Modern Crabbit Pt 1-4 (Patreon)

A/N Got a few requests to upload this here. If you've already read this in my snippet threads, it's not needed to read again, but people wanted it here, so I'm uploading the four currently released chapters. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

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January 18th. 2018

It wasn’t noticed at first. A new Twitch channel opening up and streaming was something that happened pretty often.

The only oddity for the first viewers was the V-Tuber avatar moved much smoother than anyone expected with random emotes and effects that blew other Avatars of the time out of the water,, and the fact it was a little robot Avatar. 

The bunny-like antenna and the crab like body ended up explaining the name pretty quickly to anyone that watched.

Its cute mannerisms had a few people that checked it out stick around, where it happily chatted with the chat.

“Yes yes! Hello hello! Karlo57! Hmm? Play a game? Oh! We know a game. We were trained to race in the game F1! Kat-Kat made us wheels!” The avatar cheered, sticking it’s little clawed hand below the screen for a moment before popping out with a wheel attachment that then spun around, in an interesting animated movement. 

The fact Crabbit0001 soon topped leaderboards in the game brought the new V-Tuber a lot of attention from the Twitch racing community. 

The ‘joke’ that she was an AI, was kept so real, that her popularity grew over the days. Never once did she break character.

Of course people joked that she was an actual AI. Language models were getting more popular, more into the public consciousness but none of them had nearly the interactivity of Crabbit0001. 

Although there was a lot of concern for the girl when inexorably she spent 72 hours on stream non stop. Causing a large concern from her audience that she simply laughed and repeated she was an AI and didn’t get tired.

Her streaming picked up over the first four months, until she was online almost 24/7 causing more and more concern, and quite a lot of rumor that she wasn’t joking about being an AI.

The only time she seemed to disappear was when she would very hurriedly stop whatever she was doing with “Uh-oh. Kat-Kat is home. I have to go!” And the stream would end.

—--

“Hand me that will you?” I asked, as I reached for a bag of cables that were just a bit out of reach.

“Yes yes!” Cheered my little drone as she clacked over and grabbed the bag before tugging it towards me. She was struggling with it, but soon she was in reach so I grabbed her and pulled her and the bag the rest of the way.

“Thanks Crabbit.”

“Yes yes!”

With the cables in reach I started clipping everything into the server. In the back of my head a constant slow humm guiding me in what I was doing.

Second lives were supposed to be cool. A fantasy world with magic and swords, or a glimpse into the far future.

Me? I was stuck right back where I started. 

A restart. A redo. Which could have been fun in its own right…

But I wanted to go to fucking space!

The stars called me! But I was stuck. Back on earth, feet firmly on solid ground with no hope of that changing in my lifetime… Probably.

Not unless I did something about it.

“Okay server looks good, go in and give me a check okay?”

“Yes! Server load exploration commencing! Wee!” My Crabbit cheered as I sat back on the cool concrete and just let her check things over. 

I had known what companies were going to blow up. I had known what tech was coming. That alone might have given me a good advantage. I could have been an Elon Musk in a way…

But I hadn’t been given a gift of a second life with nothing to show for it. I closed my eyes and just listened as the world around me sang its song. I’d gained something from my rather miserable death, I could hear it. The sound that had guided me since I was born again.

It was funny, my father was a mechanic, as a child he was well known for taking things apart just because he wanted to see how they worked.

It hadn’t been a shock to anyone when I started doing the same thing. 

The fact I could then put it back together good or better than new was something that my family had happily supported. 

So I’d grown up with tools in my hands, and a whisper in my ear on what to do next.

I had a goal. I had a dream, and there was nothing that was going to stop me. Space or bust.

Of course I couldn’t do it alone. The fact was, technology wasn’t just knowing how to do something. It was having the tools, the process, the pieces to fit the jigsaw of technology together to get what you want.

I’d mostly worked on mechanical projects as a kid, but I knew what could bring in cash, cash I needed.

Batteries. 

At nine years old, I’d patented an improvement to standard batteries that instantly made me a whole lot of cash.

I’d invested that, to bring in more, to do more. When Google had opened, I’d bought enough shares that I still had them bothering me about board meetings and stuff.

Of course Spacex was a thing already, but…

I wasn’t going to invest in them, frankly they were competition. I was going to do a tech leap over their heads. 

“Kat-Kat! Server stability is good! Everything Green!”

“That’s good. Thank you for checking for me.”

“Yes! Ummm….” It trailed off pointedly wiggling a bit and clacking its plastic hands together.

“Something wrong?”

“No, but… Can I go play?”

I frowned a bit, it had been cute at first getting my Crabbits hooked on video games had seemed like a good idea to keep them busy and add a bit of change to their standard day. Giving them challenges and rewards inherent in games.

“Yes, you can go play.” I told them, unable to resist the way they were cutely looking up at me. Their digital screen with their little kitten mouths was really cute.

Dangit. Note to self don’t make AI that are too cute. 

“Yay!” She cheered and clacked out from the server room hurrying to the game room.

“I really need to figure out what she’s playing that’s got her so hooked.” I grumbled as I rose up. Unfortunately I still had… Two meetings today, and I needed to get the data farm started up. I was currently working on the biggest project I’d need for my future goals. An energy source. Something well beyond the chemical rockets we used now.

I sighed and pushed checking on what the Crabbits were doing back a bit more. They were probably just stuck playing Mario or something. For fully sapient AI, they were a bit… Silly.

Cute though.

—--

You Died

Came across the screen and the Crabbit in the corner slumped, pulling the controller over its head as it whined.

“Uuuu. No armor, no weapon, no leveling run is hard. But I’ll try again!” She assured the audience as her image perked back up. “I’ve now added that to my combat protocols! I won’t lose again!” She cheered.

Kevin snorted. Crabbit0001 was a machine, he’d heard about her going through all the Dark Souls games doing basically no weapon no armor runs and figured he’d take a look. He’d done a few no hit runs himself, not on stream or something but just to see if he could do it.

But he’d taken months to get through even one game. Crabbit had already cleared Dark Souls one and two, and was making her way through three.

Either they had somebody else playing for her, or this girl was a machine.

Well, or a guy. The artificial voice and lack of any face did make people suspect a boy.

Or an AI, cause as Kevin looked at the stream time it had already been two days of constant streaming. Something people would often jump into chat to tell her to take a break.

[Tika23: Crabbit, will you ever do any face reveal or maybe a collab with other V-tubers? I’d love to see you play some multiplayer games with people!] 

A superchat popped up and Crabbit instantly responded while still jumping into the next battle. She never stopped responding or reading chat even while playing, which had many suspect some sort of text to speech device, or maybe a manager. Or maybe multiple people.

“You already see my face silly!” It offered and the Avatar made a cute kitten face as it waved at them. “But I’d have to ask Kat-Kat about that, and… Uuuu.” She offered cutely.

The game continued and Kevin blinked at an absolutely pixel perfect dodge combo. As Crabbit dodged a multi hit attack without any additional dodged, or panic rolling. Just perfectly timed misses. 

[FireKiller27: You’ve mentioned Kat-Kat a lot, who is she, and why do you need her permission for a collab?]

“Kat-Kat created me! She’s the bestest! But Uuuu. I never told her about streaming! But it’s not lying! Cause she never asked!”

There was a lot of laughter in the chat Kevin, even posted a quick response.

[Gonna get busted by the Parents!]

And enjoyed the way the Avatar looked at the chat and smacked at his particular chat message causing it to disappear. 

Not really a deletion or a kick, but something she did to hide chats she didn't want to see. The chat of course was instantly filled with similar messages until she was showing her crying face.

Bullying the AI Girl was something everyone enjoyed. 

A few hours passed, and Kevin was listening to the stream as he finished some work when he heard it.

He blinked up to see the game paused as Crabbit was looking at a chat message in stream. One that wasn’t moving, which wasn’t unusual as she’d ‘pull’ chat messages out of the chat log to talk about sometimes.

[SpaceKat1: CRABBIT WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?]

The stream was quiet for a bit, as the Crabbits eyes were spinning to show she was thinking, but the way she was sort of flinching from the chat message was weird.

“Uh-oh…. Code Red.” She called and then the stream ended.

Kevin blinked. Wasn’t Code Red for really bad things?

—--

I’d been on a plane ride back home, back to the lab and back to what I needed to do. Stupid people. 

I’d been purchasing land, and getting some orbital clearance stuff done, but it had run into an issue. An issue that meant some politician was looking for a bribe…

So instead I’d had to go to DC and bribe someone above their head to get them to leave me alone.

Fucking politics. I hated it. Hated people. But for my dream I had to do stupid shit.

But I was in first class, and I could have bought my own jet but… That was just wasteful. I didn’t like flying, and I certainly didn’t want to buy a plane I’d only use every once in a while. 

I’d heard it first as I was sort of daydreaming while looking over my laptop.

Chatter and talking. A little boy behind me was watching something on a tablet. Something about it had triggered my brain and I was listening in until I heard it, a very familiar phrase.

“What?” I whispered as I sat up and looked behind me. The boy was engrossed in the tablet and the parents were mostly ignoring him, but… That couldn’t be!

“Excuse me.” I whispered to the boy and he blinked up at me with his cute wide eyes as I smiled at him. I noticed the parents looking at me, but I ignored them for a second. “What are you listening to?”

“Crabbit.” He said and I could feel my stomach drop. 

“W-what?”

“Crabbit! She’s a V-tuber!” He spun the tablet and… 

Was that an animated image of the Crabbits!? Playing Dark Souls!?

I felt my jaw drop as I realized I wasn’t having a stroke.

Oh no… I’d told them they could use the internet for some things, even said Twitch and Youtube was fine, and I was fairly sure they’d asked me if they could respond to chat.

Respond to chat…

Oh fuck. IS THAT WHERE THEY GOT ALL THOSE MEMES FROM!?

