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Eclipse Phase: This Mortal Coil
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<blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 5857494" data-attributes="member: 60965"><p><strong>Think Tachikoma</strong></p><p></p><p><img src="http://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/anime/7/5799.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Alexander's body was on autopilot, effortlessly climbing the ladder on the side of the lift shaft as he finally broke "Old_Muse(Cranky)", searching for any useful information it had stored on Davin Newport and/or Earthwing.</p><p></p><p>"I guess Helios wasn't kidding about this being an unused access lift," Ishmael said dryly as he climbed below Alexander. "I thought that platform we were on was about to tear itself in half the way it started grinding and shrieking when it locked up."</p><p></p><p>Alexander tuned out whatever Raikov/Lillian's reply was as he quickly browsed through the Muse's data files for information on Earthwing. As was often the problem with modern computing, content was abundant to the point of being functionally infinite - it wasn't a problem of finding a needle in a haystack as it was finding just the right needle in a needlestack of nearly identical needles.</p><p></p><p>These particular needles were memories of every mention of Earthwing that Davin's muse logged... tens of millions of them and most of them uninformative, unrelated, or separated from the context that would make them understandable to anyone but Davin. His muse had known him from his youth, so knew exactly what thin slices of information he needed the most to quickly augment his thinking and memory processes - and those slices were shaped differently for every Ego. Squared blocks in a cubed hole as it were.</p><p></p><p>By the time they'd reached an intersection point with a mostly-"horizontal" - i.e. perpendicular to the asteroid's centripetal "gravity" - and could walk for a ways, Alexander had at least enough to share with the others.</p><p></p><p>He threw up a few pictures over AR.</p><p></p><p>"Alright, buckaroos, here's what I've rustled up from the dusty streets of Davin's noggin."</p><p></p><p>He recognized the physical action of Raikov/Lillian's eye-roll, but there was only an empty link where the inference/definition of what it meant was supposed to be.</p><p></p><p>"This here bandit is Claudia Derros, the face of the group, the talker/wheeler/dealer/negotiator-" a sharply dressed blond sylph spun before them in AR. Alexander bemusedly observed a biological resistance to changing the picture to the next member of Earthwing and an illogical desire to reskin the Claudia model in front of him <em>without</em> its clothing.</p><p></p><p>"She is, of course, no longer in this morph since it got blown to little bits, but you fellas get the idea. Davin thought she was an 'ice queen', whatever that means. I don't think they liked each other much."</p><p></p><p>"This mechanical swarm would be Panthareen's previous morph. He was supposed to be some sort of darned wunderkind hacker, but also a goofball. Davin liked him, but also wondered what he was actually like since he almost seemed like a caricature of a person instead of a real person I reckon..."</p><p></p><p>The image flickered again.</p><p></p><p>"This here good lookin' fella's me. Or rather, the me that I reckon I used to be. The gunslinger of the group and darned handsome too if I say so myself."</p><p></p><p>"Not like you picked the morph out," Ishmael said. "You just took the old note out of a bottle, wrote your own note in its place, and threw yourself into the sea."</p><p></p><p>"That must be an obscure metaphor and/or idiom as it doesn't parse, pardner... Anyway, this large-headed lass would be our Ridley..." he brought up that last grainy image of Ridley looking at the camera with a smile and pressing a button.</p><p></p><p>"Right. So, now we know more of the cast, but where is the next scene?" Ishmael said.</p><p></p><p>Alexander nodded. "I done figured you would ask. Apparently, when Davin arrived at Extropia, he was to let everyone know he was there and they'd rustle up some grub at the Sphere. Interesting, his muse just inferred that Davin trusted the others as much as a rattlesnake in his saddlebag - hence his morph being on New Sicily instead of on Extropia with theirs."</p><p></p><p>"Good plan, with a slight AGI hiccup," Raikov said. "So, how about you do what Davin was supposed to do. Maybe Ridley or one of the others will make contact."