4.12 - Helpless | Stuck Station

4.12 - Helpless

May 10 2011 Published by under Chapter Four

“The … fissure is closed … I think …” Rachel-7 said.

To Daniel, Rachel-7 sounded somehow damaged.

Something was definitely wrong. She wasn’t even singing anymore.

“My thoughts are … fuzzy,” she said. “Yes, the fissure is fixed… My thoughts are… fuzzy. My thoughts are … fuzzy. Yes, the fissure is fixed … But that only bought, bought, bought, bought us a few more, more seconds. ”

Trak looked down at the ship’s floor, scanning the former site of the cannon fissure through the Afterthought’s bulk. The  crack was gone.

“She’s right. We have a little more time until the cannon explodes,” Trak yelled. ‘Probably 17 sec—

“Stop … listing how much time, time we have left!” Rachel-7 said, obviously in agony. “It’s … not helping, helping!”

Her avatar now had one green eye and one orange eye, and one of them was spinning wildly.

Suddenly she shrieked.

“Daniel! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” Rachel-7 said.

Before the Kep Wave disappeared, it had bombarded part of Rachel-7’s datacore with ionizing radiation. Some of her memories had disappeared, cauterized from her mind.

The Kep Wave had then undone the damage … but, like it done to the the ship’s artificial gravity engine, the wave put the pieces together out of order.

As Rachel-7 recalled, she had been expelled from the academy and then went to the first day of orientation. Her thoughts were a dizzying, painful mess.

She screamed again. Her mind felt like it was on fire.

Daniel felt helpless: There was nothing he could do to fix Trak’s body or Rachel-7’s mind.

8 responses so far

  • John says:

    Phew. All caught up. Gotta get to work on tonight's post.

  • trak42 says:

    oh no she is skipping! nothing worse than a skipping A.I. (well except for those that are megalomaniacal, but they don't have those yet, do they?)

    • John says:

      As of 2713 A.D., there have been 3,470,407 human-made Ayes that exhibited megalomaniacal tendencies. This is only a small fraction of the number of Ayes created by humanity.

      That list does not include the Ayes developed by countless other species.

  • trak42 says:

    why didn't you include that fact in your "stuck on" series

    • John says:

      I thought about that. And that info will be in a future Stuck On.

      Frankly, there's a lot of background material on the Stuck Universe. And I can never tell when I'm providing interesting information and when I'm just filling space.

  • CalLadyQED says:

    But what about Daniel? Has anything happened to him? And did the Kep Wave move them closer or further from the garage?

  • shamtest says:

    I can't seem to be able to reach this post from my iphone!!!!

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