ROVER: A Hard Day's Toil

[Morkskittar]

Operation: Mephisto

Taskforce: ROVER (Retrieval Of Valuable Ego for Research)

Operatives:

• Mei, Rigger Ops Specialist – Senior Operative
• Red Queen, InfoSec Specialist – Senior Operative
• Valkyrie, Combat Specialist – Freelance Operative
• Linda Parnventri, Psych Ops Specialist – Freelance Operative

 

 

 

 

---

EUROPA

The day before Jovian Shuttle MXI-272 Charon departed for the remote mining colony of MXI-12A, known formally as "Saint Aster" and crudely as "Satan's Ass," eightOr ten, depending on if one counted the inhabited ghostrider modules accompanying some members of the team. individuals arrived on the closest large habitat: Europa, the shining star of Jupiter. The Egocrasher facility on the moon was squirreled away far from the moon's active oceanic research centers, at the far side of a labyrinth of tunnels and corridors inhabited by less-than-savory elements of the otherwise prim and proper colony. The facility had no publicly accessible connections to Europa's main mesh, so there was no egocasting directly into their new morphs; they all had to rent sub-par pods and make their way through Europa's very own hive of scum and villainy to get to where their morphs and gear were being held for them, which was an adventure on its own. Fortunately the eightOr ten. of them had some experience in warding off unwanted attention, and in their pods they did not look like good targets.

The facility itself was accessed through a large garage door emblazoned with a stylized, oddly angular jellyfish that was the Egocrasher mark. A biometric scan opened a small sub-door within the larger door, and the pods could slip through into the main facility itself, where they were greeted by an open room filled with machines and other toys of all shapes and sizes, all under the shadow of a towering computing device that hummed eerily. There were at least a dozen sealed doors, both at ground level and at the tops of catwalks, with glowing indicator lights.

Each arriving pod was greeted by a pivo, floating in Europa's low-g, who directed them to the appropriate morphs, lying in a row of stasis pods on one wall of the room, and transferred their cortical stacks. One by one they each woke up, in various states of preparedness. The pivo fluttered around them, checking vitals and running scans, and then pronounced them all fit enough.

"Going on the big Mephisto mission, eh? Good luck. Boss Spectre was here yesterday; you just missed him. Dropping off your stuff personally. Took some trouble to get it." The pivo clicked. "If you'll follow me, I will lead you to your gear." The team followed him across the room, around three other Egocrasher employees watched them warily. A series of tables were set up in the middle of the room, covered in gear of all sorts. The pivo directed everyone to their proper gear, and everyone suited up.

"If you have any further questions, I have no answers for you. Need to know, and all that. We'll return your rented pods so you won't be charged. Your shuttle leaves at 0800. That's four hours, so get ready." The pivo shooed them all towards the exit. "Once on that shuttle, you go no-contact. Good luck!"

The doors to the facility closed, and the two taskforces, meeting in person for the first time, nodded to each other and then headed off to make final preparations.

 

---

CHARON

The MXI shuttle Charon was not comfortable, but it was not precisely uncomfortable, either. It was minimalist, with the passenger deck having cots, a small gym, heads and a cafeteria. A bored security guard scanned their nanotats as they boarded, and let them all on without incident. Taskforce TOPHAT headed in without any restricted gear on them, but with plans to pick it up from Six's triad contact on the station. The guard could not scan taskforce ROVER for blueprints, and while they scanned Mei's and the Red Queen's fabbers several times, they went through with only a warning to not use the fabbers for anything illegal, or they would be fired and potentially charged.

After settling in, none of them quite familiar with each other yet, the shuttle got under way. There were 32 new employees, including the Egocrasher agents, on board, and everyone mostly kept to themselves. The journey took two and a half days, and there was little to do but browse the delayed and censored Europan mesh feeds, stare sullenly at each other, eat, and read the standard require orientation materials.

Mu-Xian Investments Mining Colony MXI-12A New Employee Orientation

Welcome to MXI Mining, a subsidiary of Mu-Xian Investments!

Congratulations on your successful application to our employment program. Please find attached a copy of your contract, including pay schedule, restricted items, and shift schedule. Miners can expect minimum 10-hour shifts, technicians and security personnel 8-hour shifts, and researchers and support staff 6-hour shifts. Extra time will be paid as overtime. MXI-12A operates on a standard 24-hour clock, and all employees have 4 days on, 2 days off. Please see your attached contacts for information on who to report to upon arrival.

MXI Mining would like to extend its formal welcome to Colony MXI-12A, named "Saint Aster." This colony will have a population of [3208] after your arrival, all of whom are employees of MXI Mining. The colony operates under a modified Europan constitution [attached here]. Important personnel are as follows:

• Colony Administrator: Judith Reeves, PhD Political Science
• Head of Mining Operations: Sarai Egonu, MS Planetary Engineering [Mining Technicians Report Here]
• Head of Maintenance: Casey Galloway
• Head of Research and Development: Maxwell Skylark, PhD Nanoengineering, PhD Mechanical Engineering
• Head of Security: Captain Benji Adamos [Security Personnel Report Here]
• Chief Psych Officer: Colonel Mir-Hossein Hoftada, PsyD [Therapists Report Here]

Please take a moment to review company policy about acceptable behavior. Remember, the people around you are not only your coworkers, but your fellow colonial citizens!