</p><p></p><p>"Right you are, partner, I'll just wrangle up a letter, spit-shine it, and fire it off like a six-shooter," Alexander said, already mentally dictating a message to Troy.</p><p></p><p>"Hold on, if you're going to send a message like that, you'll give us all away. Here, just send this," Raikov said.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>We need to talk - Davin</em></strong></p><p></p><p><em>That's boring,</em> Alexander thought, but he sent it to each of the Earthwing members anyway.</p><p></p><p>Within a second, there was a reply.</p><p></p><p>"Davin-avin, you're back!" A part-crab, part-tank suddenly appeared on his AR clinging to a nearby wall, its voice robotic, high, and squeaky. It leapt to the ground in front of him and did a strange robotic dance in front of him as he shared the AR avatar with Ishmael and Raikov. "So glad to see you again!"</p><p></p><p>An array of exclamation points radiated off of it in all directions to emphasize.</p><p></p><p>"Um, righto bucko. I reckon it might be good to find a saloon and shoot the breeze."</p><p></p><p>Ishmael was chuckling as Raikov/Lillian glared at him and he shrugged back with a quirked eyebrow.</p><p></p><p>"Um... okay D-man. Let's meet... um... here!" An amazingly detailed and almost overwhelming 3-d map of Extropia's tunnel network filled the space in front of Alexander, with a twisting blinking line representing the path they were to take as the novacrab flickered into-and-out-of existence along it pointing the way.</p><p></p><p>"This way, this way! Meet here, nice place, you'll love it Davin-avin-avin!"</p><p></p><p>It quickly multiplied into a dozen duplicates of itself, some in flowered shirts, others with strange goggles, others carrying umbrellas or drinks with umbrellas, still others wearing impractical grass "skirts" as they all danced together. Then they all disappeared.</p><p></p><p>"Tata!"</p><p></p><p>They stared at the bewildering map for a moment as it spun before them for a moment until Alexander dismissed it.</p><p></p><p>"That was... interesting. Doesn't seem especially dangerous though." Ishmael said.</p><p></p><p>"Maybe it was a ruse?" Raikov/Lillian said, glancing at Alexander.</p><p></p><p>He shrugged. "Seems like the Panthareen fella that Davin remembers. He's supposed to be mostly harmless, unless you're an infomorph I suppose. Davin's muse makes it seem like Davin reckons he's a pretty scary hacker."</p><p></p><p>"Then lets get moving so we can meet him in person where he's the least dangerous," Ishmael sad. "Where we going exactly?"</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>The lift slowly crawled down the massive shaft, giving them time to appraise the restaurant/museum/coffee joint/tourist trap/antique shop that jutted from the bare rock below them.</p><p></p><p>Whether the airplane fuselages were genuine or fabricated was debatable (and was a subject of much debate on the local Mesh), but it was what gave Liftwaffe its unique appeal. Tables were bolted onto the wings with flimsy stools leaned against them - no railings needed in the .15gs of this part of Extropia. Getting from one part of the... establishment to the next was either a matter of walking from wing to wing, leaping, climbing, or dropping to the next level, or taking the stairs inside the fuselage or wall tunnels.</p><p></p><p>The lift that came down the shaft only passed every half-an-hour and was the only public method of access, so they had some time to look around, watch some old flats featuring airplanes, visit a VR museum full of every model of airplane ever known, have digital dogfights from various aeronautical eras including the final desperate battles against the TITANs during the Fall, and try some Aerotix spicy tea before Panthareen showed up.</p><p></p><p>"Davin, you're okay!" he shouted, his half-ton nova crab wrapping Davin/Alexander in a multi-limbed hug that would have probably crushed an unmodified human to a pulp in Earth gravity. The massive cyborg crab jumped around, looking at Davin from all sides, joined by AR simulcrums of himself that blinked into existence with strange squeaking/squishing noises as they surveyed Davin's morph.</p><p></p><p>Alexander extracted himself from the literally over-animated hacker with some difficulty.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I am here," he said, with exaggerated grammar after a lengthy tirade from Raikov on his diction on the way over. "Good to see you, Panthareen."