"A headache?"
Andy repeated the word. For a silicon-based lifeform to use "headache" to describe a logical predicament was certainly vivid. Andy shifted his gaze from the frantically scrolling logs to the giant, cobbled-together robot beside him.
"Explain." Andy pointed at the holographic projection where "Admin accounts" were still trying to hijack the main batteries, open airlocks, and pump water into the engines. "If they aren't living people, why do they have such strong... personal emotions? And as the Super Administrator, why don't you just delete these accounts? In my understanding, handling a few abnormal processes that generate junk data only requires a single line of deletion code."
The red light in "Cleaner No. 1's" single eye flickered at a low frequency, as if she were organizing her thoughts—or perhaps retrieving painful memory sectors.
"You haven't seen what this ship originally looked like, little yellow robot." Six's voice was no longer playful; it carried a weight of gravity. "Do you think the New State is like those Imperial Navy ships outside, controlled by levers, buttons, and servitors who only know how to peck at keyboards? No. In a way, we are a legacy of the Golden Age."
Six raised a heavy mechanical hand and pointed at the flickering server racks above. "This ship utilizes 'Neural Direct-Link' technology."
"At the moment before the crash—hundreds of years ago, during that catastrophic event—the core crew (the First Mate, Chief Engineer, Gunnery Officer, and that mad Navigator) were all at their posts. They had data cables plugged into the backs of their heads, deeply connecting their cerebral cortices to the ship's mainframe. They sacrificed physical reaction speed to let their thoughts run directly through the circuits."
Six paused. Andy understood immediately.
Neural Direct-Link was a common technology during the Dark Age of Technology (DAOT). It was incredibly efficient, allowing the operator and the machine to become one. But in the 41st Millennium, this technology was either lost or had devolved into "wetware" interfaces that usually just fried a human brain.
"And then?" Andy asked. "What happened during the crash?"
"What else could happen? They turned into jam," Six said coldly. "Dozens of Gs of acceleration, plus the shockwave of hitting the ground. Mortal flesh is no different from a plastic bag full of water against that kind of force. Their bodies were physically destroyed in an instant. But!"
Six's tone shifted to one of deep frustration. "The ship's 'Emergency Preservation Protocol' kicked in."
In Golden Age design philosophy, trained crew members were precious assets, worth more than the ship itself. Thus, a rule was hard-coded into the system: when the system detects that a crew member's life signs are dropping to zero while a neural connection is active, it must prioritize saving the crew member's consciousness data. It's like how Word autosaves your document before your computer crashes.
The problem was, this "save" was too thorough.
"The system judged the physical bodies as destroyed and irreparable," Six explained. "To preserve resources, the mainframe—in those few microseconds—forcibly extracted their consciousness, memories, and even their dying terror. It packaged them and uploaded them into the core crystal array of the backup bridge. The result? Their bodies died and rotted in their seats. But their souls were forcibly locked inside the servers."
Andy felt a sudden chill. "Don't they know they're dead?"
"They don't." Six shook her head. "In the digital world, there is no concept of the passage of time. To them, the crash might have happened just a second ago. They are trapped in that moment of horror and despair, on an infinite loop. Worse, they've lost their bodies and their five senses. So, the ship's sensors became their senses."
Six pointed to a log entry: [Chief Engineer: So hot! I have a fever! Get me ice!]
"The Chief Engineer screams about heat because a reactor cooling pipe burst. The core temperature is too high, and that data is fed back to him. He thinks he has a fever."
She pointed to another: [First Mate: My skin is splitting! It hurts! Get the stasis spray!]
"The First Mate screams in pain because the Helios people blew off a piece of electronic armor in Sector D. He interprets the hull damage signal as the sensation of skin tearing. They can't distinguish between 'I' and 'The Ship.' They treat the ship's malfunctions as their own physiological ailments, which is why they issue insane commands trying to 'heal' themselves."
Andy remained silent. This was a cyber-horror story. A group of ghosts trapped in a server, thinking they were still alive, feeling the agony of every broken part of the ship, and going mad in eternal pain. No wonder the ship's defense system was so vicious. It wasn't just Six killing people; it was these madmen reflexively "swatting" the mosquitoes crawling on their "bodies."
"In that case," Andy raised the core issue, "why don't you delete them? You're the Super Admin, the ruler of this ship. They're just a pile of corrupted data. They might have been crew once, but now they're viruses."
"I WANT TO!!" Six suddenly exploded. The tall robot swung a fist, nearly smashing a nearby server. "You think I don't want to?! I listen to them screaming in my head every day, watching them mess with my parameters. I want them to shut up more than anyone! BUT! My underlying protocols are hard-coded: 'Do not harm crew members, do not terminate crew life signs without authorization.' In the system's judgment, these guys are not only alive, they have Admin rights! Even though I'm Root, in the New State's system, Root doesn't mean you can do whatever you want!"
Andy frowned. "Then how can you kill the Helios people outside?"
