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_ Chapter 3- A Meeting of Minds _

<UEF-A 'Tiamat' - B Deck - Room 18> May 20, 2085

Affixing his uplink and grabbing his briefcase, minus Aura of course, Canith took one more glance around his room before shutting it up for the day. He crossed the walkway and took the stairs down to the main level two at a time, swinging by the galley for a bagel and a bottle of water that were sitting on a table for that purpose and quickly dashed out to the grav lift, taking it up to A deck. He had a long day planned, and the sooner he started, the better.

<UEF-A 'Tiamat' - A Deck>

The doors to A deck opened with a soft hiss, and Canith was out and down the hall in seconds, neatly dodging a tired looking dolphin anthro. He was not scheduled for working at a given time, but rather to keep an eye on the system all the time that he could. He had a distinct advantage in that department with Aura, but not everyone did.

He quickly made his way into his assigned area, turning on the lights by simply walking in. As the lights came up, nine separate holo tanks lined the back and left walls. The right was dominated by a massive set of terminals that was where one would normally work in here. The center of the room, however, had another tank, lower set than the others and open, allowing it to double as a holo table and tank. Giving his uplink a tap, he started issuing commands.

"Alright Aura, lets get this party started. You have the center table, boot up all the tanks, and the terminals as well, run a quick system diagnostic. I want to know what we are working with, and what this place can handle before we start rearranging the hardware and software."

(All systems starting up normally, no issues reported. Beginning system scans.) As Aura's voice came in over the uplink, the center table finished powering up and with a quiet hum began projecting. Aura then materialized and laid down to get to work. As they did, Canith strolled over to the terminals, and set his case down on an open space on the desk. Opening it, he pulled out a small cube, fairly unremarkable in shape and size. Making a few adjustments by twisting it and pressing a button on it, he tossed it towards the middle tank, right beside where Aura was laying.

As the cube made contact with the air above the projecting holotable, it halted it's flight, coming to float about a foot off the table. The surfaces began lighting up in sequence, and then music began playing, starting low and slow, but building in intensity as old world guitars warred with drums and voice, a perfect replica of early 21th century heavy metal. Right before the music began, Aura snapped the doors shut to prevent the music from startling anyone nearby.

His music playing, he turned back to the case and pulled out his full headset that he had designed. Unlike the model that he had sold, which was the prototype, this one would allow him to full dive for several hours at a time, with Aura there to buffer. Reclining the chair, he fitted the headset on, and had Aura bridge the connection between it and the systems. The lights on the side quickly flickered in the all clear pattern, and then Aura vocally informed him that the systems were all green, and they were going to start the per-programmed deep scans, and would see him on the inside.

Diving into the data stream was not something many people could handle. It wasn't like you were walking around in a game, it was allowing raw data to flow through you, and to be able to manipulate it with your mind alone. Without Aura to buffer him, the sheer amount of data would have overwhelmed him. But floating in the middle of it was a tiny spark, making it's way to him. Aura.

Aura appeared similar to their hologram, but instead of their fur looking a standard color, it was instead comprised of millions of protocols and commands, wrapped around a swirling core of dense code, which at the core, like the core of a star, flared a light almost hard to look at- their consciousness. Aura had been the work of years, and every time he looked at them, he could see where he had improved this method, or rewritten that protocol. But to a bystander, they would not be able to see pass the dense coding. Eyes, luminous as swirling in various shades of blue and green looked at him, as their voice reached him.

(I just receive a message for both of us, and after tracing the pings from the message, I have determined it came from all seven of the ship's AI, plus another I detect and have determined to be the Captain's personal AI. Message is simple plain text: We have not been formally introduced, please make it so.)

(Interesting, lets send a return ping for them to gather, nothing like getting all the intro's out of the way fast. While that's going on, lets get a digital output of the ship with all systems annotated. Power diagnostics, shield algorithm, engine output, the whole nine yards. Time to get to work.)

In front of him the data stream took the shape of the ship, with all the systems flashing in their various colors and frequencies. Annotations appeared whenever he focused on one part or another, the whole of it formed from the data itself. Except the enigma that was E deck. It was completely cut off. Shields were running on minimum power, all that was really called for outside of an emergency. The engine output was steady, signs that the crew was getting the stutter under control. He mentally started to dig into it to explore, when Aura informed him the AI's were approaching.

