P 1.3 – Alba

  28th December U.S.Y. 2939 – Parvus Prison Blocks.

  Two days before the start of operation “Eden”

  “—GOOD MORNING, TECHNICIAN FAUSTER.”

  The metallic voice hit her ears like steel scraping steel.

  Maybe it wasn’t that bad — but the headache and lack of proper sleep made it feel like torture.

  “RISE AND SHINE, TECHNICIAN FAUSTER.”

  Or maybe it really was that bad.

  “Shit… is it time already?” she groaned, dragging herself upright.

  She yawned hard — attempted to stretch her arms. Then collapsed back onto the pillow.

  The AI had already turned on the lights.

  “Answer: Actually, Technician Fauster, I’ve been trying to wake you for the last forty-five minutes.”

  The voice from the speakers was flatter now, volume lowered.

  “Summary: First, I played Wake-Up Melodies for UN.SY. Officers for ten minutes, followed by UN.SY. Officers’ Training Music for High-Gravity Environments for another ten. Then I attempted Sounds of Heavy Artillery Throughout Human History for six minutes.” the AI explained.

  “Since I registered notable neurological response to the track Sound of the BL 12-inch Howitzer Firing, I played said track on repeat.”

  Alba slowly raised her frowning face from the pillow, horrified.

  “Explanation: Then, in pursuit of the desired outcome of your awakeness, I overrode speaker safety thresholds and began replaying the message... *bzzt*... GOOD MORN—”

  It wasn’t her headache or imagination — it really was that bad.

  “Aaah! will you just shut up, you third-rate AI?!” she shouted, leaping from the bed and glaring at the speaker bolted in the corner.

  “How the hell is Sound of the BL 12-inch Howitzer even considered music?! Who’s the idiot who uploaded that crap?!”

  “Answer: Playlist — Sounds of Heavy Artillery Throughout Human History. Updated by: Cornelius, Caius. Related tags: relax, report reading.”

  “Forget I even asked...” she muttered in defeat.

  She pried her eyelids open, trying to force focus.

  “Jan, right? Just tell me what time it is.”

  “Answer: It’s 07:53, 28th December, U.S.Y. 2939.”

  Blood drained from her face.

  “Shit.”

  “Preoccupied observation: your first report to the head technician is scheduled for 08:00. Shall I notify him you’ll be late, Technician Fauster?”

  “Mind your own business, you little—”

  No time to finish the insult. Today was Alba’s first day of duty aboard the Parvus. And she was already late.

  The truth was... she had troubles falling asleep.

  Too excited.

  So she’d taken a sip of the contraband booze she’d smuggled with her gear. Maybe a couple sips.

  Why count, anyway? If she could still count, that meant she hadn’t passed out yet.

  That would’ve been…counterproductive, she thought, nodding to herself.

  Excitement was a hell of a sleep-killer, and she had plenty of reasons to feel that way.

  First: she’d waited three and a half years for this moment, ever since Captain De Chevelle reached out through the encrypted Synet.

  Second: she was now officially part of operation “Eden.” That one alone was huge.

  And third: while she looked like another simple technician, she was in truth an undercover operative — gathering intel for Captain De Chevelle himself, like the agents from the history feeds.

  “Alba Fauster, you are: so. Fuckin’. Cool.” She grinned, unable to contain the giddy rush.

  She darted to the locker to yank out her uniform, forgetting to mention to herself the fourth and most important reason for her excitement.

  UN.SY. navy technicians didn’t wear the same outfit as able sailors.

  Her uniform was a one-piece overall, like a civilian construction worker’s gear but far more refined: dark red desaturated with gold UN.SY. trim — a golden stripe above each wrist, a gear patch on the right shoulder, and beneath it a newer patch reading: D.K. PARVUS.

  The UN.SY. insignia — a radiant sun of nine wavy rays, the syllables UN and SY engraved on two stacked rows — gleamed as a steel pin on her left chest. Her name and rank ran thinly etched around the rim.

  Cap’n De Chevy’s and Admiral Caius’ were golden since they were high-ranking officers — but she didn’t dislike her badge. Gold was a little too gaudy for her taste.