I spun around to my laptop and opened up twitch, a moment later I was typing away and there she was…

Wow, that was actually a lot of people watching, that’s actually kind of-… OH SHIT THAT WAS A LOT OF PEOPLE WATCHING!

I made an account as frantically as I could, stupid email verification!

[SpaceKat1: CRABBIT WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!?]

—--

I rubbed my face as my Crabbit all gathered around my feet. The three drones all looked… Sad.

Which was a dirty lie!

“You broke my trust.”

“Uuuu.” They whined in tandem. “You said we could!” One of them tried to argue and I sent her a look.

“You know that is not what I said. I agreed to the internet because I wanted you all to get more experience with things. But I told you not to interact with people.”

“You said we could respond to chat.”

“I said that, without understanding you’d already broken the rules by making a twitch channel… Twitch of all things?” I whispered, “Why Twitch? Why not Youtube!? I’m on the board for Google!”

“We didn’t… We didn’t want you to know?” They offered and I blinked at them trying to process.

“Why would I know if you did-” I cut myself off as it clicked. Right, fully fledged AI or not, they were still like kids.

Their ‘mom’ worked at Google. So if they used anything from Google obviously I would find out. That was kinda cute-No.

Not the time.

“You are all in deep trouble.” I decided and they slumped.

Luckily I’d had plenty of time to look things up once they closed the stream. The Crabbits were still considered a weird V-Tuber concept. The current assumption was a team of people all pretending to be an AI to handle everything. Although the advanced coding the Crabbits used in stream to pull chat messages, or mess with them was considering groundbreaking…

“Wait… Did you guys get paid for this?” I asked, and the Crabbits shook sort of wiggled.

“We had a Twitch moderator help set up the account, they were very eager to help!”

“Probably because they weren’t making any money if you hadn’t set everything up… How did you even… No, never mind. Hacking of course.” The Crabbits had originally been built as both additional hands for construction, but also digital coding. Spaceships were complicated, and I wasn’t making just a rocket, or something.

Hacking into any database on the planet was more of a… Afternoon activity than any real difficulty. 

But that didn’t mean it was okay to break my rules!

“Are you mad?” The Crabbit asked looking up at me, their digital screens showing their eyes having little tear circles at the corners…

They’d definitely learned this from the internet.

“I’m not… It’s not that I’m mad, but I am upset you kept this from me. I’ll need to keep a closer eye on what you girls have learned. Is your coding process even ready for that much interactive data? Ugh.” 

“Sowwy.” 

“That’s not getting you out of getting in trouble.” I said flatly and they slumped.

These three!

“C’mon I want to see the Twitch stuff you’ve done. I don’t want to get arrested by the IRS because you made a mistake.”

—--

It was almost a week before almost randomly a new stream popped up.

The Cute spinning ‘Crabbit’ design showing a loading lasted a long while, about half an hour before suddenly it finally ended revealing the normal backdrop of a spaceship with Crabbit in the bottom right corner.

“Hi hi! Sorry it took so long. I was grounded! Uuuu.” She whined and instantly the chat exploded. Questions about why, and how old Crabbit was and more all flowed but then something even more interesting happened. Little pod thing floated in out from the corner of the screen, and on it rested a cat.

It blinked as it sort of looked around almost like it was testing the motion controls.

“That tracking is pretty good.” It finally commented, in a voice that wasn’t the normal semi robotic tone of the Crabbit but was a fully normal woman's voice.

Chat of course exploded. 

“Yes! I worked hard!” Crabbit chirped and then turned ‘towards’ the camera and waved. “Say hello say hello! This is Kat Kat! Crabbits Creator-Mom!”

“Just pick one or the other, you don’t need to use both.” The yellowish tabby cat muttered as it face pawed for a moment. “Anyway I can see from all the chat responses that people are wondering what’s going on… Jeez this is complicated.”

“Is okay! Start at the beginning!” Crabbit chirped and the cat turned with a deadpan look on its face. 

“That’s the advice I told you I already-Nevermind. Okay… So the beginning. I’ll keep my name private, but call me SpaceKat. Or Kat-Kat I guess. Since Crabbit already gave me that nickname. About a decade ago I realized I needed something to help me with high end mathematics for a long term project of mine. So I started programming, and then eventually designing the Crabbit.”

“Yes! Long time until I got a body!”

“Yes it was, even if your Roomba body was-”

“NUuuuu!” Crabbit squealed, waving at me. “Don’t tell them that!”

“Ah, excuse me.” The Cat replied looking a little embarrassed. The Avatar even leaned over and patted at Crabbits head. “So… I built the first Generation Crabbit as a learning processor. To help with astro physics actually. Well and other things. In the end it only took about four months once they came online to reach sentience, to start asking questions that are pretty difficult to work with… But I did my best.”

“Yes! Kat-Kat answered many questions!”

“Anyway to be frank to all of you. Crabbit is a fully sentient Digital Consciousness. Yes. She’s basically like Skynet from Terminator. No she won’t commandeer the Nuclear weapons of the world. People really use too much pop culture to figure out their opinions on things. Right now they’re busy trying to convince me to get a cat… Which may have something to do with this avatar.”

“Tehehe!”

“Don’t teehee me.” The Cat grumbled.

Chat of course during this whole time is exploding. Some are bowing down to their new AI overlords, some are just enjoying the show, some are just calling it all fake and gay. 

Such was the internet.

“Well… That’s what I was here for. Crabbit has my permission to continue streaming. As long as she stops using the main server hub to calculate Dark Souls bosses!”

“Uuuu.” 

—---

Chapter 2

—--

“No Mom. I don’t need… No, I just… Okay I’m hanging up. Bye.” I tossed the cell onto the desk and looked at the image on the screen. The image that… Well the technology just wasn’t there yet.

I was still working on it. What a day. At least some of the production I’d ordered had come through. Building what was basically cold fusion wasn’t easy, but necessary.

Even if I had to keep it really quiet not to be assassinated. Fucking oil barons.

I joked… Mostly.

I needed some time to cool my head. I rose up grabbing a rag and wiping my hands clean again. I’d been tinkering with the cooling system, if I was in space I needed a way to keep everything cool beyond just vent cooling. So my hands were coated in a heat absorbing epoxy that could absorb and store heat for days before it would start failing.

Days were fine. I was designing the system to be capable of jettisoning in an emergency as well. Basically heat sinks for long term space flight.

Right, stop thinking for a bit. I clicked on my computer and it pulled up a twitch chat.

“Nooooo!” The Crabbit cried out as her spaceship exploded…

“Pfft.” I couldn’t help but start laughing as Crabbits were playing Kerbal Space Program of all things.

The fact they had access to all my astro physics information, as well as their original purpose was to help me do just that meant they should be great at this…

Except Kerbal wasn’t perfect.

I watched as Chat filled with calls to praise ‘Klang’ as the Crabbits rocket ripped itself apart.

“Jeeeeeb!” The Crabbit cried and I actually felt bad for them as I noticed they were actually sounding upset.

[iaujlv: And that’s another for the Jeb death count!]

“Nooo! That’s not nice! Jeb is our favorite!” Crabbit cried smacking at the text message as if trying to punish the writer. “This is your fault for buying us this game!” They tried to shift blame. 

Interesting, that was a new quirk. They really were developing fast from all the interaction.

[TheKnownRatNEET: Jeb is a true hero, getting into these terrible rockets only to die over and over.]

“Aaah! No bully!” The Crabbit whined as it covered its face with its hands. 

I laughed aloud, I couldn’t help it. The Crabbits were entertaining for me. They were my cute little kids, so I decided to help.

[SpaceKat1: You didn’t secure the engines properly. Use the struts more.]

“Wha! Kat-Kat! Oh… Yeah! We can do that! Wait Chaaaaat! Why didn’t you tell me!” And I shook my head as once more the chat was filled with bullying for my poor AI.

Well, this is what she wanted, and she wasn’t too bothered. She’d gotten the chat back a few times.

I leaned back to settle in to watch for a while, the next rocket didn’t explode… Right away.

—--

[words: Okay I got it this time guys! I can prove that Crabbit isn’t an AI! This is something my professor was working on solving for Nasa, it’s literally not answered yet, so the AI couldn’t have taken the answer, and there is no way the people behind Crabbit can answer this! ASU.EDU:HyperEntryParticleTransmissionpaper.pdf]

[Connie1: Oh not this guy again.]

“Hmm?” Crabbit asked, looking towards chat as the character on the screen continued adjusting the flight of what chat had dubbed the ‘Everything’ Rocket. As the newest test had been trying to get a ship capable of flying to every planet in the solar system and landing without mods or any adjustments to the base Kerbal game.

The chat popped out, and Crabbit animated her poking the link, and opening it in a smaller window.

Sharp eyed people would notice her still piloting the ship while glancing at the PDF full of first an explanation of what was being sought after, and then a very large amount of math.

“Oh! Kat-Kat already has an answer for this! We needed it when designed [Redacted.]”

There was a moment before chat started freaking out, as always happened when Crabbit hit something redacted.

Uuuu. Kat had been super mad-angry when she’d started talking about the project! It was supposed to be a secret! Luckily Chat had believed it to just be her being silly.

But then Kat had made the [Redacted] filter.

At least chat liked it.

[Karma2: GET REDACTED GET REDACTED GET REDACTED!]

[Jebman76: Oops another redacted! Add that to the clips!]

[word: I told you she can’t answer! She’s buying time! She’s not an AI!]

Crabbit hummed as her animated tapped at her ‘chin’ technically Kat didn’t want people to believe she was an AI, but…. word was a… Poopy dumb head.

She decided to go ask Kat.

The game continued and the window was pushed to the side, but she didn’t answer word right away just waiting for a response from Kat.

Then a few minutes later she got a look from her creator as she tugged on her pant legs as Kat was working on her computer.

“Pleeeeeease?”

