"I don't know," she said, frowning. "I don't really know human luck rituals very well. I suppose the equivalent for my species would be - touch teeth maybe?"
"You were lucky with that robe. I think that whole mission came down to half luck." A sigh, accompanied by a bite of pastry. "Let's just hope that we don't get a mission in the future where Stacy tells me to wear that dress. Because by now I sincerely hope it's a matched set of pillows, bedsheets, curtains, and rag rugs."
"No. Not Horanckk." She lets her eyelids droop, her expression contrasting oddly to the friendly waving of the dress-tentacles. "I don't even remember his name. He wasn't a Ninth Empire AI, it was almost impossible to break the Empire's controls on them. And he wasn't Penn'ae either. Ibis maybe?
"He went on a mission, in a crack box. That's a shielded casing with a row of connectors on it, to protect the AI from being hijacked until it's hooked into another system. Somehow, in fighting the other AI, something in his mind - broke. And since AIs think so much faster than we do, his madness grew just as fast. He was sane when he left the ship; when he returned, his patterns didn't match what he had been previously at all, so we put him into the Black Hold."
Her eyes grew even sadder. "The Black Hold is where you store particularly nasty sentient code, and AIs that are in trouble. A whole section of one ship is made non-conductive: shielded walls, chemiluminescent lights, no wiring or electrical equipment at all, no memory or storage devices allowed on people inside. The guards don't even carry smartguns, because an AI might be able to tamper with them; just spears or spring-loaded projectile weapons. It's a place to hold someone who thinks a hundred times faster than you do. It's supposed to be sealed off, all the time. But by bad luck, on the same day we brought him back and locked him into the Black Hold, there was a new guard on duty who'd been given slightly higher access codes than he should have had. He was – young. Young and foolish
"The first we found out about what he'd done was the alarms had gone off: something taken out of its bracket in the Hold. So, Security goes down there, and sees this kid, and he's sort of staggering, towards the door. Arms out in front of him, and absolutely no expression on his face. He just kept staggering forward, even after they put the spearsbutts to him and tried to force him against the wall. He wouldn't go. They knocked him down and turned him over, and saw why.
"The crack box was grafted onto his spine. It had organic-compatible connectors, and it had just socketed itself into his body, taken over his brain, used him like a puppet to get him out of there. Not the best plan, really, but - the AI was insane. The kid was dead; no higher brain activity at all once the surgeons got the box off him. The question was, how had the thing gotten onto his back? It had been locked down, and the kid must have known that the connection would let the AI take over his brain, so – why?"
She waits for Howard's response, her expression suggesting she'd be just as happy if he said 'No more.'
LOL long horror story is long
"You were lucky with that robe. I think that whole mission came down to half luck." A sigh, accompanied by a bite of pastry. "Let's just hope that we don't get a mission in the future where Stacy tells me to wear that dress. Because by now I sincerely hope it's a matched set of pillows, bedsheets, curtains, and rag rugs."
"No. Not Horanckk." She lets her eyelids droop, her expression contrasting oddly to the friendly waving of the dress-tentacles. "I don't even remember his name. He wasn't a Ninth Empire AI, it was almost impossible to break the Empire's controls on them. And he wasn't Penn'ae either. Ibis maybe?
"He went on a mission, in a crack box. That's a shielded casing with a row of connectors on it, to protect the AI from being hijacked until it's hooked into another system. Somehow, in fighting the other AI, something in his mind - broke. And since AIs think so much faster than we do, his madness grew just as fast. He was sane when he left the ship; when he returned, his patterns didn't match what he had been previously at all, so we put him into the Black Hold."
Her eyes grew even sadder. "The Black Hold is where you store particularly nasty sentient code, and AIs that are in trouble. A whole section of one ship is made non-conductive: shielded walls, chemiluminescent lights, no wiring or electrical equipment at all, no memory or storage devices allowed on people inside. The guards don't even carry smartguns, because an AI might be able to tamper with them; just spears or spring-loaded projectile weapons. It's a place to hold someone who thinks a hundred times faster than you do. It's supposed to be sealed off, all the time. But by bad luck, on the same day we brought him back and locked him into the Black Hold, there was a new guard on duty who'd been given slightly higher access codes than he should have had. He was – young. Young and foolish
"The first we found out about what he'd done was the alarms had gone off: something taken out of its bracket in the Hold. So, Security goes down there, and sees this kid, and he's sort of staggering, towards the door. Arms out in front of him, and absolutely no expression on his face. He just kept staggering forward, even after they put the spearsbutts to him and tried to force him against the wall. He wouldn't go. They knocked him down and turned him over, and saw why.
"The crack box was grafted onto his spine. It had organic-compatible connectors, and it had just socketed itself into his body, taken over his brain, used him like a puppet to get him out of there. Not the best plan, really, but - the AI was insane. The kid was dead; no higher brain activity at all once the surgeons got the box off him. The question was, how had the thing gotten onto his back? It had been locked down, and the kid must have known that the connection would let the AI take over his brain, so – why?"
She waits for Howard's response, her expression suggesting she'd be just as happy if he said 'No more.'