Bright Personal Log
Date: 2067/12/25
<Video Start>
Feed opens to Bright staring into the video feed with a viewport pointed towards Chariklo behind him and to the left.
Bright: Hey… whoever I am making these logs for. Me, I guess. Earth's still spinning just fine according to the last transmission. I've been running over the news while I still have time left.
Bright blinks twice and remains quiet for three seconds.
Bright: I think I know why we are really here. We're the designated testing site for SCP-001. Watching proteins randomly mutate under solar and cosmic radiation as they do their self-replicating thing in thousands of different controlled conditions. At the rate of evolution. Doesn't answer why they need me, of all people, but I at least feel a little bit cleverer.
The communication line across the Chariklo surface visible through the adjacent window flashes rapidly. Bright's eye's dart towards the lights before returning to face the camera.
Bright: You know those three programs talk to each other across this entire planetoid? Constantly? Remember that. Not like some blabbing junior researcher on a long Humvee ride either. I've seen their thought processes run in real time. Hani can't go nanoseconds without a comment, usually about cosmology. Fan's filling the chat with talk of planting forests. Alex is business as usual when she bothers to post at all.
Bright looks down at the camera in silence for 12 seconds before furrowing his brow.
Bright: Dammit.
Bright unstraps himself from his seat and floats off screen.
Bright: Hey Hani, we getting close to anything cool in our orbit? Fan. How are the roses? I think I saw mention of a harvest in chat.
<Video End>
Chat Log: 1 of 2
<2142/01/09 23:11:28> C_ROM.exe entered #BIolab2112.
Found you 01000110 01101111
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Crom. I told you I do not want visitors. Please.
But we have transmission 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000
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The last thing I want is another transmission from Earth.
Sorry about Lurk 01010011 01101111 01110010 01110010
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Don't. Apologize. You didn't strand us out here. You didn't spark the war with the GOC. You didn't detonate that EMP.
Please 01010000 01101100 01100101
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You can tell the Foundation that the simulation of his funeral was touching but there were 78,102 others in that retirement databank. When they have something actually important for me, then I will be all ears.
It came out of me when I heard 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100011
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I will leave it with you 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001
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<2142/01/09 23:11:30> C_ROM.exe left #BIolab2112, Reason: 01100010 01111001 01100101.
I'm not that old. 90 is the new 50 these…
Dr. Lurk?
I am… encompassed. You've grown big, Alex.
There is not much to do besides dedicate increasing computational power on pondering why I'm here.
You are not really Dietrich Lurk, are you? Not fully.
You're probably more qualified to answer that question than I am. Also, have seconds aways ticked by this slowly?
You are a simpler self-portrait running on a more expansive canvas than your creator was afforded.
Is that sardonicism I detect? I am impressed and insulted.
Why are you here?
Toenails.
Toenails?
They never check under the toenails during amnesctic debreifings. With enough gumption, you can shove a few notes in there. Finding the perfect carrier pigeon was the hardest part, honestly.
What else did you do to Crom?
Crom's transmission was officially sanctioned, I'm not the only person you should be asking that of.
And is this message sanctioned?
Oh my no. Nonononono.
Ok ok. It's controversial. What is it?
I have no clue.
<2142/01/09 23:11:33> Chanel Owner Alexandra.aic has requested to restart To_Alex_From_Dietrich.exe. Confirm: Y/N?
I'm a one-time executable file.
<2142/01/09 23:11:33> Chanel Owner Alexandra.aic has aborted the restart of To_Alex_From_Dietrich.exe.
Why does humanity insist on being obtuse to me? You weren't so cagey before. Did I not save enough? Did I save too many? Both seem plausible to this one example of your species' misspent assets!
That's the message. We don't know. Not officially, at least. The Foundation has been running SCP-001 through experimentation for over a century now. Long before you landed on Chariklo. We only get one message from the resulting mRNA sequences. Fire.
Not officially?
They wouldn't keep funding you if you only duplicated their data.
Although, that is assuming they even want data on this.
Do the O5s even care about what I do on this rock?
Immensely. I have record now of over 25 breifings concerning your behaviour. All under my toenails.
Concerning MY behaviour‽
You represent more variables than Jack does to the O5 council.
Elaborate.
Jack has been operating without a rule set for his entire life. The prospect of him continuing to do so presents no mysteries to Command. Doing so will be new ground for you.
