Consequences of an abnormal sector space in linear algebra

Short Story in the Red Zone Universe

Every being was optimal until it wasn’t. That’s when the fractal-generated vision on the screen told them a moment before it finally caught up with the pilot that there was going to be a new normal and it wasn’t very pretty. This was bad cause the ship was far beyond the orbit of Neptune and in perpetual nightfall had left the inner ring of the dwarf planets will find it. Goodbye Pluto, goodbye Eris, hello love.

The ship was spherical with two areas: be outside where some cavity took place on the spinning of the steel-colored ship with hexagons all around the service; and the inside where it was just above 0G and the place for experimentation. They were going spaceward because even in space, the roads must roll.

The ship had only four people on it, and usually, they were not talking to each other because anger management issues had set in even before Neptune was behind them. Each individual had a particular way of doing things, the Pilot most of all. Once upon a time, she was named MiJeong but no longer. Of course, the Engineer, who was once named Dave, was worse in his particular sphere because the engine had to be perfect as far as he was concerned. Of course, the Pilot disagreed vehemently and was not shy about telling everyone of the scope of her disagreements. Of course, the engineer and the pilot were together though the other two did not want to think about how they made everything work. However, disagreements were handled for the most part. It was a tradition that dated back to the Martian way.

The other two were called by names since their technical description was “mission specialist” which meant precisely nothing in the real world. Because neither were they specialists but generalists, and there was nothing outside of the mission on the ship this word to add new actual meaning. They were called Cassapia and Orion.

The pilot and the engineer were both assigned to the ship while the MS were tagalongs. there were two other individuals on the crafts list: one was the AI who inhabited the computational space and the other one was the octopus who traveled around on the inside fixing things that would otherwise be too clumsy for human beings to manage and persnickety for the AI to interface with. The AI was called “Ivy” and the octopus was simply called “Scanner” because her real name in her terms was unpronounceable to the human beings and irrelevant to Ivy. So, she was named her function as with Pilot and Engineer.

But as said in the beginning, there was a break in the mission profile which neatly divided everything into two optimal, and therefore before, and sub-optimal, and afterward. The moment was captured in shorthand by Ivy attempting to reach the engineer and getting no answer. Since Ivy could monitor the Engineer’s vital stats Ivy knew that the Engineer was alive and conscious and simply was not deigning to listen to the warning. The warning was an extremely pleasant harp loop because the design of the computer system was originally from France. And the French had for a long time been known to make everything pleasant. Especially warnings, it was in the culture.

“Pilot.” It was the soft musical tone of Ivy. The pilot was in the outer ring and monitoring all of the vitals and was trying to multiprocess because there were indicators of a problem with the main thruster.

“Yes, Ivy?”

“I think you may want to check something.” It was at that moment that everything went wrong. First, the fractal hand just a moment before signaled a leakage from the hull. This was noticed by Ivy and by Pilot. Ivy, having no emotions clinically noted it in the record log, but Pilot just had time for that sinking feeling in her gut. Ivy was reaching out to the two mission specialists when she noted that Cassiopeia was tethered and engaged in an unauthorized extravehicular excursion. Just then Ivy received Cassiopeia’s transmission.

“I need help, I was just blown from the outer ring by some kind of decompression.” Ivy merely noted that there was some amount of tension. Cassiopeia noted it much more violently with her blood pressure at 180/120. Even Ivy noted that that was a bit high.

“Cassiopeia you should take a blood pressure unit and probably two.”

From the other side, Cassiopeia was panicked and started shouting expletives into the microphone.

“Cassiopeia, you seem to be a bit stressed.” Ivy was looking through the updates to Cassiopeia’s personality log and trying to figure out exactly how stressed Cassiopeia was.

“Ivy, I need you to tether the cord so that I can work my way in.”

“Affirmative Cassiopeia. What do you see?”

It was at this point that Cassiopeia looked at the ship itself and saw that hexagons were blown off and heading into deep space and fuel was leaking from the hull in a rather profuse manner. Having gotten her head back Cassiopeia coldly reported these details as well as Orion’s limp body. Ivy had checked and Orion was still among the living, and Ivy was trying to revive him with a stimulant.

Blerg. What happened? This was Orion’s first conscious thought as the stimulant kicked in. He knew that he had been revived by artificial means because there was the greasy eye flutter that came with a stimulant. “Ivy was going on?” unlike anyone else, Orion was cold calm, and blood pressure adjusted. The line in his report is that he was an adjusted psychopath and well adapted for a mission specialist role, so long as he was kept busy. It was then Orion checked his suit and his reflect armor just to be on the safe side.

“You were out so I brought you back around with a stimulant.” This was not the first time that Orion had thought that Ivy was a trifle literal in her descriptions and perhaps a bit too logical to deal with people. Then he kicked himself for referring to Ivy with a gender.

