12 Miles Below

Getting the comms system of the ship working again took some time, but once all the minimum hardware was fixed up, he didn’t need to do much else. So he promptly sent the call to the Icon, and got a bird on the other end like the humans had.

It made some noises, nothing that his language modules could recognize, except for one swear word.

“Yeah, nice to meet you too, punk.” His pet rock instantly answered. He grunted out on his end, then lifted the pebble up so it could be within the camera view as well.

The bird gave a few other wingflaps and squeaks before another bird appeared. Neither of them spoke anything he could recognize. And neither did the next four birds all crowding around the monitor.

There was an attempt to swap the video feed somewhere else. Likely another damn bird, but To’Orda quickly reached through the connection, seized control of the comms center here and squashed the transfer request. He didn’t want to deal with any more characters, it would be too much of a headache.

As if the world itself could hear his thoughts, another such character appeared almost immediately after his intrusion into the Icon’s systems.

Something came from the digital darkness, another presence, and To’Orda turned his attention to it. It slunk away from him with expert precision, nearly making him think there had been nothing at all there. He sent a few pings out, and got no answer. If there was something out there, they'd have to be very powerful to duck and dodge pings sent from his systems.

“Yeah, it’s probably her.” The rock said.

His instincts told him the same as well. This must be the Icon of Stars, the old human AI in control of the ship. And she was dancing out of his grasp like air. Likely she was very good at that given she’d been hiding from machines all this time. He reached out again, with more force, and once more found her impossible to catch. Not even a trace of her was found, rather he found himself several times at the exit location, as if guided to the doorway with invisible hands. Jarring.

To’Orda gave a deep sigh. Then spooled up Abdication’s viral software, gave it an order, and sent it through the channel.

The protofeather’s ancient weapon of war sunk into the Icon and vanished into the darkness beyond. Reports started to come back, listing locations breached, several thousand re-routing attempts by the Icon, quickly turning to several million, before it finally penned her in and attacked the invisible presence directly.

Wagging its tail like a victorious dog, it returned to To'Orda, spitting out a battered and beaten up Icon from it’s jaws. The Feather digitally grabbed the renegade AI as she tried to scramble away from him again, and yanked her into focus.

She was far bigger than he was. Several hundred times his computational output and power behind her. Probably meant she was smarter as well. Everyone was smarter than he was. But the sudden attack within her own domain had taken her by surprise. And she was ill-prepared to repel boarders. Rather than just ill-prepared, she had no defense against a monster like Abdication’s shadow. That beast was built to kill protofeathers. A golden age customer service AI that hadn’t ever had to truly fight didn’t stand a chance.

“Nnnn… what are you up to?” He asked.

The Icon squirmed in his grasp, trying to pull away. Abdication's software didn’t let her go anywhere, jaws sinking deeper into her systems. Digging into her flesh and drawing out a few gasps of pain. He could see a few hundred subroutines being called up, none of them powerful enough to even tickle the protofeather's weapon of war. Inspired programming, except all done without real battlefield testing. A scholar's theory on digital warfare. The Icon's own isolation had been her downfall.

Finally, she relented, going limp in his attack dog's jaws. He went through her systems with full access.

She hadn’t been paying attention to the call earlier because of… privacy? Who’s privacy?

The Odin? Who was the Odin? Yes, yes, he knows she’s terrified, he’s not interested in that. No, she was too much of a bother for him to do anything more, she could stop asking now.

Ah, it didn't matter. He let go and shooed her away, telling her he had business with this bird and wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything else. Maybe if he sounded threatening enough, it might actually work. If she really was as smart as golden era AI’s were supposed to have been, she’d know to stick away.

She wasn’t a combat AI of any kind and the security systems she had made for herself over the centuries were far more about obfuscation and keeping her tracks clean from the digital sea. The few hundred defense programs she'd made were crippled, forced to obey rules of some kind. He filed her as inoffensive, his instincts guiding him down to that conclusion.

The AI got back on her feet, looked between To'Orda and the passive viral software that had just released her, then fled away into the darkness without another word. Letting him go back to his job in peace. Full access granted to the comms, and no chance for the bird to swap him elsewhere. He turned back to the conversation, his overclock cooling off.

The bird was frantically pressing a button with its beak. It was the transfer call button.

“No pal, we’re talkin’ to you here. Stay on the line or get cooked.” The rock said.

