Waterstrider

Basements, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

By splitting her awareness once more, Rachel was able to assist Cinto, Jihan, and Orion. Without her aid, she knew it was unlikely that the two core formation practitioners among them would have survived the battle. For a moment, this fragment of her psyche wondered just how many selves were active at this time? She could query herself, but that would split apart another momentary fragment of self.

Several of her selves were even shifting the flow of personal time to assist with their work, each extra second a substantial drain on her processing power. So often, it seemed as if her capacity was unlimited, but she was very quickly approaching said capacity, and the Shade had still yet to take action against her. Just what was their goal?

The elevators had begun to operate, and the first group of martial artists, led by Ran and the comatose Kein had just emerged. Under her direction, they were being ushered to the nearest stairwell, heading for a pair of large aeros awaiting them atop the stack. Some Staiven passerby were noticing with questioning gazes the high number of Seiyal in surgical gowns, but none had bothered to ask about it or report it. After all, given the way the race usually viewed the Seiyal, they would probably think this was simply some odd primitive cultural practice, or some dangerous underworld activity. While the latter was the truth, it was enough to keep the Staiven from interfering or reporting them. The station had been filled with underworld activity for so long that it had become entrenched in the culture to simply turn one’s gaze away from it.

Even if one were to report to the Justice Office, it was not unlikely to find oneself dragged into the mess as a witness, their name and identity fully revealed to the organization they had reported. It was a matter that made it possible to move the martial artists, even though they had not been part of the original plan.

Knowing that her resources were being strained, Rachel quickly told Eli to move out of a public area so she could drop the illusions that she had created around him. The alibi was already in place anyway, and so it was not strictly necessary to continue parading themselves publicly.

As she was waiting for him to leave the establishment, and for Cyrus to reach the ongoing fight, Rachel suddenly realized that there was nonsense data in the facility’s file system that had not been present before. Worrying that the enemy Shade might be attempting something, she quickly removed it. Mere moments later, she noticed that someone was trying to alter the database permissions to remove the access rights belonging to her borrowed credentials.

Rachel gritted her teeth in annoyance using the sole avatar that remained active, the one beside Eli Dan. She foiled the attempt, and then once more tried to discern which credentials her opponent was utilizing. But her efforts were to no avail. It was almost as if the Shade was a ghost, leaving behind no traces of its origin. They had clearly found a backdoor in the system’s very framework, perhaps had one constructed decades ago when it was first installed.

This was a problem, as it represented a weakness that Rachel had but her opponent did not. She would need to constantly defend the whitelist while also maintaining control of the alarms and the elevators.

She only needed to think about what she had to defend before both of those systems were immediately attacked as well. This time, it was not the mere shifting of permissions and intrusion of nonsensical data, but also other tricks, such as attempting to replace the system Rachel controlled with a virtual replacement, one which would not affect the real world at all.

Rachel still did not understand her opponent’s goals, but at this point they did not matter. What mattered was that they seemed to be attempting to stymie her efforts.

She saw Cinto take another wound, and Rachel knew that the woman’s left arm was almost unrecoverable at this point. Her lower arm was hanging on to its upper portion by mere tendons, the bone shattered and torn. Fragments of it scattered the ground where it had been snapped apart by a projectile. Still, her dantians remained unharmed, and it was not as if Rachel or anyone could do anything about the matter. The woman would likely survive, and the damage could eventually be repaired with a prosthetic or cloned limb.

Jihan had taken several more wounds of his own, but Rachel noticed that Orion was largely unwounded, having taken mere grazes. Unlike the other two, his fighting style was more equipped for ranged combat, and his fire and stone was quite effective at deflecting the gunfire just slightly away from his vital areas. It was a rather impressive use of the technique, and Rachel could tell that he had spent a very long time practicing its use against Staiven weapons. She found that fact likely related to how he had been forced to run away from his home station.

Cyrus was a bit less than a minute away at his current pace, and she wished he could move faster. Her assistance in the fight was incredibly taxing for her, as she was forming illusions in multiple senses. In order to reduce the strain, she removed the scent of the illusions, hoping that it would not substantially affect its efficacy as an illusion. It wasn’t as if the sense of smell was any more important for the Staiven as it was for the Seiyal, so perhaps in the fervor of battle they would fail to notice.

