........... Arise from thy grave. (I'm amazed at the ability of gainful employment to kill my ability to form a story. I get all my ideas at my desk, and they're gone by the time I get home)
----------------------------------
Hi-streamer steamed in the hangar, metal creaking and groaning as it contracted. The air was heavy with the cold scent of boiling refrigerants, mingling with sulphurous jet-fuel and sweet oils. Parked up and waiting, it seemed positively alive, towering over a dozen catgirls busily attaching power supplies and network cables to various pieces of hardware. Excomps swarmed around, supplying tools or generally annoying their partners and being shooed away.
One, painted a garish Bubblegum Pink, seemed especially interested in her, sensors tasting the air around her as it circled.
It made her skin crawl.
She passed in front of the nose, a crackle of energy shooting through the wires in her body reminding her that most of the main systems hadn't been shut down. The catgirls were interested solely in testing the IDAR they'd developed for it, burying themselves in their tests. Anika watched from outside the frenetic furball for a few minutes, peculiarly aware that she was one of two people on the station that didn't have fur or a tail.
Not including the computer systems, of course.
There was something vaguely creepy about the way they worked that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Most of them had their own headsets and communicators, each one colourfully decorated. All of them seemed to exist in their own parallel dimension, aware of a different world than what she could see herself.
None of them appearred to be talking to each other, just babbling to their headsets, while grasping at thin air images of things only they could see. It certainly didn't help that being products of the catgirling gave the whole group a certain level of uniformity.
A hive of catgirls was what came to mind, directed by an unseen queen.
She paced around, watching more and more panels get pulled open across the back of the big fighter, hooking up various instruments and monitors. Shhe felt it in her wires when the IDAR array hummed to life, the crackling scent of ozone and boiling ammonia filling the air. Arm-thick power-feeds shrouded themselves in mist, feeding the array with hundreds of amps of electricity. One of stood stood upright in the engine exhaust, getting her picture taken.
There were plenty of full-blown cruisers that came in smaller on the size and weight scale.
An electric spark of pride shot through her veins. It was, in many way the brutal and inelegant opposite of the Simurghs and Blackbirds - elegant machines designed to be the precise peak of technology. Hi-Streamer did what it did through being a oversized sledgehammer of a thing.
"Oh, here you go sweetling," A voice from over her shoulder grabbed for her attention.An innocently smiling catgirl stood beside her, offering a headset to her. "It's set up with a guest account so you can help if needed. And find your way around"
Anika suppressed the involuntary shudder that crawled up her spine at the utterance of that word. "Thanks."
For a moment she thought the headband would snap in her hands as she slipped the set over her hair
Projected for her was the hivemind plan the catgirls were working to. A dozen wireframe graphics drifted around the Hi-Streamer, overlaying cutaways on top of the bare metal. Catgirls followed work directions mapped out across the fuselage. The earpiece carried the humm of information from the station's mind, directing the whole felinoid hive. It was the hidden order behind the chaos of catgirls.
"Wow..." she breathed
"Pretty cool, huh?" grinned the tabby catgirl. "Just ask and it'll show you to your guest quarters."
The path to guest quarters was overlayed upon what was otherwise a maze of featureless, unlabelled uniform corridors. It occurred to her that, without the benefit of a headset it'd be very easy for someone to get lost. She wasn't sure that wasn't the intention either....
Guest quarters was just another unlabelled door, in another corridor, not far from something that smelled suspiciously like tobacco smoke. It opened with a faint whirr, greeting her with the sight of Mackie sitting cross-legged on the floor, with his case-computer flipped open in front of him.
On the screen, a very naked image of a very familiar raven-haired woman. Anika blinked.
"Is that?"
"It's a software project," he answered, quickly.
A very naked software project, at first glance.
"If these are real..."
The obvious question being first, how? Then, how the hell he got away with it? And for how long?
"Of course they aren't. The project was to build a 3-D model based on a series of 2-D images - I just added a few features."
A sly smile crawled across his lips.
"So, you used A.C. Peters as a test?"
"It's as good a test as any," he shrugged his shoulder shamelessly. "And I can dress the model in anything.... Maid outfit...." A click on the touchpad dressed the model in the traditional black and white French outfit, with lovingly modelled riffles. Another click brought up the next outfit - a brilliant white leotard with a blood-red skirt and neckerchief "Mars uniform..." he grinned, before adding a few keyboard commands to the prompt. "...or I can pipe it to the sis's Basic Hardsuit Layout Program which gives me either the Kulbit Flight Suit, or even a hardsuit joint-motor template."