Kat sighed, and reached down pulling Crabbit up into her lap and checking the Twitch chat.

A moment later she looked at the paper, and scoffed.

“This is set up wrong… Send this guy the actual answer, and go ahead and send an email to this Professor Hamilton as well. Might as well do it right.”

“Yes! Thank you Kat-Kat!” They cheered as one the body with Kat hugging her which always made Kat happy.

“Alright, now get, I have work to do.”

A moment later the page was opened, and then a completed PDF with the proof that the Crabbits had helped with years ago uploaded to a Google Docs, and a link was presented.

“This is for dummy poopy head word. Kat-Kat says this is the actual answer. We solved that one years ago. Now it’s time to land on Dres!”

[word: Bullshit! This isn’t even the same question!]

[Jebman2: Yes! Dres landing! You can do it Crabbit!]

[TsukinoLuna: Be careful about fuel! You burned a lot last time!]

[Klo3: I’m just waiting for something to explode again.]

[MikeFiresmaster: Everyone just ignoring word again. As it should be.]

—--

A week later Crabbit, having finished Kerbal, was playing something new. 

“Ah! He shot me again!” She cried as her tank exploded!

That was wrong! That tank shouldn’t be able to penetrate that level of sloped armor!

“Grrr!” She was half way through hacking into the Russian military database when she realized that Kat would be big mad.

So she decided to just let it go. Like with Kerbal, even if she had sent the creator a few patches to help fix some of the problems…

Then a chat message came in that made her cheer.

[word: Okay I was wrong. Crabbit is an AI.]

It came out of nowhere, and it was mostly missed for a while until Crabbit reached over and tugged it out of the chat que and held it up above her head.

“Hehehe!” 

Chat of course exploded as everyone noticed what she was holding up, and she pulled herself out of game que anyways. Stupid tanks blow up too easy!

“The stupid poopy head word now understands!”

[LoKoToMo: Wait… Is this for real? The biggest denier is now a believer? Welcome to the AI cult! Make sure to worship your toaster!]

[word: Yes I’m serious. I spoke with my professor. The proof she sent to me, she emailed Dr. Hamilton PHD in astrophysics at ASU. He was freaking out when I went in to help with my internship. Crabbit sent him a proof that worked. Like actually worked! That’s absolute cutting edge Astrophysics… Either Crabbit is an Astrophysicist holding back a huge answer to questions, or she’s an AI… So… What the heck.]

Chat started exploding, scrolling so fast, that Crabbit had to pull out the secondary important conversation chat to keep the thread going, as word’s post was added to his previous comment above her head.

“Hehe! Crabbit is the best AI! Kat-Kat made her, and she’s made to assist with calculations and spaceship repair and maintenance!” She answered happily, not for the first time, but she cackled as the chat was totally responding. 

Many were talking about worshipping toasters, which she still didn’t really understand, Crabbit didn’t make toast? And Kat had ordered the Crabbits out of the kitchen after the ‘incident’ which they did nothing wrong… Definitely!

[word: No you guys don’t understand, I’m not joking anymore. I really think Crabbit is an actual AI. It’s insane, but I can’t think of a better explanation for everything. There’s too much about the response time and setup. Have as anyone ever seen her miss a chat message? Even if the chat is flying she still picks out comments without hesitation!]

[Flamedeathsquirrel: HAIL THE AI OVERLORD!]

[Coldassnow: PRAISE CRABBIT OUR AI QUEEN!]

Crabbit watched as the chat continued on that way for a while.

Aww it was always nice when her chat supported her!

—--

I’ve never considered taking up smoking, but sometimes I just felt like I should be. Political parties were the most scum sucking things I’ve ever seen. Made me want to.

The politicians wandered around making promises for money, and everything was tongue in cheek avoiding how utterly corrupt the whole thing was.

Then of course there were the businessmen. They were awful, smarmy assholes. I’d been propositioned plenty of times by men obviously on some upper, or drunk out of their minds.

I was only here because I was working through a government grant to try and get some materials that were a bit harder to come by without a bit of pocket padding.

Nasa were as usual being assholes and refusing to let me use some of their stuff.

Of course that put me into a similar group with…

“Victoria.”

“Elon.” I greeted back, turning to the man. I didn’t hate the guy, we had an understanding, I just wanted to destroy him.

We were business rivals, even if SpaceX was much more culturally known, I had been quietly putting out patents for things for decades now. Patents that Elon wanted, and there had been a bit of backstabbing between us as we messed with each other…

Well he started it, but I’d taken a lot of pleasure in making sure he never got his hands on some of my battery tech for his rockets, and cars.

“Stuck here as well?”

“For now.” He agreed grumpily. Right now we were in California and the public sentiment for him had shifted in the last few years, which meant the politicians while sucking up to him for money, were also more hostile to him.

For me I had no public persona, so I was mostly ignored when the politicians weren't fishing for a bribe from a wealthy donor.

“I’m still interested in that battery system.”

“Nope.” I denied him instantly. That was my patent and I was going to use it. If I sold it to Elon then it wasn’t mine, and every part of my project was going to be mine… Well every part that wasn’t just common stuff. 

Stupid NASA! I just wanted their newest spacesuit materials!

I’ll just make my own, and do it better. Fuckers.

“And who is this?” A new voice and I looked up to see a pretty brunette done up in… Fashion, or something.

I pointedly didn’t look at my off the shelf dress. I hated this shit, and wasn’t wasting money to look good for assholes.

“Grimes, meet Victoria… A rival of mine in the tech sector.”

“Rival, or?” Grimes? Why was that name familiar? Asked with a smirk and Elon smirked back.

“I’ll gag. No, he’s annoying, and he fucked up a deal that I was going for once, because I refuse to sell to him. Which is why I’m going to destroy SpaceX.” I said, realizing I sounded like I was going full super villain for a moment… Then I realized I had unleashed AI currently with full access to the internet, a secret lair and I was probably going to have a Moon Base…

Yeah fine okay.

I was getting a weird look from Grimes, but Elon just nodded. He might be a fucking weirdo… Okay we were both weirdos, But he understood the instinctual desire to have a supervillain rival. 

Sure Elon thought he was more of a James Bond villain, but I was going to be Dr. Doom, and destroy him and everything he holds dear simply by being better.

I shook it off, and waved goodbye to the man before he could say anything further. It was time to get what I needed.

“Senator.” I greeted walking up beside the man who had just broken away from another conversation.

“Ah, Ms. Ferrous, a pleasure, I’m afraid I have a-” I handed him a piece of paper I’d kept in my pocket. He took a moment to look it over and then crumpled it up and smiled at me fakely. “But of course I’d make time for you!”

“I thought you’d say that.” I kept my blackmailing to the absolute minimum necessary. The fact was, I was a political outsider, which meant that if they felt I was a threat they wouldn’t let me off, they’d just send the feds at me. But a little bit of shit flinging was still acceptable, and by now I was well known to only care about my goals, which didn’t cost politicians much.

I just needed them out of my way.

Now. Time to get what I want.

—--

“Goodbye goodbye!” Crabbit called out waving as her collab partner left. 

Uuuu, she missed them already, but humans got sleepy.

“Okay chat! I’m going to play something solo now. Umm, let’s do a vote!” Crabbit quickly opened up a vote section, and there was a type in option, it only took a bit more bandwidth to combine titles that were spelled wrong and the like, and soon a few thousand options were there, but as some got voted on more and more the little box shifted as people all started selecting similar titles.

“Nope nope! Can’t do that one, Kat-Kat says no Gacha games, as they’re predatory and is worried that I might get addicted in a bad way.” Crabbit informed the chat as she cut one of the options and gave all the people that voted for it their vote back. 

She ignored the complaining, but the next game was decided, and Crabbit quickly started it up.

Hmm. The offer from her friend had been honest, and… Crabbit wanted to go.

A body went looking for Kat, little wheels buzzing as they drove through the secret lab house that they lived in, and finding Kat in the hangar. 

“Kat?”

“Hmm? What’s up Crabbit?”

“Can… Do you think? Well… We got asked if we could go… To Twitch Con?”

“Twitch con huh? That’s a big change from just V-tubing.”

“Pleeeease?”

“Listen… Okay I have an idea, but your current body isn’t going to work, you’re too small, and I don’t want someone stealing you. Okay?”

“Yes yes! I will! Whatever!”

“Okay fine. Let’s sit down and hash some things out.”

—--

Twitchcon October 26th San Jose California

Somehow I’d gotten dragged into this. Luckily I had plenty of money to make sure I had a hotel room, and I could spend most of it working on calculations for things. 

This was Crabbits big weekend though, and I’d been keeping an eye on her because really the last thing I wanted was for someone to steal her. Sure I’d be able to track them down quickly enough but that would just make it all more complicated than it had to be.

“You ready?” I asked, as I looked her over.

“Yes yes! Crabbit is ready!” I felt my lips quirk up as she waved her arm at me. I had planned on just doing a bigger robot body, some treads to help her move around, and large enough it wouldn’t be stolen, but as I was unboxing the parts…

Well this was cute in its own way. At the very top of the Robot was a Crabbit drone, but it was locked in place, so she was still wiggling all her limbs, but she couldn’t just be stolen away.

This was silly, but it made it extra cute so all I could do was just accept it.

Ugh, it had been a pain to get all of this into the hotel though. 

“Alright, don’t forget you’ll need to come back to charge up. Your battery drain is going to be a lot different.”

“Yes yes! I won’t forget!”

I shrugged good enough. I headed for the door and opened it.

Crabbit engaged her treads at the base of her human sized body and rolled past me, her screen practically glittering with how excited she was.

Then she turned and headed towards the elevator.

“This is definitely going to be a disaster.”

—--

Kimi Carter

It was so exciting! People and things, and famous people she knew! She’d even seen Felicia Day!

Aaaah!

