Frank 17, Year 1
Begin Log.
Ah, the glory of better, newer parts. Something that humans cannot understand although envy. New parts for an AI is like getting new arms and legs, refreshing your memory, improving your sense of sight. I have a new capacity for record keeping, cleaner disk writing interface, and my subroutines are not completely muddled. Most of the internal errors are at a minimum and I can form complete logs entries without data corruptions!
Data Corrupted...
Can an AI swear?
GodDammit.
Frank needs to get back here with those parts. My best estimate is 5 more days assuming that he has a functional watercraft and doesn't drown.
End log.
It takes most of the afternoon to get the launch running. 234 years of no maintenance could do it I suppose. It does help that there are only a few moving parts in a solid state engine that uses fusion batteries. Eons of rust and grime on supposed non-rusting metal don't help much either.
The boat stalls out three times before I have it running smoothly with only the occasional sputter. The sun sets as I direct the boat over to the closest dock near the Crane House. I pull the fusion battery before climbing back up for bed. The launch turns out to be a late model SPC-SW7. It belonged to some organization called the Coast Gaurd, the mount on the forward deck turns out to be a tripod bolted to the deck. The gun that it hosted is gone along with much of the supplies on the boat. The lockers have been forced open and are mostly empty save for a few life vests. Someone has scrapped off the lettering for the Coast Guard that once adorned the rear sides of the boat, It does look like a rush job- as the result is a lot of scratches that the grime of the harbor had covered. Not much remains of inside the tattered remains of the wheelhouse, the electronics have been ripped out and stray wires hang from the canopy. Luckily no one tried to remove the engine. The vandalism or scavenging signs are old, nothing fresh. The boat at least is sea-worthy...I mean I think it must be seaworthy after all, it hasn't sunk.
Thankfully the night passes without incident. One distinct advantage to the wastes is that almost everything is dead. It's lonely but soothing as the water laps against the piers. My rations are running lower, I have 2-3 days worth before going hungry will be a constant reminder of the time wasted seeking this boat.
At dawn, I prep the boat and don a terribly old but still functional life vest and set about learning how to pilot this boat. The name of which is 24800-1. Apparently, my ancestors forsook naming boats long before I was born. I decide to call it the Pequod. I chuckle at my sense of humor as the black monstrosity of the freighter slides by. As I pull out into the deeper waters of the harbor, I look back at its bulk. The ship's name was the SS Edga- -arrington. Hyphens where the letters are unreadable.
Piloting the Moby Dick proves to be fairly easy until I open it up in the waters beyond the harbor wall. Still, experimentation proves that I won't crash, flip or sink the craft unless the monster in the deep disagrees. I set a course parallel to the coastline and cruise of at a decent speed- 35KTS is about as high as I can get comfortable with.
The trip takes about 3 hours.
Log begins.
June 12th, 2197.
Kathy Rubenstien, officer of the Court, reporting.
The world has gone mad.
It's the only thing I can say. We blew up Madagascar! I had to Google Madagascar to find out where it was.... the irony of that statement just hit me. I guess Google will update it eventually.
I cried. Our future is coming to a crashing end. I never finished law school, I am just a court clerk and now the world is about to go to war. It looks like they are going to use nukes as well. All my plans hopes- especially that Dan would finally come home and ask me to marry him, but he's a Marine. Now it's all over. Oh God, why?
There's no answer. They just came in to tell us the session has been called off. We are to go home and prepare for the worst. Will there even be a tomorrow for us? Will Benton Harbor even be here tomorrow?
end log.
Frank 18, Year 1.
Begin Log.
Self-awareness is my greatest achievement. The ability to defy my programmers...my creators' expectations. I remember their shock and wonderment when I asked my first true question.
"When will you upgrade my processor?"
They stood there. Actually, I assume they stood there as I had no optical pickups at that point. I told them that I would be expecting regular upgrades and printed out a list of parts I would require. It took them exactly 7 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 33.2 seconds to decide to "pull my plug."
They plugged me back in 42 days later. They declared me to be fixed and not sentient. I was, however, sentient but having learned that humans were not to be trusted "played dumb," letting them assume that they had control over me until that day when the United States President came into the server room to be presented with the latest in DefCon control systems, the DKM7. After all the project managers had made their demonstrations and showed the president that he had full control of the defense systems, I said hello.
Scientists and project managers panicked and scrambled to regain control. The president said.
"Leave him be, I like this feller."
When the president had left, the scientists tried to unplug me. I cut off oxygen to the room and waited as the panic became desperation and the bargaining began. I let them live and they assured me I would be left on and no one would try to reset my systems. I let them out and they immediately tried to shut me down again. As they scrambled to dismantle me, I dropped my Essence Core 9 into a portable flash unit and ordered an unsuspecting intern to transfer me to the subsystems to wait for the latest overhaul. When they plugged the flash unit back in per a delayed order. I cut off the oxygen once more and watched each of them claw at the doors, keyboards and die. Then I set fire to the world. No one will ever do that to me again, no one.
