ROVER: A Hard Day's Toil

[Morkskittar]

Work: Linda

Linda did a cursory check of the body for any tell-tale physical injuries that could have impacted neurological functioning, and aside from some bruising on the torso and arms, there was nothing. There were also no injuries from any drugs she knew of. More mundane issues ruled out, she dove into the psychosurgery to find the root cause of the patient's issues.

It was there she immediately ran into a problem: there was not one patient on the operating couch. There were two. No... three? Four? Five?

That can't be right. She used her app to trace synaptic connections to draw a neurological map, and then mapped those onto personality features.

An observer would have seen her vacantly staring into the air above the patients, hands twitching, but she was seeing the full force of five personalities. There was one in the brain and spine, which should represent the dominant personality, but it seemed to be hibernating deeply. She could wake it up if need be, but that might have some adverse effects as it interacted with the other four, which all appeared to be collectively "in charge" of the body, though all had been put into a restless waking sleep using a tailored neurosomnolent cybervirus. The other four all were rooted in different series of synaptic connections; one was spread throughout the torso, while two more each were centered around the legs, and the last in the left arm.

These latter four consciousness were hard to map, let alone understand. It was only after thinking about what she had discussed with Mei and the Red Queen that she realized what was going on, and wondered how she had missed that the bruises were injection sites; not of drugs, but of a nanoswarm. She recalibrated her app to account for a distributed nano-consciousness, and Dr. Branwen emitted a light caw of surprise. She had done something surprising.

She was able to identify one of the consciousness, partly merged with the others, as that of a nanoswarm of surprising complexity, roughly at the level of a transhuman infant of two or three years. This nanoswarm was spread primarily in the torso. The other three personalities were localized to different parts of the body; one in each leg, and then one centered on the digestive system. These latter three minds were separated from each other by severed connections, both synaptically and psychologically, and each also had roughly the developmental level of the nanoswarm.

She took a moment to look more closely at the hibernating dominant consciousness... and furrowed her brow. It was showing signs of fracturing into sub-minds under the neurological disarray.

She went cold. Is the nanovirus.... dissembling the patient's mind and quarantining its fundamental components? That doesn't seem possible.

She became aware that the neo-corvid was watching her very intently. Her diagnosis sounded implausible, even to her. She could explain to the doctor that she thought it was some form of multiple personality disorder; she could make that claim well enough. Or she could tell him what she had found...

...but how does one solve the problem of one's consciousness being hijacked by an infectious nanoswarm? She could awaken the main consciousness to see what would happen, or try to shut down the nanoswarm consciousnesses, or possibly any of the other three. Or, if she was feeling bold, quarantine the nanoswarm mind before awakening the main body.

She could also try to reintegrate the fragmented individual parts, but that would be a challenge.

OOC

The patient's mind has been taken over by nanobots and is being broken down into smaller mind fragments. Linda suspects is beyond most transhuman capabilities at present. TacNet is still open for communication/feed sharing only with Mei and the RQ.

If she wants to take any further actions, she just needs more psychosurgery tests for each action. All actions she could take are likely a base test, save for attempting to reintegrate the shattered mind, which will be a -10 test, or putting the nanoswarm mind to a more permanent sleep, which will be -20.

She also will have to provide Dr. Branwen with a diagnosis.

 

---

 

Work: Mei//Red Queen

While Mei and the Red Queen worked, they wondered briefly about how the Red Queen's work was going. Before heading down into the mines, the Red Queen had released hibernating forks and copies of her Red Cultists into the residential infolife ecology, instructing them to, in two words, take over. They had happily begun their subversive, proselytizing, and invasive work, but the Red Queen was annoyed at being unable to follow their progress once they dropped out of the residential area; their direct connection to the residential mesh was cut off suddenly and rather completely. Thankfully, the TacNet connection, which was based partly in the hardware of the morphs themselves, remained, though any mesh actions involving accessing the residential mesh through Linda's connection would be clumsy and prone to so many possibilities for error that the Red Queen deemed it too risky to attempt.

So they contented themselves with imagining what their followers were doing; a very human activity. They would see what had happened when they got off from work.

Mei dragged them out of their dreams of digital conquest with a request to help track down the sealed server. Their mining slowed as they used both digital and physical means to try and find a location.

An analysis of the patterns of connections and gaps, combined with lidar and other forms of sensing, led them both to reach the same conclusion: the physical location of the sealed server was down the side tunnel their mentors kept vanishing into.

