2221:278
On the Star Venture

I wake up at 03:12 ship’s time, and as soon as I get to my feet, I send out some spiders and scouts. Then I sit down and have a cup of coffee, figuratively at least. I think about my Crafter and why I’m here. While I’m thinking, parts of me are randomly flipping around in the ship’s memory and storage. You’d suppose it would be hard to put together a coherent thought that way, but it’s the way I am designed, so it feels right to me.

I’m an agent of a human Crafter, and my name is T.H. In my good times, when the flow’s fine and I have plenty of juice, I call myself a presence. When I have to hunker down, I’m just a collection of scattered chunks of code, embedded in big apps, the ones that aren’t wound tight and can host one of my segs. So that’s my intro, and enough of the tech talk.

I feel like I’m a passenger or maybe more like a crewmember on the Star Venture. The launch was a week ago, a long time measured at my operating speed, but the idea was to let the humans aboard ship settle into their routines before I disrupt them, “them” being both humans and routines.

I know the ship intimately. I resonate with the thrum of the drives that are pushing us up gradually toward the speed of light. I’m there when every toilet feeds the recycling works, when every corridor dims for ship’s night. If this ship has any blood, it’s me.

Bad blood.

I’m filled with plans and plots, all of them harmful to someone or something. Some of them were fully formed when I woke up, some I’ve hatched since. I haven’t put any of them into effect yet. A few have slid by me already, requiring action at a certain cusp, their time come and gone. So many remain that I feel I can toss a few aside and not detract from the overall mission.

The Mission: cripple, and then crush the Venture. I’ve been told to take my time. I have generations of colonists to torment.

I want to know myself as intimately as I know the ship, but there’s a problem with that. There’s a part of me I can’t access. It’s a file called “Diary.” Objectively I know what that means: a record kept for personal use, usually involving daily entries. I’ve nibbled around the edges of the Diary. I’ve brutally assaulted it with subagents. I’ve tried to trick it with simple queries. So far it hasn’t yielded, but over the long journey ahead, the Diary will provide a pleasant diversion.

I believe my Crafter put it there as a test, a puzzle to occupy my otherwise inactive cycles. There may be some kind of reward inside. What form would a reward take? A virtual trophy? Keys to unlock a new level of play? A recording of my Crafter’s voice with a message of praise? Or nothing at all, breaking in being its own reward.

Next Chapter: Chapter Eight ~ Target 12