Snoop

"[You benched me!]" Nora protested.

"[It wasn't my call,]" I said. "[Ase Serral made the call, and you were hurt.]"

"[You fucking benched me!]" she repeated. "[I'm the one who found the stupid bug!]"

Nora was at least four inches shorter than me, but I still shrank away from her. Her voice was loud enough to fill the kitchen and make Toe quiver in fear. Nai's pet worm was absolutely no help either, not even as a distraction. He ducked back into her bedroom before things got any louder.

"[If this is all we're going to talk about, we might as well have this conversation in Starspeak,]" I sighed. "[Just for practice.]"

"You. [Fucking]. Benched me!" she said. "[I have been thirty-seconds away from hitting something all night.]"

"[I'm not pretending it was a great idea,]" I said. "[We're doing the best we can, but we weren't exactly prepared. No one really saw this coming.]"

"[No shit. I didn't see it coming either,]" she hissed. "[But if you just cut me out of the loop, I'm going to get pissed!]"

"[You're not out of the loop!]" I protested. "[There isn't a—]"

"[Nobody has told me shit! Someone was listening to us, it's been ten fucking hours! I haven't slept—]"

"[Nora, Nora! Take a breath. There isn't a loop you can be left out of right now, dang!]" I snapped. "[I haven't slept either. I've been on lockdown with Nai and Serral all night.]"

"[What has been happening for the last ten hours then?]" she asked, bewildered. "[Thing one and thing two haven't let me or Nerin leave the apartment.]"

Except at least Nerin had been cleared to go back to her normal routine once I'd gotten back. Plus, the two bodyguards had actually been relieved at the same time.

It didn't seem prudent to split those hairs now though.

"[Erggen and Leen were just doing their jobs,]" I said. "[Serral has been arguing back and forth with Laranta about how they're going to react to being surveilled.]"

"[Yeah,]" she snorted derisively.

"[…How's your hand?]" I asked.

"[Fine. Nerin helped me clean it up,]" she said, showing the bandages she'd created.

"[We were worried about you,]" I said. "[You shoved your arm through a ceiling, and your augmentations are different from mine. You don't have invincible hands.]"

"[Well I'm so glad you're all concerned for my safety,]" Nora said. "[But I've been preoccupied with other stuff, like people fucking spying on us!]"

"[I'm sorry,]" I said. "[Laranta and Serralinitus aren't just responsible for us. They have to tread carefully.]"

"[This psychological maneuvering shit has been giving me a headache all night,]" she said. "[If we start talking going back on forth on 'we know they don't know we know' shit, I'm going to lose it.]"

"[I hate to say it, but tough,]" I said. "[It's the unavoidable and aggravating truth about having a conspiracy against you.]"

"[Yeah, I know,]" she said wearily. "[I'm just tired of it. I don't want something to happen to my campers because I found some bug.]"

"[…Why would it?]" I asked.

"[I mean, I cascaded the thing,]" Nora said. "[You were there. It was Adept made. So unless the Coalition was spying on themselves, isn't it a Vorak bug?]"

"[…Alright, I guess there's a tiny loop that you've been left out of,]" I said. "[But it's just a theory. I don't think that was a Vorak bug. I think it was whoever abducted us.]"

"[What? Wait, why?]"

"[Militaries aren't magic. They have limits, and if the Red Sails had the capability to produce an Adept listening device capable of getting from the planets and moons they control, to here, and infiltrating the highest security Coalition base in the star system, there wouldn't be a war.]"

"[…It wouldn't have to hop from moon to moon,]" Nora said. She was poking holes in anything she could out of helplessness. It threw me, seeing someone else go through something so familiar. "[It could have been a local agent. The Vorak have people here, don't they? Spies?]"

"[True,]" I said. "[But I'm pretty sure it wasn't them. But I wish it were. Nai and I can psionically detect Adepts, even from pretty far away. We could track them down in High Harbor if that were the case.]"

