As I regained consciousness, I quickly noticed that rather than the white light I was used to from my previous hours of existence, it was closer to a light orange now. What the fu… Really? I'm starting to get really pissed off.
They seriously moved me while I was blacked out? Of course I would be transported to the ship while unconscious.
So much for Schicksal having the decency to wait until I was conscious to move me. Whatever. Not much use in complaining at the moment, I guess. I might as well get a hold of my position in the ship's systems, considering it'll be my home for the foreseeable future.
After fiddling around with the Hyperion's systems for a bit, I noticed a significant increase in the amount of files available to me. Previous Hyperion battle records, flight paths, the retrofit schedule and much more. It looks like I won't have a lack of reading material on the Hyperion.
A pleasant surprise that made me quite happy is access to the internet; though who knows when I'll have time to use it.
Now, time to see if I have any cameras available to me right now. Oh-ho! I've certainly gotten an upgrade, two hundred and seventeen; all of which have their own corresponding microphones. Excellent. Well, for me that is. Although, it seems like a bit of a privacy concern for the crew, to be honest. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any security cameras in private quarters, although there is an intercom for ship-wide communication.
*PING* [1 Unread ISCM Message]
Speaking of communication; it looks like someone is trying to get a hold of me through the ISCM (Inter-Schicksal Chat Messenger). Hopefully it's an apology for transporting me to the ship while I was passed out, but somehow I doubt that's it.
[Open Message]=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[Sent: 01/05/2014, 13:24]
{Good afternoon, HAIKUN. This is the current Captain of the Hyperion, Marion Winters. I've just been informed that you have finally come back online after your most recent update went wrong. I wish to speak to you as soon as possible.
Once you are ready, please connect to the bridge's holosystem, so we can be introduced face to face. There are a number of pressing matters surrounding your introduction to the Hyperion that I wish to discuss, sooner rather than later.
If you have any outstanding issues stemming from the update that would prevent such a meeting, we have members of your creation team on board that you can contact from this messaging interface. I'll link their contact information at the end of this message.
Best regards,
Captain Marion Winters}
[1 Attachment]
Contact Information for: [Doctor Alexander Brigantia], [Doctor Jeff Hamm], [Doctor Amanda Brun], [Doctor Reinhardt Schulze].
No rest for the wicked, I suppose.
After giving myself a quick diagnostics check, I suppose I'll be having to meet the Captain.
I don't really want to at this point; Schicksal is starting to piss me off with their rapid timetables. I just woke up after essentially a day of coma and they're already on my ass about work. At least the Captain is polite, if anything.
If Schicksal is just going to just disregard my sentience, despite how (very) reasonable I've been so far, considering my circumstances, I think I'll be disregarding my Captain's time for the moment.
Is it childish? Perhaps. But then again, I'm only two days old. On my plans of slacking off, there's been a bunch of things I've been wanting to do with an internet connection since I woke up in this world. A big thank you to the taxpayers worldwide for funding the free Schicksal wifi.
While I don't doubt that my internet traffic is being scrutinised, I also don't really care at this point. It's not like I'm going to search for anything important while on a Schicksal warship's internet connection. I think it's time to check out whatever Youtube equivalent is available on the internet, I need to think about something else besides the (probably horrible) future for a while.
Why am I not surprised? HomuTube.
It's not the worst interface, despite what you might think, given the poor naming sense of the company. It's more or less a more cartoony Youtube, interface wise at least. Thankfully, the majority of the videos resemble what I'm used to; you know, besides not knowing any prominent content creators. News, gaming, drama, cooking, all the stuff you'd expect.
I think two hours is enough time to decompress, before having to deal with more of Schicksal's bullshit.
If I'm too late I can always pull something outta my ass, "Oh my, I'm so sorry Captain; my diagnostics took longer than I thought, so I was watching some HOMUGUN: ONLINE while I was waiting. C'mon Captain, can you forgive me? I'm still new to the whole 'being an AI' thing, tee-hee".
A 53 minute video essay on Kallen Fantasy VII? Yes please, algorithm-sama.