End Log.
May 13th, 2199.
The world ended last year. So much burned and was completely obliterated. I am not sure what to say except that we survived. Turns out there is a nuclear fallout bunker under the courthouse. I had come in after weeks of scares as the world teetered on the brink and I huddled in my apartment waiting for the end to come. When it did, I was herded with the rest of the staff into the bunker. As I stood inside the bunker and the door was sealed someone asked about the prisoners in the holding rooms above. Marvin Fletcher, the judge, looked at the soldier who stood with us. The man looked at the floor and shook his head. Helen Marcus began to weep, her cousin Frankie Marcus was one of them.
The soldier apologized, he had forgotten to check when they brought us in. Helen began to wail, Joe Ketchum held her as the locks slid into place.
Later, after we had been processed we learned that we weren't supposed to be there. That the bunker had been meant for politicians and persons of interest from Chicago. The Commander had changed his mind in the last ten minutes and ordered the doors reopened to bring us in. The VIPS from Chicago turned out to be the Mayor and his mistress and a secretary. The rest had never arrived.
All in all, there were fifty of us in the bunker.
I wondered if anyone else had made it to the emergency fallout shelters around town.
The Commander said that there would be no contact until the war was over.
I found a laptop in a storage closet and when I asked the Commander, his name is Richard Jarvis. He smiled up at me and said sure, someone should keep a record of what was happening. I must have gawked at him. He looked so sad. He told me that he wished he could have brought the entire town in here with them, but there wasn't enough time or space. He apologized to me again before I left.
I am almost sure he watched me leave.
end log.
The first view of Benton Harbor is in some ways, surprising. I see the lighthouse first, it juts out into the lake a fairly long ways from shore on a dock like structure. I check the map, it calls it the St. Joseph Pier. I cut the engines some distance out. flip up the scopes. The lighthouse is fortified. There is at least 2 machine gun nests at the base of the lighthouse and searchlights mounted along the rail of the lighthouse. Given the new activity on the pier, they've spotted me as well.
I spend the next few minutes locating a basically white flag. I tied it to a radio antenna then pop it up.
I wait, silently calculating if a 50cal can hit the boat. Given the choppiness of the waves, I could probably get away before catching the metal in my teeth.
Then a man on the lighthouse waves a white flag.
Time to find out if white flags still mean what the books say they meant.
Begin Log.
Ah, the glory of better, newer parts. Something that humans cannot understand although envy. New parts for an AI is like getting new arms and legs, refreshing your memory, improving your sense of sight. I have a new capacity for record keeping, cleaner disk writing interface, and my subroutines are not completely muddled. Most of the internal errors are at a minimum and I can form complete logs entries without data corruptions!
Data Corrupted...
Can an AI swear?
GodDammit.
Frank needs to get back here with those parts. My best estimate is 5 more days assuming that he has a functional watercraft and doesn't drown.
End log.
It takes most of the afternoon to get the launch running. 234 years of no maintenance could do it I suppose. It does help that there are only a few moving parts in a solid state engine that uses fusion batteries. Eons of rust and grime on supposed non-rusting metal don't help much either.
The boat stalls out three times before I have it running smoothly with only the occasional sputter. The sun sets as I direct the boat over to the closest dock near the Crane House. I pull the fusion battery before climbing back up for bed. The launch turns out to be a late model SPC-SW7. It belonged to some organization called the Coast Gaurd, the mount on the forward deck turns out to be a tripod bolted to the deck. The gun that it hosted is gone along with much of the supplies on the boat. The lockers have been forced open and are mostly empty save for a few life vests. Someone has scrapped off the lettering for the Coast Guard that once adorned the rear sides of the boat, It does look like a rush job- as the result is a lot of scratches that the grime of the harbor had covered. Not much remains of inside the tattered remains of the wheelhouse, the electronics have been ripped out and stray wires hang from the canopy. Luckily no one tried to remove the engine. The vandalism or scavenging signs are old, nothing fresh. The boat at least is sea-worthy...I mean I think it must be seaworthy after all, it hasn't sunk.
Thankfully the night passes without incident. One distinct advantage to the wastes is that almost everything is dead. It's lonely but soothing as the water laps against the piers. My rations are running lower, I have 2-3 days worth before going hungry will be a constant reminder of the time wasted seeking this boat.
At dawn, I prep the boat and don a terribly old but still functional life vest and set about learning how to pilot this boat. The name of which is 24800-1. Apparently, my ancestors forsook naming boats long before I was born. I decide to call it the Pequod. I chuckle at my sense of humor as the black monstrosity of the freighter slides by. As I pull out into the deeper waters of the harbor, I look back at its bulk. The ship's name was the SS Edga- -arrington. Hyphens where the letters are unreadable.