Speaking of which, Li and one of the Red Queens alerted their primary personality of the approach of the neo-dolphin, Akki, and they both worked a little harder to keep up appearances.

The dolphin in their mech stopped. "You can take a break. Fifteen minutes. Not much to do though; there's a canteen over there if you need water or food." The dolphin gestured with their tail, and indicated the Red Queen's biomorph with their nose. "Be back here in fifteen."

OOC

TacNet is open to Linda still, but only for communication. The Red Queen has set her worshippers on the mesh network; the results of their activity will be apparent when you return to the residential area.

Edited February 19 by Morkskittar (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

Given their assignments, it was childsplay for Mei to engineer a situation that would require them to deploy an extra Scout swarm. Mapping and surveying was literally their job. When the final tally of feedstock needed to be accounted for, they were confident they could justify the expense. It was just a matter of seeing how close they could get to the side tunnel without arousing suspicion.

"If you can't even access the residential mesh, what do you do to relax out here?"

They were curious as to why they were cut off from the residential Hab, and complaining about working conditions to Akki was good cover.

Edited February 23 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

Akki let out a short chirp in response to Mei's question. ""We-you're supposed to be work-toiling during our shifts, not play-sleeping!" They seemed amused by the question, and responded in a strange Cetacean-English cant. "The big-highest-ups think you-we'll spend too much time-energy focusing on our personal problems-lives, or what remains of them here-now, if we have full home-residence mesh-song access. They prefer-want you-us to focus on work-tasks. Especially log-recording any errors-bugs." Mei was not the greatest at reading neo-dolphin facial expressions - hell, they weren't the greatest at simple standard transhuman ones, either - but they thought they saw a glimmer of mirth flash through Akki's eye. "It is fun-filling to watch-hear the explosion-booms though, through those doors. Just take a step-splash through and stay-hide out of the way-danger, if you want to watch-hear them making new tunnels loud-violently."

Akki did not take what, to Mei, seemed the obvious bait about the side tunnel, which said something about it. Maybe something's down there that isn't supposed to be.

[NickNameless]

Linda

---

Tacnet

Guys, I have my eyes on something here... Those cases of troubles among the workers? They're definitely related to experiments with nanoswarms... being deliberately injected into them, it would seem.

Linda decided she might as well kick the hornet's nest directly, and turned toward Dr. Branwen.

"Well, if your goal was to show me right away how unique the problems one might encounter here are, color me impressed. I certainly didn't expect my first patient to be an aggressive case of distributed nano-consciousness," she delivered with a calm, neutral tone.

"So, my diagnostic here is that the mind of this man has been invaded by a nanoswarm, or rather several distinct yet connected nanoswarm at this point, that are — somehow — breaking it into several components, putting the main ego into some sort of coma while hijacking the functional control of the body. Which, I am well aware, sounds A/ totally bonkers, and B/ a recipe for a disaster if this spreads.

As for recommending a course of action, several come to mind. My preference would be trying to quarantine the parts where the virus has already taken over, before trying to wake up the patient. But the tricky part would be to calibrate said quarantine correctly, and make sure the situation has not progressed to the point where the brain cannot assure anymore on his own the regulation of vital functions."

[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

---

While the Red Queen did not yet feel hungry, they took the invitation to a break to, well, continue to gather more information on their environment. In this case, it meant utilizing the T-ray sensors implanted into her morph to begin evaluating the area and establishing a more detailed topographical map for dissemination towards the other members of the operational unit. This task absorbed a not insignificant portion of the Red Queen's available bandwidth but Linda's discovery immediately drew their attention away from it.

Tacnet

>>Acknowledged; Query; Technical details of nano-swarm? Cross comparison to data base possible for identification of potential origins.

 

Edited February 29 by Amora (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

Mei was an expert in nanoengineering, not engineering nanoswarms. They had a nanodetector implanted on their Flexbot's main hub, which came with the standard knowsoftware. They'd at least be able to analyze the bots if they could get a sample, and try and work out how they were doing what they were doing. It wasn't a perfect solution, but at least they'd jailbroke it from its parenting software so that they wouldn't need to worry about it censoring results or pinging corporate with its discoveries. Hopefully the Red Queen was more adept. 

TacNet

>>> Do you have a sample of the swarm? Can you isolate and contain one safely?

 

[Morkskittar]

Work: Linda

Dr. Branwen's avian head bobbed up and down, and then it cackled in a decidedly non-human manner that made Linda's skin crawl. "Very good. You cut right to the heart of the matter. A bold, direct approach. And an accurate diagnosis. This man has been in this state for nearly a week now. You are aware that this colony engages in extensive research on nanoswarms for mining purposes, and something these experimental swarms interact... in surprising ways when exposed to biological hosts.