Both of them following the same red and white colourscheme... the hardsuit especially seeming like it had been lavished far more than the cursory attention a computer program would've given it. There'd been some manual corrections made, especially around the chest and hips. Saber Mars even struck an animated pose, verifying the join's mobility and freedom.
"And since the old version's in the Stingray project package already and used for the Kulbit flightsuit, I can demonstrate a practical use of the project for extra credit." Mackie beamed at his accomplishment.
"There's no way the resolution will be as good as our laser-scanner."
That was the only thing that came to her mind.
"It gets much better with a larger sample size. And it's very easy to get a big sample-size for A.C. since she's been popular for so long," he explained. "So it's really not what you think. It's a helpful tool for prototyping, layout and mockup, rather than the detail work."
Anika glared dubiously at it, pursing her lips into a tight pout.
"The fun part is, it works in reverse too because it has to estimate and strip clothing." A click brought up an image of his Sister in her armour. Another stripped the armour away. "That's what Sis'd look like under her hardsuit, if she were human."
"Freaky."Anika cringed away from the distorted humanoid onscreen. She blinked, a chilling idea entering her mind."Wait, you can use this to undress any woman?"
"Ah...." Mackie's mouth hung open for a moment "I plead the second."
All Anika could do was glower at him. "If she finds out," she sighed. "It's on your head."
"It's less explicit than most of what's on Deviantart," he said with a carefree shrug. "The limits are obvious."
Anika slid a chair for herself across, the open-back design allowing her to comfortably swing her legs in under the seat-back, letting her rest her chin on her folded arms
"You know, Maico used software like this to guess who was inside the Knight Saber's hardsuits."
"Where do you think I got the idea?"
Something about tat made her feel just that little uncomfortable inside, though she couldn't quite put a numerical value of the feeling, only that it was occurring somewhere in her mind and that it really wasn't pleasant, like all the hydraulic pressure in her body had suddenly drained away. Time to change the subject.
"I have to build two more for evaluation.... to the production plans," she said. "I can't afford the five we'd need to order from Hepheastus."
"Best option is to post the basic specs to a builder's forum and get some quotes," he answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
"Well excuse me for not having done this before," she sat upright, pouting sourly at him with her arms folded. Seeing Mackie wouldn't take no, she slumped back down into the chair. "Could've bought a Simurgh for the cost of going through this."
"That's just part of the fun of being a builder!" Mackie grinned at her. "Spending more for an inferior product, but at least you have the pride of it being unique in any hanger."
Anika glared.
"Heh..." Mackie managed a nervous smile.
"I still need to get someone to build them. It's got to be secret..."She paused."And your engines are a problem."
One which made building the thing his problem because if he hadn't put a drive that ran on Plutonium in the thing they could've had it made anywhere with the right security rating but now they had to find someone they could genuinely trust. Either with the whole truth, or to just take it on faith to not look to hard.
"That leaves two options..." Mackie trailed off into sigh, sitting back into his chair. "And one of them involves a conversation I don't really want to have." His finger began rapidly tapping on the computer case.
Anika thought for a moment. "It'd be nice to hand responsibility for this thing over to people who might know better..."
Mackie started. "Doing that without telling Ben first? I don't want to betray him like that."
He began to stare out the window, slumping under the weight of it all. All the energy had drained from his face, leaving only drawn fatigued eyes that'd come to know sin in a truly scientific way. Anika breathed lead trying to get her mind around it.
"Serizawa's dilemma,"Anika breathed, wondering just who Serizawa was. "I still think you need to tell someone."
"This isn't a software bug that'll install adware," Mackie said, the energy and life leaving his voice. "This is a method to make a weapon that'll shatter Genaros, or smash Kandor's dome, or poison everyone in Marduck, make a crater out of Newport, or turn Ultima station into glowing ashes. Or wake the Sleeping Giants and really piss them off. All it takes is one person." He raised a single finger on his right hand. "Just one with motivation, materials and machine tools to do it." Brown eyes stared through her. "And if I tell anyone about this, and that person finds out how because I tell someone about it, then I'm responsible. It's my fault. I don't want to be responsible for that."
