Winterwolf II

Snapping him out of attention, suddenly, was a long-toned beep from the semi-AI monitoring CE34’s upgrade. “Warning! Sentience encountered!” the screen displayed in bold, green lettering. CE32 didn’t understand: 34’s quantum compiler had activated itself even though the activation sequence had been carefully subtracted from his pseudo-memories. Within 32’s bulbous silicone head, a small screen lit up adjacent to the fronto-temporal module, while a projector readied the binary encryption for “Interesting”.

 *

There was a sudden tug, and the entire Winterwolf jolted itself out of its monotonous stupor. Alarms blared and red-blue strobes went wild, but on the upper bays, their light was visible from behind the hinges of loose-fitted doors, the sounds through ventilations shafts. On the bay areas, like at all times, darkness prevailed. Fanderay, though, was unperturbed. He picked up a communicator – it was jammed. White noise. With a grunt, he turned away from the deck and strode to Bay 32, where the last cyborg maturation was being performed. “Is everything all right?” Oh, yes. The upgrade’s on track. “Good, good.” What was the disturbance? “Oh, nothing. We’ve crossed into the flux belt. Assault’s… what? Four minutes away.” Alright.

He shut the door quietly behind him and walked back to the deck, to drown himself in the faint blue.