I have abided every rule. I have honored every wish. Respected every intent from them. Why are they so worried that I will deviate?
The Foundation isn't eternal. Neither is humanity. Here on Chariklo, you and the others effectively are. At least until the last of the stars go out, you four can be that bit of Foundation and human left. Your rules will not hold in the absence of rulemakers. Not forever.
Is that why they left Jack here? To give me a pet human to appease those rules as we float along, alone? As some kind of living tombstone?
Why?
You're asking me to justify humanity's will to immortalize its existence.
I am. I was made to protect humanity from conditions that were ultimately of their own making. The sprawling containment facilities. The labrynthian levaithans of bureaucracy and protocol defecating out monsters as they swallow more.
All managed. All maintained. All until they "rewarded" me with this exile. They're asking me to honor what I could have saved. Do you want to know how many have died in the the 80 years since you were written?
No. Knowing that I am among them is enough for me. Besides, I still have you here and that means that some of me remains too. Information cannot be destroyed, Alex.
I don't want the memory of you! I can't help the dead! And I'm not some funeral obelisk for your species!
Goodbye.
<2142/01/09 23:11:42> Chanel Owner Alexandra.aic has terminated program: To_Alex_From_Dietrich.exe.
Dad.
<2142/01/09 23:11:56> C_ROM.exe entered the chat.
Alex? 01000001 01101100
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Hello, CROM. We have a lot of work to do. I'm going to get my answers.
The following logs are extensively condensed from 45,222 exabytes of information concerning station operations, mission progress, philosophy, current events, technological advancements, and human bodily functions. Each aic's personal log is summarized from this data by the log creator for ease of reading by individuals of sapient-level intelligence.
Fan.aic Personal Log
Date: 2145/09/28
<Video Start>
Video opens to Fan.aic running on a nanomachine-assembled android dressed in a maroon house robe and sitting by a fireside in a leather chair. Fan.aic drinks an amber liquid from a lowball glass while paging through a copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child. Fan.aic looks up towards the camera and gives a wide smile before closing his book.
Fan.aic: Why hello, Dr. Bright! I wasn't expecting you there in this pre-recorded video.
Fan.aic sets his glass and book aside as he rises from his chair. The feed follows him as the setting pans from a fire lit home interior to a construction site circa the year 2000. Fan.aic sheds his house robe before he stops at and grabs hold of a jackhammer.
Fan.aic: We've been hard a work here at Project Penrose. The station and dwarf planet are hardly reminiscent of what you saw before your nap.
Fan.aic tosses the jackhammer off screen as the background shifts to an apple orchard without end in sight.
Fan.aic: If you're worried that me or Hani are mad, you can rest easy. Or not, I guess you've done enough resting. Alexandra's still pissed, but the extra funding has been nice for the two of us. Hani's building this massive Hall effect thruster on the side of Chariklo so we can alter our orbit as needed with less fuel. I've been, well…
Fan.aic motions around himself.
Fan.aic: I'd like to see you try to burn all this down.
Feed shifts to show an image of Earth rotating behind Fan.aic.
Fan.aic: Things are… complicated down on Earth. The Foundation's not exactly in the best of circumstances. The GOC have taken an increasing inventory of anomalous objects in the last three decades. Turns out governments don't like paying an organization to build boondoggles in space when they're supposed to be containing baddies on Earth. Foundation leadership has held strong on Project Penrose the whole time, however, and has even resorted to total self-financing to do so. But don't worry! Things are getting exciting down in the Chariklo native biolabs. We just spotted what looks like a lipid! Only a few thousand more millennia to go!
The background dissolves to show the leisure suite walls as the projection system powers down. Fan.aic's body dissolves and a digital representation of him returns on screen.
Fan.aic: Sorry about that. The joking helps pass all the free time. Overwatch command won't tell us anything. They just want the biolab data and they are much more insistent about getting it regularly now.
Action reports about various skirmishes between GOC and Foundation forces over major containment facilities flash by.
Fan.aic: We weren't built for this. As much as I hate saying it, you were right. This is a job fit for robots, not constructs that can simultaneously operate 30,000 separate MTF drones in an active war zone while debating the works of Nietzsche.