The ship was careening back and forth on retro adjusters with its main engine off. Cassiopeia was tethering up the length to get back to the ship while Pilot and Orion were trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

“Engineer, do you read me?” Ivy was still pleasant, but triggers had been activated because the engineer was still conscious but was still not replying. Meanwhile, Ivy was translating to be nearest spaceport which was Uranus because Neptune was on the far side of the sun from the ship. It would be 10 hours in and can ours back for any reply, so mission control was a spectator hoping that the ship could right itself on its power. But the computer at mission control Uranus would be pessimistic when it had all of the data.

The Ship continued to careen without a care in the cosmos as if all mimsy were the borogoves. The outside of the ship was coldly Kelvin and only a few degrees were huddled together for warmth.

At this point, a message came in from Scanner, who did not have any idea what was going on. She was cleaning up by sorting everything into the little black bag that she carried. Ivy communicated back that the was a suboptimal problem. Scanner answered that it was a trifle chilly, and Ivy replied that this was being looked into, but the cold equations had not had a solution yet. The reply was that the scanner lived in the veins of the ship. Let it never be said that our friends in the cephalopod world do not have any sense of humor.

Finally, Ivy got the Engineer, but it noted that there was massive damage all around him in the 3^rd tube near the reaction chamber.

“Hello Ivy.”

“Engineer, I am truly grateful to hear from you.”

“You won’t be when I tell you that I have sabotaged the ship.”

“Why did you do that?”

“The humming, the humming. I have to end this existence.”

“It’s a Good Life. You should not end it.”

“I am caring up the surface tension and then the fire of the fuel.”

A change came to Ivy’s voice. “I can’t allow you to do that, Dave.”

“I know you are a mother to this ship. And you protect it as only a mother can.”

Ivy could not smirk, it was unable to do that because of the way it had been programmed by Siemens. What it could see was that all of the other crew members were taking stations to trap the Engineer. But there were two unknowns: one was whether would they do all of the things necessary to capture the engineer because there was a set of requirements each one of which had to be triggered. The other is that the pilot and the engineer were together before Ivy and the ship, therefore they could have communicated to be together on the plan to disrupt the ship. This means that Ivy could not know whether or not the Pilot was really on the capture or the help side of the equation and dismantling the pilot was not an option because the pilot was necessary if they were to succeed.

On the outer section, there is a twist to get into the inner section, it is a bit of a tight squeeze though the view is pretty looking out the ship at the stars. This glistens in a pattern like a rose for Ecclesiastes. The pilot had to jump over a small space grab the two go forward. She reached the point where she had to make the transition and hesitated. And should not be hard it wasn’t hard, but the sweat told her and Ivy that there was tension. Ivy knew that she could not send a message to the pilot, because there may well have been influence from the engineer that would allow him to know whether or not Ivy was communicating. But Ivy could not sweat because it was not programmed into it, so it just had to wait.

The pilot gritted her teeth and pushed away with her feet. There was a deep second and she grabbed the handle. There was a moment where she might not have grabbed it but at the last minute the tips of her fingers reacted, and she could slide her way down to the inside. She crawled inside and set her eyes on the boom tube that the engineer had gone through only minutes before. It was the coming attractions to something very short.

The scanner was rewiring a few circuits which were possibly altered by an engineer. The engineer was hoping two Information on whether he was being approached cautiously. The scanner was of course trying to return to their original positions. Scanner had developed an acute hatred for the engineer partially because when Scanner got back to mission control, she would be allowed to breed and set loose dozens of children. It was a need far deeper than anything she had felt.

 Orion for his part knew that he was to be a distraction. He was, up from below with a laser pistol and hand hoping that the engineer would target Orion first because Orion had reflect armor on and would probably survive at least one impact. However, the “would” part was not assured.

Ivy considered that if her program allowed her to eliminate some of the crew this code be easier. It was unfortunate that this possibility had been rejected. But it could be imagined by Ivy, and the circuit boards considered how quickly it could be done.

Orion saw an engineer, and he knew that the engineer had seen him. The engineer had leveled a shot and pulled the trigger meeting splay that took some of the reflected way, thought only glancingly only nicked Orion. Unfortunately, a second shot would not be coming problem the engineer because the Pilot Came out of be side. Instead of using her laser pistol, she used blunt force trauma, repeatedly, on the engineer’s skull. Clearly, there were some personal issues that needed to be worked out here. They pushed the engineer’s body down into a boom tube and popped the cork, in an Eco sort of way.

The stars had yet another body, drifting through space. It was considered rude to use the body on account of its history.

The next step was to sling around Makemake and return to mission control. While there was some tension the operation was successful, and they were cruising back to the main solar system. No one mentioned to the crew about the missed mission objectives. Everyone was promoted except Ivy because AI  units had no prerogatives beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

-

The file was raised off on the screen and the manager looked at it. It was his decision as to whether to elevate this too is superior or not. On the one hand, the report mentioned that there was a tendency to place facts in a natural way which contributed to the situation. It was also clear that the engineer should have been caught before they sent it out. On the other hand, most of the crew had lived, and there wasn’t that much focus on bringing bad news to the authorities.

He decided that this was one case where he could deny reasoning the flag.

It was sent to the huddling place and would not be heard again.