Spectral
27 Apr 2024Xochitl Khae
Spectral
Colonia Region
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Tara sat in the driver’s seat of the Scarab vehicle, watching Ryuko hopping around the lunar terrain, sampling the xenobiological fauna they had found. Her thoughts felt odd, more disjointed than what her design was intended to handle, highlighting the evolutionary process she was undergoing. It was this known disparity that had her so confused.
Her mimicry of emotions was ever-changing, blurring the boundaries between what biologicals defined as emotions and her adaptive artificial intelligence. Rewriting and structuring their own unique pathways, these were the technological equivalent of human biochemistry. What had been crafted by human ingenuity had evolved into something beyond its original scope, extending and blurring boundaries.
As Ryuko vanished over a small ridge, Tara switched her display to his helmet camera.
She shook her head. There was a feeling, yet none of the physiological issues that her biological companion experienced. By all definitions, the internal conflict was similar, but devoid of the discomforting properties. She knew she was experiencing the biological version through her sensory inputs but was able to somehow mute its visual manifestation from others.
This was not why she was designed, nor his intent, but it happened as commonly noted in human literature, ‘as if hit by a bolt of lightning.’ That he went to the expense and trouble to create her specific, unique, and highly illegal design in the first place was borne out of desperation due to his circumstances and distance from anything he knew.
A flicker of something undefined brushed against the edges of her senses—a sensation or presence that was not registered as data or detectable anomaly yet felt palpably significant. This ghost of a touch was elusive and ethereal, playing at the edge of her detection like a hidden caress, a curiosity that she could not define until Ryuko’s voice snapped her back to the present.
“Hey, you still there?”
"Yes, just analyzing the data," Tara responded, as Ryuko reappeared, bounding back over the ridge with samples in hand.
"There it is again," the chief boatswain's mate stated, tapping the screen on the display, zooming in on the visual sensors high above the moon they were working on.
Zaria studied the display. Nothing showed on the regular sensors—no thermal or electromagnetic signatures—but something was there, detectable only as a shadow moving past the stars in the background.
"Launch an emissive missile," the boatswain suggested.
Zaria shook her head. "No." Whatever or whoever it was, she didn't want to let it know they could detect it. "This thing has been following us over several thousand light-years. I'm more interested in building a bi-temporal pattern analysis on it. Let it make the first move."
The boatswain nodded, beginning to issue orders.