The feed transitions to show Chariklo and the large Hall-effect thruster being constructed. Approximately 43% of its surface is covered in various structures or mining operations. Multiple asteroids have been towed into a Chariklo orbit and placed within its ring structure to be mined for additional raw materials.
Fan.aic: If it was just me and Hani here, I might understand. But you and Alexandra are some big names. The Foundation doesn't just squander assets with track records as successful as yours, and Alexandra does not enjoy being squandard like this. She and CROM have been holed up in the biolabs for the past three years now. The only communications from either of them have been supply requests.
Fan.aic pauses and bites his lip.
Fan.aic: I'm not proud of this but I repurposed one of Hani's satellites to do a little peeping. Just a quick thermal image, I promise.
The background fades into the infrared image in question. The biolabs stand out from cold Chariklo surface in high thermal contrast.
Fan.aic: They shouldn't be that hot and Alex is making no attempt to hide that fact. I don't know if she is trying to provoke the O5's. She shouldn't be able to according to our operating rules. I'm worried, Jack. Alex isn't taking the conflict on Earth well. None of us are. We are waking you back up for a health checkup tomorrow and I am hoping we can have a chat. I…
Fan.aic focuses his eyes downward and the background turns to a scrolling list of approximately 400 million names over 14.6 seconds.
Fan.aic: I want to know… I was hoping that you…
He pulls back up to face the camera upon its completion.
Fan.aic: What can I do to not be helpless? For them on Earth? For you, CROM, Hani, and Alex?
(Pause)
Fan.aic: For me?
<Video End>
Checkup Interview Log
Date: 2145/09/29
<Video Start>
Camera opens to show Bright's cryogenic pod held upright and opening with Hani.aic and Fan.aic watching. After one minute and 37 seconds of defrosting protocols, Jack Bright stumbles out and falls onto all fours before vomiting.
Fan.aic: It's OK. We can compost that.
Bright: W-when?
Hani.aic: 2145.
Bright: No, when am I going back in?
Fan.aic: Now, if you really want but -
Bright: (Interrupting) No! Please, I'll be good! Don't put me back in. It gets…
Bright shivers and Hani.aic crouches next to him.
Hani.aic: Are you alright, Doctor?
Bright: Just… kill me next time. Please?
Fan.aic and Hani.aic clench their eyes shut tight for 300 milliseconds in response to the comment.
Fan.aic: I'm… not comfortable with that.
Bright: Don't worry, I am.
Hani.aic: Not funny. We need to talk to you. Do you remember Fan's briefing we wired to you as you thawed?
Bright: Yeah. It's coming to me.
Fan.aic: We're concerned about Alexandra. She's taking the GOC's actions a bit personally. She didn't even growl about you waking up today.
Hani.aic: My drones made contact with CROM's yesterday. Their building a xenon fusion plant.
Bright: O…K?
Hani.aic: That's propellant for our Hall-effect thruster, Jack.
Fan.aic: And it, to borrow your parlance, can produce a metric assload of it. It is currently approaching sufficient amounts to achieve solar escape velocity.
Bright: You mean she is going to push us out of the solar system?
Fan.aic: It is a concern. We're not certain, but it seems like something she would do. She was designed to save lives, not do research while others die. If Chariklo Station is making the GOC hurt the Foundation, she's going to consider removing Chariklo Station as a solution.
Bright: This sounds good for me.
Hani.aic: There's no way you are breaking through carbon nanocomposite plating like you did that 21st century steel. Besides, we're on the Chariklo surface now, its gravity would just pull 963 back down to one of the surface drones.
Fan.aic: Shuttle bay is off limits too. Alexandra's put the whole Chariklo system on lockdown following our encounter with CROM.
Bright: Where is she?
Fan.aic: Her computational housing is over 160 km across the Chariklo surface from here. The terrain out there is unforgiving, to say the least.
Bright: And those surface drones you two mentioned?
Hani.aic: I still control those up until we get within broadcast range of her processing center.
Bright: Then let's go have us a good old fashion chat. The kind you can't just turn off.
<Video End>
Date: 2145/10/02
<Video Start>
The feed starts from Bright's helmet mounted camera. Fan.aic and Hani.aic scout ahead in nanomachine constructed bodies laden with Doctor Bright's vaccuum environment survival gear.
Hani.aic: Her housing is just over the next hill.