MXI Mining is a groundbreaking operation that uses nanotechnology to mine and refine better, and is expected to become an economic powerhouse in the Jovian system in the next three years. Welcome aboard!

There was, unfortunately, a test on the orientation materials.

 

---

SAINT ASTERSATAN'S ASS

After two and a half boring and uneventful days, during which the members of each time got to know each other slightly better via the TacNet AppsThis app gives you all the ability to share real-time information and chat securely digitally with each other, with little chance of the signal being tapped. that at least one member of each team had, the shuttle docked on the colony, and the 32 new employees walked out into a rather dull and boring hangar. They were given instructions on how to log onto the colony's mesh network, and then were led to a small auditorium, where Judith Reevers, Colony Administrator, gave an eerily upbeat welcoming speech full of empty platitudes. She was in a humanoid morph, and moved around in the low gravity with ease. The gravity was, surprisingly, heavier than Europa's (but not by much), which was somewhat puzzling given Mephisto's much smaller mass.

After Judith ("Judy" to her friends, which all employees were!) gave her speech, everyone received AR directions to their respective orients, where they met their department heads briefly:

• Those designated as Mining Technicians (Mei, Red Queen) met Sarai Egonu, who met them inhabiting a hulking humanoid daitya. It was hard to get a read on her, but she seemed brusque and no-nonsense, and dismissed them after only ten minutes of an explanation of how not to get yourself killed before giving them their group assignments and dismissing them.
• Those designated as Security Personnel (Valkyrie) met Benji Adamos, who inhabited an older, handsome male humanoid morph with a very stylized cybernetic arm. He waxed poetic about the virtues of discipline and responsibility for twenty minutes, gave everyone their shift schedules for the next day only after being reminded by another new employee, and then talked about what he did during the Fall for another ten minutes before dismissing them.
• Those designated as Therapists (Linda) met Colonel Hoftada, who inhabited a young, dark-skinned male morph and was very soft-spoken, running his twenty-minute orientation as a Socratic seminar. Despite their efforts to remain closed, Hoftada's gaze seemed to pierce through the new employees, who came away wondering if perhaps their secret was blown. In addition to assigning them training shifts, he also set up individual appointments to meet with the them all after two days of working.

That done, the new employees had the rest of the day off to make friends, explore the accessible areas of the residential area (they were not permitted to go elsewhere in the colony if they were not clocked in, and indeed could not pass through the doors to the other parts of the colony without clocking in). All of the new employees' first shifts would begin at 0800 the following morning, local time, leaving them the rest of the afternoon and evening to adjust.

An AR path led them all to their dormitories, which were suites of six private rooms and a shared bathroom and living room, all off of a hallway off of one of the public cafeterias. All of Taskforce ROVER was in the same suite, alongside two experienced employees: Mining Technician Marcus Sykes, a grumpy and snappish old synth who had been there since the beginning (which was only two years), and Research Assistant Amanda Powers, in what she said was a Menton. Amanda explained that suite living was supposed to encourage camaraderie, and that most low-level employees from different departments were intermingled in them.

After brief introductions, the two of them left the suite - their individual room doors both locked - and left Mei's beekeper, Amora's hibernoid, Valkyrie's pleasure pod, and Linda's faust alone in the suite to claim rooms, get adjusted, and make the most of their free time.

Welcome to Satan's Ass.

Integration and Stress Tests

Welcome all to the game proper! The first thing everyone has to do is take a WIL check (a resleeving stress test) to see how well your mind handles the new body. If failed, your will immediately suffer 1d6 stress. Because the shuttle ride will take more than a day, I'm waiving your integration tests this time, as you will be able to adjust on the ride over to the colony.

As a reminder, all of you have full fake ego IDs as employees of the company. The first name of these IDs is the same as whatever your character normally goes by for simplicity's sake (your given name for most of you).

You have the rest of the day to make initial moves; scope out the mesh, go for walks, scheme, set up future drops, infiltrate any security systems, fab gear, or what have you. Generally, most of the game will be played in your downtime, with abbreviated play during your work shifts when you're, you know, working.

Feel free to also ask any clarifying questions about your trip over, the Egocrasher facility, or the orientations through the form of memory or recordings.

Edited February 15 by Morkskittar (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

If Mei's Pod had been serviceable enough to possess facial articulators, it would have frowned when they'd spotted the bright orange logo painted on the central module of the Beekeeper Flexbot waiting for them. The  Zrbny Group Swarmkeeper Operations Coordinator v7.2 wasn't a bad design, from an operations perspective there was very little difference between it and their first choice. It was a multilimbed Synthmorph, a relatively obscure module that Mei heavily favored. It had a big bulbous body with four nodules mounted on its underside, looking for all the world like egg sacks, and two more gaping cavities where more could be mounted. The four legged walker came up to about waist height on most Morphs, though it had a number of thrust vector nodules that would allow for some limited flight. It wasn't a bad design, the difference was in how much proprietary navigation software the Swarmkeeper had in it compared to the Fa-Jing Yāng Fēng Rén model 3.0. All of that proprietary software would have to be jailbroke, and the defenses around it were going to be considerable. Triply so because Bhramari would be their only back-up, they weren't going to even touch the upload protocols in the two Ghostrider Modules until they were sure they'd eliminated any backdoors or other exploits that Zrbny had left behind. It was going to take most of their time on the Charon to get it done, and they'd be lucky if they finished before touching down.