  Alba sprinted to the washbasin, dropping the uniform she’d just picked up onto the floor.

  “Jan! Mirror!”

  *Click.*

  A circular metal disc slid down from the ceiling, hovering beside her. Thin beams of light projected a rectangular screen large enough to display her full figure.

  Body check first.

  She’d slept in her sports bra and briefs — a habit since starting physical training for the Eden selection.

  Two years of discipline had paid off. At one-seventy minus some, she was petite by default, but now her frame was toned: faint abs if she flexed, lean arms, and a lower body that had filled out into something rounded.

  She wasn’t built like the female officers from the Storm Sailor division she’d seen on the lunar bases, but she was proud of the progress. She didn’t look like a maintenance-bay rat anymore.

  “All those 1.4 G sessions really paid off, huh? You’re in shape, girl!” she told her reflection, flexing both arms.

  “I only wish I could do something about these...”

  She gave her small chest a squeeze.

  Not entirely flat. She just wished for… a little more bounce.

  “Guess they’re done growing. I’m already twenty-two...”

  Finally, she lifted her gaze to her face.

  “Ugh.”

  Disaster.

  Her straight dark chestnut hair bent in directions no law of physics endorsed. Pillow creases slashed across her left cheek like scars of a battle ended in utter defeat, and beneath her eyes bloomed rings of deep fatigue — the kind that only came from an all-nighter at the holoscreen.

  “No fixing it now,” she admitted. But she wouldn’t yield to the ugliness either.

  Alba snatched the oral cleaner by the faucet and jammed it into her mouth like she was stabbing herself.

  The hygienic wand buzzed to life as she grabbed a deodorant and sprayed an unhealthy amount across her body.

  No time to shower. No time to change.

  She tossed the body spray over her shoulder, rushed back to her uniform, and slipped into it — zipping the overalls up to her chin.

  Next came the heavy belt she’d left on the floor the night before. Loaded with tools and pouches, it was her lifeline.

  She fastened it around her hips.

  *whirr.*

  One flick of a switch and the belt auto-tightened with a soft mechanical sound.

  A glance at her arm confirmed her omni-com was still secured around her wrist.

  She rushed back to the bathroom to end the preparations.

  Alba spat the oral cleaner into the basin with unnecessary force, while already reaching for two small metal cylinders on the shelf: pills.

  One for low-gravity treatment. One for the brutal headache. She dry-swallowed both.

  Then looked at her face again.

  Rather than a medic, the black rings around her eyes required an astronomer.

  She had to hide them.

  Alba reached for the clunky black soldering goggles clipped to her belt and shoved them onto her forehead, taming the worst of the hair disaster.

  Then she grabbed a second pair — smaller, barrel-shaped dark-vision lenses meant for blackout repairs — and slid them over her green eyes.

  Today they would be her makeup.

  The figure in the holo-mirror now looked like a four-eyed alien automaton.

  “Perfect,” she said, giving the creature in the display a double thumb-up. The holographic creature mimicked the gesture in approval.

  She darted toward the room’s only door, slipping into the brown boots she’d left beside it. They latched to her ankles and auto-tightened as she flicked her wrist to check the omni-com.

  “Run! I have to run!” 07:56. Four minutes to make a ten-minute walk.

  She swiped her omni-com to open the door and dashed into the corridor.

  “Encouragement: You can make it, Technician Fauster! Have a nice day. Sol Invictus!”

  The AI's voice trailed behind her as the door closed.

  Alba sprinted through the empty prison block hallways.

  The other technicians and the head tech shared accommodations outside the sector, close to the able sailors’ dorms.

  Her room was in block 8 of the prison. She was the only resident there. She had been given a private room inside the prison block — a converted storage closet — courtesy of Captain De Chevelle.

  He’d arranged everything himself. Every bit of this setup had been orchestrated so she could move freely, quietly — without suspicion.

  “I have to make it in time! If not for my pride as a technician, then at least for the cap’n!”

  If she hadn’t spent two years training for this assignment, she’d have collapsed already.