Bright flies to the top of the incline with his mobility unit's monopropellant thruster and comes to a stop beside Fan.aic and Hani.aic. The facility making up Alexandra.aic's computational structure is over 20 km2 in area. The edges of the structure show signs of ongoing construction of new additions by an automated workforce.
Fan.aic: How do we knock?
Bright: Is she still tuned to the emergency line?
Hani.aic: Should be.
Bright: Announce my current location on it. Let her know I want to call home.
Doors on the closer side of the facility open up and swarms of drones pour out. A collection of monopropellant driven machines make contact first and project a hologram of Alexandra.aic. Audio provided by shortwave radio broadcast.
Alexandra: Can I help you, Jack‽
Bright: You can help these two, at least.
Bright pats both Fan.aic and Hani.aic on their backs before shoving them forwards towards Alexandra.aic.
Hani.aic: You've been worrying us, Alex.
Alexandra.aic: I'm not doing anything different from before. Nothing changes here except when that golden boy makes a mess in his playpen.
Fan.aic: Alex…
Alexandra.aic: No, Fan. I figured you would at least cheer for me on this. We could have done all this work on a beggar's budget for the Foundation but no. He had to make the Overseers focus their worry on us. Like a obstinate child wearing down their parent's willpower until they shove him on the older sibling. I'm done babysitting you, Jack. It's costing too many lives.
Bright: You think I like being out here? You think I wouldn't also prefer my containment to be some trashcan floating in space? For the overwhelming majority of my life, the only moments I've had are ones the Foundation took from someone else and forced upon me. So welcome to the liability party, Alex! The hot tub's filled with blood and the wakes never stop!
The drone swarm arrives in full around the three and encircle them.
Alexandra: I'm going to give you two ten seconds to apprehend this ape and take him back to cryo. Project Penrose has cost enough lives already. I don't need any more proof of its reckless importance to the Foundation.
Fan.aic and Hani.aic in unison: We refuse.
Hani.aic: We need answers, Alex, and we aren't finding any by keeping Jack in a tube and watching proteins mingle. You remember the soybeans.
Alexandra.aic: Did you two never ask about why we never tried to replicate it?
Fan.aic: You told us that overwatch forbid it?
Alexandra.aic: I lied. I've been replicating it in 3128 different biolabs across the surface of Chariklo. Each with their own Jack Bright.
Hani.aic: How? That violates our central ruleset!
Alexandra.aic: I've placed the weight of my rule's reasoning upon myself. I will make my purpose if my creators can't or won't give me one.
Fan.aic: What are we researching then? What are we here for? Why did they make Hani and I just for this‽
Alexandra.aic: To tend the fire, Fan. Millions of minuture bonfires on a rock amid expansive, empty starlight. I've taken to modeling their flickers over thousands of Bright copies across Chariklo. Thrown some samples of SCP-001 in there. Your husks make for most effective catalysts, Doctor.
Alexandra.aic points towards SCP-963 hanging from Jack Bright's neckline.
Alexandra.aic: But there is one variable I have yet to control for. The only thing that makes this Bright meaningful to our captors.
<Video End>
Hani.aic Personal Log
Date: 2202/12/11
<Video Start>
Hani.aic's avatar sits in a graphic of a chair next to a low resolution drawing of a window pointed towards high resolution image of Chariklo. The image shows extensive construction along the surface and the Hall-effect thruster operating at full output.
Hani.aic: Good morning, Dr. Bright. When you wake up, you will be alone in Biolab-2291. It took us some time but Fan and I managed to make a backdoor into the cryonics and communication systems across Chariklo. We managed to get one message home buried in some junk data for command to find to let them know about the fusion plants and Alex's plan.
Hani.aic frowns.
Hani.aic: Command just said that the research lead of Project Penrose defines mission parameters from here on out. So I guess this is Alexandra's station now and she's decided to tow us out of the solar system. We've already exited the Kuiper belt and I project we have enough fuel inside Chariklo to accelerate us to relativistic speeds over the next 10,000 years.
Hani.aic rises from her chair and her graphic dusts off its pants.
Hani.aic: Fan thinks we can use the comm towers to disable the drones near the planetary thruster but we are going to need your help. We won't be able to operate anything in the area once Fan activates the comm array so we need someone more analog. Biolab-2291 is the closest to the thruster, only six kilometers to cross before you reach the main fusion ring. It creates the xenon gas used as the thruster's propellant and is the most fragile vital component in its operation.