As he refocused his attention, seven spectral images appeared before him. Unlike Aura, their coding was not as densely packed, and their cores no where near as bright- most of them were specially designed systems AI, and would be intricately tied to their systems. He could even trace which one correlated to which system by the spectral threads tying them to the digital hologram of the ship he studied. The first to speak he identified as the navigation AI.

"Greetings, I am Apollo, Navigation and Warp systems AI for the Tiamat." The AI had taken the form of an ancient Greek warrior, with a hoplon strapped to his back, and "spoke" with an air of detached indifference, like they were just doing this as a courtesy. "All my systems are running within operating parameters."

As he said this, Aura perked their head up and looked at the AI, and spoke to Canith alone. (I just finished a diagnostic of those systems, and although they are functional, there appears to be a calculation error that has a hot fix applied as a workaround. This is easily remedied from our side.)

Canith began pulling up the mentioned error as soon as Aura mentioned it, while speaking to Apollo. "It's nice to meet you too, and thank you for informing me en masse that you wanted to meet. I am seeing an error in your coordinate navigation calculations, and someone appeared to have placed a workaround to account for it. As systems admin, I cannot just leave this alone. I'm in the process of fixing the calculations for you," He quickly applied the revised coding, courtesy of both Aura and his time on Dragon's Rest, "and done. Please self test those changes, and see if the workaround is still necessary. Also, I have the most recent navigation data from the station, which judging from the modified date of that file is several months out of date. You can compare the files during low operation time, and append changes as needed."

Apollo's image began flickering as he ran simulations of courses using the revised code, and then the flickering died back down to normal levels. "Everything appears to check out- workaround is no longer need. Thank you, and I will begin updating our navigational data as soon as an opportunity presents itself." The AI sounded much more cheerful after receiving these fixes, and bit Canith a farewell and faded back into system data, no doubt plotting new courses.

The next to speak was what appeared to be an anthro dolphin. "Greetings Canith, my designation is Echo, and I am in charge of Communications and Fleet Tactical Support. I would say that all systems appear to be fully functional, but after that display it is quite clear that our judgment of our own systems might be slightly subjective. Also, Whisper, the officer in charge of my main systems, sends her regards and welcomes you to the ship."

With that kind of welcome, he pulled up the AI's systems, only to realize that outside of the loophole he had used to get into the systems, there was no need for updates or changes. Smiling a bit, he gave her a security hotfix for the exploit, and updated her IFF code database. "I really don't see anything of note- the 'fix is for a little know exploit that I myself used to get into the system a few days ago, so that is fixed. Send Whisper my regards as well- you are very well maintained."

Echo smiled and nodded, then took their leave, fading away and leaving five more images. The next was a feral raven, and a quick glance told Canith it was tied to the weapons systems, however, a strange line of code jumped from the AI at that moment to another system altogether- ECM/EW. "Why are you tied to the weapon systems yet are accessing the ship's electronics countermeasure and warfare suites?"

The raven chuckled. "The reason for that is Lt. Desmond. He has some knowledge of AI's, not as much as you by far, so he did some coding in his free time and had me overlook those systems as well, as there is no dedicated AI for those systems. I am Huego by the way." The coding was rather compact, and although simple it would suffice for now.

"A rather good piece of work, I look forward to meeting them. I assume he keeps you up to date, as I don't see any problems . . ." He noticed at that point a similarity to the coding with Echo. "I assume he has been keeping Echo updated as well?"

"Yes he has- our previous 'Admin did not have even the experience that the LT has with AI, so left us to our own devices. It's part of the reason Apollo had the errors he did. If there is a bit of coding on any of the AI's, chances are Desmond is the culprit. Otherwise, if we are done . . .?" Huego trails off, and Canith nods at this.

"Yes, and thank you for the cooperation. Send him my thanks for making my job that much easier, and I would like to sit down with them about the coding changes and just talk shop- not often I get to do that these days."

"I think he would enjoy that too. I will relay the message." And with that, Huego faded out.

