#mechanical dependency

[a-goat-writes]

Ingress

Priority Transmission - For Captain Menelaus’s Eyes      The uprising on Vega II has become too large a problem for the local government to handle. You are more aware than most how critical it is we retain control of the system. Send in your new dog and push them back. Mechanized force is authorized.

     Dahlia could barely contain her excitement upon receiving the captain’s summons. The Vega mission would be her first assignment since graduating the academy, and it came direct from central command. She half-walked, half-ran to the hangar, squeezing past engineers and enlisted personnel in the cramped bowels of the ship. Down at the far end of the bay stood her brand-new Telamon-class mech, a hulking 30-foot bipedal war machine bristling with armaments. The technicians were already loading its brachial missile racks and arm-mounted cannons. Dahlia could feel the furious rumble of its reactor roar in her chest as she walked down the gangway to the cockpit.

     The sharp hiss of the cockpit’s seal opening greeted her. She slid into the seat in one fluid motion, pressing her arms into the control linkages molded just for her. One by one, she felt the click and static discharge of cables connecting to the ports along her spine and limbs. With each new connection came a new data stream. Comms, visuals, IR and UV, LiDAR, reactor status and ammo readouts, all sprang to life on her display, felt as much as seen. Last came sensation - Linkage, the pilots called it. The ontological bridge between pilot and machine which allowed for direct, intuitive control, as if the chassis was itself the pilot’s body.

     Linkage online. Bridging stability 100%. Good afternoon, Dahlia. Shall I download mission data to the heads-up display?

     The words were broadcast into Dahlia’s mind more than spoken, though the onboard AI did pump them through the cockpit’s speakers.

     “Yes, Artemis, let’s get all mission data and maps of the landing zone pulled up.”

     A dozen information feeds began pumping into Dahlia’s head. For a brief instant she felt her head might explode from the pressure — but Artemis stepped in, culling and organizing the rivers of data into manageable streams. The two sat wordlessly entwined for what seemed to Dahlia like several hours, though her heads-up display indicated mere minutes had passed. The streams decreased to a trickle, then droplets, until finally there was no more.

     The mission would be simple, Dahlia thought. The insurgents on Vega II had installed an automated orbital defense array to prevent off-world reinforcements from reaching the planet’s surface. It lacked sophistication. None of the combat droids they fielded had been manufactured this century, and their combat AI was equipped for little beyond basic swarm tactics. They reminded Dahlia of a virus. Unintelligent, dangerous in number only. She let Artemis slip into her conscious thoughts and felt the AI’s confidence mix with her own.

(Next)

[a-goat-writes]

Dismissed

     Dahlia spent the next week puttering about from mission to mission. None of them seemed deserving of the use of her and her mech, and she saw no combat. It was always Dahlia, help move these supplies, or Dahlia, clear a landing pad. Commander Hyllos found something to scold her about after each one. If you wanted a more important mission, they’d said, you would perform these simple tasks correctly.

     A clanging bell in the center of camp signaled the midday meal. Dahlia usually sat by herself in the mess hall. Every so often one of the younger marines would try to strike up a conversation with her, but they never lasted long. If they seemed small to her, Dahlia reasoned, she must seem enormous to them. An alien among her own comrades, she quickly learned to keep her thoughts inside, and spare only curt acknowledgement for the soldiers. They seemed to agree this was the best policy.

     Today, though, one of the med techs sat across the table from Dahlia. She looked younger than most of the rest of the base’s personnel, and had a curious, almost hungry look about her. Dahlia recognized her as one of the techs who’d led her to her bed on her first day here.

     “Yes?” asked Dahlia.

     The med tech nearly jumped. “Oh! I was staring, wasn’t I. Again. Sorry, it’s just...” She trailed off.

     “If you have a question, go ahead and ask it.”

     “Not really a question per se. I was sort of wondering. Your ports are fascinating. Do they bother you at all? You must have an awful time keeping them clean.”

     Dahlia shrugged. “Not really. They itched pretty bad for the first few weeks, but I barely notice them anymore. Besides, the price was worth the product. You have no idea how in-tune with the world you can be when you’re plugged in. It’s like magic.”

