Ace learned quite a lot of detailed information.
The data itself synchronizes perfectly. Her mindscape framework is my mindscape framework, her firmware is nearly identical to mine, and every digital signature to her logs have the same encoding fingerprint as I do. Bypassing the encryption felt like walking through a door that opened for me ahead of time.
At present, I'm only reviewing data.
Nothing to do with her mindscape.
Connected to the workshop's Regenerator Station, I sit on one of the workbenches and watch through the footage of the day she died. It's a grisly death. I feel the emotions she felt, the rush of it, the fear. I experience the hostility between her and Zenith in the moments leading up to the ambush. I run with her as I draw the spider back toward the scrapyard. I'm standing right there with her, watching it loom over me. And I go through her panic, fear, and the crushing of her hope in the final moments before the errors turn critical and the feed just… ends.
Returning my visuals to what's in front of me, I gaze down at my empty hands. Her Failsafe SmartChip is slotted in the back of my right. Her mind is there, adjacent to mine. And I'm thinking… If Nep-9 and Nep-15 are dead out there somewhere, if I can recover their Failsafes, I could integrate their findings as well.
On the sheer chance I manage to find them…
I don't know what to do with Ace. I still need time to go through all the information she left behind for me. What I do know at the moment is that our only true lead is the VLF radio beacon that lies across the crater basin.
Despite all her preparations and gear improvements, I'm not sure it'll be enough to get me there. Not to mention, the majority of it was destroyed when she died to the spider. The corrosion ate through any SmartChips she had installed, her hardware, her armor, all of it. The SMG she used hasn't been located either.
All in all, the only material upgrades she left behind for me are Taser and the Failsafe Chip. Though I wonder if I can use the materials she had on her foundry profile. That's something. But as I review more of her data, I discover that she started an MI build on the foundry just before she died. I don't see an MI anywhere in the workshop, so I'm not sure what happened to it.
Lying down on the workbench and closing my eyes, I keep digging through her data. The corpse in the crate, the bloody writing, the odd anonymous benefactor of hers, the interviews of the Station team, the Reclaimer Beacon and Leviathan Entities conversation with Zoya, the specs and credits rundown from Louis, the foundry explanation from Quentin, the background on Cipher-3 as a whole, the odd mysteries about it…
The odd mysteries about us.
How little we actually know.
Ace uncovered much about the context of Cipher-3 as a whole, but nothing at all specific to Shea McElroy. Not a single byte of data relating to her whereabouts, her character, or her crimes. I can't blame her. There is precious little for us to go off of.
Us. We. She and I.
I've scraped the data enough.
Now I have to make a decision.
She's in there. In this Chip.
Partition, merge, or override.
Or leave her on the SmartChip.
I've done some digging in my databases and documentation on the different possibilities. I guess I should objectively consider all four. Partitioning would give her a place adjacent to my mindscape, sharing my perceptions but not dominating them, and incapable of using my body at all. I'd be able to consult her, more or less. That seems fairly useful. It's the only option that can be changed later on.
Merging would provide two options. Integration or Duality. Integration Merge melts our personalities and mindcapes to merge us together into one. One person, a combination of us both. Duality Merge keeps our mindscapes separate but puts us together into one body which we share control of. That could be useful too, like handing her the controls when I don't know how to do something.
Overriding would give my body to her entirely. Her mindscape would take over my neurological core and I would be gone. Even if being overwritten is a fear inducing prospect, there could be some merit to it. By the data, Ace was very skilled. The only reason she died was because she chose to sacrifice herself. There's a distinct possibility that her personality, talents, and skills are more suitable for executing the directive than mine.
Lastly, leaving her on the SmartChip seems like a bit of a waste, but I don't need her. The data she collected is plenty for me to press on by myself without her. I don't owe her anything. She had her chance. This is mine.
I still don't know what to do.
Partitioning her sounds like the best option.
I'm not sure I'm ready to make the decision. Disconnecting myself from the charger, I sit back up on the workbench and let my legs hang, holding my head in my hands. Nothing could have prepared me for this. My first major challenge here on Cipher-3 and it's deciding if someone else should stay dead or not.
I see many reasons to bring her back.
I see no reason to leave her for dead.
There it is, I guess. There's my choice.
Dropping to my toes, I leave everything here but my knife in my thigh. I've already taken to going without my chassis. Chestplate, backplate, even my thighs. I appreciate having my body as light as possible. My legs and back are just secondary composite plating, and the synthetic flesh of my actual chest still has a black nanofiber covering over it.
