[RFC][Story] Mission to Arcadia

[Dartz]

[b]контактt[/b]
May 2024

40 year old computer hardware awakens.  Google translate earns its keep.

------

The compartment was filled with racks of electronics. Cables fed into stacked boards of bubble memory, feeding data to logic boards with soldered integrated circuits.  Warm bulbs glowed orange on boxes of electronics. Cables hummed with electric power. The smell of warm plastic and dry dust filled the air. A cathode ray screen which should've been displaying missile tracking data instead contained a single line of text, printed in orange monochrome.

>>: Есть кто-нибудь?

Is there anybody there? Anika stared at it, feeling herself go cold inside. A new line began to print out beneath it.

>>: кто-нибудь?

She frantically dug around the mess of equipment, searching for the keyboard.

>>: Кто-нибудь, пожалуйста?

"I'm here!" she called out, panting. "I'm here!". Where was that keyboard? She swept a tray of diagnostic tools onto the green steel floor, finding the dusty keyboard. She fumbled with the lead, searching for something it'd plug in to.

There was a mind in there... a person. Whoever they were, they were living in the computer around her. Whoever they were - the had nothing. Nothing but a computer monitor and the hope that something was on the other end of it.

>>: помогите мне!

Help me. They were getting desperate. Trapped inside a dinosaur system, reaching out for someone to rescue them, and no way to receive an answer. Nothing but existance in a senseless void of being. She struggled to get the keyboard plug into its socket.

Soviet-era plug into Soviet-era socket, complete with Soviet -era smoke and  a Soviet-era crack in the casing. The cable had begun to fray, fabric covering revealing split insulation and bare copper wire inside.

She had to hope it work. Inspite of the decades worth of dust, dirt and grime.

>>: кто-нибудь? Пожалуйста, помогите!

Whoever it was had detected the keyboard, she figured. She reached out to an interwave-based translation service and hoped the old keyboard would work. The keys clattered as she typed

>>: Я здесь

There was a pause.

>>: Спасибо

Thank you. It worked! Anika exhaled one long hot breath

>>: Кто вы?

It was asking who she was. She felt a thrill run through her. Anika introduced herself.

>>: Меня зовут Аника. Вы?

The cursor onscreen flashed for three beats as the mind considered her answer.

>>: Лунь Алексеева

Lun Alekseeva. It was a person. There was a person inside there! She sobered up as soon as she remembered what'd happened with Shinji.

>>: Вы знаете, где вы находитесь?

There was a pause. She dreaded the answer.

>>: Экраноплан Лунь. Компьютер управления ракетой

It knew. Warm relief washed over her. At least, whoever was inside the machine, understood they were inside the machine. Another line printed onscreen.

>>: Я не человеческий?

Anika pondered for a moment.

>>: Нет, мы не.

The cursor pulsed onscreen. She stared at it, at her own reflection in the monitor glass. Machine-translated Russian wasn't the most convenient way to communicate. She started to wonder if there wasn't some sort of camera kicking around. Or a set of speakers and a microphone.

On the ekranoplan, there was nothing but offcuts of old Soviet junk, and the crates it was to be shipped out in. She reached out onto Frigga's communication's network.

"Jet. Jet... you better get down here. It's important."

-----

"Really?"

Jet stood in the hatch, disbelief etched on her  face. Cables dangled from a pouch strapped to her hip.

"Yes." Anika confirmed it with a nod. "She's in the whole system."

In the ten minutes it'd taken Jet to scream down, Anika'd managed to at least get everything open and ready. Jet glanced around the compartment, at the racks filled with electronics.

"The whole lot?"

Anika confirmed it with a nod. "Her name's Lun Alekseeva, a Lieutenant in the Soviet Northern Fleet."

Jet had a horrible thought. "Does she know?"

Anika nodded again.

The cyber relaxed. "Thank fuck." She picked her way around a rack containing the system's memory banks, before placing the equipment strapped to her hip on what had been the radar operator's work console. It was a set of speakers, a microphone stolen from the control room, a multimeter and some basic soldering equipment.

She looked down at Anika, then at the tangle of cables and missing indicators that made up the remains of the console. Two of the panels had already been lifted to expose the logic underneath.

Jet took a breath. "Now. Where the fuck do we start?"

Anika didn't answer her, the android just took a step back from the panels. It wasn't like doing maintenance on a warped actuator in her body, that was for sure. The whole basic system was effectively Lun's brain. They were about to attempt what effectively amounted open brain surgery on a living person.

"I/O logic?" suggested Anika

"Where's that?" Jet asked. Her eyes scanned the racks.

Anika was silent for a moment. She looked at the socket where the keyboard connected, tracing cables along under what appeared to be some sort of flyback transformer

"I have no idea," answered Anika tentatively. "A.C.?" she suggested, with a nervous smile.

"We rely on her way too much," Jet said. She placed her hands on her hips, trying and failing to take the whole thing in. "This is oil-change stuff."

