Emulation

[Sebastian Thel]

​

Seated before multiple computer screens in the apartment behind his workshop, Sebastian welcomed the evening as it fell. The drone of craft descending into the sky outside drowned out the sharp beeps of his computer as he filed through scores of code, decrypting a mass of figures which had been sent to him by an anonymous contact. His fingers moved at a rapid pace, deducing repetitions in the message at a computational speed.

Pausing for a moment, Bas cupped his chin in thought as he considered the cipher. He wondered now if the contact had sent him the message as a kind of test, to determine whether or not he was fit to take on whatever task they had in store. As the final symbols were organized into a coherent message, he discovered the reason. The message had been sent from the databank of a droid who was requesting his help and they were arriving tonight.

A clutter of machinery from outside caused Bas to jolt in his seat. Turning around, he pulled his head towards the front of the workshop and rose from his seat to investigate the noise. Pulling on his spacer's jacket, he opened the door to the storefront, where his eyes widened before the sight of the droid he had been expecting, leaning against the door frame and drawling mechanical garble.

"I got your message." Sebastian said as he extended forward a hand to help the droid inside of the shop, though judging by the sheer size of him, the engineer assumed that he would have no difficulty standing on his own.

"Come inside to the workshop, I'll get you fixed up." Backing away to give the droid some space, Bas lead him through the front door and into the main area of the workshop. A circular table stood in the center, where Sebastian invited the droid to sit down while he went about assessing the damage that had been wrought upon his chassis and inner mainframe.

"What happened to you?" Bas asked as he looked over his tools. As the droid lay down in the workbench, the engineer watched electricity dance over his chassis and kept his distance in case one of the stray bolts hit him. He sat down at the computer and began to plug in leads to the droid's compartment, bringing up his data storage on the screen in attempt to source the damage done to his programming.

[member="Traveler"]

 

[Traveler]

Traveler pulled himself inside. His body sparking in places as his systems fought to divert energy from damaged sections to maximize his ability to stay on his feet and minimize power drain. It was easier said than done however.

"Ion rye rye rye rifle." He stuttered out as he entered and made his way to the table. Positronic fluid seaped from beneath his fingers as he clutched his broken side plating.

He coughed, a strange reaction to over abundance of fluids building in his vocabulator as he tried to sit but had to lay down instead.

"Meeeeemory, n n n not intact." He tried to explain, "Power c c core at tweeeeeenty fi fi five percent. S s sssssystems fai fai failing. P p p p p please help."

He couldn't self repair or metaprogram in this condition, but he could do one thing. He reached out to the Core with his mind and tried to aid the man as he began plugging into his systems. It wasn't mystical really. It was subtle manipulation of electromagnetism and wireless data transfer. Very simple when you learned how. Carefully, he began to upload his adjusted core programming to the human's systems. It would be temporary at best but it would give him hours he didn't currently have. He just hoped this man new his basic binary or he may be the last person Traveler ever had the chance to meet.


[member="Sebastian Thel"]

 

[Sebastian Thel]

The mechanical figure lumbered inside of Sebastian's workshop, leaning against the doorway as sparks danced off his chassis. He backed away to give the droid room, motioning towards the circular work bench as he closed the door. Binary sputtered from his system in an array of electronic garble. Cupping his chin in thought, the engineer tried to discern the synthetic symbols which the droid spilled, only to pick up on the word "ion".

"Ouch!" Bas exclaimed upon the realization that the droid had been zapped with an ion rifle. "Sounds like a nasty fight." Walking steadily behind him, the engineer guided him to the table and immediately began plugging cords into his ports. Connecting them to a large power unit situated beneath the table, he gave the droid some extra support while he went about removing the plate which covered his power core.

"It's okay, I'm going to help you." Speaking reassuringly, Bas gently lifted the plate from the droid's chest. A mass of perished wires leaked everywhere, spouting fluid and spitting electricity across the workbench.

Sitting on his chair in the center of the circular bench, Bas plugged a lead into a port in the back of the droid's neck and connected the other end to his computer. Scores of code rolled down the screen, beneath warning signs which flashed, alerting him to an immediate failure in the droid's system. He would have to work fast, or his friend would quickly be beyond repair. As the droid transferred his core data to the computer, Sebastian read the binary and deduced a massive gap in his memory.

"I'm going to restore your memory after I repair the damage done to your power core." The small engineer said as he tapped away at the computer. Huge discrepancies in the programming were read between what discernible code remained. Swiping alerts at every moment, he filled minor gaps in the code and wrote the programming necessary for the droid's survival. Hitting enter, he uploaded the renewed data to the droid's system.