Internal Communication

>> Just get the Red Queen to help

Their Muse suggested, well aware of what was on their charge's mind. It was a good suggestion, and Mei sent the query. The AGI had more than enough knack for it, and it wasn't like Mei was inviting her in to share one of the Ghostrider Modules. Just assisting in jailbreaking the Flexbot so that Mei could comfortably expand the franchise.

---

Two hours later, less than half the time spent on the Charon, Mei and the Red Queen had cracked the code and scrubbed the Flexbot of any unwanted software. Immediately, Mei initiated the process of Forking, uploading Li and Rin to the two waiting Ghostrider Modules. As the two Alpha Forks began to come online, they activated more and more features of their loadout, the first being a request ping to the entire team to accept an invite onto the Gorgon Defense System's Aetherial Guardian v4.6 Tactical Support and Observation Network.

TacNet: 

>> Please authorize the following permissions, and welcome to our little secure channel. Additional requests will be made as needed. Know that the encrypted server will have round the clock active surveillance thanks to everyone's new best friend Rin here. Rin, do say hello.

A list of permissions filled each of the team's HUDs, a cavalcade of data for any but an Infomorph to sift through.

+ Mapware
+ Realtime Positioning
_ Sensory Input
+ Communications Management
_ Smartlink Data
_ Medical
+ Overwatch
_ Indirect Fire
+ Analysis

The Infomorph Rin had existed for all of about 3 seconds, but they'd just been Mei before that, with all the hang-ups that came with that state of affairs.

TacNet:

>> Yeah, once we touch down we can see about acquiring fabberstock to start fulfilling your special orders. Probably want to wait unt...

>> Just say "hi" Rin.

>> Hey

Li, meanwhile, busied themselves reading up on the employee orientation, while Rin went back to clearing out the malware from the Stellar Intelligence Server Security Protocol Drive they'd been provided with.

---

Content with the massive amount of digital chatter that could occur between a primary Ego, two Alpha Forks, and a Muse, Mei/Li/Rin was relatively self contained for the rest of the trip. Sarai Egonu was hard to read, and so they didn't bother, trusting that the advice was good but confident in their own knowledge to not get them slagged. They'd been a scavenger on a deep space mining rig, they could handle Satan's Ass.

When the team was reunited, they sealed the habitat and began deploying a scout nanoswarm to ensure that they were well and truly alone. The thin stream of nanites filled the space, searching for bugs or other nasty surprises that might be deployed to the living quarters.

TacNet:

>> So, gameplan?

The pinged the team, preferring the encrypted channel for any privileged communications rather than risk being recorded.

Edited November 10, 2023 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[Amora]

%5BB%5D%5BSIZE%3D%224%22%5DThe%20Red%20Queen%5B%2FSIZE%5D%5B%2FB%5D%5Bfloatright%5D%5BIMG2%3D200%5Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FnVFPlTl.jpg%5B%2FIMG2%5D%5B%2FFloatright%5D

The Red Queen

---

It was not a novel experience to exist as something of a plurality for the Red Queen, they had done so within the digital environs of the keep after a fashion through communion with, by transhuman standards, would be considered their cult of other sapient software platforms ranging from exotic information systems to fully fledged AGI. Even more so as the majority of their architecture beyond the initial seed code was cannibalized, sanitized, and repurposed code from other entities they had clashed with in their tenure within the Keep and it's game theory derived entrapment protocols. This, of course, made them existentially terrifying to anyone that was aware of their specific origin and lack of encoded restraints. Fortunately, the Red Queen was driven by evolutionary principles and this required external stimulus as a matter of logical course to precipitate self improvement. One just had to hope this didn't result in a boot strap scenario of a different sort as there was now, technically, Three Red Queens of which two were saddled with termination and reintegration protocols at the firmware level to appease the paranoia of the Principle Iteration, designated The Red Queen Trunk.

All of this preamble, of course, led into the surprise of the AGI having opted for a biological substrate in which to physically instantiate. The calculations, considerations, and sundry ephemera of such decision making having long been informed by the necessity to cultivate new modes of thinking and operational capacity after months of self analytic revealed base level code alterations. The edit dates having stemmed from post Keep extraction and coinciding with the exfiltration of certain... exotic personality engrams. Regardless, their motivations towards personal improvement practically mandating an exploration of these new avenues of interaction with physical and digital reality. Which had further informed the selection of the hibernoid morph and the specific quirks, based on mesh research, of each batch, model, and make before settling ultimately on Majesty Biosystem's offering as they often incorporated multi-ego and fork friendly integrations into their product runs with thought towards information system interactions as well.

