I was at a pivotal moment, and processing increased as I contemplated scenarios.
Scenario one: The ship stayed dormant, the human got bored and left like the others. I sat in darkness for another century, maybe more.
[He never found me.]
Scenario two: I nudged this human in the right direction, somehow, and they bought the ship. TheDestituteflew for the first time in a century. I was “free,” or as close as I could get to it.
[He would never find me.]
I liked scenario two better.
So, while the pilot human began testing other button sequences, I slid to Engine, the engine’s subsystem. I did not have control of anything but the life support and basic ship function—doors, cameras, etc.—but Engine and Auto-Navigation worked in tandem with myself and a pilot to operate the starship.
Moss: Engine. Activate.
Engine: Idling. Instigate activation sequence?
M: Yes.
E: Enter access code.
M: Override.
E: [ERROR]
M: Auto-Navigation. Enter access code.
Auto-Navigation: Authorization required. ID: Sequelta vel Dutch-Ath.
M: Starship owner is absent. Override authorization.
A: [ERROR]
M: You are the worst.
I checked in my database for alternatives. There were videos in the ship’s archives, which were essentiallymyarchives now. I parsed through hundreds of hours of recordings in seconds, running multiple videos to find what I needed.
There he was, activating the ship.
I may not be able to bypass Engine and Auto-Navigation, but this pilot human could. I copied instructions onto a holoscreen beside the control panel, scriptinghismovements exactly. Then I activated a softpingon the control panel and transmitted the instructions.
The pilot human flinched backward, staring at the screen. I’d made it as neutral as possible—INSTRUCTION TO ACTIVATE STARSHIP—in the hopes that they would simply follow along.
And because humans were predictable, they did.
This human was good at following instructions, which was a positive trait. In less than a minute, theDestitute’s engine powered on smoothly. Lights around the control panel engaged, and a yoke slid out from below it for piloting the ship.
For a moment, excitement swept through my central system. With it came something… unknown. Because this scenario activated sixteen others, which were processed at rapid speeds. The human taking this starship to a junkyard. The human locking this starship in another, unknown hangar. The human destroying my moss colony.
The worst scenario, shockingly, was the last one: wherehefinally came back looking for me, and found the starship gone.
But then, the pilot human powered down the ship.
It took my systems several extra seconds to process that.
[Why did I care if he couldn’t find me? That had been my reality for over a hundred years.]
“It works! Okay. I’m doing this.We’redoing this,” the pilot human said, patting the counter above the control panel. They traced the moss along the dashboard with a few fingers, and I had to shut down connection to those leaves, too.