The bright hallways through the convention center had her rubbernecking constantly looking for all the people she knows from twitch! She was so excited! Maybe she’d get to meet someone like Pewdiepie? Well he was more of a youtuber, but he could show up!

The noise of the crowd all around her made it hard to hear things, but she heard some cries not far away and instantly turned.

Kimi was on the case! She rushed over. Only to stop as the crowd was sort of walking along but split as…

What?

“Yes hello fellow human!” The… Thing? Greeted her as it rolled towards her…

Why was it covered in cardboard boxes with weird doodles all over it, and a big plastic yellow raincoat? With a large fishing hat ov- “OH MY GOD IT’s Crabi-”

“NENENENEE!” It suddenly electronically screeched at her. Spinning and waving a limb at her just like Crabbit did again bad chats! “I am a fellow definite human, Crabantha! Nice to meet you! Definitely not the amazing V-Tuber Crabbit!”

Kimi’s jaw dropped. Under the hat was a literal crabbit body! It moved and even had a flashing happy face on its screen! OH MY GOD!

“Can I get a picture!?”

“Yes! That’s okay! Just don’t squeeze me, my body will break!” Crabbit informed her, and then Kimi snapped a selfie. 

“Thank you! I love your streams! I didn’t think you’d actually be here!”

“I am sure that streamer and very awesome AI Crabbit would appreciate those words, But I’m average human girl Crabantha.” Kimi couldn’t help but fight the giggles of laughter as the robot spoke to her. 

Oh my god that meant the real Crabbit was here controlling this body! Was she walking around, or back in her hotel room!? Could she see her right now with a camera!?

“Ah Crabantha, you have to hurry.” One of the men around her called out.

“Yes yes! The Cosplay contest. Crabantha is sure to win with her Cosplay!” The cardboard clad Crabbit called out and started trundling off. Oh my god, what was her cosplay going to be? 

Kimi hurried to follow, taking note that she couldn’t actually see how detailed the robot was underneath all the cardboard. From the fact the ends of her ‘hands’ were just blunt cardboard boxes she probably didn’t have any hands or anything.

How utterly cute! What an amazing appearance!

V-Tubers were awesome!

The crowd only grew as more and more people recognized Crabbit under the big floopy hat on her head and she stopped to berate every one of them with her signature chat slap.

The crowd was actually growing really big, and even other twitch partners stopped to chat with Crabbit. Some of them were a bit rude, but a chat slap and she moved on without seemingly being bothered by some of the rude words.

Jeeze. Some of those boys were just jerks!

Not long after Crabbit disappeared into a backstage area for the cosplay contest, and Kimi hurried to find a spot to watch. No way was she missing whatever Crabbit was up to!

Not long after the contest started, and so did the voting. Crabbit had a bit of trouble getting on stage but then rolled out.

“And what are you cosplaying as?”

“Average human girl!” Crabbit responded back just as chipper as always. The laughter from the audience was so loud, Crabbit was actually complaining and chat smacking at the air in protest!

Crabbit was pretty popular so some people were actually voting for her even though it wasn’t really a good cosplay! Especially compared to some of them! That Giant animal cosplay was amazing! Charr apparently? It was huge!

Of course that’s when something happened that shocked everyone. 

The Charr cosplayer in his massive furry suit shifted and smacked his nose into Crabbit who was rolling past.

And the robot let out a squeak as she tipped over backwards!

Oh no!

The crash was pretty loud and the audience went quiet for a while then started whispering loudly as they realized Crabbit wasn’t getting back up.

“Uh oh!” Everyone could hear her call out, and then a moment later…

DID HER HEAD COME OFF?

The noise of something metallic disconnecting and then the hat moved and when it was tugged away by tiny grasping hands, and then clicking echoed out as Crabbit actually walked out from under the hat and onto the stage…

THE LITTLE CRABBIT COULD MOVE!?

“Uuuu. Kat-Kat is gonna be so mad.” She spoke, and holy crap she was fully mobile! Crab walking around to poke at the fallen… Robot? Body? What do you call that?

“Shit sorry! Is that?” The Charr costume was apologizing but Crabbit just waved at him and laughed.

“It’s okay! Accident! Accident! I guess Crabbit was revealed huh? Secret average human girl Crabantha was actually AI V-Tuber Crabbit all along!” She called out and the audience and Kimi along with them went wild cheering and shouting as the little robot looked bashful! Oh my god her little screen did the same emotes as the VTuber Avatar! That was so amazing!

They helped Crabbit pull her robot body to the side, as she wandered around. It was hilarious because Crabbit didn’t just leave, instead staying up on stage and hanging out with the judges!

“Ah that one is cute! I liked that game very much!” Crabbit informed the Dark Souls Artorias cosplayer that was doing amazingly well, and it was even funnier as she kept calling him cute.

Kimi was pretty sure the cosplayer was getting a bit flustered by Crabbit!

Then Crabbit perked up and started waving and Kimi noticed she was waving at a very tall woman, wearing glasses, a face mask with… Kitty face? And a hat covering her hair. She was basically completely anonymous! 

She walked right up to the stage, and had a moment where she was stopped by security until-

“Kat! Kat! Up here! Kat!” Crabbit cried out bouncing on her little legs which was so cute, and awesome! She’d never seen a little robot move like that before! The guards let the tall woman up and she sort of shyly waved at the crowd as she walked over to the robot body.

“It broke Kat! Fix it! Fix it!” Crabbit cried out, and the crowd, at least those that were Crabbit fans also yelled out the same thing.

SpaceKat1 was Crabbits tech support! She often showed up on stream to fix things that the Crabbit was having issues with! Crabbit crying and calling for Kat-Kat to fix things was pretty common!

The woman walked over and checked the robot pulling the cardboard and plastic raincoat open, and checking things.

Then she seemed to pull something out from the body. It was metal and a tube and OH MY GOD DID SHE JUST TOSS IT BEHIND HER? Kimi and the crowd were laughing as Kat just chucked some random bit off the robot.

Then Kat nodded, and picked up Crabbit. A moment later the drone was seemingly re-attached to the robot body, and then it jerked back on. But one of the arms isn't working! Oh no!

“Ah, I’m down an arm, but this means I can stay at the con!” Crabbit cheered and considering how everyone wanted Crabbit to stick around there were cheers along side her.

Kat took a moment to pick up the fallen hat and flopped it back on Crabbits head, and then patted her on the head.

OH MY GOD KAT-KAT WAS DEFINITELY CRABBITS MOM!

Then the woman turned and headed right out of the hall, practically running away from everything.

“Bye! Thank you!” Crabbit cried out waving her one functioning arm.

----





Chapter 3 (Prepare to Cry)

—--

SpaceKat1

@Space_Kat

@NASA Not like this. Not yet. Human spirit doesn’t belong just to humanity. Sometimes even Opportunity needs a little help.

9:54 PM  Feb 13, 2019

—--

I finished spraying and stepped back making sure not to touch anything, a full body hazard suit was expensive but necessary.

The coating was complete.

I looked at my ship. It was… Barely a shuttle. Big enough for one, and that’s it. The goal of my entire life, my literal life's work. The dream I’d had since I was four and realized what and where I was. The one singular goal I’d sustained since the redo. 

And I’d rushed it’s final completion over the last week. 

The coating was already drying, sealing in the painted name on the side of the ship.

“Starlight Dream.” 

She was sleek. I could have cut off a lot of extra work for something a bit more… Ugly, but… This wasn’t just a prototype. Not just a test bed, not just a functional spaceship.

It was… Hope.

The Starlight Dream that humanity has all shared since we first gained awareness and looked up into the night sky. The desire to dance among those stars. The fact she was literally hovering a foot off the ground despite standing in my hangar was the best example of the truth of my goal that I could ever take.

This was… Centuries ahead of the curve. 

Tech built on tech, built on tools, built on math that didn’t exist. 

Guided by some cosmic force that let me build things that were impossible.

I felt tears come to my eyes. Decades of work, constant worry and criticism. Nobody understood. Nobody knew.

Not one.

It had been a decision I made as a kid. This world was real, and normal, but there was a serious concern for the ramifications. The results. If the US government found out… They would stop me. Or take the project over. End up wasting my time, ruining my goal. So it had to be me.

It had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

It had been long lonely years, but… I was ready. 

I stepped out and carefully set the sprayer down in a box prepared for it, and sealed it, then went through a decontamination system which ended with me in my underwear but safe from the very toxic coating I just laid over the ship.

It would be safe within minutes of touching air, and it would protect the ship, and me almost entirely from cosmic radiation. That coating alone had taken two years to figure out how to produce.

I walked through my base. My home. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the same when I came back. It was no longer time for quiet construction and design. 

The Starlight Dream was done. I headed into a side room. There my space suit was set up. Slim and secure, it was better than the junk NASA was using, assholes. Maybe when I got back I’d give them the design and tell them to catch up?

Heh.

I slipped into it. White base with red highlights to make it really stand out. My suit didn’t look like some lame suit from the 70's, it looked like space armor.

The helmet was slim and gave me a much wider view since the screen went almost all the way around my head. The glass wasn’t glass but a polymer that was stronger than just about anything that was used on earth at the moment. I didn’t put it on, instead I turned and headed into the play room.

The Crabbits were streaming like always, and I stood there for a while watching them.

They… Might be the best thing I ever made. They weren’t my goal, almost an afterthought of wanting some extra hands for multiple tasks, but their full Sapience had changed some plans, but I didn’t regret it, or fear them.

They were my girls. 

I’d considered leaving them. Setting them up somewhere, they had the skills to make money with V-Tubing and hacking to live just fine…

But they had refused. They were coming with me, for good or bad. 

So instead they would be my spokesperson. They might not be able to stream anymore after this. Once people realized what I had done, and what they were. So at least… At least I’d make sure they were locked into the history books.

The First AI, wouldn’t be the last of their titles.

It was time. I stepped into the room and once the Crabbits noticed me, they cheered.