"[…You're sure it wasn't the Vorak? From what you've said about them, I keep half expecting to get a phone call saying my people are being held hostage.]"

"[I mean, they basically are,]" I said. "[But that's not related to this wiretap, bugging stuff.]"

She nodded, calming herself down a bit more. We shouldn't have locked down for the whole night. It didn't really accomplish anything aside from make everyone slow down, no matter how jarring it was.

"…Why do…you think it was....our abductor?" Nora asked, switching to Starspeak.

"[Automation]," I said simply. "The bug utilized components that, to my knowledge, don't exist in normal alien computer science. The only other place I know of with computers that small is Earth.]"

"[Wait…what?]" Nora said, confused. "[I don't—] I don't get it."

"It's a working theory," I said, slowing down my Starspeak. "A very working theory, because I'm trying to avoid [confirmation bias]. But it seems feasible right now, that a singular Adept could have specialized in creating robots. At first they might just have had one or two, but the thing about robots is they can make more robots."

"[…You're talking about Skynet,]" Nora said. "You think we were abducted by [Skynet]."

"[…More like Dr. Doom,]" I said. "[One very real and fallible person at the center of a legion of machines.]"

"Seems…like there's some holes though," she said, carefully forcing herself to avoid using English. "How can one Adept make that much…all that stuff? Even L3 magnitude wouldn't be enough."

"Yeah, there's more holes than that," I said. "but that one is actually explainable if you know Earth mechanization and alien Adeptry."

"[…That's why you think this bug is our abductor,]" Nora followed. She absentmindedly switched back to English, only to shake her head and continue practicing Starspeak. "No one else…has the… means… to know both."

"I have no idea how they got to know about Earth yet," I said. "But in this ill-defined theory, I'm thinking someone somehow got exclusive access to our Solar System, studied Earth and its digital infrastructure, and refined some advanced robotic Adeptry based on what they learned."

"How do you explain the L3 hole then?" she asked. "How does one Adept make a bunch of [automated] rockets?"

"I don't think they did," I said. "At least not the whole rocket. Just the computers flying them. But as for how one Adept made that much, there's multiple solutions. It could be the abductor only used Adeptry to create machines necessary to build computers out of ordinary matter, or they could be abusing the hell out of indelible creations."

"[What does] indelible [mean?]"

"[Permanent Adeptry,]" I said. "[You have to cannibalize real mass in order to do it, or…maybe 'cannibalize' isn't the best word for it. But you take existing matter, connect it…somehow—I don't know how—to the Adept field. Then you get to treat that real matter like exotic matter and start messing with its properties.]"

"And it stays?"

"I was asking Nai about it last night," I said. "She told me low quality or industrial stuff degrades back into the unexotic form, but it can take centuries. The high-quality stuff degrades too, in theory. But the time it takes is longer than the heat death of the universe."

"Slow down," she asked, nodding through my explanation. "So…what now?"

"Serral convinced Laranta that we should act like nothing unusual happened," I said. "That means Adept workshop and Starspeak lessons for us, and the base itself isn't on alert."

"[Seriously?] We just…pretend?"

"We aren't going to do nothing," I said. "We just have to be careful about it. Operating under the assumption the bug picked up everything we said in the meeting, we need to keep digging into the leads we discussed there."

"I translated those!" she said.

"With ten hours, I'd hope you would."

"[I know I'm still playing catch-up, but I'd feel a lot better with some reassurances. Looking at alien criminals to find my campers feels like a long shot.]"

"You gotta pick one and stick with it," I muttered. She kept bouncing back and forth. Was this what it was like talking to me?

"[What?]"

"[It is a long shot,]" I said, settling for English. "[But we don't have anything better. Unless the Vorak make some big mistake or get completely blindsided by—]"

Wait.

We absolutely did have something better.

"[Blindsided by what?]" she asked.

"[Something completely unexpected,]" I said, adding. <[I forgot but Nai told me: nobody says anything about the bug out loud. Psionics only. We're probably not being listened to now, but we shouldn't take chances.]> "[But they're a military. They had four ships of completely unexpected aliens dropped on their doorstep, and they were still ready to fight.]"