Anika drew down a deep cooling breath, clearing the heat that fogged her mind. "You know how I feel. The Hacker Ethic demands full disclosure."
"This is evil knowledge."
"Evil..."
She shrunk back a moment, blinking owlishly.
"Yes," Mackie nodded. "Nuclear weapons are evil. Nothing good can ever come from them. Only terror and destruction." Mackie squirmed in his seat, but the burden of knowledge refused to shift it's weight. It just pushed him down all the harder. He pushed himself to his feet, stretching with a hollow yawn, shrugging it off as best as he could.
Anika embraced the chair in front of her like it was her lifeline in a stormy sea. She looked up at him, a thought forming in the back of her mind. It refused to go away, even as a part of herself laughed at the idea.
She look up at him, the faintest smile reaching her lips. "You've changed."
"Huh?" He looked down at her, one eyebrow slightly raise.
"You look older."
Just that little step beyond the Madboy... but not quite a madman. Anika smirked inwardly at her own joke, a perplexed expression crossing Mackie's face for a moment before his eyes turned down towards his feet.
"Oh, where are you coming from, soldier, gaunt soldier,
With weapons beyond any reach of my mind,
With weapons so deadly the world must grow older
And die in its tracks, if it does not turn kind?"
Anika sat upright, her mouth slowly hinging open.
"Yeah. I know a poem. Don't act so shocked," Mackie boyish grin returned with full force. He shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Everyone knows the Space Shuttles have a secret story they don't tell anyone. Young Lancers get a different story when they first spread their wings."
Anika didn't want to admit that she'd forgotten where he really came from. She played with a lock of her hair, musing at something that vanished from her conscioussness like a whisp of smoke when she tried to grab at it with her fingers.
Mackie slowly sat himself back down, the back of the chair creaking as he sat himself back into it, his arms dropping to his side. He closed his eyes, slowly breathing out while Anika leant forward, resting against the back of her chair again, softly drumming her fingers.
"Since you don't want Ben to find out yet, that leaves me with just one choice. That's going to be a fun email." She closed her eyes, composing it at the speed of thought in the back of her mind. "At least we know they can handle the electronics anyway."
"This time next year, we'll be rich enough to have our own yards." Mackie breathed. "Sis's been saying that for three years."
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________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
----------------------------------
Hi-streamer steamed in the hangar, metal creaking and groaning as it contracted. The air was heavy with the cold scent of boiling refrigerants, mingling with sulphurous jet-fuel and sweet oils. Parked up and waiting, it seemed positively alive, towering over a dozen catgirls busily attaching power supplies and network cables to various pieces of hardware. Excomps swarmed around, supplying tools or generally annoying their partners and being shooed away.
One, painted a garish Bubblegum Pink, seemed especially interested in her, sensors tasting the air around her as it circled.
It made her skin crawl.
She passed in front of the nose, a crackle of energy shooting through the wires in her body reminding her that most of the main systems hadn't been shut down. The catgirls were interested solely in testing the IDAR they'd developed for it, burying themselves in their tests. Anika watched from outside the frenetic furball for a few minutes, peculiarly aware that she was one of two people on the station that didn't have fur or a tail.
Not including the computer systems, of course.
There was something vaguely creepy about the way they worked that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Most of them had their own headsets and communicators, each one colourfully decorated. All of them seemed to exist in their own parallel dimension, aware of a different world than what she could see herself.
None of them appearred to be talking to each other, just babbling to their headsets, while grasping at thin air images of things only they could see. It certainly didn't help that being products of the catgirling gave the whole group a certain level of uniformity.
A hive of catgirls was what came to mind, directed by an unseen queen.
She paced around, watching more and more panels get pulled open across the back of the big fighter, hooking up various instruments and monitors. Shhe felt it in her wires when the IDAR array hummed to life, the crackling scent of ozone and boiling ammonia filling the air. Arm-thick power-feeds shrouded themselves in mist, feeding the array with hundreds of amps of electricity. One of stood stood upright in the engine exhaust, getting her picture taken.
There were plenty of full-blown cruisers that came in smaller on the size and weight scale.
An electric spark of pride shot through her veins. It was, in many way the brutal and inelegant opposite of the Simurghs and Blackbirds - elegant machines designed to be the precise peak of technology. Hi-Streamer did what it did through being a oversized sledgehammer of a thing.