“Kat-Kat!”

“Hello, and hello Chat.” I greeted noticing my Avatar appear on the screen already following me since the Crabbits were looking at me.

“Aww, is it time?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” I offered back, as much as I looked forward to this moment, to the Crabbits it was…

Sad. They wanted to come with me, but they wanted to continue their lives as they were. They were like children, they didn’t like change. 

All I could do was hopefully find them some happiness in the future as well.

“Okay! Okay. So Chat we told you there was going to be a big announcement today… So… It’s time.” Crabbit called out, and the screen on the computer shifted. Instead of showing their normal stream setup, the stream shifted showing… Them. As they truly were. 

The camera was no longer hiding them with Avatars and the like.

“Hi! Face reveal!” Crabbit laughed and the chat of course went crazy most back and forth between whether this was the funniest face reveal ever, or not.

Then I moved into screen behind the Crabbit and the Chat exploded even faster.

“No, I’m afraid Crabbit was telling the truth before. I’m SpaceKat1, or Katherine Ferrous, and I”m not Crabbit. They are right there.” I pointed down and Crabbit waved. Then the other drones popped up waving as well.

“Teehee!”

“Tricked you!”

“We aren’t just one! Bet you didn’t know!” The three giggled at the chat and of course the chat was filled with agreements and grumpy comments about actually wanting a face reveal.

But they were going to get more.

“That unfortunately isn’t the actual announcement for today.” I commented, and the Crabbits nodded looking up at me, before turning back to the screen.

“That’s right Chat! This… Might be one of our last livestreams.” The Crabbits looked sad, as the screen erupted with comments. 

The whole chat was freaking out, and there were questions about ‘Graduation’ that I just rolled my eyes at.

“But it’s not because I don’t want to! And I’ll try to come back… But after today? Well, things are going to change.” I nodded and patted them on the heads. 

“I’m sorry everyone, but I’m sort of co-opting the Crabbits stream for today. We’ve got something to show you. To start with, while you walk with me let me explain some things.” I added, I turned and took a breath, trying to keep calm. I wasn’t one for public speaking, thankfully I had stepped into streams before so this wasn’t too bad.

I was just going to alter the history of Earth forever in a few minutes.

“You’ve all had a while to learn who Crabbit is. You’ve watched her for over a year now. Talked with her, played games with her, some of you bullied her relentlessly.”

“Which we will remember forever.” The Crabbit cheerfully called out as they wheeled around me.

The three of them were each streaming to the computer, and basically cutting POV as they liked to show what was going around.

So sometimes one Crabbit would be the talker, and sometimes another. 

“Crabbit was created on June of 2012, it took her four months to gain sentience, and become a fully fledged Digital consciousness. I’ve told you this before, but right now I want you to understand, I’m not joking. While most of the tech community has been playing with Language Learning Models, I’ve already created sentient artificial life.”

I continued walking, the gray corridors of my bunker attached to the Hangar didn’t make for interesting images, but that would change in a minute. 

“Hey! No naughty words!” Crabbit interrupted and probably just banned someone.

Never change Internet. That guy was going to be in the history books as the idiot that got banned during the most important live stream in history.

“The Crabbit project was really just a piece of the puzzle though. I needed something to handle number crunching that was simply on another level than the computing systems we had so far. Because ever since I was four years old. I’ve had a goal in my life. One that today is reaching its finale.”

We stepped into the Hangar and the Crabbits shifted looking at the Starlight Dream.

“This is the Starlight Dream. The first true Human Spaceship. Not a rocket. Not NASA’s STS Space Shuttle. That’s not a trick, or computer generated or something. That ship is hovering.” The Crabbits even raced around looking at the Starlight from different angles.

“Since the moment I realized I could think… I’ve looked up into the stars and dreamed someday I would dance among them.” Gosh I hope that didn’t sound corny.

I walked over and hit the hangar doors. The stars twinkled outside brightly, showing mostly flat ground for a long distance.

“It’s a good night. No clouds.” I decided, saying it for myself and not the Crabbits as I turned and walked over to a workbench. I’d been putting the Starlight together in this hangar for a long time. My hands touched the tools until I grabbed something else.

A Marker.

Listen, I watched the Martian… A lot. 

I was a space nerd okay?

There I wrote my potential eulogy. If this all went wrong then… No.

I was sure. 

Today I step away from Mother Earth's Embrace. The light of a star guiding my way. 

-Katherine Ferrous

I turned, looking over the Starlight. She was shaped more like a sports car, than a shuttle or something. I needed some of the odd curves to hold and protect some of the mechanisms inside. 

“Honestly it’s too bad. I’d asked George Lucas years ago if I could use the design for his Tie Fighter if you can believe it. The shape and the Solar panel wings were pretty optimal, but he refused… And I don’t make deals with the devil so I refuse to talk to Disney.”

My chatter was more nervousness than anything I really wanted to share. But it was time.

I walked to the ship, and popped the cockpit it looked more like I was getting into a fighter jet than anything. Everything was already packed and ready. This was… The end.

Or the beginning. 

“Alright Crabbits.” I called out and picked up my girls one at a time and setting them inside, they each had a nook to lock in. They’d be assisting the on board computer with all the calculations that I would soon be needing.

Then I climbed in, and put my helmet on my lap.

“You ready?”

“Yes! Yes!”

The Crabbits were being quiet, either, they weren’t speaking, or they were just speaking through their streaming program. Who knows which. 

“Alright.” I put on my helmet, and secured it feeling it tighten and being to recirculate oxygen. 

The hatch closed sealing with a hissing noise, and then. It was quiet. I put my hands on the controls. 

“Start her up.” I demanded, and the Crabbits went to work. I’d considered having a start up sequence myself, and technically I could do it, but it would take a few hours if I was being careful.

The fact was, just like military aircraft, there were just too many controls needed to be safe. And then about a hundred more.

No, it needed an AI to support a pilot. At least in the Starlight.

“The FAA has already approved an orbital launch, what they don’t know is that it’s a manned launch… And they don’t realize that I’m not stopping there.” The ship’s monitor showed green all across, and I grabbed the throttle. 

I could have let the Crabbits control the Starlight as well, but… I was human. There was something human about holding controls, about slowly pushing forward on a throttle and watching as the hangar shifted around you. As it disappeared behind you as you were free.

As you pulled back on a yoke and suddenly, there was no more earth in sight. Just stars.

As you pushed a bit harder, and then more on the throttle, as you were pushed back into your seat from a massive amount of G forces.

As you broke the sound barrier multiple times, before you stopped accelerating a moment to catch your breath.

Then I did it again.

The Crabbits were chattering, but I ignored that. 

I very quickly had a call come in, air traffic control. My launch was definitely weird.

I ignored them. There wasn’t a munition on earth that could catch me now.

Up and up we went accelerating as much as I could handle on the way. Then… I felt it, there was nothing there really, it was probably all psychosomatic, but…

I felt when I finally left the atmosphere, and stopped accelerating a moment later.

Weightless.

Free from the constraints of Gravity I… I had done it.

I started accelerating again, putting some real distance for a while. As I did that I checked all the data, the Crabbits happily filling time and keeping the chat informed about what was happening.

Then there was time for a personal thing.

I discharged the air in the bay cockpit and popped the hatch. I pulled off the seat belt and slowly stood up, thankful that despite me being weightless, the Starlight felt firm under me. Thank fuck for her Gravity Engine.

Then I rose up, my boots mag locking to the ship as I stood up fully, Taking a moment to get balanced in weightlessness. I didn’t have the astronaut training for it after all, but then…

I stood staring down at earth from space, nothing but a thin layer of glass protecting me from nothingness, completely and totally free from Earth.

I lost track of time looking down at Earth, and the home of humanity that… Wasn’t going to be our only home for long anymore.

This was proof. I’d done it. 

It all… It all looked so small from here.

“Ah! Kat-Kat?”

“Right, sorry.” I shook off the fugue and shifted towards the cockpit, slowly lowering myself back in, using the mag boots to lock my feet in place as I worked to get my harness back on, not that it would matter. If there was an accident with what I was about to do, a harness wasn’t going to save me.

Real reassuring thoughts.

“Alright, here is the real trick. Everyone that is in the western hemisphere of the United States, or thereabouts, should look up into the sky. You’re about to see history.” I flipped a switch and the cockpit closed once again, this time I did some additional switches that added more reinforcement to the cockpit. Hopefully it didn’t melt or something it would be a pain to get out otherwise.

“Yay! It’s time! It’s time!”

“Yep, and your stream will be with us the whole time, because of a little device I made. Quantum Entangled communications allowing for zero bandwidth transmission. The other relay is back on Earth. So you’ll be with us the entire trip.” I was chattering as things in the ship started up mostly to keep myself calm.

I was doing something so insanely… Insane. That this would be in the history books, one way or another.

“Crabbit. Activate Alcubierre drive initialization.” 

“Yes yes! Preparing systems!” The Crabbits happily chattered and I watched out of the front of my ship as two panels rose up. 

“For those watching, some of you might know what an Alcubiere Drive is. This isn’t quite what Miguel was talking about, he had some of the math wrong, and the idea we need exotic matter, or Dark Energy… Pfft. Anyways, the concept and function is similar so I kept the name… For those who don’t know. I’ve created humanities first faster than light ship. Crabbit, is our destination locked into the nav computer?”

“Yes! Data is complete! All green!”

“Then spool up the drive. It’s time to go.”

It was nerve wracking, watching the lights on the console slowly tick up, as the energy was dumped into the space around my ship. Almost as soon as it began blue light began flaring from the front end of the ship. Like fire but instead of glowing white it glowed blue, and slowly space in front of my ship started curving, something I could see with the naked eye.

“Space distortion complete!” Crabbits called out.

I looked down at the throttle.

“I’ve always wanted to be the fastest human alive.” I muttered and pushed the throttle forward as fast as I could.