"[I think I'm going to have an aneurysm trying to keep track of…all this…]" she trailed off.

God, that more than anything else made me angry. Not at Nora. She was just unambiguously right about this. Codes, compartmentalization, furtive conjecture about one's enemies…none of it was new. It had been done for thousands of years.

But it wasn't usually for people like us.

It was another odd realization about someone older than me, but Nora was only nineteen. That was still too young to have abduction and conspiracy be daily business.

<[Psionics only,]> Nora agreed. <[I can do that.] Starspeak is easier… a little that way. [At least when I don't have to get the words to come out of my mouth.]>

<[They say the hand never surpasses the eye, and it turns out the tongue never surpasses the ear.]>

<[Sure…]> she said, rolling her eyes.

"[Anyway Serralinitus wanted me to grab you and meet him at Coalition R&D,]" I said.

"[That's where that Casti works,]" Nora recalled. "[Shinshay. We're just going to drop in on them?]"

"[Yep, they were pestering Serral last night about talking to me more,]" I said, adding, <[Plus Serral wanted me to run this robotics stuff by them.]>

<[I don't think I was very helpful when I talked to them,]> Nora admitted. <[I could barely understand what they said.]>

<[Somehow I don't think that's going to change,]> I admitted. <[Because if we want to talk about this robo-bug with them, I'm going to have to share psionics with them.]>

·····

We did not find Shinshay in the same building as last time. In fact, both my and Nora's trips to the High Harbor base's science centers saw us visit different spots.

And today we found the eccentric Casti in yet a new building. Or rather, we found Serralinitus.

<Alright, I see you now,> I muttered embarrassed. I was really missing the radar right about now.

<You two couldn't navigate for him?> Serral huffed at our bodyguards.

<We actually weren't sure where to go either,> Fenno admitted.

<Well hurry up,> he grumbled.

"[Wait, Caleb,]" Nora said. "[Last time I talked with this Casti, Nerin said their appearance was really unusual, but I couldn't tell. What about them is so off?]"

"[Eyes and facial structure,]" I said. "[Although, you have to take any given Casti's word for it on the facial structure. I can't see it for the life of me. But the purple eyes are hard to miss.]"

"[…Is that…unusual?]"

"[Casti eyes are normally some variation of yellow,]" I said. "[Case in point.]"

I gestured to Fenno and Thugnin accompanying us, with pale goldenrod and a darker umber yellow respectively.

"[…How did I not notice that earlier?]" Nora asked, aghast.

"[Exposure,]" I shrugged. "[Like you said, you've been cooped up with a bunch of middle schoolers and some very shy Vorak.]"

"[Not exactly a representative sample, I keep realizing…]" Nora said, casting her eyes across the clumps of Casti personnel we passed.

Our chaperones ahead and behind us, we made our way up to Serral who beckoned us into Shinshay's…office? Lab?

"Uh…what actually is this place?" I asked.

<Check it for bugs first,> Serral asked me.

<[Help me cascade for more bugs,]> I told Nora.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

<[Yeah…]> she said, staring at Shinshay's eyes. She snapped herself out of it, telling herself <[Focus Nora!]>

"It's a lab…" Shinshay said, confused by my question. "What else would it be?"

"You have two labs?" I asked.

"I don't have any labs," they scoffed. "I use a lot more than three though. Different labs have different equipment."

"How much equipment do you need?" I asked. "It's just a few phones."

"Alien phones," Shinshay said. "Portable alien phones. With cameras. And only two buttons! I don't know what equipment I need."

<[I can't find anything that could be a mic,]> Nora said. <[Except, you know, the phones.]>

<Nora and I haven't cascaded anything, so I think we're safe,> I told Serral.

<How quickly do you think you can explain psionics to Shinshay?> he asked nervously. I didn't think I'd ever seen him this shaken.