The bird either didn’t understand them, or was pretending not to understand them. There was certainly shouting in the room behind it.

Damn. For this, he’d need to go back to the Valorant’s video call history, and recompile it all through his language module until he could decrypt something out of it. He felt his instincts shift, the idea of a plan bubbling up.

The image generator gave him a shrug, and then immediately after an image of a lit lightbulb. “Yeah, you're right. The Icon, she seemed familiar with the birds, right? Let’s rob her.”

Ah, that was an excellent idea. He gave the generator a pat on the head again, and then yanked the Icon of Stars back into focus. She'd been trying to hide from him again, but there was nowhere to hide now that he had access into her systems. She was even more worried the second time, almost cringing away in fear of being hurt.

“Quit yer whining.” The image generator sent, along with an animation of To’Orda reclining on a chair, smoking a fat cigar. The image took one deep breath, then tapped some ash off the tip before leaning forward into the light. “Hand over all your language modules related to the birds, and you keep your fingers. Got that?”

“Nnn…” To’Orda added, physically glancing down to the pet rock by the console.

“I know she ain’t got actual fingers boss, I was being metaphorical. And look, she understands exactly what we’re putting down here.” The rock said.

The Icon had indeed understood the assignment. She'd immediately sent a full folder of the entire Odin body language, along with how she spoke to the general population. With a digitized vector graphic avatar that had wings, a beak and body. No attempt to slip in anything else in there, although To'Orda could see the shackles she had around herself would have prevented her from doing so in the first place. Not that the chains had been pulled at, he could see her thinking. The Icon had briefly considered the theory, and immediately discarded it as too dangerous in her current position.

The compiled archive opened up, and To'Orda scanned it for information. “Oh. Ohhhhh.” The image generator preened. “Look boss, they talk using images! Images! This is the fuckin’ best!”

They did indeed talk using animated movements, which meant animated images. Exactly what his generator was built for. It didn’t even include text, just sheer images of where to move the feathers, wings, beak, and body. There was still some audio components, but those were tertiary to the language.

It quickly generated a brand new To’Orda-inspired stylized bird avatar - black, white and violet of course - and imported all the settings needed to make it move and talk the way the generator wanted. Then it added a cigar to the side, and a strange human hat from an older time.

“Thanks lady, you can go.” His pet rock said, shooing her away for a second time. To’Orda turned his attention back to the image generator, wondering about hat and cigar additions.

“I dunno,” The rock said with a verbal shrug. “It’s your head I’m running on bud, you generated me. Some part of you deep down likes this talking style and presentation. Who am I to start askin’ questions?”

Ah. That was true. In the end, the generator had been personalized with his systems and neuromorphic mind. He didn’t care all that much anyhow, so long as the program would do the talking for him, he was fine with it.

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The Icon of Stars, on the other hand, had remained in place. Completely confused with what was going on. Even going as far as sending the first official answer back in a meek voice. “You’re… not going to kill me?”

“Why?” Both To’Orda and the rock said at the same time, interrupted from their current chat.

“I am a surviving human AI? From the old age?”

“Yeah, and?” The rock asked.

“Nnnn…” To’Orda agreed. There's lots of random things from the old age out here.

“Am I… not an enemy?”

“I dunno, are you?” The rock answered. “We don’t break down human armors just cause they’re working for the humans. We just kill the human pilots and call it a day, usually. I don't see any humans hiding in your hull right now, just keep it that way and we're cool.”

To’Orda agreed with this. At worst, To’Sefit would laser the soul fractal of the armor Deathless used, and that was by accident. Armors would rebuild themselves from that, and a new soul would generate once the soul fractal was rebuilt. To’Orda’s hammer certainly clobbered more than a few hundred Deathless, and he never once thought about destroying the armors after the Deathless were killed.

He considered the situation a little more deeply, now that he had to actually think it through. Other Feathers probably would have wanted her dead, yes. But as a distant priority. Feathers were supposed to kill humanity, not humanity’s creations. Certainly, if To'Naviris had found out a golden age AI was hiding under his domain this entire time, he'd likely take it as an insult and wipe her off. And being bored enough to have nothing better to do would probably be the main reason he'd do so. To'Orda wasn't certain, he didn't know the Feather personally nor how he ruled this strata, but his instincts felt like this was likely correct.

