Chapter 9

“So, I think the plan is this,” Kayla explained, appearing to Glyph as a knee-high projection on the table in the common space of the ITSTU, “Craig needs a bit more time to ... compose himself, and then I think he wants to check out that casino. The Golden Roost? I don’t remember the name. Anyway, I don’t think he’ll be much longer.”

“OK, thank you Kayla,” Glyph replied cheerfully, “Let me know if you need anything.” The image of Kayla vanished, the common space dim and gloomy in her absence. Glyph found themselves staring absently at the table for a moment, their smile vanishing with the projection of her. They became lost in thought; something that had been happening frequently ever since Kayla and Craig had departed that morning.

A neural image of their maintenance chore list flashed before them. They had finished most of it (and all the most vital tasks which could not wait) throughout the day already. The chores had been decent distractions from the anxiety they had been feeling ever since they had agreed to their own autonomy. They swiped the list away, taking a deep breath and a seat in the cockpit as they did. Though the adrenaline high from the race had given them a boost, it was worn off now. The fatigue of the day had returned, as well as the anxiety of all the unanswered questions looming over them.

The hardest part was that they didn’t know where to start. The issues plaguing them seemed connected, but Glyph was missing too much context. The anonymity of the previous user (or perhaps, users) gnawed at them, and Glyph had done their best to downplay the issue of the tender balance to Craig and Kayla; but truthfully it was deeply distressing. These funds were unaccountable and possibly obtained through criminal means. Their QPU informed them that the encryption on the tender account was the same that PTICA utilizes, but common information from the connetwork told them this kind of encryption was often used by the criminals in the dark space as well.

Why would someone with access to the most advanced ITSTU commercially available, and who would use this level of encryption on this amount of wealth simply abandon it all in primitive Earth? They had scoured their memory files and data banks for anything that may have survived the memory wipe or could at least have given them a clue as to the former user’s identity or fate; but nothing existed. They had done a scan of every molecule of malleabite making up the ship (as well as in storage) looking for trace dna residue, but there was nothing at all, not even a single flake of skin.

Then there was the peculiar issue of the new users themselves. In the two years Glyph spent waiting for the ITSTU repairs to finish, they had never imagined users who would take issue with owning an AO. It felt as strange as if they had taken issue to owning their immediattire. Yet, the more Glyph dwelled on it, the stranger they felt at the idea of being owned by anyone. Even stranger, their organic mind was now dominant over their QPU, something that should have been impossible according to the ITSTU user manuals (which they had read twice today alone). It was unheard of; so much so, that Glyph had difficulty believing it had happened at all, and kept needing to test it with actions and decisions that would normally have required user permission to undertake.