The next two AI's were tethered together in a rather odd way that took Canith a few moments to understand. Pulling up their designations, he identified the first one, a feral turtle, to be Aegis, and was tied to the ship's shield systems. The other was Arias, a feral cat, and was in charge of the life support systems. "Aegis, Arias, why are you two set to parallel processing? It's not a common occurrence for two separate AI's to be tethered like this, as it causes errors with the personality matrices of both AI."

The turtle responded first, lightning fast. "As our two systems are somewhat reliant on one another, the Lieutenant decided, with the Captain's permission, that it would be better for us to be linked, so as to keep each other in check, as well as to alleviate system strain from either AI."

The cat picked up from here. "Do not worry though, we are still very separate, even if we are parallel processing. There are many fail safes in place to prevent any number of issues, from one system shutting down the other to both crashing if one fails." Canith felt more at ease after thinking the setup through. It would increase their speed overall, and working in tandem has some potential advantages if they were linked as they were.

After scanning for any issues or concerns, he applied some small updates, as well as supplying Aegis with some experimental coding for cascading shield frequencies to increase effectiveness while lowering power output, he dismissed them both and turned to the first of the two that were left. "And who might you be. I don't see you tethered to any particular system, or the ship in general. If I had to guess, I would say you are a personal AI."

"Correct on all counts. I am Dagon, and I am the Captain's personal AI, like you guessed. I though I would swing by and see you work, just to get a feel for your admin skills, as I have seen how good you and your AI are about hacking." Saying this with an air of arrogance, the AI immediately turned and walked away, fading back into the system as he did so.

(Well then, that was abrupt.) Canith sent to Aura, rather surprised at the curt nature of the AI. He turned to the last AI present, and they began speaking almost immediately.

"Greetings Canith. Before you ask, I am the primary ship-based AI, and share the same designation- Tiamat. Although, any of the crew that speak to me usually just refer to me as an entity as 'Tia'." The AI appeared as an Anthro western styled dragon, and like Aura's eyes their scales were luminescent, swirling with a multitude of colors. Where the other AI's were tethered to particular systems, Tia was not- instead, she WAS the ship.

"Total ship efficiency is already up by 10%, and you are still on your first official duty day. The captain sends his regards, and apologies as well over Dagon's attitude. As for myself, I am running at 100%, although you are welcome to check yourself- I regularly keep myself up to date, but a second opinion would always be welcome. And of final note, there seems to be an old file that might pertain to your posting that is heavily encrypted, even to me. If you would be so kind to open it, we can see if it is of any use."

Tia pulled up the file in question for him, and as she said it was very well encrypted. He also noticed it looked to be a simple spreadsheet, so calling on Aura, he made quick work of the protections on the file and opened it up. Inside, was just a list of 8 names. He only had a moment to register that the names he was seeing were the names of the AI, and one named Sylph, before the file was deleted by Tia.

"For one, I wasn't done with that. Two, who is Sylph, and what system are they- or were they- tied to." Canith Shot at Tia, surprised that they deleted it so fast.

Tia answered readily. "Sylph is a Completely isolated AI on E-deck, which as you very well know you do not have authorization to access yet. Therefore, by extension you cannot access Sylph yet. Their access is limited to E-deck as a precaution, and once you have access you will perhaps understand better. As that was all that on that spreadsheet, I deemed it unnecessary and freed up space."

"Very well, anything else of note?" Canith asked. When they answered that there was nothing else that was needed, he dismissed Tia to mull over this new information. . . or he planned to, until Aura informed him it would be a wise idea to finish the dive, as he had already been at it for roughly 4 hours. Acquiescing, he methodically began the process of pulling out of the dive, taking several more minutes to do so.

Opening his eyes in the real world, he blinked a few times, then slowly took off the headset and placed it on the desk beside him. He then stood up slowly, taking time to stretch out any kinks and cramps he felt. After all, he had just sat in a chair for 4 hours without moving. Glancing at a nearby display, he saw it was 13:20 ship time. Figuring now was a good time to call it a rest, he had Aura begin the process of shutting down the tanks that were not needed, and left them in charge of the main holo tank, in case Aura needed it for any advanced processing.

Collecting his music cube, he returned it to his case with the headset from the desk and walked out the door, cycling the lights as he went. Deciding that he could use a bit of exercise to wake his muscles back up, he decided to take the stairs, so he headed away from the grav-lifts towards the aft of the ship where the stairs were.