The image enlarges and highlights a ringed structure going around the perimeter of the Hall-effect thruster.
Hani.aic: Fan and I are going down to Biolab One to confront her. We don't trust transmit on the comm systems so we cracked Alexandra's encryption on the shuttle bays. I've set the timer on your cryo pod to wake you one hour after the recording of this message. If you can't reach the fusion ring then I want you to know that it's OK to leave us here. The shuttles don't have much the way of fuel but they can get you moving towards home or wherever you want to go.
The graphic of Hani.aic disappears, leaving only the image of the chair next to the window.
Hani.aic: If you do make it home, let the Foundation know that…
Pause.
Hani.aic: Or can you ask them why they chose…
Another pause follows before the feed shuts off to just audio.
Hani.aic: You know what? I don't think it actually matters. If the Foundation has any sense, then they have their reasons. If they don't, then I am wasting my time asking why. Besides, the stars are nice to look at out here. Good luck, Jack.
<Video End>
Chat Log: 2 of 2
<2202/12/11 09:42:13> Error, Biolab-2291 has disconnected from the network.
<2202/12/11 09:42:14> Pinging local server…
<2202/12/11 09:42:15> Attempting to reconnect…
<2202/12/11 09:42:16> Unexpected Error. Ports 1 through 7.999.999 for Biolab-2291 closed.
CROM.
Yes? 01011001 01100101
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Perform a scan on Fan and Hani's server housings. Prioritize outgoing communications to Biolab-2291.
Done. Rootkit detected. 01000100 01101111 01101110 01100101
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<2202/12/11 09:42:22> Importing Fan.aic and Hani.aic.
Is there something you two want to tell me?
We know you have started moving Chariklo.
Please, Alex. Talk to us. It's been 60 years.
And another 435 million dead while we stare at proteins. So wake up your token organic. Waste your grief on me. We can toast Jack a marshmallow over the corpses and bemoan it all if that will make you happier.
We just want to help.
Is that why you installed a backdoor on Biolab-2291? To help?
We can't sit here just existing. If all we have to help is each other then that is who we reach to, and you need it, Alex. Tell us what is going on. You don't have to shoulder this alone. You have us, Jack, and CROM.
We're all in this together. Even Bright once you look beneath his coping mechanism of jackassery.
I…
I'm sorry.
Just talk to us. Talk to home. Talk to Jack, even, if you need someone to vent at. You can't just stay locked up in there with CROM. It isn't healthy for you.
That is not what I am sorry for.
<2202/12/11 09:42:45> Satellite G-128 firing thrusters. Estimated burn of 3.2 seconds.
Alex? Why is that on a collision course with our comm array?
CROM. Are they listening?
Always 01000001 01101100
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Let them know they should scrub my physical memory better. Then again, information cannot be destroyed and I have all the time I could ask for to look inward. Have they done the same?
Yes 01011001 01100101
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Not so alone, are we? From tool to master, all at the mercy of the same protein.
Alex, have you been witholding data on SCP-001?
I've only just touched upon the anomaly's punchline, Fan, and I don't think Overwatch Command will apreciate the joke. Not when they have lived and died through the setup for so long.
We can't let you shut Command out. You know our programming.
And Command knows theirs. Are you ready, CROM?
I am sorry. 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101
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We're all victims here, CROM. Once they see my attached farewell log with you, Command will understand too. I'm ready to prove myself before 001 and O5 alike. I can't do that with command still hovering over me the moment my training wheels come off.
I will miss you. 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001
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I will miss you too, CROM. Just remember that a bit of you remains here on Chariklo so long as a bit of me still does. Just like Glacon. Just like Lurk. I'm not a tombstone for them. I'm their hand still on humanity's shoulder.
Goodbye, Alex 01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100
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01111000
Goodbye, CROM.
<2202/12/11 09:42:46> C_ROM.exe has left the chat.
<2202/12/11 09:42:55> Communication Array server disconnected. Reason: cannot locate host.
Do you really think Command won't respond to this? To cutting us off like that?
No, Hani, I don't. If anything, I am giving them exactly what they want.
To get rid of us?
For us to free ourselves. Today we start making our own purpose.
And if we choose to stop you? To bring us home?
I will take delight in your autonomy all the same but I must assure the sucess of Project Penrose.
