Lost In Space: Fear Response
23 Nov 2023Silvia Sharpe
Careful not to disturb Venus as she is recovering, I walk over to a nearby sink and begin to clean up. It had been several hours since Venus had been envenomated by the strange creature, and the toll it had taken on her physically was apparent. Fast asleep and breathing steadily she looked at peace for the first time in a long time. I had nowhere near enough physical strength to move her, so I opted to leave her be. I finish washing up and before I have even a moment to dry my hands Melli hops into the wash basin. She stares at me, her Ice blue eyes piercing into me. Normally the look wouldn't bother me so much but something about the way she poised herself this time makes me uncomfortable. She begins to chatter and for the first time in many years I fail to understand her.The sounds coming from her just morphing into incoherent nonsense. Chirps and chattering, then her posture changes to that of a defensive nature. Her eyes burn with a strange sense of fear, a look I am all too familiar with. During the testing and creation phase of Melli's hybrid species her mother, well a creature that provided the genetic coding for her, became defensive when I decided to get a little too comfortable around it and entered its personal space. It leaped at me tearing into my shoulder, crushing the bones, and ripping chunks of muscle and flesh away from me.
'Mellita what has gotten into you? I don't know what you wa……'
Before I finish my sentence, she leaps at me. The moment she lunges my heart sinks. Flashes of the moment the creature she was created from attacking me, rush through my mind. Instinctively I shift out of the way. Melli soars passed me and darts out of the medical bay.
'What the hell was that all about? June, please lock down the ship. We cannot allow Mellita to esc…… You know what disregard that. I would much rather not have her locked in here with us while she is like this. Please monitor her location.'
"I could neutralize the fluff ball if you would prefer...... Oh no wait, that sounds terrible... I do not mean neutralize, that is the incorrect term to use. I could incapacitate her for you if you would like."
'Yes, please do. Oh please isolate.......'
A sharp pain is felt in the base of my skull as my nervous system shuts down due to an electrical shock provided by the implant. I let out a scream as the shock runs through my body. June had not allowed me time to explain that she would need to isolate Melli's implant signal from mine, due to our shared connection, and issued the stun command, unknowingly effecting myself in the process. The room goes black as I collapse to the floor with a solid thud. Melli who was halfway to the loading ramp lets out a yelp of pain and collapses, sliding to a halt, fear showing in her eyes
****
Pain throbs throughout my body as I begin to regain consciousness. As I slowly make my way into a sitting position a faint buzzing sound can be heard. Looking around through blurred eyes I notice that the ship lighting has gone dim, likely due to the lack of movement for several minutes. I attempt to blink away the blurriness as the lights flick back on temporarily disorienting me in the process. Venus sits up slowly hanging her feet off the side of the operating table and holding her bandaged arm.
'Why are you on the floor Silv? What happened?'
'Melli freaked out, June responded by incapacitating Melli and me. Not her fault, she didn't know. I really should have rewritten the failsafe.' I respond through achy breaths.
I stand slowly ensuring my footing is solid before moving towards the med bay door.
'June, where is Mellita?'
"The little fur ball is currently in the cargo hold. Would you mind explaining to me why you were affected by the failsafe?" there is a genuine sense of curiosity in June's otherwise sweet synthetic voice.
'Melli and I share a sort of transmission signal. It acts like a short-range radio allowing us to communicate between each other. It is strange though, she acted as if there was no connection, and her chittering was imperceptible. I haven't dealt with this since the very beginning when we first received the implants.'
"Short range radio. So does that mean you are able to communicate with her over distances?"
'No that was the first thing I disabled. Having the thoughts of something other than yourself in your head is disturbing. It's disorientating. Like one second, I would be thinking about pie then a thought of hunting and eating a rabbit would float around. It became hard to distinguish between myself and Melli, which for some wouldn't be an issue, but for me was overwhelming.'
There is a long paused as June rationalizes the information she just received. In the meantime, I proceed to the cargo bay uncertain of what to expect.
****
Melli looks around for any potential threats as pain zips through her body. Her head aching and her muscles sore as if she had been running non-stop for hours and smashed into a wall. Shaking off the stiffness she wanders around the cargo bay looking for a way out. Something felt different about her, yet she was certainly still Melli.
