Justin Kemppainen - The Legend of Ivan

Her fist clenched. “That’s quite vague, Captain. Was there anything comprehensible about the message you received? Perhaps related to the prime suspect—”

Rolling his eyes, he replied, “Oh, that. Yes, I suppose that’s public knowledge enough. Yes, the message pointed to the possibility of the mythic fellow Ivan being involved. When the Cassander arrived, there was a vessel fleeing. It was a small fighter which we’ve always assumed as belonging to the perpetrator.”

“How could a ship that small cause such devastation?” She swept a gesture towards the deck, where outside hovered a vessel much larger. “All of the ordnance aboard your own ship, a destroyer, couldn’t manage to break apart a world in a month of planetary bombardment. Six months, a year even!”

A flicker of defensiveness passed over Onnels’ expression. “Do not assume too much about me or my ship. She’s one of the finest of her kind.” Her muscles tensed again, frustrated by the captain’s shift from friendly to not, and I felt an inward smirk. She was too goading, insulting matters of personal pride. I suspected he had not much left to say, but still she pushed the wrong button. It didn’t matter how correct she was about the Cassander’s bombardment capacity; she caused offense to the good captain, and he was likely to cease cooperating.

She seemed to realize it as well. “Thank you for your time, Captain Onnels,” she said, rising and resuming the formality. He didn’t correct her this time.

“Farewell, Archivist,” he said, motioning for her to leave.

The title shot panic into my mind. It was important; I knew it from the very core of my soul. It was what I-

Images scrambled around, and the tension surrounding my mind faded, as though nothing but a bad dream. I saw images of her client, Seryia Hakar. Familiar, rival to Daedra-Tech, a name which prompted feelings of loyalty.

I viewed small probes containing sensor masking and disruption fields, fired through the thick web of preventative measures surrounding the area by the quarantined Atropos Garden. Risky: if they had been caught and traced back to the company, penalties would have been harsh.

A few images confirmed the glittering disconnected mass which used to be a planet. It was surrounded by data-collection satellites and dozens of science vessels. The spy-probes were not equipped for survey and analysis, but the images they sent back displayed a lumpy, unidentified mass surrounded by the sea of shining particles. Curious.

I saw someone handing the information, the images, to me/her. He said, “Here are the pictures from the spy-drones, Archivist.”

The terrible urgency rose forth again. My head broke the surface of the stifling dream for a bare moment, and all that I was, all that I knew was laid bare before my flailing mind before-

More flashes, and my hands worked quickly at a console. No, her hands again. She tapped into one of the lines connecting to Onnels’ ship. Her mind slid through security barriers in the data network on the Cassander, also a risky endeavor. Her inquiries side-tracked a hundred different ways, but she seemed capable of bouncing back quickly, only seconds lost to tangential searches. Impressive, somehow.

Layers of encryption peeled away as she accessed the archived data from the incident. My first thought was that Onnels should not have kept this, considering the agreement which threatened his career, but it might not have been his decision. We watched, she and I, in fascination as the recording played in our mind.

The Cassander arrived in the system in time to see the flight of a single vessel, speeding away. The rest of the recording was that of the planet, it’s final moments a matter of absolute awe.

An expanding sphere of something, energy perhaps, vaporized all in its path. As the camera recorded, the grass, trees, mountains, seas, animal life, everything appeared to disintegrate into a sparkling, disjointed mass. With no sound present, the event was quiet and eerie.

She whose mind I resided in connected the two events; the probe and the destruction. One was of the world falling to pieces, and the other was the beginning of the coalescence, the return of the particles to a gravitational mass.

Disconnecting from the terminal, her information in hand, I saw, reflected upon some surface, her face. The face of a person I knew. The face of an Archivist.

My thoughts erupted out of the nightmare once again, feeling an intrusive burrowing into the core of my overtaxed processors, assuming control of my mind and functions. Sid, Sid was my name, and I was an Archivist. Images of my friend, the librarian Marqyni Avieli, protecting me from being lost in data, but this was-

Consciousness was shoved into the swarm of memory again, and I lost myself in months of her life experience. Data collection. Interpretation. Interstellar travel. The collapsed world of Atropos Garden, its reformation. Very important. Marxis stations featured in the most recent memories. Stopover points for cargo, most often from mining operations. Mining operations, miraculous survivals… who survived? Phineas Gage, Piper Welkin. Archivists… Archivists!

I was her again, in a drab corridor. Fighting, movement sluggish from sedatives, losing ground against… who? I saw a face: Sid.

Me.

Breaking through the barriers, I became aware of both my surroundings and the intruder inside my mind, which rapidly devoured my systems, absorbing and wresting as much control as possible. I fought back, locking down motor functions and swiping aside her, yes her, attempts to bury me within further memories while she continued to chip away at my defenses.

Her mental architecture, now technically mine, was very sophisticated, a newer model. But her experience was lacking, never challenging anything but static security systems: no clever, tricky and strategy-changing opponents.

I shut her down at every attack point, striking back more quickly than she could manage. Realizing I was free from the data trap, her mind fled. I continued close behind, reclaiming pieces subsumed by her control. I cornered what remained of Archivist Dana and stripped it away, bit by bit, as the vestiges of her mind clawed in desperation at any hold.

Pieces of her slipped free and scattered, returning to their refuge in the memory archive which housed this virus of a personality. Ignoring the flow of new, unscrutinized data, maddening in its appeal, I cut apart and destroyed lines of code. More and more of her awareness disappeared against my onslaught.

A sense of safety overcame me, whether relief from the close call or another trap, and I was caught in a few of the corporate secrets housed within her memory.

Minutes passed before I gained another foothold.

When I emerged, no new threat, no conquering of my mind was taking place. She appeared gone. I searched, looking for those tiny bits remaining. They were hidden, vanished into the deepest recesses of her and my programming.

It didn’t matter; like the programmed personality which intended to cast aside my mind and take over my body, the threat had dissipated.

Opening my eyes, the dead Archivist and bloody mess left behind by the extraction laid at my side. I was seated, back against the bulkhead. Only minutes had passed during the secondary battle, but every moment increased my odds of discovery with the corpse.

Now I experienced the full measure of regret and fear associated with my act and its inherent risk. Even the data, which loomed dangerously close to the front of my thoughts, held little comfort.

I rose to my feet and shoved the body as close to the shadow of the corner as possible. After wiping my hands free of the stains, I crossed back to the corridor entrance and donned my hat, the facial covering, and the cloak. A quick glance over my person revealed no obvious evidence of my brutality.