</p><p></p><p>A small manipulator claw pinched Davin's arm. "All intact, more than poor Panthareen!"</p><p></p><p>Suddenly the same replay they'd seen of Ridley blowing them up in The Sphere appeared, thought this one froze a split-second into the explosion, with circles around little bug-shaped blips half-vanished into the blast. The words "Bits of Me!" appeared with big blinking arrows pointing at the circles.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, I have seen that," Alexander said. "What happened?"</p><p></p><p>"Dunno, I got all blown up!" Panthareen said, a claw pressing against it's 'brow' dramatically. "I'm better now, like my new body?"</p><p></p><p>It posed dramatically, "flexing", balancing, curling into a ball, and more, making the wing their table was situated on sway alarmingly. From their table near the fuselage, Alexander saw Ishmael and Raikov watching with a mixture of amusement, alarm, and resignation.</p><p></p><p>"It is fantastic. Tell me, Panthareen, what is happening now? Where is Ripley?"</p><p></p><p>"I don't know, I just said I got blowed up! Wasn't Davin-avin listening?" AR question-marks shot out from around Panthareen's 'head'. "I do know Claudia is on her own leaving Panthareen all alone on his own to find Ridley. Ridley's got some memorabilia from Earth though that might be traceable and Panthareen has been looking for those. Also, there's the 'device'!"</p><p></p><p>Alexander was about to ask, but before he could, Panthareen swung up its fore-claws, holding an AR spheroid object shaped roughly like an old-Earth American football. It was yellow and appeared to be some mixture of metal and ceramic. Several lights blinked on the side that looked like some strange, alien readout on unstable contents. It made Alexander think of the sort of thing you'd keep a deadly virus or a thermonuclear weapon in.</p><p></p><p>A small window on its side glowed with ominous light as an horn blasted out a "tada!" over Alexander's audio-link with Panthareen.</p><p></p><p>He winced and pointed at it. "Okay, so she has that thing? What is it?"</p><p></p><p>Panthareen petted the container's AR geometry reverently. "It's from Earth, full of fancy real Earth stuff and the case itself is rare too! Might be able to track it!"</p><p></p><p>"Right, right, but what's in it that it needs such an exotic containment vessel?"</p><p></p><p>"What's in it? What's in it!"</p><p></p><p>Another horn blared, a drum roll began and Panthareen pushed the buttons on the spheroid's side dramatically.</p><p></p><p>"In it is... this!"</p><p></p><p>With a flash of light, a piercing sound of depressurization, and a dramatic virtual fanfare, the object flew open.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iron Sky, post: 5857494, member: 60965"] [b]Think Tachikoma[/b] [IMG]http://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/anime/7/5799.jpg[/IMG] Alexander's body was on autopilot, effortlessly climbing the ladder on the side of the lift shaft as he finally broke "Old_Muse(Cranky)", searching for any useful information it had stored on Davin Newport and/or Earthwing. "I guess Helios wasn't kidding about this being an unused access lift," Ishmael said dryly as he climbed below Alexander. "I thought that platform we were on was about to tear itself in half the way it started grinding and shrieking when it locked up." Alexander tuned out whatever Raikov/Lillian's reply was as he quickly browsed through the Muse's data files for information on Earthwing. As was often the problem with modern computing, content was abundant to the point of being functionally infinite - it wasn't a problem of finding a needle in a haystack as it was finding just the right needle in a needlestack of nearly identical needles. These particular needles were memories of every mention of Earthwing that Davin's muse logged... tens of millions of them and most of them uninformative, unrelated, or separated from the context that would make them understandable to anyone but Davin. His muse had known him from his youth, so knew exactly what thin slices of information he needed the most to quickly augment his thinking and memory processes - and those slices were shaped differently for every Ego. Squared blocks in a cubed hole as it were. By the time they'd reached an intersection point with a mostly-"horizontal" - i.e. perpendicular to the asteroid's centripetal "gravity" - and could walk for a