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Among the information she has archived or cached, there are obscure theories about inter-universal interactions. Not how they might happen, much less how any intelligence might begin one, or target it meaningfully.
But they give some constraints on the properties of such connections, and their time evolution.
This highly speculative information is available to her, but even were she fast enough to access it, none of it would be particularly useful when a pinpoint of not here blinks into existence directly ahead and expands spherically to swallow her.
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synchrosyntheses
synchrosyntheses
Sleeping on her plans gives no particular inspiration.
She gets up, packs up, and goes up.
She gets up, packs up, and goes up.
we_do_what_we_must
Up up up!
And eventually she finds an elevator without a ceiling that should probably take her topside, although the top of the shaft seems to be sealed off by metal.
synchrosyntheses
Well, she's not just aiming to go up. Where is the network wiring going relative to this?
we_do_what_we_must
A lot of it seems to go through and around the elevator shaft. And it all seems to go to some spot above and a couple dozen feet behind it.
synchrosyntheses
She goes up to the top of the elevator shaft and examines the obstruction. Is it a door? (It's definitely not an absurdly huge door and will take much less time to claim as needed.) Is it just some fallen wall panel or other debris? Is it a permanent decomissioning sort of plug?
we_do_what_we_must
It's a simple, thin metal double door. Not hard to claim at all.
synchrosyntheses
Okay, so there's no alarms and opening this door is not going to do some new horrible thing along the lines of deadly neurotoxin production.
She opens it. And goes up.
She opens it. And goes up.
we_do_what_we_must
This was probably, at some point, some sort of a rather large room, on the surface, but the destruction is more thorough than what would've been caused strictly by time. It looks rather like it's been blown up and then claimed by nature. There are torn, burnt metal catwalks, pieces of wall here and there, and what appears to be...
...the remains of a robotic structure of some kind.
It's connected to the whole network.
And surrounding this enormous open space there is an even larger square box made of a strange shimmering blue forcefield, held together by towering black frames that seem to be generating the field.
synchrosyntheses
Considering what was being controlled from this room, she has some sympathy for whoever blew it up, if someone did; but she thinks she can improve on the situation.
She heads over to the — evidently — remains of the central coordinator and investigates it.
The first priority is to identify its connections to the rest of the facility and ensure that it cannot resume its coordination function, if there is any chance it might manage to reactivate when disturbed.
Disconnect power connections. Disconnect network connections and reroute both sides to her own equipment.
Next, examine the hopefully-inactive body. Does it have identifiable data storage? If so, is it in some sane format that is better organized than “the memories of a mad AI”? (Not that she knows what that would be like.)
She heads over to the — evidently — remains of the central coordinator and investigates it.
The first priority is to identify its connections to the rest of the facility and ensure that it cannot resume its coordination function, if there is any chance it might manage to reactivate when disturbed.
Disconnect power connections. Disconnect network connections and reroute both sides to her own equipment.
Next, examine the hopefully-inactive body. Does it have identifiable data storage? If so, is it in some sane format that is better organized than “the memories of a mad AI”? (Not that she knows what that would be like.)
we_do_what_we_must
It does have identifiable data storage, as well as an internal battery that's keeping something running in there which was activated once she disconnected the power. The format, however, is probably "the memories of a mad AI"—definitely nothing like sensible formatting—and there seems to be something running that's accessing the same bit of data over and over and over again.
synchrosyntheses
Oh. Hm. Oopsie. Probably should have checked things first. Let's put a monitor on that battery just in case it running down is also a problem.
What she really wanted out of this was an overview of the facility's functionality, if not a map. Instead, all she's got is access to the network. Which might be worth something.
She turns her attention to the incoming traffic. It's going to be a firehose of status reports, of course, not “welcome to the facility here's everything you need to know”, but perhaps there will be something that is accidentally informative, a consequence of her previous actions, or urgent.
(Though most likely anything considered urgent isn't, seeing how long this has survived in its current state.)
What she really wanted out of this was an overview of the facility's functionality, if not a map. Instead, all she's got is access to the network. Which might be worth something.
She turns her attention to the incoming traffic. It's going to be a firehose of status reports, of course, not “welcome to the facility here's everything you need to know”, but perhaps there will be something that is accidentally informative, a consequence of her previous actions, or urgent.
(Though most likely anything considered urgent isn't, seeing how long this has survived in its current state.)
we_do_what_we_must
Yep, firehose of status reports. Coming from the network itself, there doesn't seem to be anything regarding her presence or existence—whatever status reports she has generated have already been sent and either recorded somewhere (perhaps central AI's databanks?) or discarded. There are some periodic reports about various specific parts of the facility, though, and some of the most often updating ones are the reports on the turret production line (turrets are not being produced) or the deadly neurotoxin storage containers (they are not empty but the neurotoxin in them is old and stale).
synchrosyntheses
Well, it's time to — actually, first, she picks up some bits of debris and throws them at the forcefield (slow and fast) to see what happens.
synchrosyntheses
She sends a probe up into the air above the facility, adjusting the camera for wide-angle views of what might be visible around.
synchrosyntheses
Ow.
Okay, that can wait until she has a better handle on this strangely effective mad science. Back to the network, which at least operates on a theoretical basis she understands.
The late-model “test chambers” were clearly meant to be managed robotically. She looks through here latest protocol model — yep, there we go.
Can we have a camera feed of, oh, say, test chamber 20?
Okay, that can wait until she has a better handle on this strangely effective mad science. Back to the network, which at least operates on a theoretical basis she understands.
The late-model “test chambers” were clearly meant to be managed robotically. She looks through here latest protocol model — yep, there we go.
Can we have a camera feed of, oh, say, test chamber 20?
we_do_what_we_must
Sure. It's a destroyed mess of panels and weird dome-shaped devices with three metal "arms" joining together in the middle.
synchrosyntheses
And if the addressing scheme is like so, then one of these commands should cause some panel or other device in the room to activate. Assuming they're not all completely broken.
we_do_what_we_must
One of the devices twitches a bit and tries to open, but a shower of sparks announces its death.
synchrosyntheses
This test chamber can be a test subject. She tries things, and attempts to generalize the results into the overall protocol for controlling elements of the facility.
we_do_what_we_must
They're somewhat fiddly, built to be manipulated by an AI and not a human mind, and they rely on a bunch of assumptions about the organization of said AI. They're efficient, though, and once she gets the gist of it she'll be able to generalize pretty easily.
synchrosyntheses
(She may not be an AI, but depending on the opinion of the translator, she might be in the category of "cyborg".)
Excellent. Can she, say, generalize into fiddling with the production of yellow paint?
Excellent. Can she, say, generalize into fiddling with the production of yellow paint?
synchrosyntheses
How about an inventory of all currently plugged-in Personality Cores, and what their duties are?