"So the WAU, what, never reports having subjective experiences? What can it do--use language, understand language, make plans, describe images, operate robots in arbitrary real-world environments?"

"It's just a simple system for maintaining station equilibrium, or at least that's what Sarang always said. It doesn't talk, it doesn't control anything other than computer interlinks and life support systems. it's not like it's from some old science fiction show. It's just...everywhere. Like a cancer, but we...Reed and I...I'd found that it was incorporating brain scans into itself, based on some of the early work I'd done on the ARK. I don't know why, I don't know if the me that I was ever found out."

"I mean, unless someone specifically gave the WAU the ability to incorporate brain scans then there's some ability to model an environment and generate new possible actions and choose between them. Unless, and I apologize for how much this sounds like a crazy idea from someone who's read too much science fiction, someone incorporated one brain scan into the WAU and that one, uh, took over somehow and now there's some kind of modified human running the show."

"I don't know, it just sounds crazy. I don't see how it helps us launch the ARK, though."

"Launching the ARK is definitely the priority. Though, uh. If it's still on Earth, does that mean more people can be loaded into it?"

"Yeah, probably."

Oh, thank goodness, she has a chance of ever being somewhere other than this.

"Then it kind of does matter whether the WAU is a person, right? Though I guess the WAU being able to interact with brain scans doesn't mean we can do the reverse. We should definitely try to get Amy and Carl out though, if the equipment is still around."

"Yes, but we should focus on getting to Theta--once we have the DUNBAT, it'll be easier to go back to Upsilon, and we'll know if we can even get down to the abyss or if we have to go to Omicron for the climber." 

"Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, when I get to the CURIE, should I just plug you into whichever sub looks to be in the best shape or do you want to check out the ship itself?"

"From the story the escape vessel's computer is telling, I don't expect the CURIE itself to be in usable shape, but you might have a look? Any escape vessel should be fine, though."

"Alright. Okay if I disconnect you now?" She is not going to accidentally pull her out in the middle of a word again; she is going to be polite. 

"Yeah, I'll be fine, Just be sure to plug me in at some point." Catherine says.

"Okay, here goes." And she disconnects Catherine and exits the sub. If there's nothing immediately threatening or fascinating outside, she hikes off toward the hill behind which is supposedly the CURIE.

The path to Theta seems a bit more improved than the surface paths in the seabed around Upsilon, with a line of lights along cleared seabed for at least a little while. It becomes clear some of the wreckage around Lambda must be from CURIE, as the density of random beams and structures increases as she goes along.It's enough to start almost being peaceful, before there's the telltale flicker of electronic noise in her qualia. Up ahead, and coming her way, is one of the monsters. It looks similar to the one in Lambda, a humanoid figure with a glowing blob for a head, though it's hard to tell since the flicker in Margaret's visual field seems to be synchronized to its motion in the debris such that she never sees it moving, it's only closer along the path every time her vision flickers.

That's really screwed up and disturbing and she wants her senses to work but at least it serves as a warning. She runs away again, and gets back to the path well on the far side of the figure. (She used to wave hello to strangers coming up the road, yesterday last century.)

Leaving the figure behind for the moment, Margaret comes across an area where a section of the ship has fallen like a wall across the path.

She tries climbing up it, fails to get purchase, and goes around to the other end where there's a torn seam she can force wider with her crowbar to get inside.

The opening leads into a small internal hallway, clearly torn from the ship, blocked by the rockfall on the end she just entered near. Making her way further along, there's a door which hangs half-open but jammed.

Can she pry it off, and if that doesn't work can she cut it off?

The application of the crowbar is enough to force the door open far enough to squeeze through. She can feel the pressure on the side of the suit as she forces her way though the gap, and then she's through into a small chamber at the end of the section of hull. The hallway's continuation ends with another section of rock wall and crumpled metal, but a ladder leads up into what looks like a maintenance conduit.

She has no particular reason to expect this not to get to a dead end eventually, but so far it's easier than trying to scale the outside, so up into the maintenance conduit she goes.

The maintenance passageway dodges around a couple short turns, and finally out through a grating in the side of the ship, leaving her on the far side of the obstruction. Beyond, the path is less clear, covered with larger sections of wreckage and large rocks the size of small boulders. Even more sections of what look like a ship's hull lie scattered around, one bearing the name "MS CURIE" in faded white paint, before a turn around it brings Margaret to view of a large structure rising from the seabed. It looks, on first impressions, less like a ship, and more like an oil platform or a bunch of buildings rising on a pylon from the sea bed. Various booms, cranes, and catwalks hang off the platform at various heights in the structure rising above Margaret as she walks around it. It looks like it's being stabilized by several giant tentacables, some with spines, several almost a foot in diameter. More than a little damage is visible, as some of the platforms look twisted at right angles. At the base, where the pylon spears into the ground, a rip in the hull promises entry to the interior.

It's sufficiently intact to register as a damaged ship rather than undifferentiated human-made debris, and sufficiently beautiful to be depressing in its brokenness. She wonders as she goes inside how many skyscrapers are still standing on the surface, and how long it will be before the last one falls.

The inside has a few lights on, and the doors work, including, annoyingly, some safety-locked hatches Margaret can't get open. Still, she can make her way inside and through some of the hatches. The interior is a mess of stairs, catwalks, and winding passages. One, in particular, seems notable--it's a staircase going entirely perpendicular to the one she's on, without intersecting it, and which looks like it dead-ends straight into a vertical wall. What's stranger is that the railing, on closer inspection, seems set up for somebody to climb the staircase starting from standing on the wall.

That's very M.C. Escher, and implies that this ship was intended to be usable in a couple different orientations. Fortunately one of them is the one it's currently in, so she can navigate without climbing across surfaces meant to be ceilings.