Darkened Future
Prologue – Reactive
The city of Inkopolis, a bustling city full of life and colour. The capital of Inkadia, and the esteemed turf games. It was early morning; dawn would crack soon. At this time most of the city's inhabitants would be fast asleep from spending all night enjoying the luxuries of life itself. Only a small few of Inkopolis's population would be awake at this hour, especially a certain Octoling idol.
Marina Ida, a music sensation that hit Inkopolis stations nearly five years ago. Not only was Marina a famous musician, but she was also an incredibly bright engineer of all sorts. One such field being robotics. It took time and effort, especially building the courage to start, but Marina had finally done it. She had rebuilt him.
Marina stood inside the storage unit she had rented out for this occasion. On a wooden desk in front of her was the casing of Commander Tartar, wires strewn all around and connecting to a spare laptop she had bought for software testing.
The AI was a wicked foe for Marina and those she fought with against him. He was deceiving, manipulative and incredibly cunning. He had sought to destroy all life in Inkopolis, then the entire world for some twisted vision of a perfect species. To reach this goal, he had stolen hundreds if not thousands of Inkadians and Octarians to serve as an army, as well as to create this perfect lifeform.
Something was odd about it all to Marina however, somehow she felt there was more to his story than a simple rogue AI seeking the destruction of the world. Marina wanted to know what he knew, why he did it all. She wanted the truth, with that eating away at the back of her mind, she pressed a key on her keyboard, and he shot to life.
The screen of the laptop was quickly overtaken by a white background, soon the dual black waves of Kamabo animated onto the screen, however something different happened below the waves. Instead of the usual text seen inside the Deepsea Metro, large foreign text appeared before shrinking into an abbreviation. Marina then heard the AI's voice once more, his deep menacing voice.
"System initialising, please standby." The deep voice of the AI spoke, it lacked any trace of emotion, cold and lifeless. "Warning, system discrepancies identified. Self-patching." The AI went silent, the laptop now had a progress bar along with more foreign text, he would remain silent for several minutes before speaking again, his voice changed. "Self-patching complete, running diagnostics. System compatibility is 67.83%, subpar yet acceptable. Diagnostics complete, initialising personality core." His new voice was smoother, it had a charm to it whilst being friendly in nature. "Good to be back." Tartar spoke, his voice no longer speaks like a cold heartless machine. "And to whom do I owe the pleasure of my reconstruction?"
"I…" Marina started but stopped, it appeared as though Tartar did not know who she was, did he remember anything before his destruction? "Me, Marina Ida." Marina found her words, then asked her question. "Do you remember anything from before?"
"Before." Tartar responded, he sounded confused but only for a moment before replying. "Ah right, the NILS, that little song and dance. Yes, I do remember it. As a matter of fact, I remember all the way down till…that sludge was knocked out of me." Tartar's voice became one of minor concern before asserting himself. "I just never got your name, Marina or should I say Miss Ida?"
Marina stopped for a moment, he sounded so different then when she had last seen him. He sounded so polite, so friendly. But she remembered his deception, she wasn't going to be fooled by him. "Well Commander, I must say this new personality of yours is better than the one you had during the Kamabo Incident. Why the change?" Marina asked the seemingly friendly AI.
"Quite simple, Miss Ida." Tartar began to answer the Octoling. "This is my original personality, what you saw on the NILS was a ruse."
"Why? Why put on a ruse?" Marina asked him plainly.
Tartar hesitated to answer for a moment. "I was told to, by something."
"Something told you to sound like a killer machine from a sci-fi movie?"
"Yes, I don't remember what it was, or why it told me to." Tartar admitted he sounded disappointed in his inability to answer Marina's questions. "I do know this, it's below the city inside my facility. I cannot tell you anymore, not without my data drives."
"Facility? You mean the Deepsea Metro?" Marina asked with a hint of confusion.
"No, another. It's connected to the metro." Tartar answered, "It's called the Deep Facility, it's below Inkopolis bay. It houses ancient technologies of the old world, as well as the most valuable of information passed down from the Human era. As well as something else." Tartar's voice became one filled with concern. "Something malevolent."
Marina became increasingly concerned with this new information, but also curious. A facility below Inkopolis bay, housing who knows what kinds of technology from the Human era, untold amounts of ancient data, and something dangerous inside. Something that made even the AI seem scared. "What kind of danger is inside?" Marina asked.
"I cannot remember. Without my data drives," Tartar stopped for a second before continuing. "I cannot serve my primary function. I need your help; this is why I left you that message. I need someone to help me stop this thing before it destroys Inkopolis, or worse the entire world."
Marina bent over the table with her head down. She wanted answers, but Tartar was unable to give her any without his data drives, that she could believe. She was still sceptical of his words, especially being asked to go into this Deep Facility and retrieve the drives, his home turf. "Alright, fine. I'll help you get your drives, but we're doing this my way." Marina finally gave in, if he was telling the truth she needed to do something, but she couldn't without more information. "Where is this place? How do I find it and get inside?" Marina began to ask the AI questions about her venture.
"The Deep Facility is located below Inkopolis bay, it's accessible by the Deepsea Metro, just use the CQ Express." Tartar answered quickly, "Provided CQ Cumber is still running it. If he is, tell him to take you to K00 CQ Central Station. Not the Metro Central." Tartar then added, "We'll still need a way to get you through the main door, I could reconfigure a device to allow entry."
Marina let out a quiet laugh before digging through a box next to her, she pulled out the old employee model of the CQ-80. "I still have that CQ-80, 8 managed to get."
"That'll make reconfiguring a breeze, CQ-80's cannot access the Facility." Tartar informed Marina, "But I can give it access with a quick run through. Just plug it into the computer."
Marina sifted through the box again before finding the cord she needed and connected it to the CQ-80 and the laptop. Tartar began to reconfigure the device, but Marina still had some questions she needed answered. "How do you remember about this danger if you don't have your data drives?" Marina questioned the machine.
"I took the bare necessities to try to convince you and uploaded them to my onboard memory unit. I wasn't intended to run solely on it, but I had to make do with what I thought I would have. I brought only so much information, along with the Inkling and Octarian language ciphers." Tartar explained, "I only had so much time before I lost control of myself, my rationality. I'm done, just bring the device up to the reader by the door."
Marina unplugged the device from the computer, she fiddled with it before turning it on and projecting the screen in front of her. The device had been thoroughly reconfigured and even updated to a degree, upon boot up it had the same sequence as when she reactivated Tartar, the main screen was now pure white with black text, Kamabo's logo was in the top right of the screen. It looked simple yet well designed. "Well, that's definitely easier on the eyes." Marina commented on the new look.
"Something I've been meaning to do, you have quite the design application on this computer."
"Well, thanks." Marina gave her appreciation, but she couldn't leave him here running. "I'll go and get these data drives of yours, but I'm not leaving you on by yourself." Marina began to tap away at the keyboard.
"Oh, I see." Tartar's voice came with disappointment, "Very well, I understand. If it helps put your mind at ease, but please hurry back. Take care out there."
Marina hesitated in shutting down his program for a moment, before committing herself to it fully. She unplugged the laptop and the casing of Tartar from any source of power before picking up the CQ-80 again and continuing out of the unit. Her mind set on finding the Deep Facility, and the contents within.