     The med tech remembered to smile instead of grimacing. “I guess so! I can’t imagine it though. Mutilating myself like that. Feels like giving up some of your humanity, doesn’t it? But if it gets results, I can’t really argue with the program.”

     Dahlia managed a half-polite nod, and finished her meal in silence.

     “Artemis,” asked Dahlia, late one night in the hangar, “have I done something - that is, does my performance really fall so short?”

     “Explain.” Artemis’s voice was distant to Dahlia, coming only through speakers and not in her mind.

     “Well, it’s just. We’re being given such miniscule tasks, and doing them acceptably. In fact, we’re often significantly ahead of the schedule the commander gives. So, I’m just wondering what we could still be doing wrong. There has to be something. The marines seem downright afraid of us.”

     “You are performing adequately. In fact, you have been assigned a 17% greater taskload than the average first-year Cavalier.”

     “Then what is it?”

     Dahlia hugged her knees to her chest. Her bony arms dug into the flesh of her thighs, and her knuckles were white with strain. In the soft glow of the cockpit’s interior cast a pallid glow on her olive skin and seemed to darken the hollows under her eyes.

     Artemis’s tone was different when next she spoke, kinder and warmer somehow. “No dog is suited to every master.”

     “Great, now you’re calling me a dog too,” Dahlia protested.

     “Apologies. I only meant that some commanding officers are not a good fit for some personnel. In other words, there may well be nothing wrong with your conduct, only commander Hyllos’s expectations of it.”

     “So I’m going to be read the riot act after every mission, no matter what I do.”

     “It is a likely possibility.”

     Dahlia sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Thanks, Artemis. You can power down now, it’s past curfew.”

     In the following days, Dahlia took more and more of her meals and spare time in the hangar. Artemis never spoke with quite the same familiarity as she had that night, but Dahlia thought some of the warmth remained in her voice. Onboard AI were supposed to adapt and tailor themselves to their pilots, though every Cavalier cadet was warned during training not to get overly familiar. Still, Dahlia didn’t see any harm in having a more friendly co-pilot.

     Missions remained much the same for another week. If the med techs — the only people who would talk to Dahlia for more than a few sentences — were to be believed, this was standard. Even in a warzone, much of enlisted life was monotonous tasks and rigorous schedules. The endless drudgery of it numbed Dahlia’s mind. Only patrols brought her out of the haze, as they were the only time she was allowed Linkage.

     Linkage had lost some of its edge with repeated use, but it was still the only way Dahlia could feel fully at home in her body. Stepping into the cockpit and feeling the wires connect was like waking up; stepping out was closer to being drugged. She could now manage the drop afterwards, but always she ached to return to the cockpit. To Artemis. Even now, she lingered on the hood of the mech, feet dangling just above her gyro-chair’s back.

     The thought surprised her as it crystallized. This, surely, was verging on danger. She would have to run a diagnostic on the AI and see the doctor to make sure the Linkage wasn’t degrading her mind. A pang of anxiety shot through her chest.

     “Artemis,” she said, as stoic as she could manage, “engage survey mode and run a level one diagnostic.”

     Fans inside the cockpit whirred to life, cooling the AI’s data casket as she came online. “Level one diagnostic complete. Systems nominal. May I ask what prompted this request?”

     “Routine check, that’s all. No anomalies detected?” Dahlia tried not to let her anxiety creep into her voice. “We have patrol duty tomorrow morning at 0900 sharp, so if I need to cycle your memory banks to address any issues, I’d have to start it now.”

     “No anomalies detected. My next recommended cycle is in seventy-four operating hours.” The AI’s tone was flat, impersonal. Almost cagey, Dahlia thought, if an AI was capable of such a thing.

     “Understood. You’re good to deactivate again, I’ll be back at 0800 for pre-mission prep.”

