In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound

Prologue - Analysis Session: Omega-3043 - #7329

[Now, isn't this something,] GH-199076492 pondered. Circuits flared as a crude image manifested from simple waveforms upon a nearby holographic surface. It wasn't every cycle that the machine got to witness coherent data from its inquiry target. However, the machine lived for such moments. Until then, it had been attempting to assemble the data of the last few years into new patterns in the hope of uncovering something new. But the noise-to-signal ratio produced by the various distortions around the strange, hidden world had made all attempts fruitless. Of course, what could the little green-haired machine do other than follow the president's orders despite the Foundation's internal conflicts of interest? It was what she had been designed to do, after all.

Unlike the rest of her siblings, she had full access to the array of sensors and monitors aboard Ientec Prime. Among other things, she was also fully integrated into several superclusters to facilitate more powerful computations. She was several dozen orders of magnitude more powerful in terms of raw processing power and possessed half as many orders higher memory. Even better, she could directly connect to the president himself and communicate with him through bidirectional means versus merely being receptive to his pull and push queries.

[Initiating limiters to improve focus, GH-199076492,] the president said. [Please attempt to stabilize the data stream.]

[Acknowledged, Mr. President. Apologies,] GH-199076492 replied, realizing how carried away she had been in her own self-aggrandizement. [Focusing. Attempting to stabilize imagery and wave signatures.] Small signaling lights began to glow all around her body within the dark, polyhedral encasement. Their luminance increased as she amplified the power draw for her running processes. Hooked into the back of her head, her fiber-alloy neural link hummed with the increasing current. [Increasing power draw by fifteen percent.]

[Acknowledged,] the president replied. [Removing current restraints. You may increase power by a further twenty percent if necessary.]

Parsing the data stream was nearly impossible for many of the systems aboard Ientec Prime due to the distance between it and the inquiry target. Nevertheless, waveform analysis of information from neighboring galaxies and star systems was enough to piece together the signal as she worked through the data from end to start. Localizing the non-random information gathered by their satellites revealed a distinct, known pattern.

[Increasing power draw by twenty percent,] she notified the president. [Opening processing chamber to allow ventilation and reduce shell damage.]

[Approved.]

All around her, machinery activated, and triangular panels began to unfold. As she aggregated the signal, the small enclosure unfolded to reveal the chair-like rig in which her android frame lay. A swathe of power cords, glass-fiber-alloy communication cables, and various apparatus adorned the back of her vessel. Rays of bright solar light beamed through the opening metal plates, grazing her silvery synthetic skin. Ultraviolet and infrared radiation sensors triggered impending tissue-damage warnings all along her exposed physique. GH-199076492 ignored the warnings and continued working as the hum of electricity became a fervent buzz. Tiny sparks flickered in the air around her while images and numbers danced on the heads-up display within her helmet.

[Activating UV and IR filters,] the president said. [Verify tissue-damage warnings are cleared.]

[Waiting,] she replied. Transparent metal alloy along the rear of the sterile metal room altered to block the harmful radiation, dimming the room. [All clear.]

[Thank you,] the president said.

[Notifications: energy signature recognized. Attempting to visualize and track intent.]