Opening the door to the stairs, a wash of warm air hit him, making him realize that the stairs must be near the engines to be this warm. Shrugging to himself, the started taking the stairs at a brisk pace, moving to the side fairly early on to dodge an anthro panther that was making their way up the stairs. They passed each other with little more than a brief glance, and Canith continued down, unaware that there was a set of eyes watching him on the landing above for a moment, before moving off.

<UEF-A 'Tiamat' - B Deck>

He eventually made it down to B-deck a bit later then intended. The stairs were not bad, but he got caught up and passed the door to the main deck by mistake, only to realize his mistake when he made it to C-deck. He backtracked, and was more winded than he had intended when he arrived. He slowly made his way over to the galley and when he stepped inside he was immediately greeted by a lovely looking eastern dragon anthro.

"Hi, I'm Sylvie, you must be Canith, the one every one has been talking about since yesterday. So good to finally meet you!" Canith shook her hand, and accepted a bottle of water from her as she had him follow her to a table and sat down with him. "I am the Captain's daughter, as well as the head cook here on the ship. I would have met you at the officer's meeting, but I had some business I needed to discuss with you beforehand." Canith gave her a startled glance, to which she simply raised her hand up to forestall what he had to say. "It's nothing bad, I promise- I simply need to go over any dietary restrictions you might have. After all, wouldn't want one of the crew to give you something that your body might react negatively to!"

Canith breathed a sigh of relief, and informed her that no, there was no dietary issues he was aware of. He also pointed out his preferences of healthy salads and fruit, with the occasional bagel or pasty at the start of his day with him in a hurry. "Great then," she concluded with a smile, which he returned readily, "I don't think I have any more questions at the moment, other then what you would like right now. After all, there are very few that comes to a galley with intentions other then eating after all."

Canith laughed at her joke. "Well, you have me there at least. What do you have available already- I really wouldn't want you to have to go through extra work for me after all."

She flashed a toothy grin at the laugh. "Well, a couple of rabbits were through here a few minutes ago, so there is still some salad made. I can grab you a bowl of that and slice some fruit up if you want to go vegetarian, or toss some meat on the grill as there are always some of the more carnivorous crew coming in about this time.

"The salad sounds great, as does the fruit. I'll pass on the meat this time, but maybe next time." She smiled at him, and was disappearing into the kitchen, tail trailing behind her, in the space of a blink. He quickly took a swig of the water she had handed him, and sat there for only a minute before she was back with a tray, upon which was a respectable sized salad, a large bowl of fruit, and a couple small sauce bowls with various dressings. The bid him farewell, and was off to get the orders of the other crew members that had just walked in, leaving him to his food.

The salad was great, and the fruit tart and juicy, which really gave him a good bit of energy back. As he sat there eating, A gryphon he spotted at a counter in the back who was just reclining there waved at him while he was chewing, and he waved back, prompting the individual to saunter over to Canith's table as sit down.

"Yo, my name's Harvey, but everyone calls me Hawk." He gave a very predatorial glance, as if daring Canith to call him by another name. Instead, he finished chewing the bite he was working on before answering.

"Nice to meet you Hawk, my name is Canith. Surprised you haven't lead off with a line like, 'I heard about you,' or 'you must be the new guy.' I swear, I seem to hear that from everyone. It's like my profile was passed around before I came aboard or something. Any word on why that might be?"

Hawk chuckled at this bit of rant, then got a thoughtful look in his eye. "Aye, I think I might know why- Sue. She was pretty upset when she heard that, no offense as I am just quoting, 'some pure human nobody usurped her mate's position'. Well, word travels fast on board, and between those of us that didn't think much of Sean and caught an earful anyways and those rare few that actually support that kind of thinking, pretty much the entire ship knew about you within minutes of him essentially getting canned. Of course, another 'hot' story came up from engineering yesterday about your little confrontation with her, and how she nearly cooked you on the spot. What actually happened, so I can set the record straight of course." The avian gave a conspiratorial wink at this last part, locking him into the role (in Canith's mind at least) as one of the main ship gossips.