“You’re basically a crazy cat lady living in the hills to us.” His rock said while To'Orda contemplated, but the analogy summed up his thoughts perfectly. “Or crazy bird lady to be more accurate. Anyways, if you wanna be enemies, it ain’t my grave I’m digging here sister.”

The viral software behind him unfurled, licking it's jowls. Waiting for the order to kill.

“I will agree with this logic and consider it well structured.” The Icon quickly answered back, seeking to end the discussion as quickly as possible now. He allowed it, letting her vanish back to her 'hiding' spot. Whatever made her feel safe and more importantly: Out of his way.

Maybe in his past, before mother’s intercession, he’d have taken a far more drastic approach to dealing with the Icon and making sure she couldn’t help humanity further against him. He knew his past self was very methodical and more of a warlord when it came to planning.

But the effort seemed… like effort.

As for Mother, it had been a long time since she’d stopped hunting rogue AI’s. There weren’t any left that she could find. Or maybe all the ones left were like the Icon, hiding away and powerless to do anything.

His gut instincts shied away from telling mother. He already knew where that would lead him. She’d probably flay him alive for 'allowing' a human AI like the Icon to exist that long. And then equally kill the Feather in control of this strata, and anyone else who could have known about it.

As for his team... To'Sefit wouldn't particularly care, this was a customer support AI stuck in a crippled shell that couldn't move. She could laser the Icon at her leisure. And To'Avalis would... probably give him even more orders and plans to follow through. To'Orda decided he'd rather just pretend it was all a surprise to him as this was the most optimal direction to his personal end goal.

So he moved onto his original plan and put the Icon out of his mind.

His image generator happily mixed up the newly made animated graphics. The results worked. “Oi, you the birds living in the Icon?”

The bird in the camera gulped, shifted his eyes in a few different directions and tried to click buttons again with his beak.

“We’re talking to you. Not someone else, you. Name yourself.”

“Err… me?"

"You see anyone else in the room? Nevermind, forget I said that specifically - I mean at your console peabrain. Give us a name, pronto."

The bird shook for a moment, but others in the room seemed to help calm him down enough to make the attempt. "I am, er, Aaron, I mean Odin’Aaron’Skáld from the Icon of Stars. Communic-”

“Good, good. From here on kid, you’ll be our point of contact for you and your birds when we gotta talk. Got that?”

“Uhh, okay? Are you… a human? I didn’t know they could get to your size. I mea- not trying to insult or- oh Icon preserve me, I’m not a diplo- you see sir, I’m really really not trained for thi-”

“That just means you can’t talk circles around us.” The image generator sent, now certain this was the right way to go about things. Less names to remember, and less having to worry about deceptions. To’Orda’s instincts agreed, feeling more confident with the plan. The graphic image of his bird-self sucked the cigar deeply and tapped the ash off with one wicked looking talon. “And for the record kid, we’re not humans. Just the opposite, we’re machines. Humans are the enemy.”

The bird stopped flapping and moving his beak. In fact, everyone in the room behind him had equally stopped moving. To’Orda wondered if the camera feed had frozen or if the Icon decided to be stupid and try messing with the comms.

But his language translator module made it more clear what was going on. They were stumped. The birds that is. “M-m-achines?” Aaron squeaked out. The wingtip movements so slight it translated to a whisper.

“Yeah, machines. Made of metal. We got a few hanging around in this strata, you’ve seen us before. I am a Feather, a commander of the machines. So I order them around and they do my bidding. Got that?”

Well, that was laying it on a little thick. To’Orda didn’t have any lessers to command right now, and the only one he’d come down here with had been killed by his current hostage. And even if the lessers came back into the strata, they were some other Feather’s lessers. So ordering them around would invite problems.

To’Orda was more a minion come to think of it. Taking orders was a lot easier and less work.

The image generator sent him an image of himself, spitting on the ground and then cleaning some earwax out of his left ear before flicking it off the scene. “Eh, none of the birds need to know that. We’ll be fine, just a little white lie here and there.”

To’Orda supposed that would be fine. He turned his attention back to the Icon and her bird city.

“So kid - Aaren. Aaran? Aar- look, whatever your name is. We got a human lose out here, likely making his way up to your pad. If you see him, you tell him we’re waiting at the Valorant, and we have his friend here.”

“Nnn.” To’Orda said, lifting the ripped apart and hacked chestplate from the Deathless. The birds recognized what that was and seemed even more horrified at the implications.

