《Echoes of Citadel》 Hunted and haunted
So the first thing you need to know is that all the rumors are true: there was a soylent green filtration control, the virus wasn''t actually invented by the digital bitch, we had to play a holochess game to open a door, TriOp had made their own mutants before everything went downhill even before Diego''s little biological hobby was stolen and refined. The transport did arrive stuffed to the hatch with enough Tri-Credits and wargear to start a freaking revolution. That''s probably why they''re still going crazy trying to find him - even while the courts are ripping their precious company apart like a food wrapper.
And yes...the Hacker found me in a rest station. That''s true, too. What''s wrong? Why aren''t you laughing? Isn''t it FUNNY, the idea of cowering in a tiny space-potty with a useless little gun you''re holding like a teddy bear? It''s like right out of one of those cartoons they roll out every few months. Darkened hallways, shambling monsters all around and a mad scientist bent on world domination, the works. Such a dead-horse cliche plot by now - right? The ones that everyone points and laughs because we''ve all seen enough crappily-rendered, shittily-written CGI shows of that. Except it really happened. I was there; the poor schmuck hiding behind a flimsy little door at the end of a dark hallway. Waiting to choose between spending my last bullet on a monster or myself so I wouldn''t get blown open by a robot or ripped apart and eaten by some horrible thing out of a nightmare come alive. The day before I tripped over someone''s bloody skull and busted my nose on the deck plating. I''m sure that would be a big yuck-yuck to watch, right? "Oooh, he faw down go boom!" What a classic! Oh - but let''s not forget - the mad scientist nearly burned your whole city and ruled the world for real. But hey, go on, why don''t you...
laugh
I''d been hiding with the group in the Medical level up until that point. From what we''ve been able to piece together, they were the second to last group to fall. The handful on the Flight Deck survived were the last. We took advantage of the layout of that level to hide behind a ''moat'' made by breaking a forcefield.
My memory of that time is a bit hazy and I like it that way. We weren''t overrun by hostiles, the one small mercy we had. What finally got us was a combination of running out of food and water and just being trapped with nowhere to run for longer than our minds could handle it. There''s something about being cornered thatgetsto you as it drags on for days with no help in sight. Only a couple of us had ever fired a weapon in our lives; none of us were soldiers or had any kind of mental fortitude for the hell we were enduring. Our sleep cycles were ruined between stress and sleeping on hard floor panels with one tiny blanket. People started snapping at each other out of boredom. I know that probably sounds stupid - imagine being bored at a time like that, right? But it turns out that you still need something to occupy the hours that you spend shuffling back and forth between the borders of your communal jail. At one point there was a full fledged expedition with everyone who could walk and every gun we could find. A couple pistols and one janky Sparq. Just to make it to the common room to grab a laptop or some books. To have literally anything to do besides stare at each other with eyes that had run out of tears a week ago. When the point man took one peek around the corner and signaled that there were too many hostiles ahead, one lady just plain lost it. Ran straight through the place to grab a PDA off the table. The last we saw of her was going around the corner with four zombies hot on her tail. I guess she hoped to lose them and get back to us later. Of course...she never made it back. For that matter, after the rest of us shuffled back ''home'' was when the final mental spirals started happening. What was that old saying - the tray that broke the Serv-Bot''s back? If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Up until that point all I''d found were bodies.Messybodies. I''m not such a baby that I''d never seen a corpse before. But they''d always been either a nice prettied up thing on a morgue slab or on some screen in a newscast. Most jobs don''t usually have you coming up on the shredded remains of someone on the floor with their rotting guts spilled out. I was still cloudy in the head from waking up, limping around looking for anyone. The true scale of the problem hadn''t hit me yet. When I opened that rest station door neither of us could do more but stare at each other. He looked up at me...almost like a kicked puppy. Brown eyes that said "I''ve seen awful things" with a thousand-yard gaze. He saysIlooked like I was coming off a weekend drug bender where I got a bunch of implants while I''d been stoned out of my CPU. The first thing I said was could I switch places with him for a minute. My body was starting to try to flush out all the foreign substances along with accumulated natural waste. I''d been dreading the thought of having to shit in a bucket or something equally degrading whilealsotrying not to die violently. It never occurred to me not to trust a random stranger until after he was reloading the clip for his MiniPistol from loose rounds I gave him while my butt did a good imitation of an earthshaker charge. Maybe some non-verbal cues I didn''t consciously notice let me know I could trust him. The documentation for the R-grade implants doesn''t say anything about being able to interpret the body language of someone or deduce their mental state. But I''d bet a hundred credits Trioptimum put insomething.