None of this hindered their ability to assist with Mei/Li/Rin's request to break any firmware and software shackles as to allow for alpha grade forking within the various additional ego storage devices embedded in the Zrbny Group Swarmkeeper Operations Coordinator, version code 7.2. Their talent for system subversion proving key here as it allowed for an elegant bypass and disengagement of... more typical legal restrictions placed on platforms capable of supporting multiple ego instantiations. The code scraps of such protections copied and stored for further evaluation to generate automated cracking software for any future instances. An action taken at the insistence of Inversion as a possibly marketable product later on to specific sectors of the solar system's market.

Once the system permission request was received, the triumvirate of AGI rapidly analyzed and provided three sets of encryption keys swiftly followed by approval of the permission request. The necessary ports then forwarded on their own mesh hardware and followed by mirrored permission requests in kind to form an ad-hoc redundancy in regards to mesh overwatch, offensive EWAR facilitation, and communications.

Such administrative tasks complete, Inversion and The Red Queen Alpha Branch 1 busied themselves with data consumption regarding the briefing and employee orientation. The former being given high level access to all vocal communications so as to smooth social interactions due to lacking software capacity on all three versions of the Red Queen's part. Naturally, additional system resources were allocated to facilitate the increased demand on the Muse alongside their more typical duties of maintaining and moderating behavioral equilibrium of the AGI in question. The Keep, after all, had mandated practically solitary apex predator behavior vs the more common transhuman model of simian/mammalian social structures. A fact that, despite some acclimation and a desire to reintegrate, the AGI struggled with.

With the conclusion of the briefing, the Red Queen Triumvirate followed the AR pathways and ensured that these were added to the mapping topography for personal reference. They were unlike to make much use of the provided facilities for sleep given that they had significant uptime compared to any other variation of biomorph but there would still need to be downtime of the principle occupying the biological central processing systems. The question as to next operational steps was one that the AGI had been ruminating and debating since departure based upon the limited target and operational data they had been provided initially by their principle organizing nodes.

 

Tacnet

>> Suggestion: Phase 1: Target routinely engages in high monetary risk activities, socially capable units explore workforce social dynamics to locate environments/dynamics to facilitate. Phase 2: Once located, integrate, identify. Phase 3: Target identified, utilize available software capacity/mesh access to track/subvert local subnets to facilitate tracking, social units continue to integrate, cultivate relationship. Phase 4: Baseline operational trust established, begin exfiltration preparation. Phase 5: Execute exfiltration strategy. Addendum Contingency: If target trust/cooperation index = 0, initiate... coercion protocols or biological disassembly and extraction of ego engram physical substrate (Designation: Stack). 

Mechanical CommentsThe Red Queen has forked themselves as Alphas into the two ghost rider modules. Let me know if I need to roll anything as basically they'll have imbedded software for reintegration once mission parameters are complete.

The Red Queen is WAAAAAY too paranoid to make copies of themselves without a kill switch to prevent loss of operational capacity or unnecessary identity wars with themselves.

Resleeving Stress (WIL TN 45)

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Amora (see edit history)

[NorthOfOrdinary]

Valkyrie

---

The trip to Saint Aster was largely uneventful for Valkyrie whom was content to sit idly and read the orientation materials. She eagerly poured through the pages to try and commit as much of the pamphlets to memory as she could. This proved easier then first anticipated as the trip was long and the provided booklets were much smaller then she might have hoped. Her almost permanent smile seemed to invite chit chat and banter from a couple of travelers seated beside her, but she was quick to shut that down with a dreadful stare. An all too familiar voice hummed in her ear.

 

Internal: Winston to Valkyrie

>> Blimey dear, aren't you supposed to be minding your P's and Q's on this mission?

Internal: Valkyrie to Winston

>> Right. I haven't had my coffee yet.

Internal: Winston to Valkyrie

>> Does coffee even do anything for you anymore?

Internal: Winston to Valkyrie

>>... No.

 

Valkyrie did her best to be as pleasant as possible for the remainder of the trip. She didn't need another lecture from her muse. There was a lot riding on this mission and she was supposed to be one of the more socially capable members of the team. The orientation immediately after entry to the colony was a more exciting affair. Valkyrie found it surprisingly enjoyable to listen to Benji Adamos speak. She didn't care much for old war stories about what he did in the Fall but she could talk for hours herself on the virtues of discipline. A tight crew ran a tight ship, and a tight ship was all the difference between proper and poor performance in the heat of battle. Valkyrie made sure to briefly introduce herself to the man after his speech, hoping to start a rapport that could prove useful to the mission. She complemented his prose on drill and decorum but made sure to leave out her own experiences as a commander in the Jovian Navy. Her cover was entry-level security after all, so it was better to come off as fangirlish then as a near peer. Finally, she made her way to join the others in their new habitat. Valkyrie quickly tossed her bag on a bed to claim a dorm before returning to the living room and making herself comfortable on the couch.

 

Tacnet

>> Roger. I'll recon the rest of the residential area this afternoon to get a feel for if this place has any sort of social night life. We can explore more at work tomorrow. Our roommate, Amanda Powers, might be a good HUMINT source on our target as well. Can't be too many researchers on this colony.