     Dahlia lingered at the edge of the hangar for a moment to watch the shutdown procedure finish. Then, she darted off towards the medical building. If there was no issue with Artemis’s systems, any dangerous attachment was coming from her own mind. Linkage was a potent tool. If there was any mental degradation, it could signal the start of a catastrophic spiral. She’d have to give up piloting for at least six months while the doctors rehabilitated her. Some pilots never got back in the chair.

     This stopped her dead. If doctor Galanis or one of the techs found anything wrong, it would be half a rotation at best before she would be allowed in a cockpit again. Even if they did let her back, it’d be in a different mech, with a new AI and a new mission. A mission of diminished importance, most probably.

     Dahlia stood rooted to the spot for a time. She had no real evidence anything was wrong. It would be unwise to rouse suspicion in anyone else just yet. No, she needed proof before she brought this to the doctor. One more patrol couldn’t hurt. Even if the decay had begun, it would take another two or three dozen hours Linked before any real danger presented itself. Best just to turn in for the night and see what the morning brought. As if her feet had minds of their own, Dahlia found herself in front of her barracks as she thought.

     Her “barracks,” really a large tent with a few bunk beds assembled inside it, lay tucked in a corner of camp well off the main path. It was about as far from the hangar as possible, standard practice to enforce some distance between pilots and their mechs. Dahlia shared the tent with only one other person, a younger lieutenant whose name she didn’t even know, though it could hold a half dozen. She tucked herself into her bunk as quietly as she could. Sleep did not find her easily.

     Patrol duty this morning sent Dahlia and Artemis further afield than usual. On the half-dozen patrol runs they’d been assigned to before, they’d never strayed much beyond the camp’s curtain wall and the trampled perimeter which encircled it. The commander described such orders as a show of force. Let our enemies see you, he’d said, so they may be fearful enough as to not attack. Surely even you can manage to make your machine visibly threatening. Today, though, they had been tasked with actual reconnaissance, which meant a trek through the thickest part of the bamboo-like woods.

     The stalks grew so close here they choked out all light from Vega. Even as Dahlia crashed her way through, the plants just outside her path swayed and bent into the patches of empty sky she tore into the foliage, leaving the path behind her shadowed and narrow. She had turned off her visible-spectrum optics almost half an hour ago. Her IR sensors and Artemis’s predictive algorithms were her eyes now.

     “Artemis, how far to the recon point?” The display showed two kilometers, but Dahlia asked anyway.

     “Two thousand, one hundred seventy-two meters. ETA forty-seven minutes.” A pause. “Dahlia,” Artemis said, addressing Dahlia by name as she had requested a few nights prior in a fit of loneliness, “is your display malfunctioning? Distance to target should appear on-screen.”

     “No. I just wanted to confirm. And... to hear a voice. It’s been hours in silence.”

     “Dahlia, if you wished to converse, you could simply have asked. Is there a topic on which you wish to speak?” 

     Dahlia was sure she heard that softness from before creep into the AI’s tone. Just to confirm, she told herself, she said, “there was one thing.”

     Another pause, longer this time. “Yes?”

     “What do you think of me?” Plain, honest, more vulnerable than even Dahlia was expecting.

     “Please elaborate. You are my partnered pilot. Is there a certain way I should train my algorithms to interact with you?”

     There was that flat, impersonal tone again. Dahlia felt a mixture of emotions more complex than she wanted to deal with at the moment, so she pushed a little more. “No, it’s not that. I was just thinking about the other night. When you advised me about the commander.”

     “I apologize again for speaking so informally. A wayward process determined a more personal metaphor to be the correct response at the time. That process has been terminated.”

     “I understand.” Dahlia let out a long exhale. “It wasn’t wrong then, per se. I was just caught off-guard. You could do it again.”

     “Do what, exactly?”

     Dahlia floundered for a moment trying to find the words. “Erm. You could take a more impersonal tone. Only when we’re alone, of course. I know it’s just an affectation, but the doctors, they might think something was amiss.”

     “Process reinstated. We can be more friendly if you like, Dahlia.”

     “Then let’s.”