"Oh, here you go sweetling," A voice from over her shoulder grabbed for her attention.An innocently smiling catgirl stood beside her, offering a headset to her. "It's set up with a guest account so you can help if needed. And find your way around"
Anika suppressed the involuntary shudder that crawled up her spine at the utterance of that word. "Thanks."
For a moment she thought the headband would snap in her hands as she slipped the set over her hair
Projected for her was the hivemind plan the catgirls were working to. A dozen wireframe graphics drifted around the Hi-Streamer, overlaying cutaways on top of the bare metal. Catgirls followed work directions mapped out across the fuselage. The earpiece carried the humm of information from the station's mind, directing the whole felinoid hive. It was the hidden order behind the chaos of catgirls.
"Wow..." she breathed
"Pretty cool, huh?" grinned the tabby catgirl. "Just ask and it'll show you to your guest quarters."
The path to guest quarters was overlayed upon what was otherwise a maze of featureless, unlabelled uniform corridors. It occurred to her that, without the benefit of a headset it'd be very easy for someone to get lost. She wasn't sure that wasn't the intention either....
Guest quarters was just another unlabelled door, in another corridor, not far from something that smelled suspiciously like tobacco smoke. It opened with a faint whirr, greeting her with the sight of Mackie sitting cross-legged on the floor, with his case-computer flipped open in front of him.
On the screen, a very naked image of a very familiar raven-haired woman. Anika blinked.
"Is that?"
"It's a software project," he answered, quickly.
A very naked software project, at first glance.
"If these are real..."
The obvious question being first, how? Then, how the hell he got away with it? And for how long?
"Of course they aren't. The project was to build a 3-D model based on a series of 2-D images - I just added a few features."
A sly smile crawled across his lips.
"So, you used A.C. Peters as a test?"
"It's as good a test as any," he shrugged his shoulder shamelessly. "And I can dress the model in anything.... Maid outfit...." A click on the touchpad dressed the model in the traditional black and white French outfit, with lovingly modelled riffles. Another click brought up the next outfit - a brilliant white leotard with a blood-red skirt and neckerchief "Mars uniform..." he grinned, before adding a few keyboard commands to the prompt. "...or I can pipe it to the sis's Basic Hardsuit Layout Program which gives me either the Kulbit Flight Suit, or even a hardsuit joint-motor template."
Both of them following the same red and white colourscheme... the hardsuit especially seeming like it had been lavished far more than the cursory attention a computer program would've given it. There'd been some manual corrections made, especially around the chest and hips. Saber Mars even struck an animated pose, verifying the join's mobility and freedom.
"And since the old version's in the Stingray project package already and used for the Kulbit flightsuit, I can demonstrate a practical use of the project for extra credit." Mackie beamed at his accomplishment.
"There's no way the resolution will be as good as our laser-scanner."
That was the only thing that came to her mind.
"It gets much better with a larger sample size. And it's very easy to get a big sample-size for A.C. since she's been popular for so long," he explained. "So it's really not what you think. It's a helpful tool for prototyping, layout and mockup, rather than the detail work."
Anika glared dubiously at it, pursing her lips into a tight pout.
"The fun part is, it works in reverse too because it has to estimate and strip clothing." A click brought up an image of his Sister in her armour. Another stripped the armour away. "That's what Sis'd look like under her hardsuit, if she were human."
"Freaky."Anika cringed away from the distorted humanoid onscreen. She blinked, a chilling idea entering her mind."Wait, you can use this to undress any woman?"
"Ah...." Mackie's mouth hung open for a moment "I plead the second."
All Anika could do was glower at him. "If she finds out," she sighed. "It's on your head."
"It's less explicit than most of what's on Deviantart," he said with a carefree shrug. "The limits are obvious."
Anika slid a chair for herself across, the open-back design allowing her to comfortably swing her legs in under the seat-back, letting her rest her chin on her folded arms
"You know, Maico used software like this to guess who was inside the Knight Saber's hardsuits."
"Where do you think I got the idea?"
Something about tat made her feel just that little uncomfortable inside, though she couldn't quite put a numerical value of the feeling, only that it was occurring somewhere in her mind and that it really wasn't pleasant, like all the hydraulic pressure in her body had suddenly drained away. Time to change the subject.
"I have to build two more for evaluation.... to the production plans," she said. "I can't afford the five we'd need to order from Hepheastus."