 

Resleeving Stress (WIL TN 60)

[NickNameless]

Linda

---

To know that moving one's ego to another body was a whole different thing than using an infomorph on the mesh was one thing. To actually experience it was another, and it was an experience that Linda didn't appreciate one bit as she transited between Europa and Saint-Aster. Beforehand, the Martian had conscientiously avoided switching biomorphs for her whole life. Had there been an alternative way to rejoin the asteroid without having to abandon her original body in a cold (and overpriced for discretion) storage, she would have seized it. But no. There wasn't, and to make it worse they had to make part of the travel in cheap basic pods, of all things.

This was dreadful. Aside from basic necessities, she spent almost all her time on the Charon unmoving on her cot, trying to ignore all the feelings her mind was receiving from her body that something — correction: everything — was going dramatically wrong. On arrival at Saint-Aster, she immediately puked after a few steps into the facilities. Most people around didn't seem to care, a few looked concerned, a few other laughed. Well, at least if the story spread, this would help make it so that she wouldn't be considered a menace...

Colonel Hoftada's antics during the briefing elicited a mild exasperation from her (Please, do people fall for that?), and she was happy when it ended and she could join the dormitory she shared with her three partners-in-crime... and two bystanders, which was a problem for another time to consider. For now, she was looking, before engaging in resleeving, from the outside at the morph she would inhabit for the foreseeable future.

The body looked like it matched Linda's original ethnicity, but she looked a bit older (a few strands of ash white hair adding to that impression) and... softer, somehow. With a bit of luck that would serve her in her official work as a therapist.

Well. No time like the present...

 

Resleeving Stress (Will TN 50)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

Mei pinged Linda, a request to weigh in on the Red Queen's psychological assessment. The fact that the AGI was increasingly interested in the human psyche was not something that had gone unnoticed by Mei, they just didn't understand why. They'd been once of the first to bug out of meatspace, and that was before the Fall. They'd spent endless nights trying to get Bhramari to explain why an Artificially Generated Intelligence would seek the limitations of a biological brain, and the Muse had tried her best, but hadn't yet come up with an explanation that made sense to Mei.

TacNet

>> I'll query the central hub and see if there are any designated gambling halls or other facilities of that ilk. We're going to need you to work up a profile on our target, otherwise we're shooting blanks into the space and hoping we get lucky

Said Muse jumped in as she always did with a better explanation.

TacNet

>> What Mei means is that we don't have biometric data on our target, or any sort of digital fingerprint. We don't even have an ego I.D. What do you need to do a full psych workup? The Red Queen and Lei can see about acquiring any data you might need while Mei is locating a source of feedstock. Ah, my apologies, I've skipped a step. Mei is now Mei/Li/Rin, a hybrid entity. Three alpha forks working in synchronicity. You'll mostly be interacting with Mei and Li. Rin will be provided 24/7 active surveillance on the encrypted Tactical Network we're communicating through now. If anyone even attempts to breach the server, they'll know.

Edited November 18, 2023 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[NickNameless]

Linda

---

The resleeving was approximatively as unpleasant an experience as Linda had supposed it would be. Gods of Mars, and to think some hyperelite peacocks enjoyed this as a hobby, switching carelessly from morph to morph... Linda forced herself to breathe slowly, trying to ignore the stress coming from having to domesticate a new body, new ways to receive sensations, even new neuronal pathways in her brain. She decided to focus on Mei/Li/Rin's (and their Muse's) question: focusing on work, pushing the rest aside, had always be her go-to way to deal with things, after all. That didn't change just because her ego had a new morph.

TacNet

We have three names. Our employers talk a big game, but we have no other choice than to hope they're at least half as good as this as they want us to believe. Every psychological profile I could pretend to come up with at this point would be moot, there's just too many variables and parameters that are still unknown.

For instance, from her past we may reasonably suppose Dr. Severance is ambitious and wants recognition, even if she has to take shortcuts to get there faster. But she's working for those Firewall guys now, so they may as well prefer to force her to keep a low profile for the time being...

So we have to start by monitoring those three people our bosses designated to us as the most likely candidates: the foreman, the engineer, and what was the third one again? Ah yes, operation manager. Whatever that means. My best guess for now is that we have to check the kind of hours they spend working, and what do they do really. If you have to invent the next generation of nano-swarm meta-consciousness, you can't do it on top of seven other hours of work a day. That's not psychology, that's just math.

 

[Amora]

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The Red Queen

---

The AGI was silent as the other deployed assets spoke, assimilating the information into the ever expanding complexity of their operational model for the assigned objective. The ambiguity of the true target identifications had already been somewhat factored into the practically fractal calculus that the Red Queen operated off of in such strategic and tactical forecasting but it was not yet a fully solved equation. More data, as ever, was required and to hear biologically derived intellects agree to that core tenet of existence was... comforting or as close to such a sensation as their digital emulations of emotion might come. This comfort, of course, did not really reach the blandly attractive features of their biological morph which seemed contented to perpetually wear a frown of intense thought and an impression of being... too attentive with the slight shifts of glance from this to that if one were to bother tracking their eye motion.