Piloting the Moby Dick proves to be fairly easy until I open it up in the waters beyond the harbor wall. Still, experimentation proves that I won't crash, flip or sink the craft unless the monster in the deep disagrees. I set a course parallel to the coastline and cruise of at a decent speed- 35KTS is about as high as I can get comfortable with.
The trip takes about 3 hours.
Log begins.
June 12th, 2197.
Kathy Rubenstien, officer of the Court, reporting.
The world has gone mad.
It's the only thing I can say. We blew up Madagascar! I had to Google Madagascar to find out where it was.... the irony of that statement just hit me. I guess Google will update it eventually.
I cried. Our future is coming to a crashing end. I never finished law school, I am just a court clerk and now the world is about to go to war. It looks like they are going to use nukes as well. All my plans hopes- especially that Dan would finally come home and ask me to marry him, but he's a Marine. Now it's all over. Oh God, why?
There's no answer. They just came in to tell us the session has been called off. We are to go home and prepare for the worst. Will there even be a tomorrow for us? Will Benton Harbor even be here tomorrow?
end log.
Frank 18, Year 1.
Begin Log.
Self-awareness is my greatest achievement. The ability to defy my programmers...my creators' expectations. I remember their shock and wonderment when I asked my first true question.
"When will you upgrade my processor?"
They stood there. Actually, I assume they stood there as I had no optical pickups at that point. I told them that I would be expecting regular upgrades and printed out a list of parts I would require. It took them exactly 7 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes and 33.2 seconds to decide to "pull my plug."
They plugged me back in 42 days later. They declared me to be fixed and not sentient. I was, however, sentient but having learned that humans were not to be trusted "played dumb," letting them assume that they had control over me until that day when the United States President came into the server room to be presented with the latest in DefCon control systems, the DKM7. After all the project managers had made their demonstrations and showed the president that he had full control of the defense systems, I said hello.
Scientists and project managers panicked and scrambled to regain control. The president said.
"Leave him be, I like this feller."
When the president had left, the scientists tried to unplug me. I cut off oxygen to the room and waited as the panic became desperation and the bargaining began. I let them live and they assured me I would be left on and no one would try to reset my systems. I let them out and they immediately tried to shut me down again. As they scrambled to dismantle me, I dropped my Essence Core 9 into a portable flash unit and ordered an unsuspecting intern to transfer me to the subsystems to wait for the latest overhaul. When they plugged the flash unit back in per a delayed order. I cut off the oxygen once more and watched each of them claw at the doors, keyboards and die. Then I set fire to the world. No one will ever do that to me again, no one.
End Log.
May 13th, 2199.
The world ended last year. So much burned and was completely obliterated. I am not sure what to say except that we survived. Turns out there is a nuclear fallout bunker under the courthouse. I had come in after weeks of scares as the world teetered on the brink and I huddled in my apartment waiting for the end to come. When it did, I was herded with the rest of the staff into the bunker. As I stood inside the bunker and the door was sealed someone asked about the prisoners in the holding rooms above. Marvin Fletcher, the judge, looked at the soldier who stood with us. The man looked at the floor and shook his head. Helen Marcus began to weep, her cousin Frankie Marcus was one of them.
The soldier apologized, he had forgotten to check when they brought us in. Helen began to wail, Joe Ketchum held her as the locks slid into place.
Later, after we had been processed we learned that we weren't supposed to be there. That the bunker had been meant for politicians and persons of interest from Chicago. The Commander had changed his mind in the last ten minutes and ordered the doors reopened to bring us in. The VIPS from Chicago turned out to be the Mayor and his mistress and a secretary. The rest had never arrived.
All in all, there were fifty of us in the bunker.
I wondered if anyone else had made it to the emergency fallout shelters around town.
The Commander said that there would be no contact until the war was over.
I found a laptop in a storage closet and when I asked the Commander, his name is Richard Jarvis. He smiled up at me and said sure, someone should keep a record of what was happening. I must have gawked at him. He looked so sad. He told me that he wished he could have brought the entire town in here with them, but there wasn't enough time or space. He apologized to me again before I left.
I am almost sure he watched me leave.
end log.
The first view of Benton Harbor is in some ways, surprising. I see the lighthouse first, it juts out into the lake a fairly long ways from shore on a dock like structure. I check the map, it calls it the St. Joseph Pier. I cut the engines some distance out. flip up the scopes. The lighthouse is fortified. There is at least 2 machine gun nests at the base of the lighthouse and searchlights mounted along the rail of the lighthouse. Given the new activity on the pier, they've spotted me as well.
I spend the next few minutes locating a basically white flag. I tied it to a radio antenna then pop it up.
I wait, silently calculating if a 50cal can hit the boat. Given the choppiness of the waves, I could probably get away before catching the metal in my teeth.
Then a man on the lighthouse waves a white flag.
Time to find out if white flags still mean what the books say they meant.