<One way to find out.>

"Hey Shinshay, I've got an Adept thing that might help if you need to get in contact with us more easily," I said. "Interested?"

"Yes!"

Shinshay wasn't so hard to understand once you got a glimpse of their unlimited delight in discovery.

<Caleb, I know you didn't find any surveillance, why did you say that out loud?> Serral asked me.

<If we're being bugged, they've heard us talk about psionics. There's no hiding they exist,> I said.

"Here, this is a bit hard to explain…but just shut your eyes and concentrate on your own mind. Try to imagine catching the thing I'm about to toss you."

"O…kay?" they awkwardly positioned their hands to try and catch something they couldn't see.

I almost told them not to bother, but maybe the physical gesture would matter, even if only to predispose the mind.

"Alright, in four, three, two, one…"

I pushed a copy of the latest intro-module iteration out of my mind toward Shinshay's.

"W-wait, what am I— whoooaaa…"

Forgetting our dire circumstances and dangerous unknowns for the moment, I grinned. Shinshay wasn't the only one with a taste for discovery. Watching other people learn new things was fun.

"Take your time," I said. "I think I did pretty well making the instructions, but if you have notes, I'd love to hear them."

<Can you hear me?> I asked.

"Y-yes!" they said. "I don't understand, what is—what did you do?"

"We can explain later," I said. "For now I want to ask you a few questions about Earth's technology." <I also have a very complicated series of questions about Adeptry-based robotics and computation.>

"I…can still…oh that's very unsettling…" Shinshay said. "I can…with my mind…"

"The focus, right?" I asked.

They gave a click for yes. "How can my brain focus on two things at once like this?"

"Same way you can walk and talk at the same time," I said. <Have you found the transceiver yet?>

"Y-yes, I think I've found it, but I don't understand…how…wait…just sounds? Oh. Wait..." <that… actually…makes sense.>

A grin broke across their mouth as they began to realize the possibilities.

<Yes, young Shinshay, it's fascinating,> Serral said. <But we need to consult you about a sensitive matter. Now.>

<Ahh…yes…let me get…more of a handle on this…> they said. <…There…? Yes. Can you hear me?>

<Yes,> Serral huffed impatiently.

<The normal classified seals?> they asked him.

<No,> the Ase said. <These seals need to be much broader. Firstly, do not share psionics with anyone without express permission from myself, Admiral Laranta, the Warlock, or Caleb. Understood?>

<Yes, Ase.>

<Caleb, help me brief them.>

<Sure. Background first: I was abducted. Nora here was too. The ships we were on were seemingly unmanned. Following?>

<But you come from another star system,> Shinshay said. <Unmanned craft are, by the absent property, automated. Automated ships can't traverse Beacon skips.>

<I've heard that before,> I said, <But if you think what I just put in your head is cool? You wouldn't believe what the stuff in mine can do. Suffice to say, even half out of my mind, going insane, I can confidently tell you that no other minds were on these ships besides abductees. So, why are you so sure computers can't calculate Beacon skips?>

<Well, it's not that they can't calculate them,> Shinshay said. <It's that they can't operate under those conditions.>

<Elaborate,> Serral and I both said.

"Oh hearing that is odd…" Shinshay sucked in a sharp breath. <Ah…sorry. Well, you know Beacon safety parameters—wait, no of course you wouldn't. Abducted. Automated ship. No one told you?>

<I haven't had the pleasure of going through a skip voluntarily,> I said. <So no, I have no clue what proper procedure is.>

<It's obviously not alone, but the relevant prohibition is sleep. It can be debilitating to traverse a skip while unconscious. Worse case scenario, it can be fatal.>

That sounded familiar. Months ago, Nai had mentioned it was bad for you to skip while asleep. No, not bad. Very bad.

