It added, query: contact AdaCol1?
It could be asking for something else, and not the other central system, the one that I’d destroyed along with 2.0 to stop the source of the alien contamination.
I hoped it was asking for something else.
I was taking too long, and it sent, AdaCol1 contact lost. Query: contact AdaCol1?
Yeah, there was a 95 percent chance that it was asking for the other central system. I sent, AdaCol1 location?
It sent me a string of numbers. Not active code … oh, right, probably map coordinates. It took me a second to figure it out but they matched the Adamantine mapping data. And the coordinates pointed to one side of the main colony site, where the Pre-CR structure was.
So it was a 100 percent chance. I made myself reply, AdaCol1: offline.
This time there was a pause. 2.3 seconds. It sent, query?
AdaCol1 saved me. It was half eaten by an alien contaminant transferable via organic DNA into machine code and vice versa. It was held a prisoner in the dark while the humans that had rescued it from the ruin it was abandoned in were infected and driven to do terrible things to each other. It let me kill it if I promised to save its humans. How did I put that into this stupid limited language?
I sent, AdaCol1: contamination incident.
Query?
I should be asking AdaCol2 if it was here alone, though I was 97 percent sure it wasn’t. I had only interacted briefly with AdaCol1 but it had—felt is the wrong word but it makes sense in context—or not, whatever—it had felt alone. Its access had been cut off, none of its normal functions were in process, it had little to no data as to what was happening outside the limited network it had been trapped with.
AdaCol2 was an active system. It could even have been stalling me while its humans got their SecUnit-busting weapons out.
And if it was like AdaCol1, it was probably a lot smarter than this limited connection protocol made it sound. I pulled a report like I would for a SecSystem’s or HubSystem’s internal use, all data, no visuals or documentation for humans. No way to make what had happened sound better.
I hesitated. This was hard. It might try to kill me and then I’d have to kill it. Or try to kill it, it might be on ART’s level and smash me like a bug, I didn’t know.
I said, query: accept data file?
In response it sent me a hard address, different from the one it was using for our connection. It was probably the equivalent of a run box, a separate processing area it could view but that nothing could get out of. (Theoretically, anyway. I would have bet 2.0 could have gotten out of a Pre-CR run box.)
I sent the file, and the connection went quiet.
I didn’t want to just stand here waiting, and watching media under these circumstances was clearly not a good idea no matter how much I really, really wanted to watch media. So I made a copy of the conversation and pinged ART-drone with it.
ART-drone dropped the wall between us, though not the one protecting the shuttle’s systems. Is that a good idea? I asked it. Is containment protocol for everybody but you?
After it sees the file it will either attack us or ask for further contact, ART-drone said. The wall will have to go down either way.
Right, fine, whatever. Then AdaCol2 sent, query: function, query: connection, query, and followed it with a current timestamp.
It had just asked us why we were here.
On our private connection, ART-drone said, It wouldn’t question you like this if it was alone here. It has something to protect.
ART in any format is absolute shit at talking to other bots, but in this case I knew it was right. I needed to reply in a way that would make sense to a Pre-CR central system jury-rigged to network with Corporate-era tech. The Targets, ART’s crew being captured, Barish-Estranza, the hopefully dormant alien contamination site now lurking under the collapsed ruin of the Pre-CR colony site. But I kept seeing the memory of that last moment before AdaCol1 shut down. I put together a response and sent:
AdaCol1 request: assistance needed, PSUMNT response assistance in process then ID: Barish-Estranza Explorer Task Group: threat condition high and finally PSUMNT request: client-to-client connection.
Which meant, “AdaCol1 asked for help, we are trying to help, Barish-Estranza is dangerous, can you please let our humans speak to yours.”
It sent back: query: ‘client’?
This system didn’t know what client meant. I tried not to take that as a sign of complete failure while ART-drone ran a quick query for alternatives and sent me the results. I picked the top one: ‘client’ = operator.
It sent, connection accepted, request accepted, assistance and I had another camera view in my feed.
It was so sudden it startled me, and it took me .03 seconds to understand what I was looking at. ART-drone said, Shit.
AdaCol2 was showing me a view of a large room, built from the same artificial stone and either part of this installation or very near it, with at least twenty-two humans, two of them wearing patched Adamantine environmental suits. At least twenty-two, there were small humans playing along one wall and the camera view didn’t take in the whole space. The humans had a normal range of skin tone, dark brown through light tan, no visible signs of contamination effects. (It was impossible to tell about their hair; most of them had it wrapped up in a cloth or covered by a cap.) None of that was the “oh shit” part.
The “oh shit” part was that they were facing five humans in Barish-Estranza enviro suits and gear, and one SecUnit.
Yeah, we were too late.
ART-drone had already ended our containment protocol and opened comm and feed to the shuttle. It said, Iris, we have a problem.
Chapter Six
I DON’T KNOW WHAT the initial reaction was for the separatist colonists when they suddenly found a Barish-Estranza exploration team on their doorstep, but our little shuttle family was not happy, let me tell you.
It was early for our scheduled check-in, and the messenger pathfinder wasn’t back yet from delivering our earlier report, but ART-drone pulled down another one so Iris could record and upload an updated status for it to carry outside the blackout zone. Hopefully both pathfinders would be back soon with instructions or some sort of insights as to what the hell to do next. But mostly it would let everybody else know our situation in case Barish-Estranza tried to attack us. Because keeping our presence secret from B-E was completely blown as soon as our humans made contact with the colonists.
(Threat assessment on the probability of an attack by Barish-Estranza was depressingly low. Depressing because the low figure was not because they had suddenly decided to be nice humans who would leave us alone on principle, but because we were so unlikely to be a threat to them that it wasn’t worth the operating expenses to send their SecUnit over here to kill us.)
(Not that I liked its odds if they did. There was me, for what that was currently worth, and ART-drone shared ART-prime’s hit-them-before-they-know-they’re-in-a-fight attitude toward hostile overtures.)
And yes, the humans were all over the place about that SecUnit. We had a conversation about it on the comm while waiting for AdaCol2 to brief its primary operator.
Ratthi had asked me, “So you could”—he waggled his fingers at the side of his head—“to this one, set it free?”