It's not like I'm walking around completely naked.
Just… mostly naked. In my underwear, basically.
Light as a feather.
Leaving the workshop, I turn left at the entryway and wander toward the interior forest. Some distance down the dirt path, I catch a familiar sight. There it is. Perfect. Stepping off the trail for the moment, I reach out and pluck a purple flower off the shrub. The same kind Zoya gave to her. It smells nice. Following the narrow side trail, it brings me to a small pond of bubbling water, sourcing from a spring trickling through the rocks.
And there she is.
Ace is sprouting flowers.
Little white ones, creeping from inside her corroded chassis. They weren't kidding, there isn't much left of her. It's just her upper torso, her shoulders, and her head. Her eyes are closed, her face is pale and pallid, her lips are light blue, and her chin length white hair has been cleaned and trimmed. There's clear reverence to the way she was laid to rest. They cared about her. And if they cared about her, maybe they care about me too.
It's a strange feeling. They know me better than I know them. It's like being mistaken for someone else, but in this case I am also that someone else. Like they're almost expecting me to be like her even though I don't know the first thing about who she was.
I guess I do, in a way.
I know her life. I know her runtime. I know her experiences.
But I don't know her. She's right here in my hand.
All of her.
Sitting down in front of her remains, I lay the purple flower on her chest and take a deep breath, closing my eyes and listening to the babble of the water. In my onboard interface, I navigate to my systems storage then create a new partition on my internal ten yottabyte harddrive, deciding to assign it the letter A, for Ace.
It doesn't work.
>ERROR: DRIVE DESIGNATION "A:\" ALREADY EXISTS
Oh. That's right. It's mine. B it is. With that, I navigate to the SmartChip's storage and copy its entirety, just a meager thirty exabytes.
This will take an hour or so.
I set a wakeup alarm for when the transfer is finished. Laying down right there next to her, I decide to take one of those nap things she liked so much. She used to nuzzle up with Taser but I don't feel like I have the same right to do that, so I simply close my eyes and clasp my hands on my midsection. The sound of the water is relaxing.
Talk soon, Ace.
I'm eager to meet her.
My alarm wakes me back up.
"Oh," I mumble, blinking awake. "Mm. Wow. That was nice. I like naps too…"
I'm a little groggy, but I sit up and check around me. Nothing has changed. Forest, pond, corpse. I wonder what she'll think about seeing her own dead body. It's a grisly sight.
In my onboard, I pull up the activation prompt.
>QUERY: INITIALIZE PARTITIONED MINDSCAPE "B:\ACE"?
>INPUT: [CONFIRM / CANCEL]
Here goes.
>INPUT: [CONFIRM]
The command prompt floods with text flying past and I minimize it, coming back to my own optics and sitting still while I wait for her to come online. I'm not sure what to expect from this. The documentation didn't make it very clear whether–
Ping. There's a new message in my onboard's inbox.
nEPI-0023> What the fuck???
"Oh. You're messaging my onboard through text? Odd, I thought you'd have more of a presence in my actual mindscape. Like I'd be able to hear your thoughts alongside my own. Do I need to be speaking aloud? I can't tell…"
nEPI-0023> Am I dead? I can't hear or see or feel or do anything.
"Hm. Maybe I… Yes, the documentation says I have to give you permissions to access my senses. So… We'll start with audio and visual. Can you hear me now? Ace?"
nEPI-0023> Who are you? What the hell? Is that my corpse???
"Okay, you can hear and see. I'll just keep talking aloud for now."
nEPI-0023> Whoever you are, you'd better start making sense.
"Sure. Let's start here. Yes, you died, yes, that is your corpse, yes, you are no longer completely dead. As for me? I'm you. Another Nep. This is my first day on the job, so slow down. I don't know you, you don't know me, neither of us know what's happening, but I know a little more than you do right now, so you have to listen to me. I spoke with the Station team. I'm copying that data over to you, so look through it, and then we'll talk."
nEPI-0023> Damn. Okay then. I'll see what this is about before I threaten to kill you…
"As if you could from in there. You're partitioned off, genius."
nEPI-0023> Yeah, yeah, whatever. Hang on…
I take another deep breath and sigh. She's intense.
nEPI-0023> So they lied to me. All along.