Anika looked up at her, pursing her lips as she pondered. "I'll see if Lun has any hints."

"Uhn," nodded Jet. A slight glazed look in her eyes let Anika know her attention was focused elsewhere. "The cyber's guide is more concerned with old PCs and car ECUs. Nothing about old soviet missile computers."

"Worth a try," said Anika, softly. She keyed in her questions to Lun. The answer took a few seconds."She says her missile systems are active. The in-flight guidance controller for the missile should do it."

"Right." Jet took a cantering breath, taking the multimeter in her empty hand. She gave it an uncertain look. "This is going to be fun."

For a definition of fun.

The both felt like they were standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain, stretching up before them into the clouds. And somewhere up top was someone they didn't know, and had only just heard existed in the first place - who needed their help.

They got to work. Step-by-step, from the beginning.

After an hour mapping circuits at Lun's direction, Jet dragged her puppet in. It's smaller fingers did a better job in tight spaces. Music from a small stereo added a little background noise to keep the pair focused as they traded information and noted values.

Jet Jaguar slowly built up a map of the system as she moved through it, drawing a rough diagram in the back of her mind to help orientate herself. Anika added to it using a tablet computer and Stylus. Circuit operations and signalling parameters were simulated using design software thirty years younger than the system it was asked to analyse, then confirmed on the actual system.

Or not.

Hour two brought some assistance from the interwave - a few who'd more experience with handling AI's were on the other line. Jet relayed video using her helmet-cam as she worked, pointers and suggestions being offered by those on the list who watched.

It was mind-numbing work. But it was necessary.  The heat of the room started to soak into them. Even with every door and hatch open to allow air to circulate, two tons of electronics made for an uncomfortable amount of heat.

Nobody could believe that a mind had awoken in an ancient missile computer made with discrete electronics. That was a question for the researchers to worry about.  What felt like hour three turned out to be hour six when Jet's personal alarm went off in her mind, reminding her that she had to teach a Blitzkrieg class.

It was an excuse for a three hour break to unwind and come back fresh to the problem.

Ultimately, even with outside help and Lun one their side, it took them most of the day just to figure out what input the system needed. Output signals followed the same format...more or less.

It took almost as long again to figure how to get those inputs and outputs from the hardware they had to hand.

It was a caffeine and sugar fuelled electronics binge, leading to a kludged together digital converter built from an FPGA, an old laptop and a schizophrenic rat's nest of cables and jump-leads criss-crossing the control panel.

It was well into the next day when the speaker began to hiss. It chirped and squawked, fizzing and popping before returning to a steady hiss.

Jet Jaguar stopped work, placing her tools on top of her toolbox. Anika stared at her, mouth hanging open. They both slowly turned their heads towards the microphone.

"Do you?" offered Jet,  her voice barely above a whisper..

"You're closer," said Anika, stepping away from the remains of the control panel.

Jet took the mic in her metal hand, bringing it close to her face.

"Can you hear us?"

Both stared at the speaker. It warbled, chattered and squawked worldessly at them.

"I'll tune it," whispered Anika. She stepped gently around the back of Jet, nudging the cyber slightly as she passed.

Jet tried again "Can you hear us?"

Anika held up her hand, tweaking some of the converter's components with a screwdriver

A strangled squawk emerged from the speaker, for the first time sounding like a coherent response. It was answering - it wasn't just noise. It was a word - unidentifiable, but definitely a word.  A giddy thrill took hold of Jet.

"Keep trying," she said, urging Lun on. "Can you hear us?"

The answer was almost a sentence. It was warped, distorted almost beyond recognition like a radio just slightly too far out of tune - but still unmistakeable.

Anika's hands were shaking as she made one last final adjustment. If she'd been human, she was sure she'd be sweating. As it was, she could feel herself grow scorching hot inside, her mind racing as she worked through the circuit, trying to get that final solid lock on the signal.

"We've got you. We've got you. Just keep speaking."

There was silence for a moment, a slight pause. Anika made one final adjustment.

"I can hear you! I can hear you! I am here! I can hear you!"

It was a woman's voice speaking clear, Russian-accented English. It was a woman who was beyond joy to have finally made contact with someone. She was laughing, switching back to her native language for a moment in her excitement.

It was noisy, still sounding like a distant radio transmission. But it was there, and it was her. Speaking to them.

"Fuck yeah!" yelled Jet, her hoarse voice filling the entire compartment.

Anika screamed with joy, over a day's work culminating in one moment that made it all worthwhile

The speaker crackled once more. "I am Lun Alekseeva. It's good to hear someone's voice at last."

"It's good to hear you," Anika answered.

It was, in many ways, such a simple thing to do. Both of them were certain there were many fans who could've done it far faster, or with far more elegance and skill.

But that didn't stop it feeling like a genuine achievement. Not for one moment.

-----

________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?