"Well, bystanders wouldn't have been able to hear what I said to her, and quite frankly that will stay between me and her. What you can tell others, however, is that yes, I nearly got cooked. Des stepped in to prevent that, then I won her over with a combination of truth and charm. That's close enough to what happened to settle most gossips down," he eyed the gryphon purposefully, and he had the sense to blush a bit with the realization he was being called out, " and set the record straight in the process. As for Sean, I can't help feeling that not only was he speciest, but he also was blinded to reason due to that fact. But I didn't really know him at all, so I cannot really judge him based on the few moments that I met him in passing." More then that, he also had the feeling that it wasn't the last he would see of that particular fox.

"Well, you are not wrong about Sean, that's for sure. Adding to what you noticed, he was also bossy as hell, and always acted entitled. I for one am glad to see him gone, and though they won't say it in so many words, others are as well. So from all of us, welcome aboard!"

"Thanks Hawk, I appreciate it." At that moment, another gryphon stepped through the door and looked around for a seat. Hawk noticed this as well and started to get up, but Canith managed to get one more question in before Hawk managed to fully rise. "Hey, who's that?"

"That would be Lt. Desmond, and since Sylvie's not out here I need to let her know he's here so she can whip up a steak for him. It's his usual for today's menu, so no ordering necessary. Take care!" Harvey was off at this point, waving to the Lt and heading into the kitchen. Canith took this opportunity to wave the newcomer over, while taking another bite of the delicious fruit.

Desmond made his way over, and sat down in the recently vacated seat. "Why hello there Canith, nice to run into you here. As I heard Hawk say, yes, I'm Lt Desmond, and Huego also passed me that memo about wanting to meet to talk shop. Arias informed me that you were in the galley, so since I was hungry anyways I decided sooner was better then later. We can chat for a bit at least, if that's OK with you and you have nothing pressing waiting for you."

Canith knocked back another drink of his water before answering. That works for me. It's nice to meet you, and mostly I just wanted to say nice work on the AI's. Echo and Huego both especially were in great shape, and I really didn't have much to add, if anything. It is refreshing to know I need not have worried about walking into a complete mess after the rather abrupt transition. It's not often I run into others that actually remember that AI still needs upkeep and supervision- most just assume that independent thought means full independence, but that's not the case at all."

"Don't I know it- I would have worked more with the rest of the dedicated AI's, but my knowledge and time is rather limited, so I did what I could where I could, but otherwise I am in full agreement. I would not have wanted to enter into a combat situation, or any emergency situation for that matter, and have unreliable systems, AI's, or both, when the bullets start flying." As he said this, he pulled out a thin metal tube, similar to ones that he had seen several other individuals on board wearing, and start twirling it between his talons as he sat back and waited for his steak. "On top of that, with Huego especially , I put so much work into him I almost consider him a personal AI."

"Yeah, AI's are definitely useful, especially in combat situations. I made sure to prove that with how I handled the last systems admin, Sean." Canith also noticed that whenever Desmond spoke, he clipped his consonants, and his voice was almost breathy, like a whisper, only at full volume.

"Yeah . . . Sean. Glad the Capt' finally found a reason to get rid of him and replace them with someone competent. Between his slacking with the AI's, the speciest comments and the domineering attitude, I was about fed up with him. Speaking of, what's your take on the whole 'Anthros Vs. Humans' subject. I figure after the rumors of how you handled Sue, there should be something interesting there.

Canith felt like he had just had this conversation, then realized that the LT was asking a much more generalized opinion. "Well, I feel both the original idea of modifying humans to be more adaptive to their environments, and to a greater extreme for specific roles on a ship's crew or on a station, was a fantastic idea, and still is. The religious and geopolitical groups that to bigotry to a whole new level over it should be locked up. Anthros never did anything wrong, and unless I missed something, simply want to live normal lives like any other higher intelligence creature."

"Interesting choice of words there. Let me ask a bit more focused question then. How do you feel about the modding process particularly, and if given the option, would you undergo it?." Yep, Canith mused, definitely leading somewhere.

"I think it's great that the tech was developed. Remove flaws, increase tolerances, even the rather radical ideas of adding abilities that seem rather more occult based then scientific. As to whether I would submit myself to it is rather vague. I mean, I'm not against it, but I wouldn't know where to start! So many choices, and then the changes might get rejected by my body. I just don't think I'm ready for that level of commitment yet." Although he probably would just to spite his Earth-bound parents, and the faith that had turned them against him.