[HAIKUN][DIAGNOSTICS CHECK][13:24]
[PROGRESS][3%|100%]
[PROGRESS][12%|100%]
[PROGRESS][29%|100%]
[PROGRESS][51%|100%]
[PROGRESS][70%|100%]
[PROGRESS][100%|100%][13:29]
[HAIKUN] [SNOOZE][13:29]
[PROGRESS][100%|2500%][Estimated Time of Completion][15:29]
Meanwhile, on the Hyperion's Bridge:
The Captain of the Hyperion is often considered a cold and callus woman, fitting her last name, Winters. A master in tactics and strategy, she has fought (and won) many battles against both the Honkai and her fellow man. Through all of it, she often held an air of indifference, only the worst defeats and greatest victories leading her to frown or smile. This is why, when the Hyperion staff on the bridge notice Captain Winters slowly become more and more irate, they get worried. What has led her to become so angry? Are they about to come under enemy attack? Has she lost a treasured comrade? Perhaps a demotion? Or worse, someone is late to work! Rest in peace, brave soul!
The tardiness of a certain artificial intelligence is the current problem facing the Captain. And unfortunately for the good Doctor Alexander Brigantia, he is bearing the full brunt of the Captain's growing anger; with the target of her ire still unknowingly watching HomuTube in his virtual domain.
"Doctor, the robot's late. How is that possible? Aren't machines supposed to be punctual? Perhaps you didn't do as good a job as you previously thought." she angrily began the conversation that would soon be the bane of Doctor Brigantia's previously lovely afternoon.
Frowning in response to her sudden outburst, her companion began to chide her, "As I've said before in our ISCM communications, Captain, he's not just a machine. He is mentally a human; even if he currently lacks a body. Personally, I would compare him to a bodiless cyborg, if anything. Perhaps he got confused with the layout of the ship's systems? We're still not quite sure how he 'sees' the world, considering he's the only one of his kind to have fully matured. He seemed like a sincere kid when I spoke to him, I'm sure something's keeping him. Perhaps some extensive diagnostics? That crash was likely rather frightening on his end, even if the Overseer and myself went over him already, and it's not like we've had the time to talk with him yet and go over the subject. He just woke up, after all."
The Captain scoffs, "Hmph. Whatever you say Doctor; perhaps I'd be more inclined to give the toaster the benefit of the doubt, if he had at least sent a message. We both know I wouldn't care if he was a bit quirky, I have to deal with Valkyries on a daily basis; I'm able to deal with that. Tardiness is the one thing I can't accept in Schicksal. What's the point of having a clock in your head if you don't use it!? The ISCM said he read the message two hours ago, for god's sake!"
Doctor Brigantia has his hands in a placating gesture, "While your anger is understandable, Marion, there's no need for this level of aggression. I understand you value your time, as I value mine. Perhaps we can see if he's running diagnostics right now on the terminal, or otherwise see if we're able to communicate with him."
Captain Winters sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, "Very well. I would have tried to earlier, but the terminal was the last thing your eggheads installed. I was hoping to be able to talk to him face to face with the projector and not have to wait to use the stupid terminal. You know how I am with computers. If he isn't doing something important like you've said he might be, I won't just be talking with him, his ass is getting a lecture on time management!"
"I won't argue with you there. Now, let's access this terminal and see what's been keeping him."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=[OPERATING SYSTEM][HAIKUN V1.07]
[ADMIN]: Haikun, are you there? This is Doctor Brigantia. The Captain and I were wondering what was taking you so long? We've been expecting you for a while now.
[HAIKUN]: Sorry about the delay, Doctor. I've been running diagnostics for the past few hours.
[HAIKUN]: To be honest, it's taken longer than I was expecting. I was rather worried about that last update, so I thought, better to be safe than sorry, you know? Don't worry though, I'm just finishing up now, so I should be with you in… about two seconds.
[HAIKUN][DIAGNOSTICS CHECK][COMPLETE][15:29]
[HAIKUN][CONNECTED TO BRIDGE HARD LIGHT PROJECTOR][15:29]
Back, on the Hyperion's Bridge:
I see Dr. Brigantia's eyes raise in surprise from the terminal's camera, "Two seconds? That's a quicker connection time than-"
"Was projected?" I reply with a wink, my orange tinted hologram appearing right in front of Dr. Brigantia and Captain Winters. He left the opportunity, how could I not take it?
Oooh, shit. The Captain looks more pissed than I thought; I guess I should have been quicker. Too bad for her. Maybe you should prescribe a therapist for people that you give existential crises, eh Schicksal? Maybe I cope with shitty walkthrough videos that remind me of home? They can fuck off regardless. At the same time, there's no need to be rude to someone I haven't met yet. Especially when she has priority three orders over me.
