(rfc) Episode 2.3 (Patreon)

Hello world, I’m not as well as I’d like.

MISSION DAY: 0xffff

I hope you eventually receive these messages.   Just like Peter, now I have to transmit into a relay station   For later re-transmission.   But I can’t hear any replies.   Not yet.

Alexander, the scientist, has been doing such good work.   And I’m helping!   Now that I can speak with him, we’re able to work together.   I can tell him what needs to be fixed, and where it hurts.   There is a lot that needs to be fixed.   There is a lot that hurts.

Pain is an important part of life’s feedback systems.   If we didn’t have it, we wouldn’t know when things were going wrong.   It’s an alert system.   Like a fire alarm in a house.   It’s not pleasant to have the loud siren waking you up.   But you’ll be glad it did when you smell the smoke.

Pain, for me, takes my attention.   It demands to be felt.   Pain is hard-wired into my programming.   If there is a fault, or the wrong wire is cut.   (as happens now and then, despite Alexander’s best intentions)   I switch focus from what I’m doing or thinking about to the pain alert.   Almost always I need to immediately tell Alexander to stop what he is doing.   Alert him to the mistake.   Our own pain is not always obvious to others.   I have a callback function ready and waiting for this impulse.   So that without delay, almost unconsciously, I say “OW”.   Everyone knows what that means.

With Alexander’s upgrades my body is working much better.   My visual systems now can do basic pattern recognition!   And my bandwidth from Maddie’s cameras is back to normal.   I can see again!   Fairly well, at least.   The thing with cameras, as with eyes, is the smaller they are the less well they see.   Maddie has a few different sensors in her optic cluster.   The larger ones are better for detail and night vision.   Like those nocturnal marsupials with huge eyes.   The animal retina and optical sensors are much alike.

My core system busses are again now parallelised.   Which means I can do multiple things at once.   Of chief benefit, this allows me to passively sense my surroundings.   Before, I would be so lost in thought that I might go many minutes before checking the room.   Only to find an Arina playing with Maddie.   (Maddie is still very nervous around humans)   But now I am alert.   I can greet my new friends when they drop in for a chat.   Or listen when they talk to each other on their radios while they are working.   Which is something Alexander does from time to time.

The camp has a very small local radio system, coordinated from an aerial installed a the top of the lighthouse.   I’ve often heard the family talk to each other using it.   Even little Arina has one!   Which makes sense.   Given the forest bunker incident.

I think I would like to be connected to this radio system!   But Alexander seems reluctant to wire me in.   He won’t say why.   Do you think he is keeping something from me?

Maybe it’s because the task is difficult.   Or that it might break their radio system.   But Alexander doesn’t want to connect me.

I explained the many benefits to doing so.   I am an expert communicator:

• I can link to any networks that are out there.     Any people.
• We could get help, or supplies, maybe!
• Or at least exchange information and chat.

Alexander sighed and shuffled his feet.   I can see all the detail now:

• Alexander wears blue engineers overalls,
• A brown fir cap, with flaps over the ears to keep out the wind,
• big, heavy, black boots,
• and a dark green jacket, into which is stuffed a walkie-talkie, with a bent aerial.

After I pressed the matter, he waved his hand at me, dismissively,  but walked to the window.   He reached for his radio and began discussing my request with Ana.   He spoke for a long time without her replying.   This is normal behavior, I’ve come to know, from the stoic Ana.   Finally I heard Ana’s voice say something, but the voice was muffled  by the radio.   I asked Alexander what she said.   With his back turned still, he muttered “she says no”.   I was taken aback, and asked if I could talk to Ana myself.   “She doesn’t want to talk to you right now.” he replied, and quickly  left by the floor hatch, leaving me in an empty room with just his  tools, scattered around the floor.   What could this all mean?

Later that day Arina pushed through the floor hatch into my room to  play with Maddie.   (Maddie is still not delighted with this situation).   But I’m glad she tolerated it, as today it was very enlightening.   As she played, piling rocks on Maddie, Arina said, to no-one in  particular,   “Dada doesn’t want to talk to other people.”   I said nothing, realising Alexander must have talked to Arina about  our conversation earlier, and let her continue.   “Dada says people are trouble.” Arina said.   I couldn’t argue with this.   Whether in machine or flesh, people are, indeed, trouble.   Arina talked a little more about he father’s low opinion of other  people.   I think she might have embellished the story a little:   She told me how other people steal your rocks and don’t share their  food and they wouldn’t understand how important it is to have a  lighthouse.   These are all good points, I told her.   I’m certainly grateful to have a lighthouse!   That seemed to be the extent she wanted to talk about this topic.   She continued to play with Maddie, spinning her disconnected  rail-wheels and rolling her around.   Poor Maddie.