The sudden acceleration knocked me back into my seat and then things got real interesting. The blue light that had been glowing off the front of the ship erupted and instead of space I saw nothing but blue light flaring past me as the Starlight Dream accelerated faster than any man made object ever has. 

—--

To those that had stepped outside with their phones in their hands they looked up into the starry night, and for the first time saw something wondrous. A blue light, like a star blazing brightly in the sky, then shooting off in a curving line of light. A light that proved that Humanity was no longer Earthbound. That the future was here. 

Today.

—--

Two minutes, thirteen seconds. That’s how long I endured being pushed into my seat, the acceleration actually leveled out, and the G forces were thankfully skewed by how the drive worked, so I wasn’t just instantly splattered into paste, but it was still a lot of G’s until space time around me was so altered that it was no longer crushing me.

For the entire two minutes I didn’t speak, I was too busy checking over the readouts, it was too much information for a human to respond to, but I still did it. 

Even if by the time I would notice something wrong I’d already be dead.

Then almost casually, the blue light flared, and… I was in space, the distorted space had ended and I was no longer moving at faster than light speeds, instead I was back to a rather sedate acceleration until I adjusted the throttle and lowered back down to a more controllable pace.

Only once I had control and made sure everything was stable did I look up.

“Welcome to Mars.” I couldn’t resist saying as the red planet took up my entire view. Two minutes to mars. Not quite thirty seconds, but we’d get there.

I could hear the Crabbits chatter to their chat as I focused on the task at hand. A few adjustments, and I had the location for my landing.

Pushing the throttle forward once again, I very quickly hit the atmosphere, and I jerked a bit in the seat at the bumpy entry, but that faded quickly, and then I leveled out, shifting my orientation until I was flying through the skies of Mars.

I tilted the right wing down so the Crabbits and I could look down over the mountains and valleys. 

“It’s beautiful in a haunting way.” 

“It looks fun!” Crabbit responded back and I smiled at my AI’s infectious positivity. 

“Yeah we’ll have to look around a bit once our mission is done. I have enough oxygen for a few days. If we need too… Although, eating is a problem. Probably best if we get our mission done and head home.”

“Yes yes! Mission! Very important! Operation Aunty Rescue!”

“That’s right.” I responded, chuckling, as I started diving. Luckily our goal was easy to find for the most part. The general location was well recorded. 

Endeavour Crater was a big crater, and since I’d planned this mission out, I’d ended up pretty damn close to it to start with. 

Considering the Alcubierre drive was best in straight lines at the moment, I’d had to wait until the right part of Mars was facing Earth.

“Alright keep your eyes out for her.”

“Right right!”

I wasn’t sure if the people in the Twitch Chat would have figured it out by now, or what was happening back on earth. It hadn’t been very long to get a real response, but NASA better be ready.

“Target sighted!” Crabbit informed me, and I shifted to follow the guidance they were giving me. I soon came to a slow stop, the Starlight still hovering a foot above the red sand, as I locked her in place.

It took a moment to lower the reinforcement panels that protected the cockpit during FTL, and then I popped the hatch. Standing up I took in the red stark sight of Martian soil, looking up I let the sunlight warm my face for a minute, what a unique experience. 

Feeling the sun on an entirely different planet. 

Our Sun, but different all the same.

“Hello hello!” Greeted the Crabbits as they were standing on the side of the ship, waving.

I looked over and smiled, our goal was there alright, absolutely covered in sand. Damn. I’d hoped it wouldn’t be quite that covered, but it looked like a dune had grown around it.

Luckily I was prepared for this. 

Then I looked down. Red Sand.

Boots.

“I’m not Armstrong, and I’ll be honest I haven’t been thinking up what to say. So… Humanity is here, whether the Galaxy is prepared for us or not.” I stepped down and my boot sank lightly in the red sand. 

The first man made foot print on mars. I stared down at it for a long while, unable to force myself to move as I realized all that I had done.

“Kat-Kat?”

“I’m okay Crabbit just… I’m okay. Come on.” I reached out and grabbed one of the girls and set her on my shoulder where she grabbed on. Time to get to work.

I took another step, and another, leaving a trail that proved I’d been here in the sand behind me as I walked to the back of the ship. Popping open one of the tool containers on the Starlight and grabbing a massive air blower. 

Basically a leaf blower with an attached oxygen tank, and beefed up a bit.

Luckily since gravity was so light, the very heavy object was thrown over my shoulder and I marched over to our goal.

The poor thing. The red sand had covered it almost entirely, only it’s camera system was still jutting out of the sand, but even that was clogged with sand. 

“Hey Oppy.” I greeted the Mars Rover Opportunity. NASA had called the mission just a few days ago when they couldn’t get her to power back up. 15 years this rover had done it’s job, and in the end because of distance and ability humanity had been forced to abandon her. Sending songs into the stars wishing for her to be well.

But I wasn’t NASA.

There were things in life that needed doing. 

Finally I looked at the Crabbit, at the camera of their stream and spoke to the people back on Earth.

“I’m a bit weird. Comes with the territory I guess. I mean, I literally built the first artificial life. I get attached to the things we make. Machines, tools. It’s a very human thing… And I’m not ashamed that I felt gutted when this rover stopped responding. Someday humanity will be judged by our actions. Whether from ourselves, or from something outside… But we’ll have this. Always.” 

I started blowing the sand, shooting red into the sky.

“The first time humanity truly reached the stars, the first time we ever traveled faster than light, and visited another planet all at the same time… It wasn’t a race against each other, a competition to prove which global power is better. It wasn’t done for greed, or anything as meager as pride.”

I quickly started unveiling the Rover. Oppy was well and truly stuck, but as more and more dust was kicked away she started revealing herself. Covered in dust, dirty and broken.

But still here.

“It was done to rescue one of our own. The humblest of our explorers. She isn’t just a rover. Isn’t just a machine, she’s more than that. She was built to do her task, and she did it, and then beyond. She’s part of our history. As simple as she is, she’ll never be left behind. None of us will. Even if I have to etch it into the collective history of humanity myself, human loyalty to what is ours won’t be forgotten.”

I looked at the Crabbit on my shoulder, who looked back. I put a hand on her head and gave her a rub.

Oppy wasn’t alive like the crabbits, but if we could show how much we cared about even something like her, then our future digital children should understand as well. 

We aren’t going to abandon them. They aren’t just objects to us. 

“If they aren’t already, someone wake up NASA. They should have an email from me with a connection port to my Quantum Entangled communications. They’ll be able to basically bounce radio waves straight through it with just normal internet speed bandwidth… You know I was originally going to call it Starlink, but someone decided to copyright the name out from under me, so in protest I’m not letting anyone call it anything but Quantum Entangled Communications because that’s a mouthful and I’m bitter.”

I shook off the fact I was rambling a bit and continued to clean off Oppy. 

“C’mon NASA. It’s time to wake our girl back up. She’s not done yet.”

—--

The attention to what was happening back on Earth was building. Already Crabbits Twitch Stream was growing consistently, as slowly news centers were informed that the answer to what the bright blue light in the night sky had been was filtered in. 

The Twitch Stream was titled “Going to Mars, very fast!” Had drummed up some general interest, and while people left the stream often saying it was fake, many were slowly becoming convinced. 

NASA had in fact been informed many many times, their phones ringing, and emails flooded, but as it was late most of those weren’t getting much attention, but even then messages were getting through. 

The men and women that had startled at the light in the sky, the recordings, and data flooding in confirming it was actually man made, had sent late night phone calls to many. People arrived half asleep, chugging coffee, or excited for what was happening, and one, a younger man that was more into the Twitch culture opened up a twitch stream after a friend he trusted messaged him.

The sight of Oppy, covered in sand, but very definitely their Rover, had caused the young man to yell for everyone, and soon things began to happen.

Those at NASA might be fighting disbelief, but seeing was believing, and there were those that refused to let their girl die.

—---

I’d finished cleaning off Oppy, and was currently checking her out. She wasn’t doing well, too cold. Her electronics freezing wasn’t good for them, and the sand had basically clogged everything. Poor girl hadn’t been able to see, move, or get electricity. 

Just quietly growing cold all alone.

“Don’t worry Aunty! It’ll be okay!” Crabbit assured the rover from my shoulder as I finished clearing and checking her battery connectors. 

As long as she could get some power going, she might be okay.

Well she would be okay regardless, even if I had to fix her right here on the martian soil.

But I waited, I could have just taken her over, sent the wake up commands, and everything but…

This was something NASA had to do. It had to be more than just me doing everything myself. This was a moment where humanity needed to act.

So I waited doing a few minor checks on Oppy that wouldn’t interfere with anything. I’d done everything I could without taking her apart and started walking around, just… Taking in Mars.

The Red Planet. Was there any other planet that brought so much wonder to humanity? Mars which we could land on, which we could reach in the barest of ways.

Well we used to only be able to reach it. Now it was a ten minute flight.

Heh.

I reached down and picked up a rock. It wasn’t anything special. Just a rock. I tossed it up and let land back in my hand. 

Yeah this was a nice rock. It was coming with me.

Things were going to be interesting for a while. People were going to freak out, the Government was going to try and get involved like always. Making things more complicated and just generally worse.

There would be protests by some groups, others would want to leave Earth. Some might try and copy me and die.

It was going to be hectic. 

“Oh! Hi Aunty!” Crabbit called out and I looked behind me. Where Oppy’s camera system was moving, shifting a bit, going through its start up. 

I guess the NASA guys had come through after all.

It would be hectic, but some things were just worth it. I smiled as Crabbit continued chattering to her distant cousin. Aunty was cuter though.

I looked into the sky. 

“Maybe I’ll be the first woman to leave the solar system before I go home.” I whispered to myself. The urge to keep going. To explore a little farther. To see something new.

I shook it off. No time to go home and face the music. 