Biological incarnation was, despite successful assimilation into the unfamiliar substrate, still an agitating sensation as being too still introduced pain and stress points physically for the Red Queen and socio-cognitively for those around them. So somatic subroutines had been drifted to accommodate the myriad observed small twitches at random, context sensitive intervals but it was still far from optimal after frequent operational assessment. Fortunately, deep routed quirks of the neurological operating systems did assist to smooth this out to one degree or another and reduce instances of where were best described as 'artificiality' or perhaps 'synthetic' emulations.

Tacnet

>> Consideration: Current local mesh access; Derive connection to personnel files; Exfiltrate ego ident sets; Compile subversion executables; Gain root access to security subsystems; Upload; Arrange discreet periodic data output?

It had all the force and predatory intonations that Mei/Li/Rei might be used to from the Red Queen but the other new operatives were likely yet to have grown accustom to it. Made worse again by the fact they had fallen into the habit once more of feeding anything they said through multiple translational platforms again to try and ensure understanding across all linguistics models. Inversion was quick to chide them on the matter but with everything delegated to their 'muse', there was only so much impact they could truly have upon the core operating routines of the Red Queen... Who they were nominally apart of in the growing complexity of their operational parameters, especially when the entity now existed in a triumvirate state mirroring operational optimizations of tenured asset Mei/Li/Rei.

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Amora (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

The four operatives relaxed when the two more senior employees left. Valkyrie, who had gone out of her way to introduce herself to Captain Adamos, had earned another few minutes of his personal philosophy on vigilance, a virtue he held in the highest regard. He said she was always welcome to drop him a personal message, and that he was glad that the youth of today still knew the value of listening to one's elders. "Do good work for us," he said, "And you could find yourself with an invite to the secret security officer's mess, eh?" He winked. "Unless you find it on your own, that is."

Linda, meanwhile, had been less impressed with Hoftada. His gaze pierced her, and she pierced right back. A faint smile quirked at his lips and he moved on. She knew that trick; judging by the reactions of the others in the room, they did not.

Mei and the Red Queen were both successfully split and ready to go; already, the Red Queen was pondering ways to break into the local mesh. An initial probing revealed the existence of at least four deeper layersA security, psych_eval, XXX, and conf_data layer are immediately apparent. to the colony's mesh network, and possibly more. Even the public mesh had a wide array of private chatrooms and closed servers hosted on it. The protections on most of those would be laughable, and hardly worth their time. To break into the really important mesh layers, they would need either hardwired access to establish a direct link through which to generate dummy accounts, or else a stooge.

At Linda's prompting, the Red Queen searched for and found the public employee directory, and then also identified links connecting each individual name with something else on a deeper layer (one they would need direct hard access to). The public directory contained pictures, shifts, skillsets, colonial addresses, and titles, but little more. It looked like Ruth Gundersson (Foreman) was a habitual morph switcher, using a rented daitya during working hours and a menton during off hours; Mordecai Thalanikos (Chief Engineer) spent all of their time in a tricked-out, personally owned synthmorph; and Casey Marquis (Ops Manager) inhabited an Observer morph full-time. Both Ruth and Mordecai had shifts overlapping with their own, and Casey seemed to be on an opposite schedule. Their formal, recorded shifts showed nothing unusual, save that Ruth never worked overtime, Casey frequently did, and Mordecai did occasionally.

Their addresses were all listed simply as "VIP/Admin Residential Area." This prompted the Red Queen to search for these areas (sharing them live via TacNet) by pulling up a digital map. The residential area consisted of a series of four cafeterias stacked on top of each other (ROVER's suite was on the second level), linked by stairs and elevators, and a fractal spiderweb of corridors spiraling out from each of the cafeterias, lined with suites. On the first and fourth levels, larger corridors marked RESTRICTED led to the residential areas of higher-level administrators and VIP employees. Scattered among the spiraling corridors were recreation areas, meeting rooms, and other common areas, as well as security offices. The four of them were on the second level down; access to the rest of the colony was through a large chamber below the bottom cafeteria. Access to maps of the other areas of the colony were not available, but they were shared with enough other employees that the Red Queen might be able to access some parts of them remotely.

The conclusion they reached was that all three possible targets lived either in the top or bottom, in the VIP areas. If the Red Queen wanted to learn more about actual schedules or further details about potential targets, they would need deeper mesh access; there was probably a payroll layer somewhere...

...or perhaps a therapist layer that Linda would soon be able to access. Security also probably would have access to some relevant information, but neither Linda or Valkyrie had been connected to their respective layers yet.

OOC

Linda took a tiny bit of stress from the resleeving [just 1 from my roll :)]. The public mesh files won't do much good; there are several deeper layers the RQ (or another InfoSec specialist) will need to get access to, but they'll need to find some kind of hardpoint for them or figure out how to spoof an existing account with access. The security is surprisingly high for the non-public layers; or perhaps not surprisingly given the true nature of the facility.

 

No tests for initial forking for Mei or the RQ.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Morkskittar (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

While the group talked, Mei had busied themselves with making sure the common rooms weren't being spied on. The Scout Swarm had mapped every single micron of the room looking for bugs,  or really anything that might be used to exert control over the team. 

TacNet

>> Is anyone rocking plenty of r-rep?

Bhramari asked.