"I've repaired the programming necessary to keep you functioning, sit tight while I get to these wires." Bas said as he spun around on his chair. He pulled his welding goggles over his eyes and plugged his soldering iron into the power unit. He unraveled a roll of soldering wire and one at a time, fused the broken wires back together. The hiss of the iron hovered above the discrete bleeps of the computer as more power was fed into the droid's mainframe.

"I'm feeding more power into your mainframe, which will give you some strength in the meantime." Setting the soldering iron down for the moment, Sebastian spoke as he spun around. He tapped away at his computer and fed a backup power supply into the droid's core system, which uploaded while he worked.

[member="Traveler"]

 

[Traveler]

He could feel the energy surging though his systems as the man rerouted power. His internal receptors still screamed danger but his power core was at least stable for the moment.

Traveler tried to nod in acknowledgement and managed the slight movement but it was noticeably more difficult than it should have been. He reached out with his mind and focused on The Core.

For all that beings have done, as a civilization, as individuals, the universe was not a stable environment, and nor was any single thing within it. Stars consume themselves, the universe itself rushes apart, and beings organic and synthetic were all composed of matter in constant flux. Colonies of cells or atoms in temporary alliance housed within shells, an incandescent cloud of electrical impulse and precariously stacked electrical code memory. This was reality, this was self knowledge, and the perception of it would, of course, make you dizzy. Traveler knew these things and by that connection, that base electrically powered sameness he could sense the man after a fashion. He was only a human, just as Traveler was only a synthetic but both were more than the sum of their parts. And this human, seemed like one of the best kind.

He tapped into the human's computer system wirelessly and used his understanding of The Core to send a simple text based message.

"Thank you." he wrote. It wasn't much but he meant it, and that was all he could do for the moment.



[member="Bas Thel"]

 

[Sebastian Thel]

Tapping a button on the keyboard of one of his terminals, Sebastian uploaded the backup power supply to the droid's mainframe. While the program uploaded, he spun around on his chair and pulled his goggles over his eyes once more. A cybernetic implant, which he had installed himself, displayed a holo-projection of code over one of the lenses, allowing him to monitor the progress of the droid as he worked. The wiring inside of his power core was still perished and would require further maintenance.

Sebastian crimped the ends of the damage wires and turned on the soldering iron. Hovering the flame over the soldering wire, he melded the metal with the holes in the wires and fused them back together. Repeating the process for the rest of the wiring in the droid's power core, the status displayed over his lens notified him that the wiring was repaired and ready to receive power. The engineer turned back around on his chair and saw a message beep on his computer. Holding a finger to his chin in curiosity, he swiped the box and read the two words.

"No worries." Smiling, Bas typed the response into the computer and hit send. He turned around to face the droid, still displaying the coy smile on his face, although he doubted that he could see. "What's your name?" He typed again and sent the message.

With the wiring in the power core now repaired, Sebastian could fully recharge his power supply. Feeding more power into the backup generator, he emulated the process. He secured the mainframe and kept all the systems stable, while attempting to restore the data which had been lost. Pausing for a moment, he removed his goggles and set them aside, before sliding his glasses over his ears. The data displayed transferred from the droid was scrambled and would need to be reorganized.

Sipping from a mug of coffee, which had now gone cold, Sebastian postulated a solution to the problem. He set down the mug and cracked his fingers, then set about to emulate a new data storage from the remnants of the droid's old memory. His fingers moved over the keyboard at a rapid pace as he muttered calculations beneath his breath. Decrypting what remained of the droid's memory bank, he sorted the symbols into coherent messages.

"Your name is Omni-Xplorer 13." As he read the messages which he encrypted one at a time, Bas sourced the droid's real name. He began to piece together locations and events, as well as figures which had been present since his creation. The data was still jumbled and needed to be sorted into order. For now, the droid's memory had only been restored in pieces.

"I'm sourcing past locations and figures you encountered, as well as events, but it'll take a lot more work before your memory is fully organized." Sebastian said as he typed away, continuing to decrypt the information which ran down the screen. The code shifted between figures and sorted into information which would make sense to the droid, as Sebastian's mind worked at a computational rate.

[member="Traveler"]

 

[Traveler]

He could feel the electrical fields around him as he tried to sort through his own data. His memories had been de-addressed. He could feel them there but they had no point of reference, no dates or indicators to say which ones came before the others. He tried, but with out an origin point he was not even sure if he was in the present or if he had been lost in his own memories. He searched his processors and tried to focus on the data input and not the situation. He had to let the man focus and trust that he had found a lifeform with good intentions.

"Memories, out of order." Traveler wrote to the man via the display, "No point of reference to readdress sequence of events. Debug failed."

He could feel his grasp on the present slipping as he meandered into his memories to try and find a starting point. anything to log as a beginning. Something. Slipping.



[member="Sebastian Thel"]