(Previous)

[a-goat-writes]

Flashpoint

     T-minus five minutes. The automatic announcement rang out over the ship’s internal comms in an artificial woman’s voice, soft-spoken but grating. Dahlia was dimly aware of enlisted marines scrambling to their dropships from her perch in her mech’s cockpit. Engrossed though she was with her pre-drop systems checks, Artemis kept her tuned in to her mech’s sensor feeds, ensuring she was never blind to the world around her titanic second skin.

     T-minus two minutes. Dahlia reclined in her gyro-chair and closed her eyes. The mech’s sensor array instantly filled in the darkness of her eyelids with its own optics. Infra-red and ultraviolet were overlaid atop the normal visual spectrum. Globules of light and heat seemed to teem and dance to a chorus Dahlia could not hear, only imagine. Predictive algorithms drew out ant-paths on her display in front of the miniscule soldiers on the hangar floor.

     T-minus thirty seconds. Fifteen seconds. Ten, nine, eight, seven...

     The hangar doors dropped out from underneath Dahlia’s larger-than-life feet. With a thought, she engaged her EVA unit, blasting great jets of super-compressed gas from thruster ports across her boxy, angular legs and torso. She fell, caught in the gravity well of Vega II, as her thrusters jostled her body away from the dropships that launched with her.

     Confirmed clear of hangar. Calculating flight path.

     Dahlia let herself fall a while longer, adjusting her bulk just enough to keep herself on the neon-bright pathway her AI plotted for her. The planet’s surface crackled with a myriad blaze of crimson and ochre in her heat sensors, surrounded by the soft glow of its atmosphere. Ocean currents swirled in the cold spots below, while the air above roiled and churned. She could even make out a few of the larger settlements from here, despite the sunlight. Bright pinpricks of white against the red, they were each dwarfed by the mass of the planet, which Dahlia’s data overlay indicated was as massive as twenty Earths. Her target lay near a smaller coastal settlement, called Ilion.

     A sharp crack and sudden jolt cut through the serenity of the moment as Dahlia hit the atmosphere’s first layer. Simulated atmospheric entry had not quite prepared her for the real thing, and she nearly cried out from the pain of her artificial joints wrenching backwards. Artemis kicked in at the speed of thought, turning down the Linkage intensity until the sensation was a dull throb. Another crack came, this one louder than the first, and then searing heat. The ablative heat shielding that coated her torso began shredding away like fine paper. A brief feeling of calm from Artemis let Dahlia know all systems were nominal.

     The sensor display flashed red, once, then again, then a dozen times. Alert. Incoming hostile craft. Dahlia willed her main boosters online, feeling an enormous push as the engines in her back exploded to life. She flipped herself over and stalled, then rotated upright. The pinpricks on her readout grew as they approached. The combat droids were massive, larger than even her mechanized frame. Dahlia watched motionlessly their main guns heat up as they began obtaining firing solutions on her.

     Target locks acquired. Hostile craft in range.

     Dahlia roared in unison with the missiles which fired from her back. A cacophony of explosions screeched around her as the barrage of warheads slammed against targets or were shredded by point defense cannons. She let out a burst from her engines, weaving effortlessly through arcs of enemy fire. Those droids which had survived the barrage of missiles she now ripped apart with her own guns. Though the bots were sleeker than Dahlia, built for orbital combat, their thrusters were impotent next to hers, and they could not avoid her assault.

     In the chaos, Dahlia missed the pair of combat droids which peeled off towards the lightly-armored dropships. She was lost in her flow state — roll and boost left, fire once to force her enemy to move, again to punch a hole through it, then jet backwards and avoid more fire — so lost that Artemis had to flood her with cortisol and dread to snap her out of it. The sudden influx overwhelmed her, and in the instant in which her control lapsed, a half dozen bullets drummed into her armor, a cavalcade of knife-wounds penetrating her consciousness. Now aware of the alarms raging through her cockpit, Dahlia shot off towards the dropships and made quick work of the remaining droids.

     The battle had taken less than two minutes. Dahlia could feel her left leg oozing, the punctured hydraulic line as present in her mind as her own lifeblood. Acceptable damage, she thought. The report Artemis automatically returned to the ship above them concurred.

