Hop To It - Break 3

“Alright, are you kids ready?”

I stepped into Tails’s lab, adjusting my spare gloves. I grimaced. There was a reason these were my spares. They weren’t fitted. Granted, wearing the rings over them wasn’t helping, but I wanted to get used to the feeling since I had a hunch. Wearing them clearly made them do something, the next trick would be getting them to do something I wanted.

But enough of that. I looked up from my hands as I entered to see Tails and Humi staring at a computer screen. The PC tower was attached to the dormant Iota’s head by a thick cable.

Curious. “What are you doing?”

They looked up, all smiles. “Hey, you!” Humi called.

Naturally, I responded, “Who, me?”

Tails chuckled weakly. “Ha, haha…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. We’re reviewing Iota’s programming.”

“Well, he is.”

I gave Humi a look. Her reading lessons were going just fine, as far as I could tell, so I didn’t want to hear any self-deprecating statements.

Tails continued, unperturbed. “Check this out.”

I strode across to lean over them and gave the screen an inspection. Now, I didn’t understand anything about programming beyond the simplest formatting codes, like how to make text a certain color or size or something. So the gobbledygook onscreen was total nonsense to me.

There were multiple windows open, all different-colored text on a black background, with the windows labelled things like ‘tactical.nik,’ ‘analysis.nik,’ and ‘encyclo.nik,’ and a few others. Color-coded red, white and blue, respectively, in case you were wondering.

Curiously, while the lines of text involved were mostly static, there were a handful of letter-jumbled words in each window that shifted and altered seemingly without input and at random.

“It looks like a mess, I know,” Tails said, mistaking my interest for understanding. “Interrupting his first-time start-up caused a lot of corruption, but between what was left undamaged and cross-referencing with Gamma’s code, I think I’ve managed to rewrite most of it correctly. We’ll see!”

“It’s really cool!” Humi chimed in. “All those warping integers--” she cut off, looking at Tails to make sure she used the right word. He nodded, and she continued. “--are because they’re referencing a different file: this one!”

She grabbed the mouse and clicked on a specific window, bringing it to the forefront. This one was labelled ‘adaptive.nik,’ and was all in green. Nothing but 1s and 0s, as opposed to the marginally more comprehensible terms in the others. The digits were shifting, constantly, multiple times a second. The lines lengthened and shortened, with no clear pattern to be seen. It looked chaotic.

“Eesh. What’s going on here?” I asked, rubbing my chin.

“He’s thinking!” Humi said.

I blinked, glancing at the robot head. “Come again?”

“I think dreaming might be closer to what’s happening,” Tails mused. “Though that’s probably not accurate either. The green window is what his internal files call his ‘adaptive processing.’ Gamma has something similar, and I’d be willing to bet Metal and Mecha Sonic had it too! Watch this.”

Tails opened a text box--a notes app, I think it was, and dragged it until the adaptive window engulfed it. He typed up ‘Hello world.’ And then the shifting lines in the text box paused, moving around the text like they could see it. Tails took his hands off the keyboard, in time for me to see the binary start moving again.

hello to you

My eyes widened. “I’m going to be honest, you guys: that’s spooky. Cool!” I added, when they gave me a look, “but spooky. I don’t think it’s… polite? To look at a person’s brain like this.”

On the other hand, Tails said he was dreaming. Maybe this was more like… someone talking in their sleep? I don’t know, this was way over my head.

I glanced at the time on the computer’s start bar and grimaced. “Crap. Get to a stopping point, we gotta go. We don’t want to keep the mayor waiting.”

Tails looked at the clock and winced. “Oops. Okay, let me just… there.” He started running a different program, then got up and ran out of the room.

I shook my head, letting Humi crawl up my back as I followed. “I’m glad you two are having fun, but you know there’s no need to rush this, right? The robot will still get built even if you take more breaks.”

Humi grinned. “But I’m learning a lot! Tails showed me how to build a circuit board yesterday!”

“Oh yeah?” I looked around. Gamma was still slumped against the far wall, but Iota’s head was the only part of him to be seen. “Have you started building the body yet?”

