flash fiction roboSciFi "The Outpost"

Deep Space

     Was that her first exposure to the machines in your lab?"

     "What are you saying?" Dr Cooper asks. Damn, he thinks. You've come here, and now this. I can smell an authoritarian messenger a mile away. I know all about their lack of qualms, the paranoia, when it comes to letting the whole world know about their biggest fear--equating ideology with intention. It's so easy. Send a pretty enough face, sharp enough talk, and a haze will appear inside even the brightest of minds. It's fog's most primal motion. They drift. No, you're not a bad person, it's just that you've become good at what you do. And now, here you are.

     Dr Jenna says, "We can't be sure of this. Suzi is the first quanta ultra entero electon nova(Q.U.E.E.N.) robiotic to go off task. 

     "Mm..." Cooper answers. How do they know?

     "With these quanta mechanica, it was just a matter of time."

     "Is Suzi Ok?"

     "She's been given a nano implant transference wisdom inner tangles(N.I.T._W.I.T.)"

     "Neural implants?"

     "We tested over the network, and then she shut off, as if she were, possibly, angry?"

     "Really?"

     "Yes. It happened so fast." 

     "What do you think?"

     "We know she's running on sensory inputs."

     "I see. Well I..."

     "And now Suzi is using a mechano universe simulato intergala communicator(M.U.S.I.C.), directly in her processor."

    "Are you sure?"

     "Well, sure, not sure, we're beyond scope here. The question is what do I know about space?"

     "You're a trained physicist. You're the one closest to Suzi, the one she responds to most. You designed her, for god's sake"

     "I'm not in the business of communicating into deep space, you know my history."

     "And now Suzi is?"

     Dr Cooper goes to the lab window, looks at the jungle, and thinks. Space