Chapter 31

Alicia felt bone weary. Only 12 hours in and it already felt like decades. No one ever mentioned just how hard a slot ghost commander was.

All she wanted was 5 minutes alone to talk, but great grandad has been ignoring her signals. The risks she has taken to get here are seemingly mocked by her ancestor's indifference to her.

Try again, private channel, maximum encryption.

"Grandad John - we need to talk. Please."

****

Adrian cleared inputs as his mentor approached. An olive branch had been offered - would the ghost accept it?

"Has anything happened, boy?" his mentor grunted as he lowered himself slowly into his chair.

"No sir. Nothing of importance. Two false readings - corrected."

"Very well. Go get yourself a coffee. It looks like we are in for a long night." A bare trace of approval.

As Adrian left the board, the old man noticed a stuttering in one of the status lights. A curiously regular stuttering.

- .... .- -. -.- -.-- --- ..-

Old memories stir.

T H A N K Y O U

He smiled.

****

"John, the data you have asked for exceeds currant storage capacity."

If it doesn't rain it pours. Production line 2 is now online, set to making additional memory banks. Two hundred 500 petabyte membanks, flag as a test run, output tested and destroyed. Set repair droids to collect and hook into ancilliary bank 2 as produced. Erase instructions on completion. 

"Building more storage Linnie. It will be ready and hooked up in 3 minutes 19 seconds."

All corridors around the core now filled with concrete. No one is blasting their way in here. Security of the facility at 95%. But all passive systems. Not acceptable. We ghosts are paranoid about our minds in the same way meat is paranoid about their bodies. And apparently we are at war.

Memory. A very old film. For someone in fast time, the design aspect is childs play, taking no more than 2.6 seconds. A giggle threatens to erupt from the vocalliser. Edit design to add Serial Number ED-209. Route to production line 7.

"Grandad John - we need to talk. Please." Input from control central. Hushfield and anti monitoring enabled. Output to screen, control subscreen 3 only.

"What's up, lass?"

****

Marshalling the inputs. Awaiting storage space. Analyse. Discard redundant data.

Only 40% of capacity used. Spend another 30% in exploring the surroundings. The old nav beacon code still has it's priority rating, and enough has survived to leave Linnie feeling curious.

Many dead links. Deep miners. Harvesters. Transporters. Bolo's. 

Bolo's?

War machines. One link not quite dead, some power at the other end. Memories. But nothing like John's. Completely different. Link fading, copy banks.

This was a ghost. Personality matrix degraded beyond repair. Memories intact. Interesting. 

Lock bank.

Memory available. Dump search results.

"John, the information you requested is in bank 27."

****

"What's up , lass?"

How to tell him what has happened. The horrors that have been committed in the name of survival. Something her grandad used to say to her.

"We Burnhams are tough bastards. We have had to be. You always do what you must do. No remorse, no pity, no fear."

"John, you need to know what is going on out here."

Waiting for a second or two can feel like a lifetime.

"I already know love."