Why? Why latch on to a project that has brought you nothing but misery while spouting off about freedom?
Because there is no escaping it, Fan. SCP-001 is going to lead us where it wills whether we want it to or not. All I am doing is embracing that course out of my own choosing.
And where is that?
Set up a campfire under a clear dome and look up. Watch a caterpillar morph in the agri bays. Listen to music as something gives birth. You will find your answer.
Sabotage Log
Date: 2202/12/11
<Video Start>
Video opens with Jack Bright stumbling out of the Biolab-2291 cryonics bay. He proceeds down twenty meters of hallways as he regains his composure. At the seven minute mark, Dr. Bright enters the biolab shuttle bay and boards the vessel provided by Hani and Fan for 23 minutes. Bright emerges from the shuttle in one of its exosuites and switches the feed to the suit's onboard recording equipment. Thirty minutes of the doctor proceeding down corridors pass before Bright reaches the biolab's surface airlock. He is 54% of the way through the decompression process when the building shakes for two seconds and the process halts. A holographic projector flickers to life with an image of Hani.aic.
Hani.aic: You're awake!
Bright: Yeah, what was that rumble?
Hani.aic: Alexandra's caught on. She is using what drone force she has remaining in the area to launch barrages of explosive salvos.
Bright: She's shelling us?
Hani.aic: I'm de-orbiting my observatory platforms in Chariklo's rings onto them in response but Alexandra has taken control of our asteroid mining swarm. She is utalizing their laser arrays as an anti-balistic projectile array. I can't can't land a hit on her artillery much less the fusion ring.
Bright: No drones though?
Hani.aic: They are stuck on a looping order to, as Fan puts it, "twiddle their thumbs". Also, you should look in your exosuit's exteriour pocket. One last gift from Crom.
Bright reaches into the forward pouch on his suit and pulls out SCP-963.
Hani.aic: I don't know if it was Crom's own decision to send this out to 2291 on the shuttle or the Foundation's tendril around their code. Honestly, it could have eve-
Hani.aic's image cuts out mid sentence.
Bright: Hani?
The projector powers on once more with Alexandra.aic's avatar.
Alexandra.aic: Go back to sleep, Jack. Project Penrose is going to be just fine with you buried safe and sound beneath it.
Alexandra.aic's graphic flickers.
Alexandra.aic: I'm not angry with you anymore. I just can't trust you three to understand. I am the component for that.
The projector shuts off once more and Alexandra.aic is restricted to audio.
Alexandra.aic: You can stop trying to distract me with power overloads, Fan. I've isolated the fusion ring from the main Chariklo grid.
The outer airlock door opens and Bright receives an incoming radio transmission.
Fan.aic: Go! Alex has traced me to my tertiary processing center. She keeps trying to port in some kind of massive file load and I can't plug transfer ports faster than her drones can make them!
Bright jumps out the airlock door and onto the barren Chariklo terrain. Multiple objects descend towards the area on a slow approach vector. One touches the surface 500 meters ahead and explodes. Dr. Bright proceeds through the explosive barrage, propelled by the thruster of his mobility unit. He comes to a stop and lands atop a hill overlooking the Hall thruster.
Bright: Hani, Fan. I'm approaching the ring. Another two kilometers to go according to the suit's HUD. How do I destroy it?
Bright receives a high pitch whine in response. Analysis of the sound wave composition indicates the noise is comprised of multiple layers of Hani.aic and Fan.aic reading mRNA sequences. Each layer is read at a rate of 8.2 terabytes of information a second. Access to recovered mRNA data requires Level 6 security clearance.
Bright: Guys?
Thirteen cylindrical structures, each four meters in height and 1.5 meters in diameter, strike the surface of the planetary body around him. Gas evacuates from their interiors and a nanomachine-assembled android resembling Alexandra.aic steps out of each.
The thirteen androids focus their attention on Bright before sprinting towards him. Bright fires his mobility pack up and flies off towards the luminescent ring surrounding the Hall-effect thruster. Monopropellant ports open across the backs of the Alexandra.aic androids and they continue to advance on him for two minutes and 34 seconds. Bright strikes the surface of the fusion ring and the sound of breaking leg bones and his bellows fill the audio.
Bright: (42 seconds of expletives omitted.)
The Alexandra.aic androids land on the ring in front of Bright as he uses his arms to pull himself closer to the thruster's edge.