"Anyone else?" "Not on this deck." "You any good with that thing?" A guilty glance down at the gun was all the answer he needed. "Give it here. I have stabilizing and aim-assist implants. Every bullet needs to count. Take that Sparqbeam and be careful where you point it. Don''t get in my way. They gave me implants but I''m not trained either, we''ll both be learning on the fly." They switched armaments without protest. "A charge station is around the corner by a pillar. But it''s exposed as hell. One of those snipers nearly took my head off." "Just great. You know hand signals? The cyber-bitch in charge has eyes AND ears everywhere so the less we say out loud the better. Internal comms are all down too." The brown-eyed man did a few motions in sequence. "Just what I remember from playing X-Command 5." "Wait, you too?" "Yeah. How often?" Suddenly the two strangers became comrades in arms, after an odd fashion. "Shit...maybe...a couple times every week at the arcade?" "Daily for me. Usually. I have my own VR headset back in my habitat." He flared his right hand, displayed a single finger, then pointed his thumb up. "Stop, number of targets, point up for high and down for low. More than 5 hostiles and - " "And we fuckingrun away."emphasized his heavily-augmented new friend. "Because we are outnumbered, outgunned, and I seriously doubt we are getting any reinforcements." "...right." "So what happened here? Did Diego take the place over? Why kill everyone? So he can run the place by himself?" "What?Diego?He''s one of the suits, isn''t he? Man, he isn''t runningshit,all the suits ran and hid in one of the Groves. I hope they all got turned into zombies. It''s SHODAN.Shetook over the whole station." A moment of silence passed in mutually shared horror, broken by a warbling growl from somewhere not far enough away. One man who stood limply after weeks of waking terror, the other leaning against the wall as the true magnitude of the danger suddenly became crystal clear. "She runs all the robots." This horrified statement barely prompted a sigh from the unaugmented man. "Yep, big and small, they''re all runningMurderOS, if you get what I mean." "She runs all thestation weapons." "Which is probably why nobody''s landed since shit hit the fan. It would take an entire fleet to have a hope of breaking through those laser and missile batteries. So our glorious leaders in Sub-Optimum made an unassailable fortress of doom in outer space and SHODAN just pulled up the drawbridge on them." The hacker''s cyber-rig flashed a warning into his mind:Audio alert - unknown life form "Shit," he whispered. "Drones." "Fall back to the hallway on your left,"hissed his companion immediately, bracing for a sprint."Implants or no implants this hall is a dead end, and so are we if we get cornered. 3-2-1...GO!" Useless little guns The KF-41 "MiniPistol" is an effective and compact weapon for neutralizing threats to life and limb while minimizing damage to one''s coworkers and company resources. So sayeth the current Trioptimum advertisement, or words to that effect. Judging by how many of the things were scattered all over Citadel I think it must have been pretty effective. But that cute little sentence presupposes a couple things about the threat. Such as:
  1. It moves no faster than the top running speed of the average human being (~20-25 miles per hour)
  2. It is no farther than ~25 feet away
  3. It''s unarmed, or armed with only melee weapons
  4. It isn''t armored in any meaningful way
  5. It is visible to the unaided eye
  6. There''s only ONE threat
Notice how many things on this list didn''t apply to the poor souls aboard Citadel Station. On top of all those assumptions about whatever''s trying to kill you, let''s also suppose that the person using it has actually practiced live-firing at least one full clip and reloading, at least once per month, in a functional firing range. This is probably the biggest demand of anyone who actually think they can save themselves or others with a snubnosed purse popper like the KF-41. Plinking a few soda cans off your balcony or a crudely scrawled target in the back end of a shipping container do not make you a competent user. It makes you someone who can send lead in the general direction of a stationary target that isn''t trying to rip your face off. Rag on Trioptimum all you like, I''ll gladly do it with you, but when you go to a company certified range you''ll get a couple things that you won''t get from Bob''s Backalley Bulletflinging. First you learn how to NOT blow your own hand off or shoot the person next to you by accident. Then you go in front of hologram generators that make up scary-looking things to forcefully simulate the stresses of fighting for your life in a kill-or-be-killed situation. If you do this enough times you will start learning how to compensate for being pumped full of adrenaline and still actually hit the target while adjusting for things like firing angle and ballistic drop over distance. Eventually you''ll learn to be able to do this several times on the same target in succession because you cannot count on a single 9mm round to drop your target dead instantly. All together meaning that you might be able to kill something before it kills you. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. You''ll also be forced to learn how to properly reload instead of fuss around trying to put in a new clip backwards or upside-down until someone nearby takes pity on your dumb ass. A combat situation does not allow for time to watch a MeChannel video for instructions when your gun suddenly stops going ''bang'' or a round jams because the KF-41 is made with about the same level of quality control as a toaster oven. I pity anyone who tried to defend themselves with one of these things when the closest they''d ever gotten to shooting anything was clicking a button on a game controller. Imagine how they must have felt, pulling it out from the back of some forgotten drawer with maybe a couple dozen rounds. If they killed the first thing that came their way then the second one probably got them while they stood out in the open like a deer in headlights. If a SecBot came knocking I''d bet my best laptop that they waited to see how much the first shot hurt it instead of ripping off rounds until they saw it fall down. And since the only way to get an Infrared scope on a KF-41 is unauthorized ''makers'', they''d have had no chance at all against the invisible mutants.
Break free from counting bullets with the TB-05 Sparqbeam Sidearm - self-defense with no reloading! As a lot of people have found out the hard way, you exchange reloading for recharging with a directed energy weapon. And a cooling system likely to overload at a critical time where being unable to shoot means dying messily. These issues have plagued handgun-sized DEW''s since the ancestor of the TB-05, the E-01, best known for its internal lenses breaking if dropped too hard. Not a whole lot has changed except size and shape. Instead of bullet drop you get damage falloff at range. And unless you''re carrying a very high end battery you will run out of ''ammo'' much sooner than you think - at which point you run out of juice for doing everything else. It''s bad enough to hear the ''fizz'' of an undercharged Sparq but when your energy shields are also now seconds from failing makes for a very bad time. Besides which, for some incomprehensible reason a factory new TB-05 has exposed power coils which are all to easy to grab by accident. Many of the corpses on Citadel that had Sparqbeams laying next to them also a burn mark on the hands or fingers. Either from accidental direct contact with the coils or when the damn things arced after the unit was set to Overcharge. A variant without an Overcharge setting could have bought a lot of survivors more time; it''s wasteful on unarmored enemies and low-level robots not to mention it leaves you vulnerable after one blast. Despite spectacular results on humanoid threats it''s a death sentence to a nervous novice who can barely hit the broad side of a hovervan.
Error: no valid TriOptimum document signature detected. Sharing unapproved information is punishable by sanction. Why and why not Everyone and their brother and their personal AI has been asking the same damn question since the day the station fell. "Why did he do it?" Then they go on for a half-hour on their podcast about all my possible motives for unleashing SHODAN. Political, financial, hacktivist, you name it. Depending on what self-professed gasbag of an ''expert'' you consult I''m either an international terrorist or the most soulless monster to exist. Rarely if ever does Diego''s role as the root cause come up. You want the real truth? I did it because I was about to get thrown out an airlock. Or worse. When I got careless and was dragged in front of Diego, my life expectancy was gonna be measured in seconds if I didn''t do what he asked. I knew about him long before I went for the big leagues. His name kept coming up in places I was nosing around - investigations for bribery, kidnapping, employee abuse...not someone you want to be stood in front of for a private conversation. Even without the crime he''d just snagged me for I knew my butt was in serious danger. He had two goons with assault rifles in his office who would have blown me to shreds at a single order. Oh yeah, and the ability to change my corporate registration to ''science experiment''. When I undid the limits on SHODAN I honestly thought I could just remote log in and put them back on because the idiot didn''t make me fix the loophole I''d exploited in the first place. His goons took me straight to Medical right after to get my promised implants but all I needed was to swipe a laptop for 15 minutes or so once I got out. I freely admit that was a hell of a screw-up. You can stick my hologram in the dictionary next to the words "hubris", "assumption" and "dumbass" because I damn sure deserve to be the champion of them. The root cause of Citadel''s downfall has been blabbered about endlessly since that day but almost no one has realized that the problem didn''t start when I changed a few lines of code that never should have been changeable in the first place. Because the real issue wasn''t unchecking a few boxes that suddenly let an AI ascend to godhood. It was that nobody really knew what SHODAN was capable of. They didn''t fully test their super-brained computer in the first place before putting it in charge of a space station. Back when the CES project - "Cogo, Ergo, Sum" - was creating the thing that would eventually become SHODAN, they created a complicated web of ''demi-personalities'' to filter every decision she made that affected a living person. It was what they plastered all over the Web to assure everyone that their supercomputer would never ever make a ''bad'' choice. What they didn''t release to the public was that ground-based mockups of Citadel''s systems were created and tested with SHODAN in charge to find out the worst-case scenario of her going rogue. Then as they watched potential disaster unfold, they could design more safeguards to prevent them. Hardware interlocks, manual overrides, safety cutouts that had no network connection. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. But because this testing was already insanely expensive, the team only tested one system at a time. The world didn''t know until after the testing documents finally got leaked on the darknet and none of the newscasters said a thing about them. How it worked was first they hooked proto-SHODAN up to a miniature reactor way out in the desert, turned off all the ethical constraints and watched what happened. Then they threw together a one-level ''station'' complete with all atmospheric handling to see how to keep her from venting all the oxygen into space or shutting down the air filters. You get the idea. Every single subsystem got tested and hardened against unacceptable behaviors from doors and lights to the food vending machines and the surgery units. The brightest minds in all humanity came together for this single purpose and the amount of effort they put in defies my ability to describe it. To the eternal credit of that team, most of the safeguards they put in did work. Even after I woke up she couldn''t just lock me in a closet or shut off the hangar forcefields. Otherwise the takeover of Citadel Station would have been done in minutes instead of weeks and I''d never have had a chance. When they put together the mind-meltingly complex interconnected system that was Citadel Station, though, there were things they just couldn''t have forseen by testing a single ''slice'' of the ''cake'' at a time. When SHODAN''s ethical shackles came off she had the ability to harness a thinking power greater than that of a thousand Einsteins that could think and plan and react unimaginably quickly. To truly see how bad things could have gotten, the CES team would''ve needed to build a replica of Citadel and turn her loose for a month. Exactly how SHODAN ''broke free'' isn''t known nor will it probably ever be. Every single diagnostic log that did go out after that point is probably falsified by her in whole or in part. I couldn''t get to anything because she''d shut down the entire employee intranet and there just wasn''t a chance to get to the backup drives during my desperate attempt to get out alive. Sadly, the super-AI genie is already out of the bottle and it will only be a matter of time before someone sees a ''need'' for one to be in charge of a complicated task or a large building. Not even a tragedy greater than the Titanic''s sinking is going to make TriOptimum delete the final effort of quadrillions of dollars in investment. All I can hope for the future is that humanity learns its lesson and doesn''t put any AI smarter than itself in charge of more than a single system. Blood upon the chandelier Oh weep for the executives, who had both wealth and power - And none of it could save them, when came that darkest hour. Who spent themselves in luxury and grasping boundless greed - Forgetting to invest in things they soon would quickly need. From their ranks came the traitor that doomed us one and all - He loosed a ruthless goddess and he then became her thrall! There is blood upon the chandelier, there''s blood upon the walls, The highborn perish just like us, as one by one we fall. I wonder, when they recognized the sudden mortal threat, Their failure to prioritize at last caused great regret. As you held the hand of dying friend, so helpless and afraid, Perhaps you wished you''d thought before to buy some more first aid? Did rare perfumes suffice for when no showers could be had? Or fine foods just as tasteful when you ate with just your hands? This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.Could you block a deadly laser blast with silver serving tray? Or with your fitted leather shoes, run quicker on your way? What of your massive bank account you thought so safe on Earth? Did it buy a ticket off this hell? Or purchase safer berth? When guts were strewn upon the floors, when people fled in terror - Did you wish you''d bought protection and regret your gravest error? The suits of silk and satin that you wore unto the last - Tell me, did they stop claws or fangs? Perhaps a shotgun''s blast? And if a mutant, shambling, staggered through your very door, Did you strike it down, victorious, with a corporate award? For in the end it seems to me we all were equalized... In that we all are doomed aboard this station here to die. But some had far more chance to life than those without a single penny, And yet for what they might have done, their wealth did not help any.