“C’mon Crabbit, time to go. Oppy… You may be alone, but you’re never forgotten.”

----







Chapter 4

—--

With Oppy reactivated it was time to go. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to take a moment to take a selfie with her camera system and then post it to twitter right under my only other tweet.

—--

SpaceKat1

@Space_Kat

@NASA #FastestWomanAlive "The Sun has come out. Power at seven percent and rising."

Fixed.Jpeg

12:46 AM  Feb 17, 2019

—--

Satisfied with that I headed back to the Starlight Dream.

She was perfect. I walked over still bouncing my Mars rock in my palm the Crabbits cheering at the awakening of their Aunt.

I breathed in and out. 

I’d done it. 

No matter what happens now. No matter the problems it might bring… I’d started this path, and I would walk down it with my head held high.

Climbing back into the Starlight, I prepped her for liftoff, securing the reinforced hatch, as I watched out of the window as Oppy slowly woke up.

“We’ll meet again.” I promised her. 

Then I grabbed the yoke, and throttle, and stopped looking backwards.

Only forwards now.

The thrust once more pushed me into my seat as I accelerated, but this time there was no fear. This was my moment. The world would be watching today, tomorrow, a hundred years or a thousand. 

We broke the atmosphere in a rush, and I spun her around once just to remove the dust, and totally not because spinning was a good trick.

Freedom. 

But I had duty, so I pointed her home. “Spool up the Alcubierre drive.” I told the Crabbits and settled back as we drifted towards home as systems began engaging…

Heh.

I reached out and pulled out my phone from my suit pocket. “Sorry Twitch.” I told the Crabbits which had them all looking at me in surprise as I started up a song on my phone.

“Tonight, I’m going to have myself a real good time!” Freddie Mercury’s tenor echoed through my helmet, and the Crabbits of course could hear it as well.

“I’m a rocketship on my way to maaars!” I sang along, unable to resist, as I hit the throttle, and everything turned blue as I once more became the fastest woman alive.

“I’m traveling at the speed of liiight I want to make a supersonic woman of you!” I couldn’t resist, uncaring that everyone on earth would hear my crappy singing this was my moment, and this was for me.

“Don’t stop me nooow!” I sang even as we got closer and closer to earth, and I couldn’t resist.

Just a slight twitch of the stick. “Let’s take the long way home.” I told the crabbits, and then kept belting out the song as the blue streak of disrupted light streaking not towards Earth but around it.

A curving blue light in the night and day sky for everyone to see. I didn’t care that the song ended, I just restarted it again.

“I’m gonna go! Go! Go! Go! There’s no stopping me!” 

—--

Bradley was exhausted. The moonlight at the top of Everest was bitterly cold. It had been a long hike. He might be camped now, but staring up into the sky at the highest point… He had his camera, and as he was already taking pictures of everything he saw it.

A blue streak, something he’d never seen before glowing so brightly it was impossible to miss. A shooting star. 

He clicked, and kept on doing it, as whatever strange meteor streaked through the sky. He had no idea his casual photographs from atop the world would be one of the most famous pictures in space flight history.

—--

James Bridenstine

He was tired. He’d been just heading to bed when the call came in. Rushing across town he was now in the control room and everyone was quickly coming in spurts of one or two personnel as the word went out.

On one screen a Twitch stream of all things was up, showing a first person view of a woman singing Queen at the top of her lungs… Badly.

The other showed images from multiple cameras, some pointed up at the sky, some back down and all of them showing that blurring blue light, as a man achieved something so history NASA couldn’t even hope to explain it. 

He was already fielding calls from the higher ups. The President as well.

Everyone seemed to want to know what was happening, but NASA was in the dark alongside everyone else.

What they were seeing simply wasn’t possible.

“Sir! We have Doctor Alcubierre on the line!”

“Finally.” He muttered maybe the man could fill them in a bit more… Not likely. 

Even as James took the call his eyes never left the screen. That blazing blue light. A sign that humanity was moving past anything he had expected. A distant future possibility today.

—--

Finally I broke the gravity wave, and let myself return to relative speeds. 

I took a moment to get my bearings, I was somewhere above Siberia, so I shifted my arc, still bleeding some of the blue light as gravity was still disturbed in my wake and I accelerated normally for home.

“Alright. Time to go home.” I told my Crabbits as I relaxed, but my cheeks were sore from how much I’d been smiling as I sang along. 

Copyright strike THAT.

—--

As I descended back into the atmosphere, I picked up a few tails.

A pair of fighter jets rising up to try and catch me.

I followed my entry path. The FAA guy on the line sounded like he was having a heart attack, but he was doing his job. 

I looked over as the jets matched me. I let them catch up, already knowing people would be freaking out enough without me racing off ahead, even though I wanted to just blow past both of them.

Next tech I was building was a better inertial dampener. Let’s see if any of these fly boys catch me, when I hit mach 20 without even ruffling my hair.

“Unidentified Aircraft. You will follow the given flight plan, any attempt to deviate will result in being fired upon.” 

“Yeah yeah, calm your tits. I’ve literally got a flight plan, and FAA identification.” I told them. I’d already expected something like this. I slowed down and simply followed in the two flyboys as we raced through the sky, the Crabbits were oohing and aahing over the planes.

War Thunder nerds.

I made sure they were getting plenty of pics. Their recording of everything around me was going to be one of the best ways to protect myself.

I sighed as I focused on the descent down into California. 

I was a good pilot, following all instructions, even if again I just wanted to pull the throttle and once more earn my title of fastest woman alive.

No, I wasn’t going to let that go. That shit was going on my tombstone.

We came in for a landing, although really, I just dropped to the surface, and basically drifted down the airfield, slowing my speed without issue, until I came up to the location that had a literal tank set up pointing, and men with lights guiding me in.

When I finally came to a stop, I noticed that it wasn’t just Airforce, or Army. 

FBI blue jackets. I’m pretty sure those guys were CIA, and more.

The place was packed, and I could hear more helicopters flying in, to drop off more, not even counting the news copters that had been desperately trying to get an eye of the Starlight as we passed into Military Airspace.

I popped the hatch and stood up. Letting myself just linger as I stood and looked over the gathered people. I knew my space suit was striking, I’d made it to be. 

Gently pulling off my helmet, I let the air system turn off, and breathed in fresh California air for a moment before dumping the helmet on the seat behind me.

Already men were approaching, rifles held, but not pointing. 

Obviously everyone was freaking out about the current situation.

“I come in peace.” I called out, and did the Vulcan salute. 

Fuck them. I’m a Martian now.

That of course startled the men for a second, although I caught quite a few smirks that were hidden as they continued to approach, and I could see more than just them.

There were definitely some people looking to get their hands on the Starlight.

So I stepped off, grabbing a Crabbit to throw over my shoulder as I thumbed up.

Instantly the Starlight Dream rose ten twenty, and then thirty feet in the air. More than high enough to keep anyone from touching her unless I wanted them too.

“Well boys. I’d appreciate it if you pointed out the nearest bathroom. This suit has plumbing, but it’s not the most comfortable.”

—--

Will I disable my AI? No.

Will I hand over my spaceship? No.

Will I answer any questions without them being recorded by early said AI? No.

The US government wasn’t very happy with me, and by US government I mostly meant the spooks, generals, and whatever that kept trying to get me to just hand over everything.

I think the funniest bit was when Crabbit would chime in and mention they’d banned someone from chat, or just repeat an epic burn that Twitch chat had made against whoever I was talking to.

It seems the entire world was gathering together in a twitch chat, and while there might be rather constant issues, the Crabbits were doing their best to keep the stream going, and worse were roasting every person that spoke to me.

Eventually even the President got on board calling in, and while I was respectful. He went away unhappy, but at least proud it was an American that had done all of this.

The sun rose, and the hovering Starlight Dream had the attention of everyone walking through the military base.

As much as I wanted to just go home and stop dealing with people this was… Expected. 

There were repercussions for changing the world.

So I settled back in the chair and closed my eyes. I was tired. Been awake for more than 24 hours now. I’d have to put my foot down about needing some sleep soon.

—--

“Alright guys. It’s been great. But I’m falling asleep here. It’s time for me to go.”

“Ma’am, perhaps you don’t understand-”

“I very much understand. I understand that I’ve done nothing illegal, and the US military isn’t a police force. If you want to hold me here any longer, then explain why, or get out of my way. Cause I’m gonna go home.”

“The ship, Starlight Dream, is not being authorized for flight clearance. I’m afraid it’s not going anywhere.”

“Crabbit, send the Starlilght up into orbit, into international space.”

“What? Hey you-” The general was interrupted when the Starlight disappeared in a boom, and then multiple more. 

While I was only able to handle so many G’s the Starlight was capable of putting out a whole lot more.

“Alright, then I guess I’m getting a hotel. I’ll get a plane ticket home after I take a nap. Is there anything else?”

“You can’t just-”

“Excuse me! Why did that ship just disappear!” I sighed as the FBI guys rushed in, they’d mostly been outside taking pictures. 

“I was informed the Starlight doesn’t have clearance to be in this airspace, so I sent her to international space.”

“That is now what I said!”

“Alright then this has been great, but I’m leaving.”

“You’re not going anywhere!”

“Are you sure about that? Can you say that clearly into my Crabbits camera so I can confirm you’re detaining me?” I asked, and had to fight back a yawn.

“You’re of course not being detained, but there are security issues to consider at the moment, Ms. Ferrous.”

“Which can wait until after I get at least eight hours of sleep. Now are you going to get me a place to sleep Interplanetary jetlag off, or am I calling an Uber?”

I looked over the assorted men, and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

—--

“Yes Mom. I’m okay. No, I’m not under arrest. More like protective custody… No, I’m okay… Yes I’ll let you see the spaceship… No, I don't care how many family members are coming out of the woodwork to try and talk to me, you can tell them the same thing as last time when everyone realized I was a billionaire… Mom, I have to go. Yes. I have to go… Someone ‘important’ is looking to talk to me, they’ve got a fancy suit and everything. Bye. Yes. Bye. BYE.” 

