Narcissus (2022 Weekly 234)

‘Captain Horner?’ His data pad read. Horner sighed.
“What is it this time, NAS?”
“Where is he, my donor?” Using the many speakers spread across the room and the headset of Naval Intelligence Officer, Horner, the AI asked for the fifth time.
“He’s on shore leave… headed for the stars.”
Horner had no time for this. Instead, he booted up the scenario and repeated:
“Focus on the battle, NAS Five-Two-Nine. Re-wind to this spot. This spot here. The UNSC Bartholomew had gotten pierced, losing her life support capabilities. The crew refused to evacuate and fought the remainder of the battle. That’s it. End-of-story. Now focus on what happened before all of this like I told you, the Bartholomew and Battlegroup Chim-”
The empty room filled with blue light and dancing glimmer. Then an abrupt pause. The light combined into the AI’s face - her face - uncanny and unsettlingly familiar. Her brows creased, cheeks wrinkled from her frown, black pearls gazing into Officer’s owners own eyes. Unnaturally white teeth, chiseled like marble came into view as she opened her mouth.
“Why do you hide my face?” She asked.
For a moment, the room was silent.
There were dozens of rooms like this on the UNSC Sauron’s Eye, the ship in question had been a Marathon Cruiser that had been gutted from the inside out to serve as Naval Intelligence’s many battle data-processing centers early in the insurrection - when fancy sleek Point Blanks could be counted with just one hand.
NAS Five-Two-Nine was born here after all. Not in this very room but from the ship itself.
The room in question was brutalist, fitted to the gills with advanced holo-aids originally meant for training up-and-coming cadets. Now it served as a makeshift war room where officers like Horner could analyze and replicate battle formations of previous battles. Right now it was doing neither of that.
The holo-aid was hard at work, removing the pyrrhic battle the UNSC had won a week ago. That Horner had endlessly been deciphering and analyzing - trying to learn whatever trick or tactic that Battlegroup Chimera had done to win. Right there and now, hours of dedicated formations and data was being dumped in favor of forming the eerie shape of a lanky ghost.
“That’s him…” and coming into full view was the recently departed Ensign Jin Kinoshita, NAS’s ‘donor’. As unsettling it was to Horner, NAS the AI clearly had no problem with all of this. She paid no mind to the fact that the holo in question was the actual corpse of her supposed obsession. Horner could figuratively smell the corpse – shriveled – just from the image alone.
The speakers came to life. Having the voices come out in unison, unsettled Horner’s ears. “He’s just something else. Do you know how long he’s served?”
Just then the holograms shifted once more into smaller images of the departed ensign. Videos of the man stuck in a Sisyphean cycle. Working endlessly under the watchful eye of his nameless supervisors.
Horner had no time for this. He tried to speak.
“NAS get back to work-” the creature of code ignored him, opting instead to caress the nape of its ghost.
The corpse shifted into a battle-station with Jin Kinoshita at the center of it all. Alarms blared, officers barked, their stations shook with frightening vigor. The crew were in unison, frighteningly reminiscent of machines dedicated to one purpose. All of this meaningless to the human in the room but it clearly meant the world for the Five-Two-Nine.
“NAS-”
Vibrations rumbled the entire scene. Unseen bombardment from energy projectors and pulse lasers. The room twisted once more. Unseen hands pulled at Jin Kinoshita, but he fought back. His adrenaline pumping non-stop, erratic movement’s and shaking hands seen even with all the ‘visual noise’ from the feed. This was after all his last ‘battle’, his eventual demise.
Like what Horner had told NAS Five-Two-Nine, the man had perished in a skirmish against a Covenant destroyer. The crew of the UNSC Bartholomew, the AI’s ‘donor’ included, gave their lives to keep the fleet floating. Were it not for their rearguard, much more ferries would have been lost. The price was steep, but in Horner’s mind – as well as what he expected the crew of the Bartholomew had believed – it was all worth it.
“Why did you leave them for dead… Captain Horner?”
No answer. The last thing Horner wanted was to annoy his obviously grieving ‘asset’. Was it right to call her that? Yes she was artificial, made exactly a week ago just in an attempt to keep up with Smart AI production quotas. Rigid control thrown out in favor of expanding the gap in cyber-electronic warfare and artificial intelligence against the Covenant.
“Why’d you come back… just to make me?”
And that was the gut punch Horner had been expecting all this time. Why did
The often antsy and lifelike threads of code did her job well but Horner guessed just like a human like himself, their creations too wanted answers – wanted closure.
“Please, captain… tell me.”
“You’ve seen how things are, Nas.” He wrestled control for the holo and eventually the AI caved in. Was it out of respect or exhaustion from her outburst? Horner didn’t care, far too busy fiddling with the images.
Kinoshita’s figure disappeared, zooming away from the bridge, away from the Bartholomew, away from its demise. Instead it focused on a large flotilla composed of a mishmash of cylindrical container ships and a wounded battlegroup. The fleet the Bartholomew was guarding. A mother bear guarding her cubs.
Then once more it zoomed out. At the edge of the ‘map’ were three bulbous ships nearing closer to the fleet.
“You know the sacrifices we all have to make. For your ‘donor’, Ensign Kinoshita and his crewmates, it was making sure the refugee flotilla would make it out in one piece with Battlegroup Chimera.”
For once, NAS Five-Two-Nine was silent. No ‘noise’ at all. Her face still unsettling and displeased. Yet her black pearls she called her eyes had disappeared. What replaced it was the eyes of a grieving ‘lover’.
Nas the Narcissist. What a perfect nickname
Category:The Weekly