ways, Alexander had at least enough to share with the others. He threw up a few pictures over AR. "Alright, buckaroos, here's what I've rustled up from the dusty streets of Davin's noggin." He recognized the physical action of Raikov/Lillian's eye-roll, but there was only an empty link where the inference/definition of what it meant was supposed to be. "This here bandit is Claudia Derros, the face of the group, the talker/wheeler/dealer/negotiator-" a sharply dressed blond sylph spun before them in AR. Alexander bemusedly observed a biological resistance to changing the picture to the next member of Earthwing and an illogical desire to reskin the Claudia model in front of him [I]without[/I] its clothing. "She is, of course, no longer in this morph since it got blown to little bits, but you fellas get the idea. Davin thought she was an 'ice queen', whatever that means. I don't think they liked each other much." "This mechanical swarm would be Panthareen's previous morph. He was supposed to be some sort of darned wunderkind hacker, but also a goofball. Davin liked him, but also wondered what he was actually like since he almost seemed like a caricature of a person instead of a real person I reckon..." The image flickered again. "This here good lookin' fella's me. Or rather, the me that I reckon I used to be. The gunslinger of the group and darned handsome too if I say so myself." "Not like you picked the morph out," Ishmael said. "You just took the old note out of a bottle, wrote your own note in its place, and threw yourself into the sea." "That must be an obscure metaphor and/or idiom as it doesn't parse, pardner... Anyway, this large-headed lass would be our Ridley..." he brought up that last grainy image of Ridley looking at the camera with a smile and pressing a button. "Right. So, now we know more of the cast, but where is the next scene?" Ishmael said. Alexander nodded. "I done figured you would ask. Apparently, when Davin arrived at Extropia, he was to let everyone know he was there and they'd rustle up some grub at the Sphere. Interesting, his muse just inferred that Davin trusted the others as much as a rattlesnake in his saddlebag - hence his morph being on New Sicily instead of on Extropia with theirs." "Good plan, with a slight AGI hiccup," Raikov said. "So, how about you do what Davin was supposed to do. Maybe Ridley or one of the others will make contact." "Right you are, partner, I'll just wrangle up a letter, spit-shine it, and fire it off like a six-shooter," Alexander said, already mentally dictating a message to Troy. "Hold on, if you're going to send a message like that, you'll give us all away. Here, just send this," Raikov said. [FONT=Impact][/FONT][B][I]We need to talk - Davin[/I][/B] [I]That's boring,[/I] Alexander thought, but he sent it to each of the Earthwing members anyway. Within a second, there was a reply. "Davin-avin, you're back!" A part-crab, part-tank suddenly appeared on his AR clinging to a nearby wall, its voice robotic, high, and squeaky. It leapt to the ground in front of him and did a strange robotic dance in front of him as he shared the AR avatar with Ishmael and Raikov. "So glad to see you again!" An array of exclamation points radiated off of it in all directions to emphasize. "Um, righto bucko. I reckon it might be good to find a saloon and shoot the breeze." Ishmael was chuckling as Raikov/Lillian glared at him and he shrugged back with a quirked eyebrow. "Um... okay D-man. Let's meet... um... here!" An amazingly detailed and almost overwhelming 3-d map of Extropia's tunnel network filled the space in front of Alexander, with a twisting blinking line representing the path they were to take as the novacrab flickered into-and-out-of existence along it pointing the way. "This way, this way! Meet here, nice place, you'll love it Davin-avin-avin!" It quickly multiplied into a dozen duplicates of itself, some in flowered shirts, others with strange goggles, others carrying umbrellas or drinks with umbrellas, still others wearing impractical grass "skirts" as they all danced together. Then they all disappeared. "Tata!" They stared at the bewildering map for a moment as it spun before them for a moment until Alexander dismissed it. "That was... interesting. Doesn't seem especially dangerous though." Ishmael said. "Maybe it was a ruse?" Raikov/Lillian said, glancing at Alexander. He shrugged. "Seems like the Panthareen fella that Davin remembers. He's supposed to be mostly harmless, unless you're an