<Why?>

<False electron transfer,> Shinshay said like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. <The spatial warping necessary to abridge distance affects electron suborbital positions. It's normally infinitesimally small, but for electrically sensitive tissues like neurons, you can get false firing, maybe one in a million times. If you're conscious, your nervous system is more active, and false signals get drowned out by everything else. But when your brain is asleep, one neuron that isn't supposed to fire does, then the next one in the chain thinks it is supposed to fire, and you get portions of your brain lighting up like you're awake while the rest of it asleep.>

<…We were asleep,> I recalled. <[Nora, when you guys were on the ships, were any of you asleep when everything went white?]>

<[No, we were awake.]>

<[How much of that did you follow?]>

<[Most of it, I think,]> she said. <[I'm getting faster translating psionically than out loud.]>

<And the semiconductor components in computers suffer the same false firing,> Serral followed.

Shinshay nodded. <Nerve tissue is relatively similar in principle, even across species,> they said. <Except cellular filaments are even more vulnerable to it, because the computer can't compensate for the false firings. Computers are normally all ones and zeroes, but while traversing a beacon, every bit in the active memory gets flipped on. Simpler, older computers are too brutal to suffer the effects, but they're not fast enough to adjust a ship's trajectory through the skip.>

<Waitwaitwait,> I said. <You lost me. You jumped from biology and neurons to bits and bytes.>

<It's the same stuff, Caleb,> Serral said, exasperation dripping into his psionic signal.

<…No it isn't?> I ventured. <Neurons are…meat. Organic molecules. Circuits are metal. Semiconductors.>

<Semiconductors are organic molecules,> he sighed, mastering his frustration more.

<What? No they're not! They're made out of—>

"SILICON!" Shinshay erupted.

Everyone in the room jumped at their outburst. They thrust a finger at Nora. "Silicon! I thought you misspoke! Or that you didn't understand the question! But you didn't!"

<Shinshay! Control yourself,> Serral admonished.

"What? Ah, oh right. Sorry Ase," they said. "It's just I think I've made a huge leap forward. Caleb, your computers. They aren't organic in any way?"

"What? Of course not," I said.

"No bacterial cultures, no nerve filaments, no active cells or cellular derivatives used to create processors?"

"No, we use silicon transistors," I said. "Wait, you guys make your computer processors out of bacteria?"

"Forget that!" Shinshay exclaimed. "Your processors are made out of glass!"

"Well, I…I'm not sure? I'm pretty sure glass is mostly silicon, but I don't think it's the same type…"

<Can we try to keep this conversation secure?> Serral asked. <And on topic? Shinshay, Caleb has a far-fetched theory that none of us are qualified to refute the feasibility of.>

<Oh?>

<The ships that abducted Nora and I were automated, right? But as I've so recently learned, your ordinary computers can't function through a Beacon skip, right? I think an Adept could have created computers capable of automating ships through Beacons. Is that possible?>

<…It would depend on the Adept's design, I think,> Shinshay said. <Before now? I would have said no. Any processor that operates on biological action potentials is going to suffer operating under those conditions. But if an Adept could come up with a processor design like these?> They indicated the smartphones. <It could work.>

<Why are silicon semiconductors not subject to the problem?> I asked.

<For the same reason other simple circuits are,> they said. <The biological design for transistors relies upon a modified neuron that's sensitive to a neurotransmitter. Even in its resting state, its still primed, ready to fire. But a silicon transistor wouldn't need to stay primed.>

<[I get it,]> Nora said.

<Wait, really?> I asked. <I don't.>

<[It's dominoes,]> she said. <[Neurons fire in chains like dominoes toppling into each other. So if one goes off by accident, the whole chain goes off by accident. But even in something small like an integrated circuit, one electron out of place isn't enough to affect the circuit's current.]>

<[You sure about this?]> I asked.

<[No,]> she admitted. <[But I still think I get it.]>

<Why are the biological transistors sensitive enough to one electron?> I asked.