"Best option is to post the basic specs to a builder's forum and get some quotes," he answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
"Well excuse me for not having done this before," she sat upright, pouting sourly at him with her arms folded. Seeing Mackie wouldn't take no, she slumped back down into the chair. "Could've bought a Simurgh for the cost of going through this."
"That's just part of the fun of being a builder!" Mackie grinned at her. "Spending more for an inferior product, but at least you have the pride of it being unique in any hanger."
Anika glared.
"Heh..." Mackie managed a nervous smile.
"I still need to get someone to build them. It's got to be secret..."She paused."And your engines are a problem."
One which made building the thing his problem because if he hadn't put a drive that ran on Plutonium in the thing they could've had it made anywhere with the right security rating but now they had to find someone they could genuinely trust. Either with the whole truth, or to just take it on faith to not look to hard.
"That leaves two options..." Mackie trailed off into sigh, sitting back into his chair. "And one of them involves a conversation I don't really want to have." His finger began rapidly tapping on the computer case.
Anika thought for a moment. "It'd be nice to hand responsibility for this thing over to people who might know better..."
Mackie started. "Doing that without telling Ben first? I don't want to betray him like that."
He began to stare out the window, slumping under the weight of it all. All the energy had drained from his face, leaving only drawn fatigued eyes that'd come to know sin in a truly scientific way. Anika breathed lead trying to get her mind around it.
"Serizawa's dilemma,"Anika breathed, wondering just who Serizawa was. "I still think you need to tell someone."
"This isn't a software bug that'll install adware," Mackie said, the energy and life leaving his voice. "This is a method to make a weapon that'll shatter Genaros, or smash Kandor's dome, or poison everyone in Marduck, make a crater out of Newport, or turn Ultima station into glowing ashes. Or wake the Sleeping Giants and really piss them off. All it takes is one person." He raised a single finger on his right hand. "Just one with motivation, materials and machine tools to do it." Brown eyes stared through her. "And if I tell anyone about this, and that person finds out how because I tell someone about it, then I'm responsible. It's my fault. I don't want to be responsible for that."
Anika drew down a deep cooling breath, clearing the heat that fogged her mind. "You know how I feel. The Hacker Ethic demands full disclosure."
"This is evil knowledge."
"Evil..."
She shrunk back a moment, blinking owlishly.
"Yes," Mackie nodded. "Nuclear weapons are evil. Nothing good can ever come from them. Only terror and destruction." Mackie squirmed in his seat, but the burden of knowledge refused to shift it's weight. It just pushed him down all the harder. He pushed himself to his feet, stretching with a hollow yawn, shrugging it off as best as he could.
Anika embraced the chair in front of her like it was her lifeline in a stormy sea. She looked up at him, a thought forming in the back of her mind. It refused to go away, even as a part of herself laughed at the idea.
She look up at him, the faintest smile reaching her lips. "You've changed."
"Huh?" He looked down at her, one eyebrow slightly raise.
"You look older."
Just that little step beyond the Madboy... but not quite a madman. Anika smirked inwardly at her own joke, a perplexed expression crossing Mackie's face for a moment before his eyes turned down towards his feet.
"Oh, where are you coming from, soldier, gaunt soldier,
With weapons beyond any reach of my mind,
With weapons so deadly the world must grow older
And die in its tracks, if it does not turn kind?"
Anika sat upright, her mouth slowly hinging open.
"Yeah. I know a poem. Don't act so shocked," Mackie boyish grin returned with full force. He shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Everyone knows the Space Shuttles have a secret story they don't tell anyone. Young Lancers get a different story when they first spread their wings."
Anika didn't want to admit that she'd forgotten where he really came from. She played with a lock of her hair, musing at something that vanished from her conscioussness like a whisp of smoke when she tried to grab at it with her fingers.
Mackie slowly sat himself back down, the back of the chair creaking as he sat himself back into it, his arms dropping to his side. He closed his eyes, slowly breathing out while Anika leant forward, resting against the back of her chair again, softly drumming her fingers.
"Since you don't want Ben to find out yet, that leaves me with just one choice. That's going to be a fun email." She closed her eyes, composing it at the speed of thought in the back of her mind. "At least we know they can handle the electronics anyway."
"This time next year, we'll be rich enough to have our own yards." Mackie breathed. "Sis's been saying that for three years."
---------------------------
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?