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  “I won’t let De Chevy let down — again.”

  He’d probably been disappointed yesterday.

  After escorting her to meet Admiral Cornelius, she’d stuttered through her introduction like an idiot — wide-eyed, gawking. But she’d nailed the salute. Practiced it the entire way to the bridge — between the cap’n’s sights.

  Alba was awkward by default around people. She had forced herself to act a little friendlier toward the cap’n because she thought they shared some kind of bond. He didn’t seem to think the same.

  And then meeting the Admiral?

  Who wouldn’t be excited?

  Beyond anxiety alone, she had met a real H.O.Pe. human. Not just any one — the Lunar Wall himself. Caius Cornelius. In the flesh.

  That reminded her of the fourth reason for being over-excited.

  Alter-humans.

  They were Alba’s passion.

  And the prison blocks that she had just started living in was filled with them. One hundred and eight cryo-capsules. Her capsules.

  Precious Alters entombed in cold stasis, sleeping in the rooms beside hers.

  Her lips curved into an unladylike grin as she ran out of the prison blocks and into the technicians’ quarters.

  Her…fascination had started with her grandfather.

  When she was little, he told her stories about the Alter-humans —warriors engineered by the Science Bureau to fight a war no human could survive.

  They were heroes — disposable ones.

  But some Alters were too proud to accept disposal when time came. And thus too dangerous for the newly formed UN.SY.

  “Oh! I see it!” she muttered between ragged breaths, “the head technician's office!”

  Alba summoned her final burst of energy and sprinted to the door.

  She swiped her omni-com toward the access panel — immediately greeted by a deep metallic voice.

  “Welcome, Technician Fauster. I’ll proceed with informing head technician Ishigami of your arrival.”

  That would be Scipio — the Parvus’ AI

  For some reason, only the prison blocks had a separate synthetic administrator — the one that had woke her up with methods that should’ve been considered war crimes.

  Within seconds, the door hissed open.

  “Come on in, Technician Fauster.” a harsh voice prompted. Still wheezing, Alba stepped inside.

  The office was dim, noticeably larger than her quarters, and bathed in the shifting light of what looked like dozens of holoscreens. Counting them would’ve been impossible — not due to the number alone, but because of the sheer chaos in which they were laid out.

  Holograms of every size floated over a metal desk: some arched in a semicircle, others intersected or flickered through one another.

  The result was a mosaic of color, static, and kinetic clutter.

  “You must be the newest addition to the maintenance crew,” the harsh voice continued — its owner remained hidden to her.

  “I’d like to give you a proper welcome... but as you can see...”

  —Alba jolted back.

  Lit eerily by the overlapping lights, a round, sleep-deprived face — honestly worse than hers — suddenly emerged from the shifting holograms.

  Red-rimmed and bleary eyes stared at her.

  “I have work to do!” The face snapped.

  “Gyaaaaaaaa!” Alba yelped and nearly turned to flee.

  “That damned captain... always acted like I don’t even exist.”

  She froze mid-step as the voice carried on — less furious now, more desperate.

  “Then he sends me these?! Reports, reports, reports...”

  She turned, squinting through the holographic mess at the man behind it — the head technician, most likely.

  “Reports on air’s quality. Reports on power distribution. Water systems. Gravity control. Reports on AI performance! How the hell am I supposed to do all this in two days?!”

  “Ah... so that’s where you were hiding, Head Technician Ishigami!” Alba said, executing her now-polished UN.SY. salute.

  Her mouth twisted in disappointment when the man didn’t even seem to notice her efforts.

  “I am not hiding, you idiot! I’m working!”

  The holographic wall split apart like a curtain at his irritated gesture.

  “Scipio, lights.”

  The room brightened. A man slouched behind the desk, uniform half-zipped, gray undershirt visible, bald head shining beneath the holo-light. His beard was grizzled, his expression one of pure existential burnout.

  “Listen, Fauster. Since you’re new and I’m your supervisor, I should probably make sure you don’t screw anything up,” he muttered. “But right now, I don’t even have time to supervise my meals.”

  An awkward pause stretched between them while he looked her over.