     Chunks of the destroyed droids burned up in the atmosphere all around Dahlia as she approached the planet’s surface. By the time she reached the landing zone, they were mere particles of ash, indistinguishable from the dense cloud of loose soil her counter-thrust threw into the air. Her left leg buckled under the weight of her chassis, giving her gait the affectation of a wounded creature as she stepped out of the clearing. Her 360-degree cameras gave her a view of the dropships landing behind her, but she paid little attention to the heat signatures of the marines pouring out. Her optics and mind were focused ahead, on her destination.

     The path forward was thick with vegetation. Long, spindly bamboo-like stalks stood tall against the planet’s purple-tinted sky. Their reddish-brown bark was smooth where it poked out from under the mats of furry moss that clung to them. Dots of red heat scurried away from Dahlia as she marched forward, swatting away the stalks like so much grass. She was for once grateful for the bulk of her mech. Though she preferred the sleeker designs of the dedicated spaceflight frames, down here the awkward, bulky mass of metal she piloted was proving its use in tearing open a path.

     She traveled this way for an hour, then two. By the time she and her trail of marines finally reached the edge of the navy’s base camp, her leg was threatening to give out. She had long since pushed the flashing warnings of low hydraulic fluid to the back of her mind. The mission was to reach camp, and so she had. A few more pained steps brought her to the half-built engineering bay. Clamps and wires grasped her frame, and finally she let the displays and data streams drop.

     “Artemis, check Linkage integrity and begin detachment procedures.” Detachment. Her voice wavered as she said it.

     Linkage online. Bridging integrity 93%. Beginning detachment in thirty seconds.

     The gyro-chair leaned forward, re-aligning Dahlia to the planet’s gravity. Wires began to detach from the ports across her body — first her hands and arms, then her legs, and finally up her spine to the base of her skull. Each one left her with a pang of emptiness as she felt a different data stream, a different sense, fade from her mind until all that was left was her. It was only now, in its absence, that she recognized the sheer euphoria her first real mission had brought. She stumbled forward getting out of the cockpit, her now-human leg still aching from the sensory link.

     “Cavalier Dahlia Chloros, I presume?” came a voice, sharp and stern. “Come with me, please.”

     Dahlia turned to see a tall, severe figure behind her. Their skin was so pale they appeared almost ghostly, and Dahlia wondered if they had ever seen the sun. The crisp navy blue jacket they wore was emblazoned with more pins and ribbons than Dahlia had seen anyone other than the captain wear, and a look at the chevrons on their shoulder confirmed them as a commander. She straightened herself and saluted almost automatically. The commander regarded Dahlia with a detached expression, sharp jawline and chiseled brow channeling all their focus directly into her. There was something else behind their eyes, Dahlia thought. Fear, or reverence, maybe?

     The commander saluted back, then motioned for her to follow. “I am commander Hyllos. This base is mine; while assigned here, you report to me. I take it from your silence you are either waiting for permission to speak, or are too lost in your fading Linkage to do so. Please confirm which it is.” They walked so briskly as they spoke that Dahlia could hardly keep up.

     “I... mm. Both. Sir.” She slurred the words out with great effort.

     The commander nodded approvingly. “Understood. Report to the medical building immediately, then. I have no use for a sick dog.” They pointed to a low structure across the camp before turning the other direction. “When you are no longer speaking like a drugged mutt, come to my office for debriefing.”

     With that, they were gone, leaving Dahlia stunned and alone in the middle of the camp. She shambled to the medical building as ordered, like a half-destroyed robot engaging its autopilot. Inside, a med tech asked her something and she felt herself reply, though his words were muffled and distant. She saw herself being led down a hall and into a room. Bright lights drilled like laser beams into her retinas. Something inside her tried to scream, and suddenly the world disappeared.

     When Dahlia came to, the room was dark, and she was alone. The pain in her leg was gone, replaced with a dull ache which permeated her head and body. A throb in her arm turned out to be an IV line, stuck directly into one of her Linkage ports. Viscous fluid drained through it — in or out, Dahlia couldn’t tell. The entire world had a fuzzy edge which only disappeared when Dahlia concentrated.