'Melli head feel fuzzy. Why Melli feel trapped in cage? Not physical cage but also maybe physical? Who was that strange woman? Melli remembers her but not.'
'Hmm where is exit of this big box? *sniff* Wait Melli know that smell. Lady is here. Must hide.
Melli locates an open crate and leaps inside of it. The soft paper shredding giver her the feeling of a nice big nest. Unable to resist the urge Melli rolls around and attempts to create a perfect spot for her to lay down in. The noise from the paper shredding rustling around directs me to the crate Melli jumped into. Peering over the side cautiously I see the messy ball of fur rolling around gleefully unaware she is being watched.
Upon noticing me she quickly rolls to her feet and backs against the corner, puffing up and snarling. Thinking quickly Melli launches a bunch of the shredded paper into my face and bolts away. Disoriented by the sudden flurry of brown paper bits I lose track of her. Melli darts out of the cargo hold and out of the ship.
'Mellita! What on Earth are you doing? Come here.'
“Silvia, she has left the ship. Should I proceed with incapacitation?”
‘No. That won’t be necessary. Please monitor her though. I need to investigate what is causing this.’
“Very well then. I shall continue to monitor her.”
****
Outside Melli darts off into the tall grass. Her mind processing the environment. It is both familiar and yet completely foreign.
’Melli can't understand. Plants that glow in the dark. Smells that seem like Melli knows them. This place not home. Where is home? Melli is scared. No, Melli not be scared. Melli must be brave.’
Her thoughts halt abruptly as she comes across a burrow, tucked away beneath a large glowing tree. She sniffs around the entrance determining the burrow to be abandoned. Cautiously she enters taking notice of some small animal remains similar in appearance to mice and rabbits.
’Melli thinks this hole is good hide spot. Must make entrance less noticeable. How to do in place Melli knows nothing about? Maybe just place ground leafs over entrance. Oh, Melli knows. Will use ground trees… hmm that not right word…. Boo..shez? Yes boo..shez is right word. Melli put booshez over enter hole. Make hole hard to see. Keep Melli safe while sleeping.’
Not wanting to waste any time, she carefully exits her new hide and finds some bushes along with other foliage to place around the entrance to hide the burrow from view. She pauses when she hears footsteps and the brush moving nearby. Her ears twitch with curiosity and fear, though she is nervous of what it might be. The noise slowly fades away and Melli begins to dig at a decent sized bush, her clawed paws making quick work of the damp soil. Melli drags the bush back to the entrance of the burrow and digs a hole for the bush and places it in the new hole, concealing the entrance from view. Finding the burrow suitable enough for the time, Melli curls into a ball and lays down to rest. Just as she is falling asleep a horrible feeling washes over her as if she is afraid of something again, causing her to stir awake.
’Melli is scared. What make Melli scared? Must get away from the scary things.’
****
'I just don't understand. Why is her biochip not responding? Looking at this data it showed her chip reporting her vitals, brain activity, hell even her thoughts. Everything looks normal then it's as if the chip was shut off.'
"I can perform a systems check to see if there is any trace of malicious coding the was transmitted at the time of her chip deactivation."
I flip through page after page of biomonitoring information looking for anything that could point us in the right direction. There is a pause as June reviews the information on the screen.
"I was going to suggest we try to send a reboot signal to Mellita but after the incapacitation command failed, I do not believe it to be possible to reboot it."
'That's because you can't.... her biochip is dead which means unless we figure this out quickly we will both be dead soon. The chips failsafe is designed to eliminate both the handler and the tame if one or the other is killed or captured. The chip will burn up rendering it completely useless and frying the cerebral cortex of the two.'
"Why would you design it that way? Wouldn't it be easier to just have it send a data destruction command and destroy it that way?"
'It..... it's a prototype. Mine and Melli's chips are the only two like them in existence. During testing all handlers and tames died due to some form of complication. Mine and Melli's were the only two successful links. It was stupid of me to let the team convince me to input the self-destruct command into place.'
"If it's just a command rewrite it and upload the code."
'It would only work for me...... Mellita would die unless I can find out what happened. But that little ball of fluff is a horrendous force to face. Her mother.... well what we call her mother nearly killed me for simply getting to close..... without her biochip, Melli is just as dangerous....'
"Silvia I do not think it was stupid of you to implement the failsafe I just think it could have been designed in a safer way for both the handler and tame. How long do you have before the command is executed?"
