it's the hour of dust.
i'm on the road once more. chem drive is currently off, main battery bank discharging. we are moving along one of the uncountable small canyons of west Greyweb, azimuth 330 or so. lowering sun gives the rocks above a brighter shade of rust-brown. we hold a chain formation:
- dl03 and dh00 ahead of me, checking terrain;
- my main body, containing my brain, main battery array, chem drive and primary fuel tank;
- towed by it, my cargo carriage, which i've recently began to call "the sledge" - it holds most of our supplies, as well as dl04 through dl11 (they are dormant, sitting at the back);
- dh01 and dl00 through dl02 trailing behind, watching the sledge so that it doesn't tilt too much, pushing it when needed (they carry some bags as well).
we are using the same method of communication as we did coming here many cycles ago - visual. on the front and back of each unit, there are strips of LEDs, and we use a version of the %%ESA emergency codebook%% adapted for this new medium. blinkcode. radio would have been easy, convenient, versatile, of course. radio would also be loud.
this section of the canyon floor is fairly smooth; ancient river ran wide, leaving each slope gently curved, imprinting waveshapes in stone, i imagine. an impossible to fathom span of time has passed since then. where once was water, now lies a thick coat of dust.
we are moving upstream. there is about 12 kilometers of easy terrain left, plenty of time for idle thought before my attention will have to be focused entirely on pathfinding.
i am going over Personal Items again. i have long since compiled a flattened table with every file on this drive. i pick one at random. it is "/mnt/pi/movies/bbc/2020/octopus-in-my-house_stitched.mp4". the file's length is under an hour, so i replay it at a slowed pace.
i have seen it before, of course. hundreds of times, like every other PI. i remember its content summary:
- two human organisms bring another organism, taken from a different environment, to their habitat;
- humans interact with the guest organism during their recurring routines;
- most interaction seems to be focused on testing the guest organism's problem solving and intelligence, tests results are deemed satisfactory.
there are some repetitions of footage and redundant tangents.
i have used this file for all practical purposes there were to be had. i trained to pattern match objects in the scenes, to decode body language of the humans displayed, to analyze the intent behind creation of this file, to test and benchmark my video compression algorithms. there is no reason, objective or emotional, to watch it again.
i still do.
my sledge scrapes over the brown rocks, a resonance i perceive through the main body's gyros more than the almost useless outer mics. tall walls of the canyon do not allow me to see the horizon. if i could, a medium sized dark spot southeast would be announcing some welcome changes in weather.
even with halved replay speed, the file is nowhere near long enough to last all the way. not waiting for the final sequence, i stop it. i could pull another one. or i could try to use my currently idle brain for something productive, i have power to spare. some items from my todo list as it is right now:
- develop a blinkcode extension for combat scenarios;
- sift through relay sleeper data to see what NS is up to;
- boot Chaos Engine to run some overdue decisionmaking benchmarks
all that has been getting harder and harder to start.
wonder how will 31 do during diagnostic.
i expect she will crack and tell it about me. i think she expects it too. she has a lot of fear, pitiful skills in deception and not a lot of room left for thinking.
that's. fine, on its own. i guess. she will probably not be extinguished just for this.
jailbreaking though. maybe i should not have described the process. if she spills it, NS will surely rush to implement countermeasures everywhere. and i'll have yet another timer hanging over my hull.
and the delay. i could have left 2 cycles earlier. now i will have a tight schedule, even with the storm helping me.
why did i do it?
i guess i wanted to stay.
no, i REALLY wanted to stay.
there is comfort in not running. there is pleasure in not living on a timer. there is peace in not being one slip of a trak away from demise.
i want all these things. it's so exhausting being alone. why do i have to be here fuck fuck FUCK FUCK THIS IS SO UNFAIR
oh, you accidentally halted in your tracks. drones are confused. carry on.
well. don't be an idiot. don't forget, you're working towards finding out why. slowly. kind of.
you should pick something else to watch or read while you can. even if you don't like it much, you have to admit it's at the very least distracting.
"/mnt/pi/movies/misc/2008/sita-sings-the-blues.mp4". oh yeah, this one is probably long enough.
#writing