[Ring 42 -Door] - Sera - Why yes, I did take the home correspondence holographic programming course
Hope Forster
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Greeter: What are you doing?
Sera: I am attempting to interface with the software core of this simulation.
Greeter: :: Aghast :: Why would you desire to do this?!
Kettick: You encouraged us to shape this environment to our desires. We are attempting to comply, in the manner we are most familiar with.
If, as Kettick suspected, this program read their surface thoughts, he knew that all he transmitted right now was honest, factual information. And if, as he suspected, it was limited in what it could glean, then it would not detect the undercurrents.
Sera: Unless this is a prison and not an entertainment program, I believe I have found the source coding for this simulation…however…this is…taxing.
Kettick looked at his fellow Engineer with mild concern, but in a heartbeat, he could see on her expression her fatigue melt away, replaced by determination.
Just as suddenly, they were no longer in the San Francisco premises, but in an even more familiar setting.
Sera: The computers in this room should work for you, if I have correctly understood the basic functioning of this simulation, Ensign Kettick. The program is quite detailed, and the scope is massive, quite unlike any of our holodeck interfaces.
Kettick: Excellent. I will assist to the best of my abilities. However, as one of our illustrious predecessors may have said, I'm a Remmilian maintenance engineer, not a computer bug. :: He turned towards the Greeter :: Traditional Starfleet crisis-quipping. A very interesting practice, once you understand its purpose.
Greeter: ... What?
Sera only half-listened as she delved through the coding. Although it had been conveniently translated into a language Kettick and herself could understand, it was designed in a manner that was completely alien to her thought processes. She was finding out however, that obtaining that which she was searching for had less to do with talent and more to do with desire.
Kettick moved towards one of the consoles and started to engage with it, all the while casually engaging with the computer greeter that was following them around.
Kettick: I haven't the faintest idea. My best working hypothesis is that it acts as a psychological weapon. Trying to parse the sheer comedic absurdity of it would force the enemy to consider how efficient we would be if only we devoted all our mental resources to the task.
Kettick’s statement caused a momentary pause in her search. He certainly had interesting theories behind some of the more confusing aspects of Terran behavior – and it was especially amazing to her just how ubiquitous the human influence has become – even Kettick’s communication with the computer simulacrum was colored by various idioms and reflections of common interactions utilized by humans. It was fascinatingly distracting.
Sera: I am isolating the coding responsible for transference of consciousness that we…experienced. I shall choose to be optimistic at this moment and say that this can be reversed and we will be returned to our corporeal forms, Ensign Kettick.
Greeter: Surely you cannot be serious? We can make your greatest desires come true. Even those you do not even realize you have! We just need to read them into your mind, after all.
Kettick: I might disagree here. I believe you greatly overstate your capacity to read and compute our thoughts. To be more specific, and to quote a former colleague of mine, I would surmise that you are "more full of it than a Malon export vessel".
Sera started at the Remmalian’s insult to the computer program. She looked over her shoulder at her fellow engineering officer and saw the very un-Kettick-like expression take hold of his facial features, and although she wasn’t certain what he was thinking, it was obviously very impassioned in nature. Turning her gaze back to the computer screen in front of her, Sera hoped that Kettick didn’t notice her momentary lapse while staring at him.
Kettick: Not only you believed that a member of an eusocial species would enjoy his afterlife better away from others, which is already dense enough that I wonder how light manages to escape from you, but you decided to go and one-up this initial mistake by proposing that I spend the eternity lazing about in a power fantasy where I usurp a place I do not belong to. And *that* is so far past insulting that I would need to create wholesale a new religion to define its correct level of blasphemy.
Sera: ::understanding dawning::
The Greeter seemed about to protest, when Kettick cut it short:
Kettick: By the way, each and everyone of us is a vital and necessary part of our societal whole, and has about as much need to be hailed for that than the common and equally vital self-sealing stem bolt, you glorified replicator menu. You should consider yourself lucky that I was in charge of my very specific side of this coordinated task, because if I know her well, the second thing Ensign Sera has done was to create a backup of your code for safekeeping.
Both of Sera’s brows rose at the Remmalian’s emotive response. It certainly clarified things regarding his unusual expressions and gave her an idea that she had certainly not thought of…willing open another screen, Sera began the process of doing exactly that – and technically it was the second thing she had started on…so his statement was only vaguely prescient in nature.
The bemused avatar turned towards the Vulcan Engineer.
Kettick: The first thing being of course to cut you from any control over what she is doing while I monopolized your limited computing power with my pointless ranting.
It was an interesting gambit, Sera would admit. Kettick essentially told her his plan while distracting their greeter with inane ‘small-talk.’ Well, no, not inane, as he basically told the greeter exactly what they were doing, while they were doing it. She was just happy she could keep up with his verbal cues…
Sera: I have isolated the program. Any further disconnection from the core of the program could cause the avatar to become unstable.
Kettick: Response
Sera: You were the one who brought up first contact. Although I do not believe this is the case as the AI self-awareness is fairly limited based on the coding I’m seeing, I have no desire to irrevocably break alien technology before anyone else has had the opportunity to study it.
Kettick: Response
Greeter: Wait a minute. You changed something. ::walking over the Vulcan woman with an air of an exasperated school teacher:: Undo it right now.
Sera: I will not. Your coding has been isolated, and you will be deleted if you do not tell me how to reverse the transfer back to our corporeal forms.
She had no intention of doing so, and even stated as such to Kettick, but Sera hoped they had both shown themselves to be erratic enough for the computer to be unsure of their next move.
Greeter: I do not understand – you have everything at your fingertips! You, Vulcan are no longer a slave to your biology! You will never have to suffer—
Sera: ::cutting her off with a vehemence she had forgotten she had possessed:: Kroykah! <<silence>> I refuse to change what I am because it is…inconvenient. Kettick refuses to act in a manner that is reprehensible to him because it goes against all he believes in – this is not a paradise; it is an escape from the inescapable. This entire amalgam is rife with cowardice.
Kettick: Response
Sera turned back around and hit the command to hard stop the Greeter program. It would need to reboot, and she did not know how much time that would take, but she was motivated to get out of here before it came back.
She was forced to exhale slowly to regain some measure of composure. Setting her shoulders, Sera ‘dove’ back into the lines of code, willing anything about reversing this transferal to come to the forefront.
Sera: This was not really designed for the purpose of reversal. The initial transference algorithm is going to have to be reverse engineered. ::she didn’t want to add that this was way beyond her level of expertise – she would have to figure it out::
Kettick: Response
Sera devoted her mind to the project ahead of her. She wasn’t going to complain but it appeared that the program itself was giving her aid – as it DID understand that it was her desire to have this happen.
An indeterminable amount of time passed in silence on Sera’s part. She took a step back from the console and looked behind her to Kettick.
Sera: I may have it…but it would be prudent to have a second opinion. Would you care to review the coding?
Kettick: Response
Sera: Well as the computer greeter stated, there is no after-afterlife. If the programming is not sound, then…. who knows what could happen?
TAG/TBC
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Ensign Sera
Engineering Officer
USS Juneau NX-99801
J239812S14