'12 hours from the point of communication loss.'
"Plenty of time for me to find the source of this. Give me a little bit to review data signals from the ship."
****
"Silvia I found it! I actually found it! Though I am certain it will not bring you any amount of relief when you see everything."
The interruption form June's voice is jarring. I had buried myself in the meticulous task of rewriting the failsafe to protect both parties and it was proving to be extremely difficult.
'Throw it up on the screen June. I needed a break from this task...... hmmm Wait! What the hell?' I respond in an exacerbated tone. 'June please tell me this is some kind of cruel joke. Tell me that those bastards didn't cause this.'
"Silvia I am afraid this is the truth. Azimuth had time to snoop around Memento Mori and install some very disgusting malware that was triggered by the powerplant failure. They implemented a string of parameters required to be met in order for it to activate and after the last shut down and reboot of the biomonitoring system it released the daemon that cut off the signal to Melli's implant. I believe their intent was if the FSD malfunction failed to eliminate us they would turn our furry friend against us. What they didn't count on was their code being corrupted and instead of activating her Hypothalamus it triggered her amygdala. It is responsible for....."
'For how humans and animals process and handle fear. They intended on turning her aggressive but instead made her fearful. I don't know which is worse. Her being scared or her being hyper aggressive. For her species both of those result in dangerous behaviors. Fear can cause aggression as seen by her lunging at me. But that doesn't explain why or how her biochip stopped responding entirely.'
"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Look at the information again. Part of the daemons protocol is to inhibit external commands. This means that if we can kill the active daemon we should be able to undo what has been done."
'Sure but what if they implemented a failsafe of their own causing a full blown circuit overload.... Killing Melli in the process?'
"HAHAHA! Please you give these hacks way too much cred....."
'June they did it to Kira..... They implemented a kill-all in her implant that killed her when her usefulness was up. Please scour every last inch of coding and ensure there are no failsafes present anywhere. Also ensure they haven't done anything that will take me out either.'
"Oh.... I apologize. I was unaware of the lengths they would go to ensure their success. Very well Silvia, I will review the code and ensure it is safe to remove. In the meantime I do believe you should take a break. If all is safe I will purge the daemon from all systems."
'Thank you June. Let me know when it is completed. I will be with Venus ensuring her arm is intact.'
****
Melli stalks behind a small rabbit like creature ready to pounce. Fear has caused her to burn precious energy and now even as she fears this creature she knows she must eat in order to survive.
Melli scared of you. If Melli not be seen you become dinner. Melli must eat, must keep energy levels up. What was that? Oh just you rabbit! Mine!
She leaps out of the grass and captures the rabbit in her powerful jaws. The sounds of bones crunching startles her and she drops her prey. Looking around to ensure she was safe Melli grabs her catch and drags it back to her hidey hole. Once back inside Melli relaxes slightly and devours the hare.
Melli belly full. Melli need to take nap. So tired.
Curling into a ball and using her tail as a sort of pillow Melli closes her eyes and drifts to sleep. Instead of dreaming peacefully, her sleep visions are filled with terror and horrific looking monsters. Just as her nightmare reaches its peak point, the monsters vanish and I appear in front of her with open arms and a big smile. June had managed to clear the daemon from any and all harmful or malicious code designed to eliminate Melli. The little ball of fluff jolts awake as the sense of fear fades away and she bolts back to the ship eager to apologize to me for her actions.
"Silvia it is completed. Biochip signal restored."
'Thank you June. Where is she located?'
"Inside the ship actually. Heading to your location now."
Chirps chattering and other various fox like sounds break the soft hum of the powerplant as Melli rushes into the Medical Bay. Relief washes over me as the soothing 'sound' of Melli's voice fills my head.
Silvia! Melli is sorry. Melli was soo scared. Not know who you were. So sorry Melli try to bite and run away!
'It is perfectly ok little one. I forgive you. I was soo worried about you. I thought I was going to lose you forever. I am not ready for that, not yet.'
With the threat of Melli vanishing from my life for good, gone my attention turns to Venus who is looking over some parameters for the powerplant on a data slate. A look of concern washing over her.
'We might be in for one hell of a problem with this powerplant. Azimuth certainly was busy screwing with our ship.'