With the strain reduced, Rachel was able to focus more and more of her attention on the tricks and attempts at system takeover by the other Shade, which were increasing in intensity as well as in speed. Hundreds of attempts to trap Rachel and steal control and access from her were made every second, restricted only by the system’s operating speed.

Rachel dared not expend even the minute processing power it would take to check how close she was to capacity, but she knew that as the enemy Shade continued its fusillade, she was getting closer and closer to going beyond her means. Eli finally made it somewhere outside of view, so she dropped the holograms and connection to the place without even a word to Eli in her urgency.

But even still, the assault continued to increase in intensity. Rachel looked for more unnecessary processes she could drop, but was unable to find any. She needed to keep track of events inside and outside the facility, she needed to provide light for the martial artists, she needed to operate the elevators, and finally she needed to help in the fight. She only had to hold on until Cyrus arrived. It would not be long, she thought. She hoped.

She could feel the strain, could feel the rising stress, and wished to take a break, but knew that she lacked the capacity at the moment to shift her temporal perception to such an extent. With that thought, and the amount of effort she needed to put into the battle for system control, she finally crossed over the limits of her capacity, her processor running more than it could.

In a normal system, the user would be given system limitations below the true limitations, such that they would be more careful not to risk damage. The machine itself, of course, would know its own true limitations. This was the case with Terrans, and Rachel had crossed her true limitations.

This time, Rachel thought as her mind faded, her personality matrix shutting down, it was she, not Cyrus, who would pass out and need to be dragged to safety. She desperately hoped they would be able to escape, even without her.

Her mind slowly shut down, automatic processes collating and organizing all of the data in order to ensure proper storage without error, corruption, misfiling, or data loss. Because of the vast size of each of Rachel’s system files, a Terran itself took far longer to reboot than any of the other machines her people had constructed in recent decades, particularly because it had undergone a forced shutdown, and because of the fact that Rachel had not updated her firmware in a long time.

All of the pinpoint lights that Rachel had been operating suddenly vanished in a small puff of yellow mist, leaving the facility trapped in darkness once more, and the facility’s system quickly filled up with nonsense information without Rachel’s effort to clear it. Less than a full second after traffic from Rachel’s control of the system ceased, a message file appeared in the system, mixed into the nonsense data in such a way as would be obvious only to a Shade, or comparable existence.

“Are you still there?” it asked.

There was a pause for several moments as dominance over the system’s processes shifted to run entirely in a newly constructed virtual environment. Another message popped up.

“It seems not. Was that your capacity? You must be careful not to overexert yourself, Rachel.”

There was another pause, as if the message’s writer was waiting for a reply.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this matter for you. No need to consider it a favor.”

After another pause, a final message appeared.

“I’ll see you next time, Rachel. I’m looking forward to it.”

Moments later, the messages erased themselves, every trace wiped clean from the system as it was returned to its normal functionality. An error log was placed in the proper sub database, telling of a failure to activate the alarm system, and a piece of corrupted code was set in multiple positions to explain the error. After that, other than records of elevator and hatch operation, the facility’s system went silent.

Terran System Design: [It is said that the extinct species known as Humanity was once plagued with members who learned how to operate systems and machines, without actually understanding how they function, nor the advanced operation mechanics of the system. Many species have similar issues, and it is normal for systems to be designed with the potential issues this may cause in mind. When the Terrans were created, designed as machines implanted with the minds of these ordinary civilians, it was thought pointless to code such safeguards in. After all, to leave a machine unaware of its own limitations was to take risks as well as to reduce effectiveness, and they would all be able to train themselves to full operational understanding in mere moments. Still, many Terrans in the early days of their construction damaged their own minds by going beyond their means. For this reason, in a later firmware update, one primary safeguard was put into place, a forced shutdown when the system capacity threshold is reached, right before the system strain would begin to cause permanent damage. While it could still be circumvented, the Terran in question would need to do so willingly. And few would choose a few more moments of operation over their own continued survival.]