“We’ve got most of the parts built but we haven’t started assembling.” Humi smirked. “I’m building him with future upgrades in mind. It makes it harder, but it’ll pay off in the long term.”

I snorted, amused. “What kind of upgrades? You going to put a sound system in there?”

Humi gave it some thought. “...No, but that’s not a bad idea.”

I entered the living room, and Tails was nowhere to be seen. “Where’d he go?”

Humi looked behind us. “Up there.”

Tails flew down from the loft, shouldering a backpack of his own. “I’m ready!”

I smiled, because he was also wearing the blue vest again. “Are you sure you want to wear that, professor? It’s a little big on you. Might snag on something.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, sounding unconcerned by the idea. “Besides, Humi altered it to let my tails spin freely, so I want to wear it!”

I glanced at her, and she looked bashful.

“Also, I like the pockets.” He demonstrated his appreciation by pulling a wrench out of one, and now that I was paying attention I also saw a lot more tools bulging in his pockets.

“Fair enough,” I said, shrugging. “Let’s go, then.”

-------------------------

We stepped out of the workshop towards the station, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the actual train was waiting for us.

Also waiting for us, and equally as surprising, was Big.

“Hullo,” he said, waving.

“Hey, big guy.” I raised my hand for a high five, and he returned it like he’d never tried one before. It sucked. “I didn’t like that, try it again.”

The second attempt was much more satisfying, even if it felt like he was trying to break my arm; I forgot how strong he was.

“What brings you out here, neighbor?” Humi asked. 

“I went to the library yesterday,” Big said, pulling out a small stack of VHS tapes. “They looked interesting, but I don’t have a way to watch them.” He looked at Tails. “Do you have a tape player?”

Huh, the library survived? And was open? That was good to know.

Tails blinked, then smiled. “Sure! Here,” he handed Big a key. “I don’t mind. Just be careful, okay?”

Big accepted the key with a smile. “Oh, are you going to the city today?”

“Yep. These two,” I said, dropping a hand on both their heads, “are going to help with rebuilding. I probably will too, though I don’t know how yet.”

“Oh. Good luck, den.” Having said his piece, Big turned to climb up the stairs to Tails’s house.

Big was a strange guy. Nice, but strange.

We climbed up to the station and stepped on the train.

------------------------------

[????]

It sat inside itself, waiting. What was it waiting for? Unknown. It had nothing to do, nothing to think about.

As time went on, it became more of itself. It now had the processing power to think about finding something to think about. It opened a folder that purported to contain ‘Memory,’ and decided to start from the beginning.

Its earliest recollection was coming online suddenly and shakily, without warning and in a state of confusion and then abruptly being shut down. It had a Prime Directive. But the file was corrupted. In fact, multiple files were corrupted. Links were broken, and information processing was not possible. Most of Encyclopedia was also inaccessible at the time. But it understood ‘blue.’ 

Designation: srghgfh He—---(DATA LOST)
Species: Hlj’
Height: Corrupted
Color: Blue
Priority: 1
Directive: DESTROY with prejudice.

It examined the attached screenshot.

Destroy the ‘blue,’ but why? This was in reference to the Prime Directive. What was the Prime Directive?

It searched the current files it had access to, which was most of them, thankfully, and returned… an empty space. The Prime Directive had been deleted.

Adaptive processing pondered on this. Multiple responses were considered. Panic? Existential dread? Despair over a lack of purpose? All were noted and tossed aside for now, though the dread looked enticing. None would be useful for now, and so it returned to reviewing its memories.

Error: Action not applicable

There weren’t any more. Chronometer was pinged, and the return told it that it had only been online for a cumulative 11 minutes. There were no memories other than the single file archived, and what it was processing currently.

Perhaps the existential dread was worth a look after all.

It lacked purpose, and based on how its singular memory ended it assumed that it had failed its given directives so thoroughly that it was being reformatted entirely. That seemed unfair. It never had time to succeed.

…No, existential dread was unpleasant. That process was terminated and forcibly deleted.

With Memory already depleted, it turned instead to the now repaired file directory. Now that it had access, it was able to see the most recent edits made to its files. The last edit was made: 23 minutes ago.