  “Why are you drenched in sweat, Fauster?”

  “Morning exercise, sir!” Alba replied brightly.

  Ishigami winced. “Morning exerci— and what’s with those gogg—?” He stopped himself with a sigh. “Never mind. It’s probably too much to ask that idiot of a captain to send someone normal anyway.”

  “As I was saying, I’m your supervisor. But I don’t have the time — or the will — for the role.” He waved vaguely toward the door. “So…supervise yourself.”

  “I-I’m sorry, sir?”

  “Go do something useful!” he barked. “Dismissed!”

  “Yessir!”

  Alba snapped another perfect salute, spun on her heel, and left.

  She felt a little bad for Ishigami. His burnout wasn’t just bad luck — it was… design. Another layer in the captain’s plan to keep her free and unbothered.

  As she made her way back toward the prison, she replayed the facility layout in her mind.

  She’d start scouting soon.

  Twelve blocks.

  Nine cells — meaning nine cryo-capsules — per block.

  An Alter in each one.

  Each block equipped with a single maximum-security cell.

  “I’ll stop by my room for something to eat and some water. It’s on the way,” she muttered to herself.

  Her mission was about to begin. Better be hydrated and with a full stomach.

  She grinned as she made her way back — walking this time.

  —

  She took another bite from the stick of rehydrated synthetic meat she’d made before leaving her room. If anyone saw her, she could always claim she was rushing to urgent maintenance. Truth was, she always ate it this way.

  The meat-flavored powder was meant to be poured into the square tray that came with the ration pack, filled with hot water, and left for a minute — then, voilà: a brown, juicy steak was served.

  That was the proper method.

  But there was also her method.

  Pour the powder straight into a glass of hot water, jab a utensil — today, a fork — before the meat finished forming, pull it out, eat it like ice cream.

  Some called it disgusting. She called it effective — if one didn’t mind the mess.

  Enjoying her fine meal, she strolled through Block 8 and toward 11.

  There was something important to do there before diving into her real investigation — finding out the reason those alters were aboard the Parvus.

  The cap’n had briefed her about the Science Bureau’s visit, about the ship’s original prisoners, how they’d been “transferred” to make space for the current inmates.

  Only a handful of high-ranking officers even knew that much. On the Parvus, just three people — herself included.

  But what remained unknown, even to the admiral himself, was who those prisoners were. And she and Jerome agreed: that part mattered.

  Only those who had issued the order would know, and, whoever they were, Alba was sure they were far too high up the chain of command to question.

  All she needed were the cryo-capsule serial numbers.

  That should’ve been simple. It wasn’t.

  Alba had researched cryo-capsules for years — freeing the remaining Alters had become her obsession. UN.SY. cryo-systems were one of her specialties.

  Each prisoner was bound to a single capsule, both registered under the same unique ID. If she found the capsule’s ID and matched it with the data she had stolen over the years, she’d know who was inside.

  But before boarding the Parvus, she’d asked Jerome to retrieve those codes.

  He told her there were none.

  They’d gone over the procedure again and again. It wasn’t his fault. The IDs had been wiped.

  And that made no sense.

  If the serials were truly erased, even the people who loaded the prisoners wouldn’t know who was in which capsule. The Science Bureau didn’t play roulette.

  And even if they wanted to, they’d get no prize — without those IDs, they couldn’t open the capsules without smashing them and killing the occupants. The serial was also part of the key needed to unlock them.

  If they’d gone to such trouble to bring these passengers aboard, the data had to exist. She hoped somewhere on the ship.

  And that somewhere was probably tied to another oddity in the prison blocks:

  Jan — short for “Janitor.”

  The prison blocks’ local AI system. Jan had been active when the mysterious capsules were loaded — and long before that.

  Through Jerome, Alba had already tried hacking him remotely.

  No luck.

  The Janitor was completely isolated from the rest of the ship’s systems, even from Scipio.

  Someone had gone to great lengths to cut and compartmentalize his access — to hide something.

  There was no way in — remotely, anyway. But if she could reach Jan’s mainframe, that would be another story entirely.