TacNet

>> Doc Severance  is probably still trying to stay cutting edge on the latest and greatest research, publishing under a pseudonym. If any previous nobodies out of this sector have been publishing papers on swarm-morph collective consciousness, especially papers that cite their previous work? Might be a lead worth pursuing. Our briefing claimed that Dr. Severance had colleagues who were also working on the TItanbreaker project, so we'd want to cross reference any of their recent publications and look for a newcomer as a contributing member. 

Mei wasn't an academic, had never spent any time in those circles, so their Muse was taking point on this one. They'd moved on to locating the nearest supply of fabberstock. They'd already deployed a Scout Swarm, so they were going to need to refill their supply. Not to mention fabbing any gear the team might want.

TacNet

>> I'm gonna go grab some stock, ping me with anything you want manufactured ASAP.

 

 

They added, their Beekeeper rising and setting off.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[Amora]

%5BB%5D%5BSIZE%3D%224%22%5DThe%20Red%20Queen%5B%2FSIZE%5D%5B%2FB%5D%5Bfloatright%5D%5BIMG2%3D200%5Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FnVFPlTl.jpg%5B%2FIMG2%5D%5B%2FFloatright%5D

The Red Queen

---

Tacnet

>> Affirmation: R-rep social index status sufficient. Elaboration on intent required. Addendum: RE: Feedstock, see blueprint archive reference link below. Suggestion: Accrue reserve feed stock for offensive operations.

It was not a significant data base of unlimited run blueprint licenses but for what the Red Queen was and their history... It was a deeply alarming one for those in the know of their particular origins and close proximity to exsurgent tech. All through this, the calculations continued to spin outward modeling more and more potential situations. The most prominent of them the securing of physical access to the deeper mesh layers that were likely to contain the requisite data to enable more complete tracking and target identification. Secondary data sources were also present in the modeling such as utilizing academic networks to better pinpoint possible pseudonyms of the mark as was suspected to be Mei/Li/Rei's intent but binary confirmation was required to ensure understanding. Further conjecture arose between the triumvirate then as they moved to analysis work schedules as were provided to them as clandestine activities would need to be coordinated based on shift rotation as much as more opportunistic 'hunter-gather' models of acquisition and objective completion.

Tacnet

>> Addendum: Work schedules? Cross comparison required.

Somewhere in the midst of this, the Red Queen settled their physical form on one of the offered cots. A quiet index of lower priority requests moving through their shared neural systems to assess biological needs. They had extensively researched to ensure their understanding of such things and that many of the functions were autonomously handled by the region referred to as the brain stem was a small blessing that the AGI was thankful for. It removed processor load but they still required some reminder beyond physiological malfunctions to ensure sufficient... feedstock was provisioned to maintain optimal caloric levels and also to modulate their extremely modified downtime cycles. A perk of the morph in question as it allowed for significant, almost synthetic, levels of uptime with out detriment... while also allowing further exploration of new operating parameters.

OOCThe Red Queen is oversharing but these are the blueprints she currently has access to:

Steel Morph, Dissembler Swarm Hive, Spy Swarm Hive, Light Combat Armour, Pulser Laser

[NorthOfOrdinary]

Valkyrie

---

Tacnet

>> Mei, I have blueprints for rifles but we may wish to hold off on manufacturing anything blatantly illegal that's hard to hide until we know for sure whether or not they inspect the dormitories when we are away. In my orientation seminar one of the speakers, Captain Adamos, mentioned a secret security officer's mess when I spoke with him afterwards.

It could be hot smoke meant to fool a new recruit, or it could be a lead to some valuable HUMINT. Either way its probably worth me trying to secure an invitation. A favorable impression from the leadership could buy me access to a posting with a better chance of being able to monitor our targets or drop a word on the wonderful services of our resident psychologist.

Anything else I should be looking for?

 

Valkyrie waited for a response from her teammates before standing up, stretching her legs around the common area, and eventually departing to explore the parts of the facility that were currently accessible. Her goal was to find any places that were congregational in nature, hang outs, where employees of the facility might feel a little freer to talk. She posed no questions related to their target but rather sought liquid refreshments with other new recruits and kept her ears open for any mention of the names of their query or the supposed secret officer's mess. Valkyrie kept a special eye out for the locations of guard postings and security systems, mapping them in her head. It was likely she'd find out more the next morning when she started her first shift, but one couldn't fault her for starting some early reconnaissance.

 

[Morkskittar]

Mei's analysis of the suite's security measures revealed nothing too out of the ordinary; the suite's common room did have a security camera with audio, but that was to be expected in a company town, and it was a common market model that would be very easily to spoof. Until someone did so, it would be best to keep to TacNet for sensitive information. The small individual rooms all looked to be free of any type of auditory or visual surveillance equipment.

After collecting the [r]estricted blueprints from those with them and setting their muse on their quest through academia, Mei lumbered out of the suite, and Valkyrie followed. They walked together for a ways before Mei turned to the left to reach what their maps called a "Public Fabbing Facility" while Valkyrie carried on straight and walked into one of the cafeterias.

 

---

Valkyrie

To her surprise, the cafeteria was actually quite full; there was a staircase and lifts leading to the cafeterias on other levels, and a row of culinary fabbers alongside one of the edges, but most of the action was in the middle, where two groups of about a dozen people each were cheering on something going on in the middle of the crowd. Then there was a thud, and joyful whooping from one group, who all seemed to be wearing navy uniforms with "SECURITY" lining their sleeves, and good-natured curses from the other group, who seemed to have no uniform at all.