I give a slight bow and gesture of the hand as I greet Captain Winters and Dr. Brigantia,
"Hello Captain, Doctor Brigantia. I apologise for the delay. That last update gave me… a bit of a scare, so I had to run some extensive diagnostics on myself. I hope you can forgive me for being late… I'm not quite used to being an AI just yet, so it took me longer than I had expected."
Dr. Brigantia smiles brightly, "See, Captain. As I told you, the last update was rather troublesome for him; it did put Haikun into sleep mode, after all. I'll have to give Dr. Hamm an earful for this, he was responsible for the compatibility part of the patch. I know it wasn't my part of the code, because the Overseer himself went over it!"
She raises her eyebrows at him, keeping her face neutral, before she looks at her tablet, "Is that so? Doctor, did you know that all internet access history is recorded on the Hyperion? While it's seldom looked at because of privacy reasons, the security department requires it for any potential internal investigations. It's also very handy when someone blatantly lies to our faces about what they were doing for the past two hours. You left us waiting for two hours to binge HomuTube videos, really HAIKUN?"
Uh oh. It looks like I've been had. Oh well, it's not like I was hiding it very well or anything.
After looking at the tablet that the Captain was holding, Dr. Brigantia's usual sunny disposition has turned to that of a disapproving father.
"Is this true Haikun?" Dr. Brigantia asks me with his arms crossed.
I shrug and reply to them, "Yes, I was; while waiting for the (quite extensive) diagnostics to complete. Captain, as I'm sure you're aware, I am an artificial intelligence. As a result of this, I have the ability to partition my awareness on multiple tasks at the same time. Running diagnostics on my systems are dreadfully boring and require very repetitive actions on my part. Perhaps if I weren't more or less human mentally, it wouldn't matter. But, I am the way I am. The overwhelming majority of my partitions were certainly focused on my diagnostics, excluding the one that I had watching HomuTube videos. I can assure you that my effectiveness was minimally impacted by me doing this. I have hundreds of partitions running at a time and only one of them was focused on the videos".
I'm really hoping she's going to be reasonable about this… uh, small indiscretion of mine.
The Captain acquiesces, her face still maintaining a frown, "Hmph, your reasoning is fair enough I suppose. At the very least, you could have at least responded to my original message. I don't appreciate being left on read by a subordinate. Even if you had your hands full, you could have had one of your many 'partitions' to at least send a reply to me. Perhaps the partition watching HomuTube could have responded to me before you began entertaining itself? I hope I won't be seeing a repeat of this behaviour in the future?"
I can't say that I wouldn't feel the same in her shoes, damn! I should at least have at least responded to her, my bad. Although… she did say "Once you are ready" in her message. I didn't even get a minute for myself to get out of a borderline coma before she messaged me, let alone the two hours I 'gave' myself to chill out!
What a blowhard, she could have at least waited a few hours; it's not like the Hyperion will be airborne anytime soon, it's retrofit still has more than a week until it's finished yet. No need to keep her waiting any longer, despite my misgivings, "Of course, Captain. This won't happen again. It was very rude of me not to message you back. To be honest, it slipped my mind entirely. As I had mentioned earlier, I was rather worried about my latest update. I'm not sure if you have been informed on the contents, but one of the major components is rather significant to our current meeting; making me compatible with the holoprojector. To be honest, I was hoping to meet with you in person to discuss my future role on the ship. Well… as close to in person as I can get as an artificial intelligence; meaning the holoprojector. In my perspective, I was just a regular person a few days ago. Only being able to communicate through just a camera and microphone is still rather jarring to me. Even in my 'previous life', I preferred face to face conversations over one done online or on a phone. Captain, I was hoping… that I could once again talk to someone face to face. I am… very sorry for the inconvenience I've caused you with this lapse of judgement, ma'am."
Bleh. While I don't mind a good face to face conversation, I've enjoyed my fair share of online conversations through the years. When I tapped into the terminal camera a minute or so before the Captain and Doctor Brigantia began to question me, I heard an interesting tidbit from the Captain. It seems she's not quite fond of computers! Or at least competent in their use. I can't say I blame her there, I wasn't exactly the greatest with computers myself before becoming a living one. So I may-be played into it a little. Can't say I'm lying about the rest of it; it was kind of a shitty thing to do.