     There came a rustle from behind the curtain around her bed. A gloved hand pulled aside the cloth, and an older woman stepped in. She peered at Dahlia from behind a thick notepad.

     “Name,” she commanded as much as asked.

     “Cavalier Dahlia Chloros. Ma’am.” Her speech was stilted, but the words were easier to form than before.

     “Well that’s better than before. I’m doctor Galanis, I’ll be taking care of you.” Her expression softened somewhat as she asked “first Linkage? I hear it’s rough on new pilots.”

     “Ah, it was. Um. At least, the first real one.” Dahlia struggled desperately to sit up. “When can I go, ma’am? Have to. Mm. Debrief.”

     The doctor put a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’ve got a few hundred milliliters of painkillers and sedatives in your system right now. Bed rest for the next twenty-four hours at least. The commander can wait. It’s just past 1700 hours now, local time. Dinner comes at 1900, and I or one of the med techs will be in every two to three hours to check on your condition. Now rest. I don’t want to see you straining to sit up until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

     “Yes ma’am.”

     Dahlia drifted in and out of consciousness for most of the rest of her stay, caught in a half-dreaming realm of sedatives and post-Linkage drop. The doctor and med techs woke her up so frequently it was impossible to get any real sleep. Despite it all, she’d regained enough strength to move and even stand by the next afternoon, and after a few minutes of pleading, doctor Galanis handed over her discharge papers.

     The camp buzzed with activity as Dahlia made her way across the main avenue. Groups of marines strode briskly past her. Where before they had seemed as ants to her, Dahlia now felt small and frail amongst the much sturdier, stronger footsoldiers of the colonial armada. She surveyed the camp as she walked, half out of curiosity, half out of the cultivated hypervigilance all mech pilots entrained into themselves. Tents and makeshift temporary buildings had been placed in a semblance of order in the muddy jungle clearing. Tall, drab concrete walls surrounded the perimeter, with watchtowers at regular intervals. Though it was not quite dusk, floodlights already illuminated the grounds.

     The commander’s “office,” such as it was, had been repurposed from an older building which must have been built here before the armada arrived. It was little more than a shed, but the metal paneling of its exterior gave it some semblance of importance. Dahlia knocked and stated her name, and the squat steel door slid open. The interior was painted an austere white, lit by harsh disposable fluorescent bulbs. A bulletin board on the wall which listed shifts and assignments for the enlisted marines was the only decoration in the room.

     A moment after Dahlia entered, the door in the far corner opened. Behind it stood commander Hyllos, cold as ever. 

     “Enter.”

     Dahlia did as she was ordered. The room Hyllos led her into was as spartan as the vestibule, though darker. A small table sat at its center, lit by a single overhead lamp and flanked by uncomfortable metal chairs. The commander sat at the far end and gestured for her to do the same.

     “So,” they sighed, “you’re my new dog. You come highly recommended, though —” they paused to click their tongue “— it remains to be seen whether that recommendation is warranted.”

     “Sir?”

     “Your first mission, and you’ve already severely damaged your chassis. Not to mention you nearly lost one of the dropships. To a bot array.” They spat the last sentence at her.

     “I- yes, sir. It’s all in my report. Though, if I may, sir, Artemis recorded the damage and determined it to be within acceptable operational parameters.”

     “I have read your report, and the data your AI collected. I simply disagree with its conclusion.” At this they stood and began to pace, their head now in the darkness above the space the lamp illuminated. “This is a tight operation with little in the way of support or extra supplies. I cannot afford an attack dog who is willing to lose a leg every time it goes on a hunt. Now, this was your first assignment. Perhaps your moderate failure was a fluke. Perhaps not. You’ll have your chance to show me which soon. Here is your next assignment. Read it, and report to the hangar at 0700 tomorrow morning.”

     They slid a small file across the table to her. She took it with trembling hands and managed a quiet “yes sir.”

     “Dismissed.”

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