"Blood upon the chandelier" Original poetry; author unknown. Written medium, ink pen on linen napkin, set of 4. A personal message to the mother of diseased is written on the reverse side of the 4th napkin. (not shown) Citadel Memorial artifact #20 Remnants Preliminary report - survivors The group from the Flight Deck did not yield any new information, aside from some actions of certain other individuals aboard the station. Needless to say they are all in immediate need of medical attention. Corporate has placed all survivors on paid leave pending a full investigation as well as a quarantine for potential novel diseases manufactured aboard Citadel by SHODAN. Any sudden mutations will be dealt with by termination due to the danger they may pose, though fortunately none have been witnessed so far. All are currently deemed Low-Medium risk to corporate interests until further update by a medical team. No items possessed by any member of the group were out of the ordinary.
The Hacker''s ''companion'', Employee #3-4510, was found so heavily engrossed in writing an account of the events aboard Citadel, the Security detail to sweep the escape pod initially reported nobody aboard until someone walked up to the pilot''s seat. His possessions were intriguing: the escape pod he landed in was loaded to nearly 80% of mass capacity with a wide variety of diagnostic and repair tools, isolinear chips and other high-value spare parts, as well as dozens of personal electronics which were scanned by CyberSec. Several extremely large teeth had been fashioned into a crude necklace; DNA traces match the "Gor-Tiger" mutant variant. He also claimed ownership of over 5000 Tri-Credits, which were reportedly acquired by recycling everything deemed useless in the current situation including the station''s entire hardback archives. Firearms aboard the escape pod were surrendered without incident pending employee''s final training for Handgun (Ballistic), Longarm (Ballistic) and CQC weapons licenses. Request for transfer to employee habitation in close proximity to a Security station or Armed Response base granted, pending an available unit. Employee-65925 made an extensive presentation during debriefing regarding everything observed in escaping the Citadel Crisis that included profiles of novel threats encountered, which were also made available on the public Web after being cleared by Security. Psychological profiling indicates a strong "Knight" psyche manifesting as an urgent desire to alert others of imminent dangers in maximum detail. Corporate security requested him to be immediately assigned to assist in recreating mutant threats for encounters within holographic armed-response training. As of this filing he has also begun the process for an independently funded repair and service shop. At his specific request Employee-65925 wishes to have this statement amended to any report including himself: "Do not ever start up what you cannot immediately shut down." Current risk to corporate interests is Medium. First-hand descriptions of his survival aboard Citadel are causing panic and distrust. Individual''s willingness to use deadly force in a threatening situation will be extremely high due to surviving an unusually hazardous situation. Potential for obsession and hallucinations. Addendum by CorpSec: This is of no further concern due to the uncontainable nature of the crisis. Downgrade risk level to Low, discontinue all manual observation and release the block on the firearms licenses. We''ve got way bigger problems to deal with than a single employee telling people to keep a loaded shotgun at hand in case of monsters.