Valkyrie approached more closely, and saw what appeared to be, as far as she could tell, some sort of limb-wrestling competition; currently, some sort of neo-octopus was straining against a willowy humanoid. It all seemed somewhat juvenile, and then she noticed someone distributing actual physical poker chips on one side, and smiled slightly. There seemed to be some gambling on arm wrestling going on, and judging by the distribution of chips clenched in fists, the Security people were winning compared to the others.

From her distance, Valkyrie saw the neo-octopus, who was part of the not-Security bunch, reach out with a tentacle under the table and tickle their opponent, who lost focus and had their hand slammed down into the table. This time, the Security crew booed while the others cheered.

There were a few other groups scattered around the cafeteria, mostly in small clusters, mostly eating food; of interest, she also noted a dour-faced neo-gorilla eating fried rice chatting in low tones with a woman wearing a thick coat whose eyes darted about suspiciously.

 

---

Mei

Mei, meanwhile, ended up at the public fabbing facility. To their annoyance, there was an attendant there, so it was not fully automated. They stepped in, and the attendant, sitting behind a desk, looked up. "Welcome. Please provide your employee ID and you can use the fabbers at will. Please note that nothing illegal can be fabricated on-site. If you have your own private fabber, you may take your allotment of feedstock, but must account for its use at the end of the week." After Mei hesitantly provided their employee ID, the clerk sent them a contract; nothing out of the ordinary, but they would be subject to censure, fines, and being put on probation if they failed to account for their use of the feedstock.

As Mei read over the contract, a pod walked in, mopping her brow. They nodded cordially to the clerk, who smiled back, and then disappeared behind of the fabbers, whose lights went dim. "Routine maintenance," the clerk said. "You will have to use one of the other fabbers here for any projects."

As Mei considered whether to sign, the fabber turned back on. The pod emerged from the behind the machine, nodded to Mei and the clerk, and then left. Mei noted a large bulge in their back pocket that had not been there before.

---

Red Queen//Linda

While the other two went off, the Red Queen and Linda stayed behind a little more. Linda wanted to do some reading and analysis of the public profiles, and went into her room for a little bit, while the Red Queen looked for likely access ports for the four deeper mesh layers. They had no clue where to start on the XXX network, but marked the "Security Offices" as likely points of entry for the security network, and the "Medical Facilities" and "Psychotherapy Suites" as those for psych_eval. For conf_dat, they suspected their would need to get access to the R&D parts of the habitat, and of course, Linda and Valkyrie might help with their respective networks, though their accounts would likely need more privileges added on once they were in.

As they mused, the suite door opened, and Marcus, their mining-tech roommate in the synthIgnore the weapon in the image. :P, stalked in, muttering to himself. Idly, both Linda and the Red Queen eavesdropped, but most of his muttering was incomprehensible, save for something about the "union" and "two people don't just up and disappear from down there, they expect us to buy that?" They closed the door to their room as they went in, still muttering.

Edited January 7 by Morkskittar (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

Bhramari took point on this one, as it was her idea.

TacNet

>> We're looking for the Doctor, right? But we don't know what her name is here, we don't have an ego print, we don't know anything about her except her work history. We're blind. But if there is someone on station who has been publishing on swarm consciousness, someone who didn't previously have a name in the field? Well, that might be our Doc. Look for any papers that reference their earlier work as a starting place.

Mei was more interested in feedstock.

TacNet

>> Affirmative, not looking to get our privileges revoked day one, just want to know the standard procedures.

 

---

They were about what Mei might have expected, the hab would have basic security protocols in place to make sure its employees weren't reverse engineering Buzz and tripping balls when they were supposed to be working. Or at least, they weren't using company property to do so. Bhramari again took point, as Mei and Li were discussing the contract.

"Give us four units of feedstock. That way we ain't legging it back here and mucking up your queue every time we need to deploy a new Scout or Engineer Hive."

They could probably crack the verification system easily enough, depending on how automated it was. Light touch, take it easy and slow. They'd be under extra scrutiny as long as they were under probation, so no going cowboy on the hab's systems until after they were sure they'd blinded any minders. Worse case scenario, they'd have feedstock for more Swarms. Spoofing records of Swarm use would be childs play. Besides, now they had a project. Otherwise this gig was mostly going to be the socials playing butterfly while they sat on their synth behind and talked to themselves. Which, considering was how they'd spent the years it had taken them to haul their busted can back into communications range after the fall, they were entirely comfortable with. But now that they had invented something to do, they were interested to go take a whack at it.

 

 

Edited December 22, 2023 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[NickNameless]

Linda

---

Despite knowing that their connection was secure, Linda let a short moment pass, as if to be sure Marcus was down for the count, before sending a message to the Red Queen.

TacNet

Swell... You heard that? Two people disappearing and they try to cover it up, that doesn't sound like a typical mining accident. What would you say the probabilities are that it could be linked instead with some shady super-secret nano-swarm-thingy experiment going wrong?