Ch1 Another Life (3)

The News was in an up roar. People were blaming everything under the sol star. The most common answer though was terrorist. Since there was seemingly nothing on the footage of the outside, they must have blown up from the inside. Maybe it was anti spacers, that was the most likely group.

I found the theories unlikely and muted them rewatching the footage. I wasn't sure why this interested me so. The footage was already over and hour old, if the stations had completely lost communication and that closely to each other, there was nothing anyone on earth could do for them. There was something there, thought I could feel it, and it was bothering me. Why couldn't I see it.

"It's black."

I hadn't realized I had spoken out loud until miss Davis snapped, "What is black miss Swan? Encryptions don't have colors. You know what, never mind. Since you aren't here anyway, go to the principal, she can deal with you."

I stood and left without complaint or a bow. It didn't even occur to me to wonder if the teacher was going to write me up and have another student take me to make sure I went. Most of the kids weren't paying attention by now anyway. They were all augmented into the news network trying to figure out what was going on.

Walking up the hall I stayed plugged in. "Do you see it, Hero? In the last three frames from Jupiter 3. There is something black blocking the light from three stars. It lined up straight on to the sun so there is no reflected light, you cannot see it until it blocked another source."

The news blinked as I walked like something had pulled the power away from it for a moment. The government AI had met a failsafe condition when the fourth station went silent for no known reason. There was no distress calls, no automated warning of detected nuclear material or explosive materials where they should not be. So the AI had dropped a listener into the public and private net. Anyone watching or listening to the report was being monitored for possible solutions. Basically it was like letting millions of independent little AIs try and do the work instead of the government AI taking the whole load. Most possible solutions were thrown out as soon as said but She-u's it reviewed.

A black object, coming in from the black of space in the shadow of the station itself and not at an angle to get reflected light from Jupiter. When the math checked the AI devoted more resources to testing the idea and matching it with gathered data. Highly likely conclusion for Jupiter 3, Black object strike at high speed. Causing pressure loss in all systems and tearing them apart before they could sound the alarm. Still calculating odds of this occurring naturally.

Now running odds and testing data on other three lost stations. The government AI didn't need permission to get the footage from the mining station. As far as it was concerned it already had it. It took the computer a few minutes to work out similar paths and then compare the video data. By the time She-u got to the principal's office it had found the missing stars and worked out the paths. Conclusion, if only one object it cannot be natural, if four objects, it might be, but unlikely. Most probable, intelligently designed object not made in system.

Another mine disappeared from space as She-u stepped into the principal's office. This was a bigger one, almost 100,000 people lived there. The AI plugged into more resources stealing from the nets. The whole system dimmed for a moment as it ran calculations based off of the last FTL data. Then waited for the light sped data to come in.

She-u like most humans didn't notice the dimming this time. She-u was busy talking to the secretary explaining why she was here, again. She was friends with the man. She saw him enough, after all. The AI had started a clock on for the when it should get useable light speed data and started working on other problems. Still 18 minutes.

If it is an intelligent object and it held its pattern, what paths might it take to approach, Earth, Mars, near Earth and near Mars stations. The moon base? Could it be at risk? As the questions occurred to the AI it devoted subprocesses to them. It wished it could tell if the object was only targeting human creations in space but there was no way to get data on that.

She-u replayed the footage she had recorded from the news and looked for the missing stars, now that she noticed them, she wondered why she hadn't before. Well it was only three frames of the fast capture, high resolution footage. So really why had I noticed it. "She-u I found the missing stars. Man you have a good eye. Here I got source footage from Jupiter station 8. I found a back door, using my family connection. Do you see anything?"

It was hard to watch the full virtual reality take on a one eye display on a split screen. The phone's internal AI had been slaved to the government AI a subsystem of the whole answered the data request and focused the image to the place the larger AI had already found the missing stars. So the system went straight to the data She-u had said she was looking for. "That is strange, Hero. The system narrowed it right to where I wanted. Take a look at this time and location code."

I sat down in one of the office chairs waiting for the principal to have time for me. Something isn't right here. Black is coming here. It will freeze everything, you must find them! I am not strong enough in this from to even slow, Black. I need more time.

I blinked at the onslaught of words and feeling that could not possibly be my own. The slaved AI took note of the movement. Since I was the only one to notice the missing stars in all of the billions of devices slaved to the government AI it was running background checks and gathering other personal data just in case it was needed. It could have been an odd one off after all.