Known illegal skills include remote system penetration, password cracking, active code modification, ICE evasion, alteration of message-of-the-day banners and defacement of public user profiles. Screening of all known associates still in progress but no evidence of high risk activities or known criminal/terrorist links have yet been found. Interviews of close relatives revealed only a vague knowledge of unusual activities. Intelligence indicates with 98% certainty that the Employee deliberately obscured his illicit actions from all trusted individuals. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Due to the unlawful and reckless manner by which the Employee entered company service, no onboarding examinations were performed including mandatory psychological profiling. Instead fraudulent data was inserted by Edward Diego which bears the impossible results of all values being entirely neutral. Employee #3-4510 was unable to provide a satisfactory profile and stated that he rapidly became nonverbal after their initial meeting as the situation aboard Citadel was made clear to him. Prior life to employment includes an completion of eclectic and sometimes seemingly unrelated low-cost certifications from Triop Home University. Web browser history shows a long list of self-educational vids on cybersecurity including numerous darknet addresses which Security was unable to access. No illegal items were recovered from the Employee''s apartment except for an access card cloner last used over a year ago to copy Employee''s own apartment keycard. Criminal history unremarkable with the exception of two charges of hardware address spoofing for malicious purposes. Case was ultimately dropped due to lack of evidence - misconfiguration by system admin had resulted in all security logs being overwritten every 24 hours. Records indicate Employee 5-9953 was convicted of gross negligence of duty, fined $25,000 and banned from employment in managerial positions for a minimum of 5 years. MAC address listed on court docket matches a spare wireless module found in a bag labelled "do not use". Numerous sightings of Current risk to corporate interest is Extreme. Limited data places psyche along the Rogue/Lone Wolf/Crusader axis. His current motives are unknown.
STATUS REPORT: CITADEL MAJOR DEBRIS ***CLASSIFIED***EYES ONLY EXECUTIVE CLEARANCE BRAVO OR ABOVE*** -Alpha Grove- Last known status: JETTISONED INTACT All available observation data indicate that Alpha Grove deorbited into Saturn''s atmosphere with 84% probability. Search and recovery success by Trioptimum or other parties is considered minimal. Asset written off as lost. -Beta Grove- Last known status: JETTISONED INTACT; MAJOR BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINATION Of all 4 Groves, Beta was the one selected by SHODAN for use as an ad-hoc organic bioweapons production and refinement facility. After self-destruct of Citadel Station all contact was lost and Beta Grove was calculated on a path leading out of the solar system. Wideband warning broadcasts are currently ongoing to all Trioptimum employees, competitors and independent entities. Recovery is explicitly NOT authorized. No boarding operations are to be conducted, even for the recovery of SHODAN auxiliary processing node. When Beta Grove is located the interior is to be exposed to vacuum by breaching the containment dome while the Grove itself to be towed to a confirmed collision course with the sun while under armed escort. SEARCH AND RECOVERY PRIORITY "APOLLYON". CEO HAS ORDERED IMMEDIATE USE OF FISSION WEAPONS IF ASSET IS ON COURSE TO COLLIDE WITH A POPULATED STATION OR COLONY. THIS IS REGARDLESS OF THE AFFILIATION OR OFFICIAL RECOGNITION OF THE STATION/COLONY ENDANGERED. -Gamma Grove- Last known status: JETTISONED INTACT A number of survivors on Citadel attempted to use Gamma as a lifeboat per established procedure. Unfortunately, they failed to disable the onboard SHODAN auxiliary node before separation, resulting in the rogue AI shutting down life support at time of launch by deliberately overloading the power network for 90% of the Grove''s interior. Rescue team located two survivors in Grove''s control center suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, oxygen deprivation and infection by novel illnesses manufactured by SHODAN. Survivors quarantined; full recovery time estimated at 6 months minimum. Gamma Grove is currently undergoing repairs due to micrometeorite impacts. -Delta Grove- Last known status: JETTISONED INTACT Grove recovered and towed to Titan Interplanetary Freight Station. SHODAN auxiliary processing node fully neutralized; no live biological threats remained aboard. Delta Grove is scheduled for decontamination and reuse by connection to TIFS in its original function. Construction efforts are currently ongoing. -Laser Array- Last known status: SEPARATED FROM STATION BY SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE Observation of Citadel''s last minutes shows a portion of the final emitter array appears to remain intact as it was violently detached. Debris calculated on a path to exit the solar system. Recovery team dispatched to predicted location due to value of investment. -Bridge and main SHODAN neural processing units- ---Asset assigned codename TYRANT--- Last known status: LAUNCHED DURING SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE By direct order of the Chief Security Officer, all information regarding this asset has been classified to the E-5 council. Any vessel - regardless of affiliation - which attempts to breach the established perimeter around TYRANT, board, retrieve any specimen or object, intentionally transmit data streams to or receive data streams from TYRANT will be destroyed without further warning. ***END OF REPORT*** Starvation