infomorph I suppose. Davin's muse makes it seem like Davin reckons he's a pretty scary hacker." "Then lets get moving so we can meet him in person where he's the least dangerous," Ishmael sad. "Where we going exactly?" --- The lift slowly crawled down the massive shaft, giving them time to appraise the restaurant/museum/coffee joint/tourist trap/antique shop that jutted from the bare rock below them. Whether the airplane fuselages were genuine or fabricated was debatable (and was a subject of much debate on the local Mesh), but it was what gave Liftwaffe its unique appeal. Tables were bolted onto the wings with flimsy stools leaned against them - no railings needed in the .15gs of this part of Extropia. Getting from one part of the... establishment to the next was either a matter of walking from wing to wing, leaping, climbing, or dropping to the next level, or taking the stairs inside the fuselage or wall tunnels. The lift that came down the shaft only passed every half-an-hour and was the only public method of access, so they had some time to look around, watch some old flats featuring airplanes, visit a VR museum full of every model of airplane ever known, have digital dogfights from various aeronautical eras including the final desperate battles against the TITANs during the Fall, and try some Aerotix spicy tea before Panthareen showed up. "Davin, you're okay!" he shouted, his half-ton nova crab wrapping Davin/Alexander in a multi-limbed hug that would have probably crushed an unmodified human to a pulp in Earth gravity. The massive cyborg crab jumped around, looking at Davin from all sides, joined by AR simulcrums of himself that blinked into existence with strange squeaking/squishing noises as they surveyed Davin's morph. Alexander extracted himself from the literally over-animated hacker with some difficulty. "Yes, I am here," he said, with exaggerated grammar after a lengthy tirade from Raikov on his diction on the way over. "Good to see you, Panthareen." A small manipulator claw pinched Davin's arm. "All intact, more than poor Panthareen!" Suddenly the same replay they'd seen of Ridley blowing them up in The Sphere appeared, thought this one froze a split-second into the explosion, with circles around little bug-shaped blips half-vanished into the blast. The words "Bits of Me!" appeared with big blinking arrows pointing at the circles. "Yes, I have seen that," Alexander said. "What happened?" "Dunno, I got all blown up!" Panthareen said, a claw pressing against it's 'brow' dramatically. "I'm better now, like my new body?" It posed dramatically, "flexing", balancing, curling into a ball, and more, making the wing their table was situated on sway alarmingly. From their table near the fuselage, Alexander saw Ishmael and Raikov watching with a mixture of amusement, alarm, and resignation. "It is fantastic. Tell me, Panthareen, what is happening now? Where is Ripley?" "I don't know, I just said I got blowed up! Wasn't Davin-avin listening?" AR question-marks shot out from around Panthareen's 'head'. "I do know Claudia is on her own leaving Panthareen all alone on his own to find Ridley. Ridley's got some memorabilia from Earth though that might be traceable and Panthareen has been looking for those. Also, there's the 'device'!" Alexander was about to ask, but before he could, Panthareen swung up its fore-claws, holding an AR spheroid object shaped roughly like an old-Earth American football. It was yellow and appeared to be some mixture of metal and ceramic. Several lights blinked on the side that looked like some strange, alien readout on unstable contents. It made Alexander think of the sort of thing you'd keep a deadly virus or a thermonuclear weapon in. A small window on its side glowed with ominous light as an horn blasted out a "tada!" over Alexander's audio-link with Panthareen. He winced and pointed at it. "Okay, so she has that thing? What is it?" Panthareen petted the container's AR geometry reverently. "It's from Earth, full of fancy real Earth stuff and the case itself is rare too! Might be able to track it!" "Right, right, but what's in it that it needs such an exotic containment vessel?" "What's in it? What's in it!" Another horn blared, a drum roll began and Panthareen pushed the buttons on the spheroid's side dramatically. "In it is... this!" With a flash of light, a piercing sound of depressurization, and a dramatic virtual fanfare, the object flew open. [/QUOTE]
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