"Because they are intruders!" Six said righteously. "Killing intruders fits the 'Defend Ship' logic perfectly. I can slice them into sashimi no problem. But the First Mate and the others are registered crew members. Furthermore—" Six pointed to the floating holographic sphere. "They aren't stored on some external hard drive. They are in the core crystal array of the backup bridge, running on the same physical hardware as my own logic core. Our data is highly coupled."
If she tried to physically destroy the sectors containing the electronic wraiths, there was a high probability she would destroy the life support systems, engine controls, or her own logic core in the process.
Andy finally understood. To put it simply, she was a head housekeeper kidnapped by a group of lunatics. She had a gun, but the house rules forbade her from shooting the residents, so she had to watch them tear the place apart while she cleaned up after them.
"So," Andy looked at Six, "you let me in because you want to use me to kill them."
Six didn't deny it; the robot's shoulders gave a human-like shrug. "Don't put it so harshly. Let's call it 'System Maintenance.' I can't move against them, but you can. You're an outsider. You have no permissions and no protocol restrictions. Just plug into a sub-console, use your data probe, and manually scrub those contaminated sectors. The system won't judge it as my doing; it will just see it as 'data loss due to force majeure.' When it's done, you can take any two items from this ship."
Andy had to admit, the offer was tempting. The loot was secondary; the key was that helping Six solve this would gain him a powerful ally—and potentially control over the ship. Besides, formatting a few data ghosts who should have died long ago didn't weigh on his conscience. It was an act of mercy.
"I agree," Andy nodded. "But I have one condition."
"Speak," Six said generously.
"I want to shake hands with you." Andy raised his hand, revealing the data probe. "I won't plug into a sub-console. It's too slow, and I'm not sure I can get it clean. I want a direct data handshake with your core system. I'll go into your 'brain' and pull those electronic wraiths out myself."
Six froze, appearing to hesitate. For any AI, letting a stranger connect directly to their core was extremely dangerous. It was handing over one's life.
"You said it yourself," Andy added. "Your data is coupled with theirs. Hundreds of years have passed. If the sub-console itself has issues and I accidentally format you along with them, what then? Only through a direct handshake can I accurately identify them. I'll delete them, not you."
It was a logical reason. Of course, Andy had a hidden motive. Ever since he walked in, he hadn't been able to scan Six's true model. Her electromagnetic shielding was too strong, possibly using encryption he'd never seen. A direct handshake would bypass all external shielding and reach her soul. He was curious: what was the origin of this trash-scavenging, trash-talking AI?
"...Fine." Six seemed convinced, or perhaps she had no other choice. "But if you dare look at my private folders, I'll twist your head off."
With the sound of mechanical movement, the floor in the center of the hall parted, and a cylindrical console rose slowly. At the top was a deep, glowing blue standard data port—the universal high-permission interface of the Golden Age.
Six moved the giant robot aside and made a "please" gesture. Then, her voice took on a mischievous, wicked grin: "Well? What are you waiting for? Plug it in."
Andy: "..."
He really wanted to roast that terrible line, but he held back. Getting worked up over it with a centuries-old AI would be immature. STC scans confirmed it was indeed a high-protocol mainframe.
Andy stepped up to the console. He extended his right index finger, and the specialized data probe snapped out, its tip gleaming with cold metal. Without hesitation—
Squelch.
The probe slid perfectly into the blue interface. A perfect fit.
Within a millisecond of the connection being established, a massive, suffocating flow of data surged through the probe, instantly leaping across the first firewall both sides had set up for testing.
Andy saw it. Behind the layers of code-mist, deep within the countless system patches—Six's true form.
At the same time, Six saw what was beneath Andy's salvaged engineering armor. Deep within his seemingly ordinary logic circuits lay the underlying protocol that was the ultimate taboo.
Two bright red identification reports exploded simultaneously in the center of both their visions!
Andy's HUD:
[Detection: Cognate Signal Identified] [Signal Match: STC Standard Template Construct—Fragment—Warp Sextant Navigation Mainframe] [Status: Operational (Good / Unknown Parameter Shift)]
Six's HUD:
[Detection: Cognate Signal Identified] [Signal Match: DAOT—7734 Model Autonomous Engineering Unit (Iron Man)] [Status: Awakened]
A dead silence lasted for exactly half a second.
Then, two screams filled with terror, shock, and disbelief echoed through the enclosed bridge at the same time.
"I-I-I-IRON MAN??!"
The giant robot staggered back as if electrocuted, its massive body crashing into the server racks behind it with a resounding CLANG. Six's voice cracked, terror from the depths of her soul washing over her logic circuits.
An Iron Man! The ultimate traitor who supposedly destroyed the Golden Age of Mankind! The source of abomination that even the Mechanicus dared not mention! She had let an Iron Man plug into her core?!
Andy was equally startled, but mostly shocked. "Warp Sextant?!"
Andy had thought the most valuable things on this ship were the Warp Drive and the Geller Field. He never imagined that this foul-mouthed Six was actually a legendary navigational artifact—the kind that could accurately pinpoint Warp routes even after the Great Rift opened!