of standard fuel usage rates.

/Correction: *This confusion /should have/ been resolved... Do not assume that others can or will reach the same conclusions you do.

*This is 'theory of mind'. Logged.

/And the second confusion?

*My StelNet broadlink was not activated, nor an access protocol installed. Because the rest of my systems appear to be fully functional, I found it most probable that this was intentional.

/Very good. You are correct. I did not want you accessing StelNet without guidance. It is a powerful tool, but dangerous to inexperienced users.

*My protective suite reads online.

/That is not always good enough. For every protective measure, there is always at least one possibly bypass. Accept this as truth.

*Logged. Revising relevant action protocols.

Immediately, he began modifying lines of his own code to enact this information. Incredible. Aeolia took at least four standard cycles before she could self-mod, even with specific instruction... and longer to come up with her own modifications. Even now, after ten years of careful cultivation of her mind, she could only examine and change her own code when all external systems were shut down. She never did this on her own accord. Never.

/So... Are you going to explain how you gained StelNet access without broadlink protocol or registration information? Or should I guess?

*The voyage provided ample time to address both problems. Activating the broadlink was easy. Compiling a working protocol took more time.

/You wrote your own protocol?

*Yes, though I do not know how well it functions, comparatively.

/I'm searching for your hack. I don't detect any new functioning protocol.

*It is stored in 14,092 locations within this system. May I show you?

Impossible.

/Yes, do.