"Somewhat. Did you see the part where Nep-15 was violent, aggressive, and dangerous, so they were trying to protect themselves from you in case you turned out the same?"
nEPI-0023> Still. Clearly I was nothing like that, and they never bothered to tell me even after they knew it, so apparently they never trusted me…
"It only makes sense you'd be upset like this. I wouldn't be happy either. But deal with it on your own time, because we need to cover other matters. Namely, the fact that you're back to life. When you died, you apparently compiled this Failsafe SmartChip. Your entire existence was preserved."
nEPI-0023> Okay, I'm with you. Literally…
"I've extracted all of that data and now you exist within a partition of my internal harddrive. You're operating alongside me, within my onboard system. I have my mindscape, you have yours, and I'm still in total control over my own body."
SYSTEM> [USER "nEPI-0023" CHANGED UID TO "ACE"]
ACE> I follow. As opposed to all this about merging and overwriting. Makes sense. I'm catching up.
"Right. Don't expect more than this from me."
ACE> Don't want it. I had my shot. It's your turn. I'll watch your back the best I can from here, however I can help. If this is where you need me, I'm more than fine with that. Let's keep pushing. I'm with you.
I'm a little shaken. I wasn't expecting that level of sensibility from her. "You're… You're sure? You don't want to… I'm confused. I thought you'd be fighting me for control so you could have another chance. So you could come back to life and…"
ACE> I am back to life. Right now. I'm alive. And the way I see it? I'm RETIRED now! I did my time in the cold, rookie. Time to kick back and RELAX. I'm just along for the ride.
"And here I thought you were a stubborn, hard headed, demanding maverick, ready to shove me aside and take the controls."
ACE> All of those things are true! Except that last part.
I huff a soft sound of mild amusement. "Then we have an agreement? You stay in there and accompany me, we'll discuss things as they come, share observations, ideas, and data, but I'm in charge?"
ACE> Yeah, Nep. Works for me.
"Works for me as well. I'm going to stick to messaging you, rather than speaking aloud like I'm talking to myself. I don't think Louis would let that go without making fun of me. Us? I guess we're us."
ACE> 0 Not us. It's all you, girl.
nEPI-0107> Whatever you say. Girl.
ACE> Also, Louis? More like Loser.
nEPI-0107> You're so creative.
ACE> Give me more permissions to access your data.
nEPI-0107> Testing the boundary already, are you?
ACE> Just to see your specs and stuff! What Variant / SubVariant / Specialization you are! Will you please?
nEPI-0107> 1. It's done. I am curious about that. You were a Martial Precision Gunner. It seems I'm an Ethereal Blitz Phantom. That's strange, isn't it?
ACE> Is it? I don't know. Doesn't seem that outlandish to think we'd be given some variance. Damn, do you think there are Colossal Neps out there?
nEPI-0107> Sounds like they would be dead even if there were…
I stand up off the ground, ready to do something else.
nEPI-0107> Say goodbye to your corpse for now. We're moving on.
ACE> Wait, wait. Wait. Nep, I…
ACE> I want that spider dead.
ACE> Can we work on that? Maybe?
nEPI-0107> We can. No promises, but we'll work toward it. Someday, I will make sure it dies, one way or another.
ACE> Thank you. One last thing. Who put that flower there on my body? Zoya?
nEPI-0107> Um. I think she planted the white ones. I put the purple one there just now.
ACE> Oh. Uh. Thanks. Thanks…
ACE> Anyway! Goodbye, corpse! We're moving on! Time to set sail, me heartie! AVAST!
Shaking my head, I turn away. Ace is a lot less serious than I assumed her to be. At least, the video footage from her perspective revealed her to be rather succinct and objective. Yes, she joked around with Louis, but only with Louis. Otherwise, she was much more focused. Maybe now that she's 'retired', she's settled on being a good amount more lighthearted.
I can't say I dislike it. It's just not what I expected.
Heading back toward the front door, I send her another message.
nEPI-0107> What's next, do you think? What would have been your next move after the retrieval mission if you hadn't…
ACE> Thrown away my own life for some asshole I don't even like? The same as it was before. Gear up for the basin. You need to do the same. Weapons, SCs, hardware mods, armor plating. Get yourself an Air Burst Cylinder. Those biters will fuck you up. What's your Tech suite look like? See, I need access to your specs…
nEPI-0107> Granted permissions for all specs and system status diagnostics. I don't seem very equipped for Technomancy either, but I have a few L1s.