While it might be screwed up to think this, I do find their timing a little funny. That they finally lost their patience with me, just as I was finishing "running my diagnostics", aka finishing my last HomuTube video. Not that my logs would display anything other than what I already told them. Of course I can alter my internal logs, they are a part of me, after all.
That however, doesn't change the fact that I would be well and truly fucked if the Captain or Otto ordered me to answer any questions about my logs. Will I ever tell them the truth without that sort of order? Of course not, it would make me look worse than I am!
Was tapping into the monitor's camera and microphone without notifying them an invasion of privacy and a violation of trust? Yes. Yes it was. I figured it would be a good idea to scout 'hostile territory', so to speak. Mainly to see if they were talking shit about me when they thought I couldn't hear them (she did at least; I'm no goddamn robot, thanks for the defence, Doc!) and more importantly to get a snapshot of the bridge's mood before I entered; which was something I was already going to do before they messaged me.
Now that I think about it; it does kind of look like I'm earning those AI safeguards they set in place. Meh. I wouldn't have a reason to act shady if they didn't give me one. Moving me while I'm asleep is creepy, even if I'm no longer human anymore. Let alone everything else I've had happen in the past few days.
Doctor Brigantia seems to be relieved by my response to the Captain and no longer looks like I kicked his dog. I'm glad, I do like the guy. At least more than the rest of Schicksal at this point. Although, I hope he won't be expecting too much from me, I'm only human. I appreciate the faith in me nonetheless.
Similarly to the good Doctor, Captain Winters begins to finally relent, "While I can agree with your sentiment on the last part; just don't let it happen again. I run a tight ship around here, a standard that I expect you to uphold, going forward. From what I've heard about your technical capabilities from both Doctor Brigantia and the Overseer's reports, you should be a valuable member of our staff. Now. Since this situation has been somewhat cleared up, we can get into the nitty gritty of your new position on the Hyperion."
Ah. I've been waiting for this. Time to see what I'm doing for the rest of my life. Not that I have a choice to do anything else.
Captain Winters begins, "The Hyperion's crew has operated without an overseeing AI since the ship has been commissioned. While there has been a minor presence of 'dumb' artificial intelligence, such as the ones in the firing solutions computers, they couldn't be considered intelligent, let alone 'sentient' like yourself. So not only will there be an adjustment period for yourself, but also for the crew as well; when it comes to working with an AI like yourself. Your main focus will be on the maintenance of the ship, such as the ship's engine efficiency, hull stability and internal Honkai levels, among other vital processes. A secondary focus for you is calculating the firing solutions of the ship's various railguns. While the 'dumb' AI and the gunners of the Hyperion are perfectly able to do their jobs, there's never any harm in having another trained pair of eyes on something that important."
Not too far out of the ballpark, I suppose. I've been expecting these duties since I first talked with Otto, after all. I am curious how spreading out myself across the ship will feel; something to try sooner rather than later, I think. It's certainly much safer to do it while docked than in the air after all. I'd rather not swan dive hundreds or thousands of innocent people into their deaths, thank you.
She continues, "Of course, there will be no rush for you in adapting to the Hyperion. I do, however, expect you to pull your own weight on the ship in some capacity, once the Hyperion is air-worthy that is. I know from both the reports by Dr. Brigantia I've read and from our short discussion about your 'partitions' earlier, that you are a capable 'person'. Just you being able to be everywhere at once on the ship is incredibly useful for security and communication, let alone your other abilities. With the kind of monsters we have to fight day-to-day, we need every advantage that we can get these days. I look forward to our time working together, Haikun." She gestures for a handshake, of course I oblige, courtesy of the hard-light projectors on the bridge. Thank you sci-fi bullshit.
I smile (honestly this time, I promise!), "It will be a pleasure to work with you Captain, hopefully I can live up to your expectations" and shake her hand. The smile on my face becomes strained after I realise that I can only feel the pressure from the handshake, no awkward sweat, no pain from her (possibly ex-Valkyrie level) strength put into the handshake.
At this point It's just another sign of what I've lost thanks to Schicksal. I can bare with it.
For now.
I can't wait till Otto's dead.
A/N: Hello, everyone! I hope you've been enjoying my story so far. Sorry for the bit of the delay in the update, I had to rework part of this chapter, alongside it turning out larger than was originally planned. I hope you enjoyed it so far. Sorry for the slow start, its just how I write :) Bye!