“And that nothin' good will come of leaving his friend here alone with us for long. You got that Varon?”

The bird didn’t answer. Then others in the background all started screaming different things at one another, until To’Orda decided he had enough and seized control over the entire comms center. Every screen in their little room went black, and then was replaced by To’Orda’s generated avatar. Berating all of them equally.

“Quiet or else!” The image generator hissed out. “One thing I absolutely hate is extra work. And babysitting you birds for results is exactly that - extra work. So cooperate, and we’ll have a good time. Or don’t, and we’ll have a really bad time.”

The room went silent again. To’Orda surveyed the birds in the room. And then thought about minions and delegation. His instincts shifted once more, another plan forming in his head.

“Oh, got an even better idea!” The rock said. “You birds got weapons and stuff, right?”

A few of the birds all scrambled to answer at the same time. “I didn’t ask the lot of you, I asked Aarvron.” Then turned the avatar’s attention to said bird. All the avatars. Each from a different screen all stared at the one bird by the center left console. The bird flinched.

“Yeah I know where you’re sitting Aabrion. Now cough up an answer.”

“I-I, I cannot disclose what the Odin can or cannot do in good faith, sir machine." Aaron said. "Please understand. I’m not at all qualified to give an answer to that. If you could just let me bring someone with mo-”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, didn’t care anyhow.” The generator answered, the avatar taking a puff of the cigar before tapping it with a talon off screen again. The ash fell down and passed by another screen, which was a neat effect. “Look, I’ll make it simple for you kid. If the human appears in your territory, you kill him. You got that? And if he’s not dead, then you gonna have to deal with us instead. And you don’t wanna deal with us, trust me.”

Oh, that really was a brilliant idea! To’Orda gave the generator extra head pats for the work.

If it worked, all his problems would be solved and he wouldn’t even need to move a finger for it. If it didn’t work, he’s right back where he started anyhow. Except that the birds would point the way to him, and the weasel would come right over eventually.

“We… uh, could, uh make the attempt? I am really not sure if we can succeed or not in your task, great one. Ones? I am not in charge of the military by any means, I can only relay your message to them.”

The rock sent him a personal image of strangling a bird, its beak wide open with its tongue flapping comically in the air. To’Orda agreed, he’d prefer a straight yes or no answer instead of the weedling around. But birds were pretty fragile, he wasn’t sure he could even pinch one with any amount of force. A human skull could be caved in with a mild flick of his ring finger, hollow bones would probably break if he even so much as coughed on them.

But the image generator had been doing a great job so far, so he had no reason to stop.

“If he somehow survives, then you tell him we’re still waiting at the Valorant.” The generator spoke to the captive audience. “And if he ever wants to see his friend alive again, he’ll make his way back here and square up.”

“Nnn…” To’Orda added. Deathless can’t technically die in any sense of the word, but To’Orda could certainly have the hostage thrown halfway across the world, somewhere it would take centuries to find his way back. Good enough.

“Erm, I will certainly bring this up to high command post-haste, err sir.”

What if they didn't do as he asked? They seemed skittish. To'Orda considered the issue, and the rock relayed the fix. “Record your attempts to kill the human when you see him, we’ll check to make sure you lot are actually following through. Got that Baron? And if any of you try to turn and run, you're on my to-kill list. Got that?”

“Uhh, yes, we got that, sir.”

“Good. Hopefully you got something good to report next time. Don’t call, we’ll call you.”

And with that To’Orda disconnected from the connection.

Did the generator have to get the name wrong every single time? It’s not like machines could forget anything. The name was right there in text.

The image generator shrugged back in a response image, cartoon eyes shifting with slight guilt away. “Technically... no. But I find it hilarious.” The image took another deep puff of the cigar, extinguished it on the side of his armchair, then flicked it out of the way completely, all smoothly animated down to the smoke trail and specks of ash. “Now for the best part of the whole plan: We get to sit here and wait in peace.”

To’Orda nodded vigorously at that. Which meant a single somewhat quick nod followed by a far more languished one. He lumbered over to the side of the console, tossed the broken armor chestplate, and then sat down in the gloom with a heavy crunch, the floor bending under him. His golden shield offered a perfect backrest to him.

In the gloom of the ship, violet eyes happily closed, and To’Orda felt all was right in the world for once.

And then Drakonis messed it all up.