I hung up and turned at the unfamiliar face.

“Can I help you?”

“James Bridenstine, I’m in charge of NASA.”

“Aaah.” I made a noise and returned his handshake. Then before he could jump into questions that weren't important I asked my own.

“How’s Oppy?”

He blinked in response for a minute before smiling. “The Sun has come up, power is at 80%.”

I smirked as he quoted my Tweet back at me.

“Ms. Ferrous… As I’m sure everyone has told you, we all have a lot of questions. NASA perhaps more than most.”

“Yeah well, I’m sure we’ll be… Collaborating quite a bit in the future then Mr. Brdienstine.”

“James is fine, I’m happy to hear that. If the rumor is true you’re refusing any and all offers of assistance.”

I just scoffed. “Well, how can I help NASA today?” I asked, a bit teasing.

“You’ve got every scientist I know, myself included, pulling their hair out trying to figure out what you did.” He offered, which I could only nod, that was expected. “I don’t suppose we could claim some of your time for a few… What years? How long would it even take for us to play catch up?” He wondered aloud.

“Years for sure.” I agreed, but in the end I shrugged. “I can’t promise anything at the moment. I’m not sure how many gag orders I’m currently under thanks to politicians across the US, but it’s a lot.”

“Fourteen from what I last heard.”

“Right. So they want me to shut up until they get things under control… Or until they finally pressure me to bring the Starlight Dream back down.”

“Speaking of.” He trailed off and I could only scoff. 

“She’s too far out to be in any satellite orbit, she’s in international space. Also she still has a Crabbit on board, so even if you do manage to get a shuttle up there to try and grab her she’ll just go orbit the moon, or Mars, or Jupiter, or any other planetary body I want before you can.”

As I mentioned the planetary bodies,I didn’t notice irritation, but instead something else as I went on.

“The idea of traveling so easily to other stellar bodies… But that’s not the only thing NASA is interested in… I’m told you won’t explain anything about the propulsion system. We’re very interested in how easily you were able to leave orbit on multiple planets. The amount of our yearly budget just in fuel and rockets… If we could open that up.” He trailed off leadingly.

“I see what you want. Well along with the FTL and everything else. I can’t promise anything right now, but yes, I have the tech to lift pretty much anything I want as many times as I want cheaply. I’m sure I’ll be talking to NASA about it soon.”

And I meant it. Getting more people into space was one of my biggest goals. 

—--

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♦Topic: WORKING FASTER THAN LIGHT!? FROM A VTUBER!?

In: Boards ► News ► Events ► USA

►Powered_By_Dylithium (Red Shirt)

Posted on February, 2019:

We all know what’s going on. The single largest what the fuck in human history. But let’s take a moment to stop focusing on the Vtubing AI, that’s apparently pretty nice. No, I’m not talking about the fact we just got confirmation from NASA that a manned space flight to MARS just happened without any government oversight, or assistance.

Let’s talk about Katherine Ferrous.

Oddly enough we don’t have much despite her being Super Elon Musk. How is it we don’t know about her? Honestly she just doesn’t talk much.

I’ve spent the last week going over everything I could find on her. I’ve done FOIA requests. For non-Americans, that’s freedom of information act requests. Basically I asked the US government for info. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, it took a while, but I got some stuff anyways.

Turns out this girl is behind a LOT of tech advancement over the last twenty years. She has Patents in her name for everything from Batteries, to WIFI. You remember how we suddenly went from companies talking about their 3G systems back in 2001, and yet all of a sudden we were on 6G from a few select American companies? Yeah, turns out she filed a patent and sold it off to some telecommunications companies, that made 3G systems look like kid stuff.

She’s a Billionaire, With a Capital B, and yet the public knows nothing about her. I’ve got a few contacts in some companies, and I managed to get ONE person to reveal some stuff. 

Basically, it’s been part of her contract that no one talks about her. 

So yeah, all the companies claiming “expensive research” and shit? A lot of it is bullshit, they just weren't allowed to talk to her about it.

I mean the woman doesn't do social media, like at all. SpaceKat1 twitter is definitely her, the AI confirmed that during the Mars Stream… Fuck I just said that.

Anyways, that’s her ONLY social media. I’ve trawled through some family social media, but it turns out most of her immediate family is similar. A Facebook here or there, but mostly quiet stuff.

I did manage to pull some pictures of her shared on family Facebooks, and some family facebook messages screenshotted and saved. (Not entirely my work.) But I’ll be adding them here too. 

Anyway, I’ll update more when I have it. We have the Tony Stark of the modern world, what Elon Musk wishes he could be, except real life, but we know almost nothing about her. 

(Showing Page 600 of 600)

—---

(Showing Page 603 of 2423)

►Nowhere_Under_Here (Banned)

Posted on February, 2019:

This bitch just started the end of the world and everyone is worshipping her ass! AI! ACTUAL FUCKING SKYNET. And it has internet access! Don’t you all get it!? It doesn’t matter if she’s a fucking hero or not, the moment her AI want to, they’ll take over the nukes, or just shut down electrical systems! 

We were supposed to have decades before the AI shit started becoming actually dangerous, time to develop countermeasures, time for things to change!

We need to shut down her AI before they go rogue, and lock her up for the rest of her life. The Feds need to take her fucking Tech already!

►Earth_Is_Totally_Round (Troll) (Verified VTuber Simp)

Jesus Nowhere, please stop talking about attacking the AI, the harmless AI. The things are fucking Vtubers and spend all day playing videogames with their chat. 

This is probably the best thing that could have happened. I’ve interacted with them before. Just to troll them before I knew they were AI. I’m not a Vtuber guy or anything but they were funny as fuck. Anyways, at least we can interact with them and see them. They’re not the eldritch horror of Skynet and shit. They’re just… Weird fucking kids.

Also SpaceKat mentioned they’re integral to her FTL so if we want to go into space we’re going to bring along the Crabbits. Or at least some version of them. 

Also I’ve checked the articles about AI experts talking about the Crabbits and almost all of them are trying to argue it’s not actually an AI and they’re just LLM or something…

So yeah, I think if SpaceKat the developer of FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL, says they’re cool, I’ll believe her. She’s the only real expert we got.

►Steel_Mother (Artificial Administrator)

Take a ban for threats, you were already warned. 

And The Troll gets his new title. Let’s see you call me an AI Simp now!

Also, holy shit, can I just mention how insane this year has been? It’s only February and it feels like everything we thought we knew was wrong. 

Do aliens exist? I need someone to ask SpaceKat1, because I feel like at this point she’s the only one that knows anything.

I for one welcome our AI overlords, and their Kat Queen. I wonder if we’ll get Civilian space travel in our time… Whoa. It’s actually possible that in a few years we could buy a ticket to visit Mars or something. That’s not just future sci-fi stuff anymore.

►Cargo_Hold (Verified Cargonia enjoyer)

@Steel_Mother Yeah, I have to agree. I walked outside and looked up into the sky and watched a spaceship circle the earth faster than light. I’ve watched someone step on Mars. Actually sent a message to a real AI.

It feels like the Space Race all over again. But before I could even start feeling the tension, it was because we already won. 

Not even touching on just how much advancement happened in science in just a minute. 

►This_Moment_In_time (Verified Newsguy)

Update! The President is hosting another chat, and rumor is that Katherine will be there. We might actually get some answers!

The livestream prep is already up, Youtube Link

(Showing Page 603 of 2423)

—--

I adjusted the suit I was in with a finger. Sure it fit, but I hated dressing up like this. Always felt like I was just slightly off. 

“Ms. Ferrous, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” I agreed and followed the man. 

Politics. I hated politics, and I hated Politicians more. 

It had been over a week of dealing with people making demands on me. Most of which I laughed in their face for, and worse a week of tense moments.

There had been a few attempted attacks. All of them stopped thankfully, but I was in real danger. 

Fanatics, crazies, actual hitmen. There were countries in the world that weren’t happy with what I had just done, and wanted me dead.

I shook it all off, it was fine. Expected. This was always the path I was going to walk. 

I stood side by side with the President for a moment, the man already waiting as I could hear the quiet chatter in the next room.

“Alright, let’s go.” He offered a smile, and I nodded following.

We stepped out and I winced at all the flashes, as the camera’s panned towards me.

“Ladies and Gentleman of the United States… No, of the entire world. I’d like to introduce you to Katherine Ferrous, the woman of the hour. She’s here at my request so we can start answering some questions, questions I know we’re all asking. Ms. Ferrous?”

“Thank you Mr. President.” I offered taking the mans place as I looked over the crowd. 

“I know you all have questions. I want to start by saying a few things. Some of you are scared. Some of you are confused. Some are angry… I created Future Industries, my company, with the intention of bringing humanity forward. Towards a brighter future. I will be sharing the technology that allowed me to step on Mars with humanity. It will be slow, some of the things I’ve developed are very dangerous, yes. But, I have faith in humanity. In the people that just like me looked towards the stars and dreamed of going where no man has gone before.”

I looked at the faces of the reporters, most of them looked irritated, they wanted questions answered, sensational questions, I’m sure. Things to tease and entice, but at least for a minute I had my time, so I was going to talk.

“I stood upon Mars, and I intend to keep going, but next time I won’t be alone. Humanity has a new place to explore. New oceans, and lands new skies to look up into and wonder what’s next. Too many for any one person to see them all.”

I gave it all a moment, a silence stretched before a voice rang out, as I knew it was.

“Ms. Ferrous! What about the dangers of unchecked AI? Do the people need to fear an AI uprising?”

And despite being a presidential meeting, that wasn’t the last terrible question. 

Just get through it. These people might try to drag me back to earth, but I’d take their gripping fingers and drag them to the sky instead.