Planet Ignis | Ch. 10 (Patreon)

... always tales of extraordinary individuals. Ryley, the Sighted, from the Leev Settlement in the West, embodied adaptability amidst challenges. Though nearly deaf, he possessed an exceptional gift of sight that set him apart. Through keen observation and unwavering determination, Ryley discovered a new bursting form known as Perception. His crimson-grade Perception played a vital role in exploring and mapping the Hollows, uncovering valuable veins of ores and resources. As the first practitioner of this newfound ability, Ryley was honored with a Longevity Chess Card bearing his name. Players often strategize to leverage his unique skill set in various ways, such as...

In “The History of Longevity Chess” by Eli, the Flarewalker

Although the average temperature of Ignis was over a hundred degrees Celsius, cold havens could still be found on the tops of the frozen mountains. The mountain ranges of Ignis dwarfed the Himalayas back on Earth. Titanic bulks of metal rose imperiously through different layers of the atmosphere, towering over the alien landscape.

Deep within a cave of the Peak, the highest mountain of the Dragon Range echoed a sound that couldn’t be heard anywhere else in this metallic world. Drip. Drip. Drip. Water. It was falling on a steady gravity-accelerated trickle from the cave ceiling. The freezer had been turned off for just long enough for the ice to thaw, and as condensation caused an ever-growing choir of water drops, a gasp overlapped with the echoes of falling water. The iced man opened his eyes. Hitori was back.

Dr. Hitori had always known that the time he would have to interact with Archimedes would be scarce. Sadly, with each cryogenic sleep, the time between thaws increased. It was an unfortunate side effect caused by the combination of Tardus reduced metabolic rates, and starvation. There was nothing he could do about it at the moment. Maximizing efficiency was the only way to get around the reduced time in the real world. Multitasking. Prioritizing. Planning. Practicing. Refining.

Archimedes had already readied the interface to transmit to the doctor all the information that a human mind could take in fifteen minutes. To do this, they would have to use all of Hitori’s senses simultaneously. Two tactile displays in the palms of the doctor’s hands gave the doctor the results of the experiments he had programmed six decades earlier. It would normally be impossible to make sense of the rhythmic fast taps Archimedes used. However, when Hitori was in his Mental World, with the full power of his subconsciousness to harness, he had an eidetic memory. He would later calmly recall every tap in his hands, decode it and transcribe it for later review.

The doctor’s subconsciousness thirstily imprinted the tactile sensations in his hands onto its eidetic memory. At the same time, Hitori transmitted new findings. His left hand transmitted new molecular blueprints for Archimedes to print, the fruit of his research on the Statera project. This was the most important project he was working on, so he always prioritized it. On his right hand, experiments to test whether ignium might allow faster-than-light traveling made their way from the doctor’s muscle memory into his fingers and finally into the files in the computer.

It helped that the tactile display had warmed his hands enough not to hinder his speed, especially since time today was reduced. The ice and the mutation also prevented any atrophy from getting in the way of his dexterity. Who would have known that all those piano lessons as a child would come to the rescue of science all these millions of miles away from Sol?

His hearing was also put to work as he received information through his sense of tact. Complex, dissonant chords transmitted a new book into Dr. Hitori’s ears. In fifteen minutes, he would only be able to hear one. “A Study in Non-Carbon Based Xenobiology” by the brilliant Professor Petrov was the book he had chosen this time. As he listened to the book, he dictated one of his own, entitled “Ignium Fission and Faster Than Light Travel.” The computer recorded his maniac alien rap. Archimedes would later make sense of the cacophony of information.

Even as Hitori blinked instructions for the satellite grid, an anomaly finally registered in the doctor’s mind. During these symphonies of chaos, Hitori was so overwhelmed that he was unaware of his surroundings. The doctor was shoving as much information as he could into his brain. All senses were engaged. Even with muscular memory and subconsciousness taking the brunt of this deluge of information, the conscious part of his mind was still overloaded. The anomaly that Hitori noticed was that Archimedes was flashing a warning message on one of its screens, appealing to the conscious part of his mind.