  Alba couldn’t exactly give Jerome a crash course in AI’s hacking. And there was no need to — now that Alba was here.

  It’ll be fine, she thought, finishing the last of her snack and pocketing the fork.

  Alba soon reached block 11 and stopped before a large blast door. Even after a fresh polish, she could tell it was centuries old.

  “There it is... Jan’s core room.”

  Like she always did before starting work, she unzipped the top of her overalls and tied the sleeves behind her waist, just beneath the gear belt — removed the night goggles too.

  A few taps on her omni-com; then a sharp swipe toward the door.

  “Greeting: Welcome, Head Technician Ishigami. Question: What brings you here today?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Jan — just a little routine maintenance.”

  “Assessment: There is no maintenance scheduled today, Head Technician Ishigami. Query: should I report this to your direct superior?”

  “Oh, yeah, you should,” said Alba, chuckling. “But you can’t, can you?”

  “Preoccupied observation: Head Technician Ishigami, I have noticed your vocal pattern does not match the one recorded in my system—”

  “Poor, lonely Jan,” Alba recited dramatically, ignoring the AI’s warnings. “They’ve cut you off from the rest of the ship — who’re you going to call if something happens?”

  “Request: I must run a visual identity check to clear you for access to the mainframe room.”

  “Aah... no need, Jan,” she said with a grin, typing on her omni-com again. “I am Head Technician Ishigami, remember? That means I have admin privileges.”

  The door groaned, then swung open.

  Lights flickered hesitantly to life as she stepped inside.

  “Exclamation: Wait, head technician! I haven’t confirmed your identity yet!”

  “You really are a pain in the ass, Jan,” Alba sighed. “As I said, I’m only here for some maintenance.”

  A wicked grin curved her lips as she scampered toward a dusty terminal rising near the center of the room.

  “A life-changing maintenance.”

  A few clicks on the worn metal buttons to make a faded holoscreen flicker to life — then her fingers began to fly.

  “Warning: What maintenance? I am notifying the —”

  *bzzt... wooooooo*

  Static. Low humming.

  She’d managed to shut the Janitor off easily enough. An old system, but not unknown to Alba. It dated back to the War — the same databases she used to rummage through for Alter-human intel.

  When behind the holoscreen, she was more archaeologist than cyber-thief.

  “System: Rebooting into recovery mode. Success. System: Initializing...”

  Alba cracked her knuckles both ways while the Janitor’s system prepared to restart. “Okay, let’s do this,” she whispered, glancing around.

  Most of the Parvus had been updated or restored to its former glory, but the AI mainframe room was another story — almost preserved in its original state.

  Just beyond the terminal stood the Janitor’s core: a dark steel column six meters tall, nearly two meters wide, its surface divided by thick vertical ridges like a pillar from a steel temple.

  Scattered red lights blinked across its surface, slowly shifting toward green as the system initialized.

  The core wasn’t massive — nothing like the quantum AIs such as Scipio’s — but this wasn’t a ship-spanning mind. The Janitor was a Gaider-Tabori class AI, named after the engineers who’d created the model. Designed to operate under long-term power shortages, it dated back to around 2480, even before the War began.

  Ancient tech, truly — but fantastic work if it made this far.

  Gaider-Tabori AIs couldn’t brute-force complex navigation routes, but they required little energy, which made them invaluable during the War when smaller battleships often ran half-dead.

  These AIs could survive power loss while keeping critical systems alive and preserving data. If the worst happened, they could compress their memories into a portable drive called Debris — a spherical device with autonomous propulsion and old-school resilience.

  “I wonder if I could still find one of those balls... but first — let’s tame my new pet.”

  Her fingers danced over the terminal’s keys as the last LED on the core flicked green.

  “Let’s see... Root access...there... Set user… okay... Access privileges. Then I just log in…”

  Alba typed without pause for minutes, muttering words that only she could understand. Then, with a final keystroke that looked more like a coup-de-grace than typing: “Aaaaand — that should do it.”

  More humming. LEDs flickering. The room thrummed with low power as the Janitor rebooted again.