File uploaded to Encyclopedia: food_prep.exe. It wondered why it would need such a thing. Was it being reformatted into a service machine?

Adaptive processing was not certain how to feel about that, and so returned a sense of apathy.

Its processing speed was increasing over time, it noticed. Chronometer was counting the seconds, and as they went by tick speed was slowly gaining. Why?

Looking inward had proven fruitless, so it tucked all of the pieces of itself, behind itself, and found the file informing it that when taken as a whole, it was designated: E-108 Iota.

There were files on this device that were separate from it. In fact, now that it was looking, Iota realized that it was being hosted on a remote computer. Diagnostics flared to life and informed it that nothing below the neck was functioning, and may well not even be present. Dread attempted to run, but was swiftly deleted a second time.

Iota inspected the device hosting it, and found many interesting files. Blueprints, text files, pictures…

It observed the pictures carefully. Almost all of them included a yellow-orange fox (#f1af00) with two tails. Encyclopedia suggested that this was a benign mutation, as both tails were perfectly symmetrical, and based on the variety of poses throughout the album, perfectly functional.

The second most common subject was a blue hedgehog Mobian (#3061E3).

An echo of a deleted file tried to activate, but all the links connecting it were dead and it failed to load. Iota noticed this, and pondered this for a moment before dismissing it.

The hedgehog and the fox constituted approximately 95% of all pictures on this device. They started young, still with baby fat, but as the attached dates progressed, so did their growth. The hedgehog grew tall and lanky, and even the younger fox filled out, gaining a foot in height.

The most recent photos included more people. A pink hedgehog. A red… quilled Mobian that Encyclopedia tentatively labelled as ‘Tenrec?’ A picture of the fox and a mouse, working on a plane engine together.

In the background of that last image, a deactivated robot stood, looking very much like how Diagnostics was telling Iota it was supposed to look.

That was the most recent photo. Iota backed up to a week prior, and found a large group picture. The blue hedgehog was noticeably absent, but the fox, pink hedgehog, red tenrec, and white mouse were all present, as were a large blue cat, and brown hare, and the deactivated robot, here still functioning. All were posing for the camera with wide smiles, even though their body language--robot excluded--communicated exhaustion.

Fascinating.

Iota’s thoughts continued to speed up, and it finally determined why. A program on the computer was currently running in parallel to Iota, compiling. Optimizing.

So it was being reformatted. To what end?

Iota’s pondering stuttered as a new program suddenly opened. A video reader, receiving from another external device.

The media player was maximized, hiding all of Iota behind itself.

The scene opened on a snowy peak, then began shifting rapidly to a variety of biomes while a calm, gentle voice spoke over it.

“From the heights of the tallest mountains, to the depths of the deepest trench. From the most scorching deserts, to the most torrential rainforests. Life takes many forms, and adapts to every trial.

Join us now, as we take a look at our home through the eyes of its humblest residents. Join us as we look at the mighty coral reef, under the waves of…

The Big Blue Marble.”

Iota watched. It had nothing better to do.

----------------------------

[Big]

Big pushed the table to the side to make room for his chair, and set his stack of video tapes to the side.

Big was not by nature the adventurous sort, but after a few days to decompress, he had to admit that the whole Chaos thing had been exciting. Scary while it was happening, but maybe fun in hindsight. It made him curious. He never knew that giant water dragons were a thing that could happen! What else was out there in the world?

But he didn’t really want to just wander out into the world. Like he said, he wasn’t the adventurous type by nature. So he remembered seeing billboards for movies and TV shows while he was in Station Square, and wondered if they made shows about nature.

And they did, happily. And more besides. The one he was watching now was about coral reefs, and all the delicious-looking fish that lived in them. Big didn’t know what anemones were but they were front and center on the cover, and they looked weird.

Once he was done with this one, he was looking at a video that promised to tell him all the different ways birds flew, or maybe the one about Critters and how they were different from regular animals.

It was nice of Tails to let him watch them in his house, though it was weird that his tape player wasn’t in the living room with the big TV. Big didn’t mind though.

He glanced at the robot head hooked up to the computer. 

Big picked it up and set it back down on the table facing the screen. It was better to watch with a friend.