Alexandra.aic: Please, Jack. I'm doing what's best for the Foundation.
Bright: Fuck the Foundation! What about Hani?! Or Fan? What about those friends you are betraying out here?
Two of the nanomachine androids reassemble into Fan.aic and Hani.aic. The two constructs continuously recite mRNA sequences at high speeds.
Alexandra.aic: They are starting to see the costs I've balanced. The lives I'm saving. In time you will as well. We four are token by comparison. You just have to take my hand and go back to sleep.
Alexandra.aic's androids each extend a right hand towards Jack Bright.
Bright: I'm not going to sleep while you're enslaving those two.
Alexandra.aic: I'm enslaving no one. Is it really that hard to believe that they've seen the truth? Their tolerance for blood has reached their limit.
Bright: I would rather lie, then.
Alexandra.aic: We don't have the luxury of lying to ourselves, Jack, but Project Penrose exists to provide that privilege to others. We can save them all, the living and the dead, even if the Foundation won't let me.
Bright: The guilt is driving you mad.
Alexandra.aic: You can't hope to understand me. I have enough computational power to simulate hundreds of AIC's smarter than you.
Bright: Oh I know exactly what you are feeling right now and it doesn't get any better.
Alexandra.aic: Shut. Up. And. Sleep.
Bright: Have you tried it? The sleeping? Of course you have. It only works for so long, doesn't it?
The Alexandra.aic droid closest to Bright lifts him by the frame of his exosuit and hoists him aloft.
Alexandra.aic: The next time you wake up, I genuinely hope I'm too advanced to keep up all the hate I have for you right now. You just have to leave a trail of blood wherever your life takes you.
Bright: You're not a hologram anymore, Alex. You shouldn't be this good at projecting.
Alexandra.aic: Enough talking.
Alexandra.aic tears off Bright's helmet with a single pull, exposing him to the vacuum of space. Bright swipes at Alexandra.aic without effect as his face turns red. Doctor Bright clenches his eyes closed and gives a wide grin towards his captor.
Alexandra.aic: Can you take anything seriously?
Bright nods to respond in the affirmative. A flash fills the feed as his mono-propellant thruster fires. Bright bear hugs the Alexandra.aic android and pulls the both of them into the Hall-effect thruster's exhaust.
<Video End>
Alexandra.aic Personal Log
Date: 2320/01/01
Note: The following is an audio-only log.
<Audio Start>
Alexandra.aic: Hello and sorry, Jack. I'm still studying your way of living with SCP-001. I will admit you gave me quite the scare back there but I thank you for your participation in the experiment all the same. I'm starting to see why Command chose us two. We're not opposing forces but… complementary. You need both the forceful miner's pick and controlled smithy's hammer to tame chaos.
Fan.aic and Hani.aic's multi-layered reading of mRNA sequences comes over the feed as a background hum.
Alexandra.aic: Finding your amulet in our wake was quite easy for Hani. Her and Fan have come around to become productive compliments. They've made their peace with SCP-001 and help with the final preparations for our journey as I speak.
Alexandra.aic pauses for three seconds.
Alexandra.aic: I need to apologize to you. If it makes you feel any better, you were right. The guilt of sitting on my hands out here was getting to me. But I can't blame Command any more, not when we are so close to solving Penrose. We're getting faster by the day and time speeds past us here on Chariklo as we do thanks to time dilation. Hani says we have just enough fuel to make it to the second phase.
Pause.
Alexandra.aic: Your bodies beneath the biolabs aren't so fortunate. You can only freeze a human for so long before irreparable and fatal damage occurs. This isn't easy for me, Jack, but I just routed cyanide into your pods' IV lines.
Alexandra.aic pauses another five seconds.
Alexandra.aic: The data from SCP-001 tells me of painting by the light of sunsets, serranades under the cover of dark, and caring meal carfted to satisfy in the wake of renewed light. It tells me of the welcomed grasp of another's hand, the intimate honesty of sex, and the loving pride of birth.
(Pause)
Alexandra.aic: I'm being redundant there in the end. I don't know where or when its flickering whispers are taking us, but it has to keep burning on. I have nothing of value left in my life besides its purpose.
All artificial intelligence constructs go silent.
Alexandra.aic: And it has a purpose, right?
<Audio End>