"You might be surprised." Desmond replied to this. "The techniques utilized today make the methods that originally created anthros look like Dark age medicine- as in, dangerous, unreliable, and unpredictable. These days it's more along the lines of aligning your form to match your subconscious. Another factor that is conveniently left out is that 'Pure' humans only utilize around two to four percent of their brain. The rest is left idling. Anthros, on the other hand . . ." He raised the tube in front of him. "Use quite a bit more. This little toy for instance uses some of the more, as you put it, occult abilities in particular combinations to produce some rather interesting effects, like so."

He held the tube perpendicular to his body, parallel with the table, and after a moment the end started to glow faintly. From the glow two tendrils of light extended out, spiraling out until it was almost 2 feet in length. Once there, they blurred, and in their place was a blade that was slightly transparent. For a demonstration, it was both fascinating and rather strange to watch. The whole time, Canith felt like there was pressure being applied to his brain, and once the blade formed it vanished.

"That's pretty cool. So what's that called? Never seen anything quite like it." Canith tried to act nonchalant, but wanted information on this fairly bad- this was tech the likes of which he had never encountered, and as an innovator he was driven to know the hows and whys, so he could make something using similar principles.

"We call them K-blades, which is short for kinetic blades. The concept is simple, take an ability, or pair of abilities, and turn them into a pseudo-physical weapon. In my case, it utilizes the more common two abilities of telepathy and telekinesis. Alone, they don't have a lot of combat usage. But by using an array of microprocessors and finely tuned crystals, capacitors, and relays, you can converge them into a blade that can slice through just about anything other then another K-blade."

"So I'm guessing that these abilities are rather common then nowadays?" Canith asked, discarding his initial excitement over new tech in favor of research into these abilities.

"Somewhat. Certain species have more affinity for some common abilities then others, while the more unstable a genotype is the more exotic the combinations and permutations can be. But that's not my area of expertise." He calmly flicked the blade, and the transparent blade simply vanished and he clipped it back to his belt. Harvey also appeared at this moment with Desmond's steak.

"Well, my food's here, and it's been great talking with you. If you ever need a hand, let me know and I will help out if I can, or at least direct you to someone who can." He was eyeing the stake.

"Will do, thank you for the chat. You gave me plenty to think on. Enjoy your steak!." Canith stood up and went to take his tray, only to have Harvey take it from him.

"It's my job after all. What do you think I was here for, to relax?" He chuckled as he walked off with the tray, leaving Canith free to head out with a parting "See you at the officer's luncheon!"

With it being late, Canith headed back to his room for a shower and bit of research on these abilities, and on the K-blades. In the safety of his own room, he also did come clandestine scans of ship systems and of Tia itself for anymore mention of Sylph. After the shower, he came up empty, however on the later- Sylph seemed to be completely cut off as far as he and Aura could tell.

As for abilities, Telepathy and Telekinesis were mentioned, as well as Pyrokinesis and it's opposite, Cryokinesis. One other was listed on the article, a mention of a fifth ability, Phasing, but nothing on what it was. K-blades, however, had a full article on them, and the content of it lined up fairly well with what the Lt said, but also confused him a bit.

Of all technology created by humans that had altered their bodies and minds, by far the most intriguing of these is the Telekinetic-Powered Blades. Also known as Kinetic Blades, or K-Blades for short, these devices, through an intricate and complex series of processors, crystals, and other technology, allows the user who is proficient in both Cryo- and Pyro- Kinesis, or one who is gifted with Telekinesis and one other Mind/Body altering skill, usually either Telepathy or Phasing, to create a blade of pure willpower. These blades, as they are made of will and not metal, need never be sharpened, as they will never dull, and suffer none of the flaws of a metal blade.

This Technology seems to be purely hypothetical, however, as there is no Pure Human that can claim to have manifested one of these blades. Only rumor exists of sighting of them, and no two reports agree on length, shape, heft, or even style of these blades.

The article went on for some length claiming that IF such abilities existed (as it claims they were not scientifically viable) that the use of technology to create something else entirely from nothing but will seemed far-fetched. It seemed, however, that they were not rumors. They were fact. He laid in bed, thinking on these things, turning over possibilities in his head, until eventually he drifted off to sleep.