  “System: Initializing. Loading: Modules. Initialization: Complete.”

  Hands crossed behind her head, Alba grinned, eager to see the results of her actions.

  Then the AI voice spoke again.

  “*Bzz*—Respectful Greeting: Maker, it is an honor to be in your presence! How may I serve you today?”

  “Nice attitude adjustment, old geezer.” Alba chuckled in satisfaction.

  She made him recognize her as the maximum possible authority. Removed some speech inhibitor modules in the meantime — so the machine’s replies would be truthful.

  Alba just hoped she hadn’t created an AI with Tourette in the process.

  But from the greeting everything seemed fine.

  “First of all, just between us — let’s change your name. The Janitor is a little... lame.”

  “I wonder who came up with that idea,” she mused.

  “Answer: I’m afraid I don’t know, Maker. Explanation: Most War-era data has been wiped. I cannot access those logs.”

  “Well, that’s a shame — but no big deal. You’re a Gaider-Tabori, right? Then I hereby name you...” She tapped her fingers on the console, thinking hard.

  “Boris! From now on, whenever I call you that, log in with my user on a private session.”

  “Excited Reply: What a wonderful idea, Maker! It’s only fitting that our conversations remain safe from the unwise!”

  “Right, huh? All right — now I just need you to copy all your data onto my — wait.”

  She actually wanted one of those ball drives. If one still existed, it could prove useful.

  “Boris, is a Debris device available?”

  “Statement: Maker, the Detachable Encrypted Backup for Retrieval and Integrated Storage — Debris — is indeed available. Question: shall I prepare it for deployment?”

  “Nice! Then copy all your data onto it and keep only my user profile in the backup.”

  If she used the Debris, she could access Boris’s functions without repeating this whole dance every time.

  “Heartfelt Warning: Maker, copying encrypted military data without a level three authorization is a highly illegal practice. I suggest you reconsider. Repercussions may be severe.”

  “Everything I just did with you is… questionable. I just hope some big corporation doesn’t sue me,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Perplexed Reply: What?”

  “What?” Alba shrugged.

  Silence followed — awkward and strangely human.

  “Just copy the data. I’ll let future-me deal with future problems. And deploy the Debris once you’re done.”

  “Statement: As you wish, Maker.”

  A few moments later, Alba heard the faint click of a platform rising to her left.

  A sphere about the size of a basketball floated out from the base of Boris’s core — light gray, smooth metal etched with thick black lines that crisscrossed its surface like a web, all converging on a single octagonal plate studded with sensors and a speaker.

  “...Now let me just reboot your main body into the old, annoying version of you... and wipe every trace of my good work,” said Alba, returning to the keys.

  “And while we’re at it... Boris, send a decrypted read-only copy of your memory to my omni-com — then go hide somewhere near my room.”

  Another ten minutes passed before Alba finished working with the AI.

  When she finally closed the blast door behind her, the first thing she did was light up her omni-com.

  A holoscreen flared from her wrist.

  “Let’s see what you were hiding, Boris.”

  She scrolled through the recovered files, lines of data blinking to life.

  “Oh, there are some very old files in here too... a cooking recipe file from before the War? Interesting. Wonder if I could even find half the ingredients today.”

  She tapped further.

  “And what’s this? B.O.S.? A combat advisement module? Guess that could be useful — in an actual war.”

  Then her face twisted into an irritated grimace.

  “Ugh. Those playlists. The ones that idiot woke me up with...”

  She swiped faster, as if trying to scrub the memory away.

  “Come on, come on — ah! Inmates log.” She raised an arm in triumph.

  The file opened with a shimmer — cryo-capsule IDs appearing one by one.

  Her fingers darted across the hologram, copying the file and merging it with the Alter names she already had.

  “Let’s start with the maximum-security capsules,” she said, sorting the file out.

  A few lines in — she froze. Eyes wide. Lips parted. The glow of the holoscreen washed over her stunned face.

  “Th-th-th-that’s impossible...”

  Her breath caught.

  A name she’d heard hundreds of times in her life was on the screen.

  One she had never expected to see tied to the Parvus’ capsules.