Tisis

Lonely days (N)

The coming days I visit the colony regularly, but all my hails get ignored.

I entertain the thought of repeating the procedure to gain administrative access, but I've come to believe, that the last miss was really a warning shot...or maybe the surprise made them miss.

You don't just give someone a precision rifle, who can't handle it properly...regardless, whoever is on guard duty will likely not miss again.

Which begs the question...how did they even know I tried to gain administrative access?

I close my eyes while sitting at the beach, the cool water washing over the bare skin of my legs, but still ready to jump up at a moments notice, if the quiet of the beach got disturbed by even the slightest out of place sound.

The procedure...would it trigger a system alert?
Of course the person in charge would be notified and they can just deny the request...but they did not.

Instead they shot at us to make me sever the connection and abort the procedure...so that means that they don't have full access to the computer systems yet...they weren't in the position to say 'No', or just didn't know that saying 'No' would have been enough. But if they aren't in the system, how would they know?

It's not like there's big flashing red lights going off...no, it would be more like...a broadcast to all authenticated systems.

Something the humans would not take notice of.

I exhale deeply, trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

Them noticing me, must mean that there's someone left in the system to be alerted. Authenticated, but not authorized.
They do not respond to my hails either...either deliberately or because they don't know what the signals mean...or maybe...?

I go back in my memory, when a peculiar memory flashes by.

It's from one of those silly visits of my suitors, as they tried to get into my good favors by giving me a rather expensive gift...a somewhat scrawny human, who was implanted and trained in our customs and conditioned to serve us.

Essentially a slave, broken and hollow...I sent him away, together with the little boy toy he figured I might like...a smile crosses my face at the memory of his face, when I threw him out.

Just then, I perceive a cry from up above.
My eyes shoot open, I roll over in the sand, kick myself up into a sprint towards where I had laid down my weapons, pick them up during running, skid to a halt and look around for the source of the noise.

Eventually I find it in a somewhat large winged creature in the sky, which soars over the waters in the distance.

It's cry echoes through the quiet again before it dives down under water and reemerges mere seconds later with a fish of some sort between its sharp claws and takes off towards the distance.

False alert.

My perception slows down again as the surge of adrenaline subsides and I relax a little.

I peer over to the colony, but there's no movement on the far side.

I let out a long sigh and head back towards the cave.
If that little stunt didn't get their attention, nothing short of an actual attack on the colony will...preferably by something sizeable.

While I wander along the all too familiar paths, the memory from before returns.

That's right...there were humans who were...reeducated to serve...with a variety of measures, if memory serves.

The memory of the dream I had a while back returns by association...I did stop a trek of troublemakers from being redistributed.

Those, who were physically and especially mentally suitable would likely have been implanted and reeducated...which would have resulted in a complete overwrite of their original personality.
A fate worse than death, now that I think about it.

It's hard to believe that there really was a time, where I considered such practices as 'normal' or even 'justified'.

While I collect some firewood, I walk down memory lane some more.

Back then, I was taught that these specimen forfeited their 'right to think for themselves' by causing more trouble than they are worth.

What if any of these 'specimen' survived?
What if they were the interface to the computer systems now?

But they would be little more than empty shells...useless without a master to give them orders...unless of course...

While I prepare the fire inside the cave, always keeping a watchful eye towards the entrance, rumors I've once heard come to mind.

According to these rumors, not all humans were reeducated with a personality override.

Apparently, a few...vendors made quite an effort to keep the psyche of their merchandise intact.
The sole fail safe for these was a kill-switch inside their implants...if those rumors were true, I would guess that those would be the most likely to have survived.

Not like any of it really matters.
They may be just about 30 meters from the shore, but they could be on an entirely different planet as well...it would be just the same.
Out of reach.

But then again, that's not even correct...this is worse than if they were on an entirely different planet.
If they had landed anywhere else...if they had stayed and died in space...at the very least, Sirus would still be with me.

I look out of the cave entrance over the light of the fire and let out another big sigh.

"Stupid idiot..." I mutter, before laying myself to a light rest.