FADE REGION
VANGUARD FRONTIERS BASE OPS

Sam was quickly running out of ideas, and for the first time in a long while, was distinctly aware of his own body odour. He had just spent another seventeen straight hours (and four cases of Quafe soda) trying to further his increasingly futile task of deciphering the mystery of the DNAC.

He had analyzed it many ways, and had enlisted the Aura AI to analyze it even more. He had been plugged in for most of those seventeen hours. “Plugging in” was the common term capsuleers used to describe interfacing with the Aura Neural Network. Aura was the standardized “personality” of all Artificial Constructs within New Eden. There were other customizable AI available, but they were not integrated into Aura directly; rather they were treated like any other outsider when dealing with Aura, that is to say, cordially and politely, but restricted in what they can access the same as would be a public citizen. Civilians could interface with the Aura network through digital terminals, or through subcutaneous implants, allowing them to direct their inquiries through thought instead of type. For capsuleers, interfacing took on an entirely different meaning. A long spike, nested in the end of a flexible, mechanical tentacle-like arm was the main component of most pilot’s pods. This spike would enter the base of the skull, merging the consciousness of the pilot with the matrix of the AI, whatever that may be. It would allow a capsuleer to “be” their ship, to control its functions as they would control themselves. It also allowed them a direct cerebral interface with the Aura network, allowing them to access data and information from across New Eden almost instantly. Even moreso, they could “experience” that information, for accelerated learning, within a virtual environment of their subconscious. These experiences were limited to facilitate learning only; anything else could prove fatal or maddening to the host, though there were conspiracy theories that the militaries still used Aura for experimental training on soldiers, though no tangible proof had ever surfaced. The bottom line was that no matter how good technology had become, the human mind could only sustain a set amount of stimuli at any one given time, and though that range had slight variance, it was better to err on the side of caution.

Sam headed for the shower. His own stench was actually getting to him. Maybe this was why his corpmates tended to keep their distance? His efforts had availed nothing from the obvious. The DNAC was organic. It stored trillions of bytes of data. He couldn’t narrow down what type of organic material it was. He hadn’t been able to access any of the data it contained. The artifact was truly that, a gem from an age long dead, with no records remaining as to its true nature; no manual he could peruse.

He stripped off his pyjamas, and within minutes was enjoying the hot steam embracing him tenderly. He had to figure this out, Roc was counting on him; and even moreso, he would not be beaten by a puzzle, it just wasn’t in him to surrender.

What could it possibly be? Sam’s mind was fatigued and near exhaustion. He had come at this puzzle from a thousand million different directions. He had performed every qualitative and quantitative test he had known on the device, and the only thing he knew for certain was the composition of the casing alloy. That didn’t really help. 

Or did it?

Struck with inspiration, Sam egressed from the shower, not bothering to turn it off, nor to put his pyjamas back on. He raced for his “plugin”, and soon was walking amongst the knowledge of New Eden, with Aura as his guide. His epiphany had been to narrow down his search by locating areas where that alloy occured naturally. Perhaps if the results were few enough, he could cross index them against historical databases referencing Terrans, and maybe find a lead! In his gut, he knew he was on to something.

Unfortunately, Aura disagreed. There was no known location of this alloy forming naturally within the New Eden public archives. He pursued the issue more, urging Aura to access non civilian databases, but she flatly, yet politely, refused. Insufficient clearance. 

Sam unplugged and cursed himself. He knew the answer was close. And he knew what he would have to do to obtain it. He shuffled to a nearby workspace, feeling a slight breeze on his hairy genitals, and pulled up a stool to sit on. He entered in his encrypted password on the terminal in front of him, and loaded the initialization program for Nora.

Nora, which was short for NULL – Aura, was another project Sam had developed years ago, but was rejected as 100% of the test subjects went mad when using it. Whereas when one used Aura, and was limited to interfacing with that single AI entity, and was fed information in sequential order, Nora removed those restrictions. A user was bombarded with multiple streams of information from every AI construct within New Eden. And whereas using Aura was like surfing this net of information, Nora was more like drowning under its crashing waves. 

Sam took a deep breath, and once the program had run self diagnostics, plugged in. He was immediately overwhelmed with information, but steeled his will against the machine, and began swimming through the morass of data. 

Seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into madness. Sam sat there at his desk, naked, his eyes wide, his pupils small, with an unnatural grin on his face, spittle making its way down his chin from the corner of his mouth. He was being consumed by the machine, but would not yield. He was losing his mind, but would not stop. 

He would find this answer, or he would die trying.