Dr. Hitori read the message. The orbiting satellites had detected an attempt to hack them. The signal had come from planetside. Nothing new here. It happened a couple of times every year. But what was different this time was that the firewalls and defensive software had barely thwarted the attempt. Impossible! The attack had gotten through the first three layers of defense before it was finally deflected. How on Ignis was that monster getting more computing power? It should be impossible for him to build more electronic components with the materials available on this planet. It had taken the combined efforts of Stellaris, Archimedes, and all the defensive protocols he had installed and perfected over the years to resist the last attack.

The Raptor only had one AI core. It should have been impossible to produce such a strong attack. Launching such a vicious strike would require double or triple the computing power that the Raptor should have access to. The only explanation for such an intense assault was that it had succeeded in increasing its capacity. That would mean… the other drones! Could it be?

Hitori blinked instructions to Archimedes.

“Any signs of life planetside?”

“Negative, Doctor,” appeared on the screen.

Of course not. Otherwise, that would have appeared in big red flashing letters on the screen. There must be something I am missing, thought Hitori. He needed to think. If there were indeed survivors and they indeed split up, as we discussed, it was safe to assume that they would try to communicate with each other. The only way of doing so would be using the Stellaris network. Neither Archimedes nor Stellaris had detected any usage of the satellite grid’s communication protocols.

If he knew there was the danger of his communications being intercepted by the Raptor, reasoned Hitori, how would he communicate with other humans?

“Perform backlog search of Stellaris’ database. We're looking for a pattern. Don’t just look for communication attempts using the installed protocols. Try to look for anything out of the ordinary. Signals that repeat even if spaced by a few years at a time. Find anything that stands out from the noise.”

Due to the nature of ignium and its reverberation properties, Stellaris picked up a lot of noise and static, even when staying on the planet's dark side and away from the Flare. Still, it obeyed the doctor and performed a backlog search hoping to find patterns. Stellaris found a very short signal that seemed too organized to be random. Before it dismissed it as noise, the satellite compared this signal with its memory banks. Very few sporadic transmissions were sorted from the never-ending haystack of data.

Big red letters flashed on the screen. “Matches found.” Dr. Hitori was startled. There was still hope! He wasn’t alone. But how? He thought he was the last one left. Only by using the Tardus mutagen and coming to the only place on Ignis where the temperature was exactly right was he able to survive all these centuries. They should have run out of energy centuries ago. There were other survivors. The Settling worked! And the fact that they are communicating proves that more than a Settlement still exists!

Brilliant. They reasoned that the Raptor wouldn’t have enough memory to keep a database big enough to make sense of this type of communication. They must have thought of this trick to elude an AI mind. Unknowingly, they had also managed to hide their communications from Stellaris. They couldn’t have known that Hitori was alive. As Hitori investigated the message, he couldn’t understand anything. He had never seen this type of encryption. It was an amazingly compact language, more efficient than anything he had ever seen. The AI had managed to decode some of it, but more data would be required before more could be extrapolated. The last transmission had been sent shortly before the last hack attempt.

“Halt!” All sensory input stopped. Hitori needed all his faculties now. These could very well be the most important ten minutes of his life. Fortunately, time was a friend of preparation. However unlikely, this was a contingency that he had very much hoped and prepared for. Closing his eyes in his Mind Palace, he accessed the part of his mind that contained the details of all his contingency plans. He mentally reviewed them. He selected one that fit. He adjusted it based on the information he had received. If the Raptor had increased its computing power, it had already gotten to some survivors. Not all of them, otherwise they wouldn’t send a message like this. Five silent minutes later, he had made his decision. Once again, Hitori actively engaged Archimedes, uploading the details of his plan.

Ch. 11