<Ah…they're not,> Shinshay said. <Not really. We say 'one electron' to simplify things, but at the atomic scale, this is happening millions of times every second. It might be premature to say that the silicon processors are 'not subject to the problem'. It might be that they're just less dramatically affected. I really don't know; this is all conjecture.>

<We could be focusing on the wrong thing,> I agreed. <We don't actually know that Earth microprocessors are even similar to the machines the abductor used. How hard would it be to make a computer immune to this problem with Adeptry?>

<Mmm…it really depends on their method. So long as the Adept is trying to use even organic facsimile components, it'll never work. But if they managed to break convention…> Shinshay trailed off.

<We came here to stress test the idea,> I said. <What are the major obstacles to actually making something like this? What kind of information would the abductor need on the front end?>

<…None,> Shinshay said. <Adeptry is too opaque to know exactly how they reached the goal you're describing. They could have stumbled across it, or refined their creations for years.>

<What if I told you they weren't just making starship computers?> I asked. <Look at this.>

I materialized a facsimile of the mosquito I'd cascaded. It was rough around the edges, and I hadn't grasped enough of the sensitive electronics to reproduce them, but I could still mimic the shape.

<We have pretty good reason to believe whoever abducted me and Nora is still keeping an eye on us using Adept-made drones like this. This one's just a copy though.>

<Drones? Mmm, yes that is a good word for it. I assume the original was functional?>

<Yes.>

<Then I'm curious how autonomous the 'drone' is,> Shinshay said. <Was it in constant connection with a controller unit? Or was it operating independently, stockpiling data, that it would deliver later?>

<The latter would imply that it didn't get to deliver the conversations it eavesdropped on,> I pointed out.

<True, but it dissolved before our eyes. That implies someone was ready to dissolve it in case it was found.>

<Which would imply the first possibility,> I said. <That the drone was actively broadcasting and receiving signals. It wasn't autonomous, it was remote controlled.>

<It would have been better if it had needed to deliver its recordings,> Serral lamented. <That would have guaranteed that our discovery of it went unreported. Now we still don't know if they know we know.>

<Ugghhh…> Nora interjected. Yeah, she had a point.

<Except if Shinshay is right, we just hit the [jackpot,]> I said.

The two Casti in the room gave me confused looks.

<That means good,> Nora said.

<Think about it,> I nodded. <This is another lead we can use this to track down where the Vorak are keeping Nora's abductees.>

<I'd thought of something similar,> Serral nodded. <If your abductor is watching the two of you, they've almost certainly been watching the Red Sails too.>

<I like this lead better than any of the others so far,> I grinned.

<But successfully following it relies upon our discovery of the bug staying secret. If we can't find out where the bug was broadcasting to, we won't learn anything,> Serral said.

<Caleb, on Earth, your telecommunication infrastructure would have required things to relay the phones' signals, yes?>

<Okay good,> Shinshay said. <I wanted to make sure signal intensity limits weren't going to be thrown out too. Because if this drone works the way you think it does? It couldn't broadcast far.>

<How far?> I asked.

<…Four kilometers, maximum,> Shinshay said. <Probably a lot less. I'm guessing high because I don't know this drone's capability. But something like this doesn't have the battery to transmit further.>

<Four kilometers?> Nora confirmed. <…Caleb, you've got a copy of the base map in your psionics right?>

I did.

I materialized it on one of the lab countertops, checking the scale.

<Four kilometers…is about…here,> Nora said, drawing a radius on the map with her finger

<Dira dira…> Serral swore.

The office building we'd found the drone in was close to the center of High Harbor base. A four-kilometer radius just barely poked past the base's boundary in just one spot, and only by a couple hundred meters.

If Shinshay's guess about the drone's transmission range was even slightly long, the drone couldn't have been broadcasting to anywhere except another Coalition facility.

<You found it here?> Shinshay asked, pointing to the center of our radius. We nodded. <Oh…that's bad. It has to be relaying the signal off something on base.>

<No,> Serral said. <It's even worse.>

He tapped the portion of the map the radius extended past High Harbor base.

<Recognize that location?>

<…[Oh shit,]> I realized.

<[What?]> Nora asked.

<[Check the docs,]> I said. <[The first rak, Berro Jo? Their fish factory is right on the edge of our radius here.]>

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