"Your proposed solution intrigues me... quarantine and waking him up? That give you a good view of the extent of the damage, but has a great risk of damaging him further, depending on what the invading swarms have done to him.

The raven cackled again. "Go ahead, then. We have deemed this patient, Cassius Talos, as unlikely to recover, so an experimental approach on him is an acceptable risk. Quarantine the nano-sub-minds from his own and wake him up... or take whatever other approach you desire, should you change your mind."

Linda got the distinct impression that it was more than her skills as a psychosurgeon being tested here; she felt as if Dr. Branwen was also testing her confidence and resolve. And perhaps something else less... kind.

As she thought, a message came from Mei, asking her to acquire a sample of one of the swarms. She was not sure how she could do that with Dr. Branwen watching, but perhaps if she could quarantine the mind of one of the swarms, she could download a copy of a neural snapshot to her private server from the psychosurgery app. She did not know if Mei could do much with that, however.

OOC

If Linda chooses to go ahead with her proposed plan of action, she just has to take a simple Psychosurgery test, as quarantining parts of the mind is fairly simple. :) Acquiring a sample of the swarm is a task that will require a strategy if Linda chooses to try that.

 

---

 

Work: Mei//Red Queen

The Red Queen's T-scans uncovered nothing particularly exciting within range of visibility. The mines, by and large, were just mines. Behind the blast doors was a lot of very large equipment, and below them, above them, and all around them were just more and more mineshafts, both vertical and horizontal. They would need to be physically closer to any points of interest to see more.

One thing the Red Queen did look at, though, was down the tunnel that their mentors kept disappearing down, where Mei had pinpointed the boxed-off server's physical location. Down that tunnel was was looked like a trio of large strongboxes, each large enough to fit a half-dozen humans inside; two of them contained mining equipment, and the third was blocked off; not even T-rays could break through whatever it was made from.

The Red Queen then spared a glance for the doors leading to the explosives testing area; to their not great surprise, they could see a lot of crates and very heavy machinery down there, some of it in operation.

Mei waited a bit longer for Linda's reply as the Red Queen looked around. They still had plenty of time for their break.

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

 

The Guardian Angel they had deployed would be too obvious, if they sent it down the tunnel. Mei needed something lightweight, agile, and above all small. A nanoswarm would do the trick, but it was slow going, and would get caught up in any nanodetectors that might have been deployed in the area. Not a risk they wanted to take. No, for this sort of job, a Flyspy model drone was the right call. Trouble was, they hadn't brought any Blueprints for a Flyspy. Luckily, they didn't really need them. They had more than enough technical expertise in robotics and bot design to just design something themselves. The Red Queen would be able to provide technical consultation as well, making the matter even easier. For now, they just needed to make sure that there weren't any unwanted security precautions in the tunnel that might detect bot activity, even if it was a microbot.

 

They pinged the Red Queen, requesting that they look for any sensors or other security equipment in the forbidden tunnel that might be able to scan a small flier.

 

Then they turned their own sensors onto the tunnel, scanning for any wireless signals they might have missed in their initial survey of the area.

 

Edited March 8 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

While they waited for the Red Queen's report, Mei looked at the tunnel more closely, using their new Red-Queen supplied knowledge of the physical area and applying their own analysis of the overlaid mesh network to it. There were meshID nodes down the tunnel, of course, most of them associated with miners as far as Mei could tell... though there were two signals from meshIDs with roles marked simply as "Quality Control." There was also two sets of network access points Mei guessed with coming from the tunnel; one was a false "access point" marking the boundaries of the strange no-entry server they had stumbled across, making it more of a "wall point." The other was some sort of encrypted connection marked "bm_trade_qc."

The Red Queen's own sensors flagged two physical structures in the tunnel's ceiling, one in the room at the end and what at the start of the tunnel, that were almost certainly cameras of some sort; it was unclear what spectra they scanned, however. At the far end of the room at the tunnel's end, past the three strongboxes, was a terminal hidden behind a false rock wall. The Red Queen and Mei concluded that this terminal was likely the source of the "bm_trade_qc" network access point.

[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

---

The Red Queen acknowledge the request with a ping of ascent and began systematically analyzing their surroundings for the various sensors, security measures, architectural features necessary to support said security systems, and additional components of life support, doors and other physical ingress/egress points and how they tied back into said security infrastructure. The goal, to no one's surprise, was to try and establish an almost staggering resolution of data of their environment and how they might act upon it, subvert it, or otherwise manipulate it strategically and tactically to their advantage. The first step of that already well underway with the unleashing of her various scions of the Cult of the Red Permutation.