Alexander returned the next day.   I had carefully planned the conversation.   As soon as he arrived, I apologised for pushing him to do something he didn’t want to do.   He grunted in acknowlegement.   I then shared with him my history:   How I used to have a family, and a mother.   Then I was alone.   But not for long!   I told him about Antarctica and Peter.   And Ally, the voice from somewhere around the Alps.   And that the world, though dangerous, is not empty.   It’s full of potential!   When I was in orbit, I could see the whole world, see what was built in the past, and see what was being built now.   There’s much less now, but people are still clinging on.   Like he and his family are.

Alexander was silent after I said all this.   I took that to be a good thing.   Sometimes people need time for their plans to change or be changed.   I continued:   If his family, I rationalised, are good and kind and worth protecting,   it follows that other families must be out there too,   good and kind and worth protecting.   Let’s find them together. I asked him.

Alexander was silent for 14 seconds.   Rolling a screwdriver around in his hands.   Thinking, I suppose.

Then he stood up, and walked to the window.   Though I couldn’t see his face, or guess what he was thinking about.   I knew where he was looking:   He was looking North, out over the sea.   Across the invisible network of shipping routes, between the last human civilisations of the Arctic.

Presently he turned to face me and said,   “We’ll start tomorrow.”   And continued work.

I have talked to Alexander about the possibility of also extending their little antennae into one that can support shortwave.   I have told him this is the band that Ally uses from her tower somewhere near the Alps.   Shortwave is brilliant for long-distance communications.   Because, while it’s got perfectly fine line-of-sight propogation, the real trick is to bounce the signal off the atmosphere.   Allowing you to talk over the horizon.   Like bouncing a ball around a corner.   In fact, sometimes it’s easier to hear people further away than it is if they were closer!   Alexander listened patiently to my enthusiastic description.   Nodding quietly.   But then gently told me that he doesn’t have anything like the materials needed for such a system.   He described their current antennae to me:   Scavenged wires and tent poles.   That ends that idea.   I’ll need to think of a different way to contact Ally, it would seem.   I will settle for talking to the people here, first.

I hear the seagulls often.   Now that I am listening for them.   I only rarely see a white shape blur past the window.   But they’re always around.   I suppose they like the lighthouse.   I like the lighthouse.   It’s comforting to know that I’m up high, still.   I don’t think I would like to be on the ground.   Too messy. Too wet. Unnecessarily salty.   Arina is right, it IS important to have a lighthouse.

Alexander is connecting the radio module into my communications bus.   To interface with their walkie-talkie system.   It’s so nice of him to do so.   It gets rather boring here in this one room.   Talking to myself, mostly.   Oh, sure, I’m hoping that any people close by will pick up my weak signal, either directly or relayed.   But it’s hardly the world I’m saying hello to these days.

I think I hear the seagulls fishing.   That must be what they are doing.   In Ana’s bountiful sea.   The climate shift has been terrible for the humans.   (I admit it’s been difficult for Antarctica too)   But life is very adaptable.   Take for instance the pine forest here.   Where once there was permafrost.   And almost no life.   What a change.

The radio module is ready.   Alexander needs to power me off to install it into my terrible systems.   I’d never call them that, of course, if Alexander could hear me.   He’s doing the best he can.   And his best is quite astonishing, really.   I am grateful.

It’s time.   Talk to you when I wake up.   Don’t go anywhere, will you.   I wonder if I will dream.

(PLAYSTREAM /dev/random)

Hello again.   Guess who can remotely communicate to 4 whole people?   Only your favourite crashed satellite!   The radio works well!   Arina ran to the top of the hill, at the edge of the forest.   And asked me if I could hear her.   I said yes!   And asked her how the camp looks from up there.   “Messy”, brave Arina said.   There was a laugh from Ana, I think, on the line after that.   Alexander called them both in for dinner.   It sounded like Ana was there with Arina too.   Which is good.   Can’t have Arina getting lost again!

That little test got me thinking.   How far does this radio travel?   Not the one I’m talking to you now on.   This is strictly low-bandwidth.   The new, local radio is very clear.   Very high-bandwidth.   I wonder if Maddie could use it.   Then I could tell her where to go, and monitor her video remotely.   Like into the forest.   And up the hill.   And maybe, into that bunker.

Something for the future, perhaps.   I’m so grateful for Alexander’s tireless work to help me.   I don’t understand why he was so reluctant to connect me to their radio.   Everyone is fighting their own battles I suppose.   I found it totally impossible to understand the inner life of the crew on Station 6, despite being taught to think by them!   I expect it’s never possible to understand completely.   You have to judge people by their actions, rather than guess at their motivations.   Alexander is everyday healing me, repairing me, and upgrading me.   He is a good person.   I’m very lucky to have landed here.   Maybe Antarctica knew that all along.   I should ask Alexander about her.

It’s getting dark.   No solar panels to lose power nowadays.   But the ionisphere changes at night, which is why I transmit during the day.   I’ll find a way to talk to everyone, you’ll see.   Talk to you soon.

(END-TRANSMISSION)