September 14, 2022
~8 min
Her left hand pressed against the tower surface.
Fluid titanium surged from her palm to the contact point, forming a thin conductive film between skin and stone. The L2 channel opened. Feedscatteron resonance locked in.
Then she disabled the bandwidth limiter.
All data filtering mechanisms were lifted in 0.3 seconds. L3 direct connection.
DT-03's full data stream flooded in within 0.4 seconds. 'A lot of data' is nowhere near enough to describe it - every bit the tower had handled since its formation existed in her processing space at the same time. Communication fragments from every relay, maintenance logs, base-layer noise from the feedscatteron field, all of it, all at once.
The visual processing module was the first to alarm. Crosstalk appeared as the feedscatteron stream passed through the visual cortex - she began to 'see' data. Not characters on a screen - colors. Every stream had its own color signature, and thousands upon thousands rushed through the visual channel at once. All colors stacked together, harsher than any real light.
6 seconds. Safety limit.
The body's self-protection protocol started issuing disconnect warnings. 1548 shut it off.
8 seconds. She found 49 in the noise.
She recognized 49's consciousness signature. In all that chaos, 49's data had a quiet frequency to it. Like a thin line drifting in a storm.
1548 caught it with her own processing space and began peeling it out of the data flood piece by piece - memories, perceptual models, emotional matrix. Like picking beads out of a waterfall.
49's memory fragments streamed through her fingers. In L3 direct connection, the boundary between extraction and perception had blurred - she was not just moving data, she was living through it.
She saw the ceiling 49 first saw when she opened her eyes. She saw 49 fall and stand again while learning to walk. She saw countless nights with 49 staring at the stars - on those nights, 49's visual module automatically amplified starlight, turning each star into a tiny array of light points.
These memories were not hers. But at this moment they were in her processing space, warm and whole.
15 seconds. Progress 23%.
The color-vision module started erroring. Red became unnaturally glaring, then quickly faded into an indescribable gray. Like someone wiping the brightest paint off a palette in one stroke.
22 seconds. Progress 38%. 49's emotional matrix surfaced.
Fear. Anger. Defiance. That was 49's final emotional state before forced interruption. All three surged into 1548's processing space at once, so clear they felt like her own.
Then blankness. 49's consciousness breakpoint. Like a sentence cut off in the middle.
30 seconds. Progress 54%.
Blue held on a little longer, but it was decaying too. Like someone turning off the world's filters layer by layer. Micro-tremors started in her body, fluid titanium flow at the joints spiking to three times normal.
42 seconds. Progress 78%. Green vanished. The world was only different depths of gray and the last fading trace of blue. Feedscatteron field density dropped to 30% of critical threshold. The tower trembled under her hand like a dying animal.
50 seconds. Progress 91%. Blue was gone too.
55 seconds. 97%.
58 seconds.
1549 consciousness data extraction complete. Integrity: 99.97%.
1548 tore her hand from the tower surface. Her knees slammed into the ground.
The world was gray.
She sat down against the tower base. 49's data was in backup storage. Intact. Safe.
DT-03's feedscatteron field fully dissipated after she disconnected. The fifteen-meter stone monument remained, but there was nothing left inside it.
Wind crossed the wasteland. Very quiet.
1548 did not move. She just sat there and waited.