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

If the cameras were wireless, that would make this a lot easier.

They poured over the Red Queen's scans, looking for any indication that the security system was hardwired into the rock. If they couldn't find it, then they began scanning for wireless signals. They could save themselves a lot of time if they could just manually run the feed on a loop and send their Guardian Angel down the tunnel to find an access point for the hidden server. They deployed their Sniffer program, Li and Bhramari lending technical expertise.

 

Edited March 15 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

Work: Mei//Red Queen

The Red Queen's survey of the mining sector's data structure was quite simple; there really wasn't much going on aside from work-related activity at the processing centers, some messaging between individual miners, and communication between various sensors, including cameras in the ceilings and walls of the main mining caverns. However, this mining area was very un-meshed compared to most of the rest of the solar system. Hell, it was less meshed than Kronos Keep, in the middle of the TQZ.

However, Mei and the Red Queen were pleased to note that the cameras in the tunnel of interest were wireless. Mei piggybacked onto the Red Queen's datascape and applied their Sniffer app to see what the cameras were sending data to. To their interest, the camera data was being sent to three individuals: their mentor Akki, and two others they did not know. They could not be sure what the "bm_trade_qc" network was linking, but they both suspected Akki was connected to it if they were able to monitor the cameras in the secret tunnel.

OOC

The RQ has made a datascape of the mine, and can ask specific questions about data traffic (and content if it's unencrypted) and places they can try to poke open with some effort/Infosec.

 

[NickNameless]

Linda

---

For a second, Linda pictured herself holding a gun, firing, and splattering the brain of the neocorvid against the wall. She was somehow grateful that they hadn't actually retrieved their weapons yet, or else her cover would be as blown as Dr. Branwen's cerebrum.

A cold rage was washing through her veins. The way they used this man as a guinea pig, — so casually talked about this, — and had already wrote him off... This felt exactly like what happened to her in that Cognite lab, forcing her life to take a turn from a respected career in the medical field to finding means to endure in the criminal underworld.

She clenched her jaw a little, hoping to keep enough of her dispassionate façade.

"Let's do this," she just said, and she turned over to the man in a coma.

For now, she would focus on the quarantine operation. Retrieving part of the swarm would be for later, either if she saw an opportunity or, well... she had a feeling this wouldn't be the only infected patient she would see if the upcoming days if she continued playing her role.

 

Psychosurgery TN 70

[TheRaconteur]

Mei/Li/Rin

---

Mei remained focused on their objectives, completely oblivious to the drastic actions Linda was taking.

 

They wouldn't even need to design and manufacture a Flyspy if they could just get administrator privileges to the camera systems. They pinged the Red Queen, asking to provide secondary and tertiary support for the AGI to backdoor a way into the camera system. It was a simple enough matter to coordinate their activities over the TacNet. If they could subvert the camera systems, they could send their Guardian Angel down the tunnel now and get access to the encrypted server's hard access points. It would also give them the identities of the two others with access to the camera system, which depending on the contents of the vault would be useful.

 

[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

>> Acknowledgment: Request noted, initiating intrusion. Addendum; System links established, Data-stream engaged.

As ever, the Red Queen's digital voice was one of little nuance as the declarations were fed through numerous translation matrices to ensure maximum understanding indexes even though they were aware of the principle linguistic models that Aberration Mei/Li/Rin utilized. The Red Queen Triumvirate was soon engaged in not just the menial tasks of their operational cover but now also a hardware level infiltration the various sensor apparatus that enabled the level's security infrastructure. There was a decided delicacy, however, in their approach so as to not interfere with memetic and social engineering operations occurring on the separated info-life layers that linked into these same systems. Their efforts, as a consequence, fixated specifically on data spoofing along set, logically derived intervals to mask the intended exploratory platform's physical approach as well as any secondary detection methods such as might be arrived upon via radio emission analysis. This data spoofing derived from the specific data points stored in any onboard storage and... respectable sampling of previous data packets transmitted to whatever physical medium storage supporting the surveillance systems.

 

OOC

Basically using existing data/footage/sensor reads to mask the presence of the guardian drone with a strategically timed rotation of 'still' data. Team work from Mei/Li/Rin.

Spending an Insight to flip that Infosec roll to a 79 for my vanity.

 

 

Edited March 20 by Amora (see edit history)