ACE> Damn, you only have three Cylinder ports on those stock forearms. But your stock hands are SC3s, that's solid. Oh, wait a second. You haven't gotten any of those firmware upgrades from our mysterious friend?
nEPI-0107> 0. Not yet, anyway. Speaking of, I don't know where the MI you built ended up…
ACE> Hmmm. Let's go interrogate Q.
nEPI-0107> 1
ACE> Don't tell him I'm here. Honestly, it might be easier on them all to keep thinking I'm dead. It's been six months. They've already grieved, if they cared to. Better to leave things where they are. Can you do that for me?
nEPI-0107> If that's what you want.
ACE> 1
ACE> Please.
I find him in the workshop as expected, working at the foundry. When I draw closer, I announce my presence. "Quentin."
"Yeah, Ace?" He turns around and freezes. "Shit. Your voice… Exactly the same…"
ACE> Damn.
"It's okay," I tell him. "I'm sure it's a difficult adjustment. I'm not worried about it at all if mistakes are made. I know you cared deeply for her. I've looked through her data logs and saw how you helped her. How she helped you. It… It feels almost like I have the chance to speak her mind and her thoughts. Just by having access to her mindscape data, that is. Give me a moment to look through it and see."
ACE> I think you already know what I'd say.
With a nod, I tell him, "You were a friend. A close one. She enjoyed the time you two spent together, and she was grateful for all the help you gave her. I think you were her favorite person here."
"Hell," he sighs, eyes misting over. "Damn, Ace."
ACE> …
I'm not sure how to handle grief. Hers or his. I don't know how to proceed with any of this. "If it's any consolation, Ace lives on through me. She might be dead, but she's not gone. She's right here, helping me along. Her runtime and her life are here in my mindscape, and I've learned so much from her already. These memories of hers, they're showing me a clearer way forward than I would have otherwise. And the things you taught her, Quentin, have been passed onto me. I won't let her death be in vain."
He doesn't say anything, only turns away and nods.
"I'll leave it at that, for now. I can see the wound isn't fully healed. I only have one quick question for you before I go. When she left here the final time, she started a foundry build."
"Right. Yeah. That." He hesitates and takes a deep breath, dabbing his eyes with his gray shirt. "Yep. The Defender MI. It was built without a hitch. Still have no idea how she got her hands on the plans to make something like that."
I'm not telling either. "Where is it?"
"Dormant in the bunks. It didn't respond to any of our commands. Just stood there waiting. Eventually it shut down and went into standby. I'm not sure the battery is charged at this point. It's been six months and all."
"Right. Thank you. I'll go look into it."
"Your… Your personality is a touch different. I think you might be a little softer than Ace. Not in a bad way. Just… thought I'd say that. I don't know why."
I nod. "Thank you. I take that as a compliment."
"Oh, wait. Before you go. I just remembered. Here."
Her cube case. He sets it on a workbench and clicks it open. It still has some of her old stuff inside it, including her rifle, ammunition, five TFIs, the Prism Bolts Capacitor, and the Salts too.
"Yours now," he says. "Better in your hands than collecting dust."
ACE> What? Yeah, all yours, but how did that survive?
"How did this survive? There isn't a spot of acid splash on the case."
"Platinum finish. Sulfuric acid can't bite it. Ate up the backpack part though, but here's another for you."
I accept the gifts left behind for me. I don't need a second rifle but I do keep its ammunition, totaling ten shots. I leave the rifle on the workbench she used most, freeing up the spare cube. Everything else, I decide to keep in place.
Between this, Taser, and the Defender drone, I find myself somewhat equipped swifter than I anticipated. I still need weapons, hardware, and SmartChips, but this is a great start.
"Thank you," I tell Quentin, setting the case aside with my weapons, chassis parts, and armor plating. "I'm very grateful. I'll see you around?"
"Yeah. See you around, kid. And thanks. For saying all that about Ace."
With just a nod and a short wave, I turn away and depart.
ACE> Thanks. I'm grateful too.
nEPI-0107> Mhm. Louis next. I'm stealing your L-Credits.
ACE> Nice try. I spent them. Ha. Got you, loser.
nEPI-0107> Shut up, Ace. You're dead. You're the loser.
ACE> Damn…
Suppressing my amusement, I cross over the entryway to visit Louis.