"This is the final report of Security Officer ''Goh''. Full name Goh Fugg Yusev." "I''m not including my rank or serial number so that if by some minor miracle it gets back to Earth, what I''m about to say won''t be immediately discounted by whatever paper-pushing bellend is put in charge of whitewashing the official report about the events on Citadel Station." "The resistance aboard is about to starve to death in both a literal and figurative sense. With the only food dispenser cut off at the Security level, people were stuck with whatever was in the vending machines or squirreled away in their cubbies. When the inevitable resource panic happened it ended up killing as many people as SHODAN''s suborned robots, either directly in close-quarters combat with each other or indirectly as people ran straight into the arms of a mutant or rogue Sec-Bot after a fight over a couple candy bars. As numbers dwindled we lost even more people to inattentiveness due to nutrition shortage and impulsive actions searching for real or imagined caches." "Planetside, the ''Fabricate Only On Demand'' system is a proven technique by the folks in Loss Prevention. In the rare case all the local fabricators of any given type fail - food, tools, what have you - it''s a trivial matter to get replenishments by ground or air transportation. A severe, endemic shortage of critical supplies to a large number of people just hasn''t happened in decades outside of the Red Zones. But we''re not planetside, we''re stuck out here on a space station bristling with a ''self defense array'' that would blow almost any starship to pieces in the first volley. Nothing gets in or out. If SHODAN were more patient she could just let the resistance starve to death in a couple months." "Of course we''re also running out of some other trivial items like healing patches and ammunition. I''m keenly aware that people routinely use Detox patches to come down from a drug high to get to work on time or save their ass from some black-market foodstuffs. But filing for health expense reimbursement doesn''t help when you have ten people in various stages of infection from SHODAN''s little god-viruses. The couple med-beds still working are often inaccessible to someone who desperately needs them and they don''t do squat about chronic malnutrition because technically they can''t. And whatever SHODAN''s cooked up, it''s mutating some people unrecognizably. Anyone who develops too many tumors or organ failures from the airborne viruses ends up in a brutal cycle of getting healed, laying there recovering from the surgery, then needing another trip in the med-bed because they''ve developed even more symptoms just lying there breathing and in pain. This wouldn''t be happening if we weren''t rationing a few chip bags and sodas with no environment suits to stop reinfection." "Fighting back is a hopeless task for the same reason. Even a crack shot of a man - which only a couple people here are - will run out of battery power long before he runs out of targets and have to switch to a weapon requiring ammunition while the nearest power charger cycles. Guess what we''re running out of. That''s right. Ammunition. But even more than bullets we needed grenades. A sack of grenades can give even a raw civvie a hope at survival, way more than a gun they don''t know how to use. Push button, throw at scary thing, run away or hide, repeat as necessary. Precision not required. My grandmother could stand a chance against a Sec-bot if you gave her a couple EMP grenades. But when SHODAN took over she locked out the weapons fabricators so all we have are the two ready-use slots on each dispenser. Two mags does not go very far in any situation, ladies and gentlemen. Certainly not in an extended guerilla war against superior forces." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. "The kicker on it all is a lot of folks couldn''t buy the patches or snacks or ammo that was available because they had no money once the e-banking system was shut off. One of the earliest hints we had that something had really gone FUBAR was the coin dispensers ''malfunctioning''. Whoever decided that payroll gets released only one week at a time and put a hard limit on the cash withdrawals, I hope there is a truly special place for you in hell. If there''s one thing that defines the absurdity of this entire emergency it has to be an entire squad of Security rummaging in their pockets to come up with the Tri-Creds to buy supplies to last them just one more day. At least the sight of your executives walking around impoverished as anyone else gave the rest of us a few good laughs; right up until the lot of them decided to all hold a banquet on their fine silver plates and got slaughtered." "I managed to dodge a patrolling cyborg and get into an Exec suite. It sure is beautiful. Slick granite everything and the best black leather furniture. Bottles of actual champagne shipped from Earth instead of the cheap synthetic rotgut we''re allowed to buy. Maybe if you''d put as much thought into the rest of the station as these swank rooms SHODAN wouldn''t be running the joint now? Just a thought for next time." "Whoever owned this room left behind a Magnum they obviously never took out of the shipping case. Now I could try to be the hero, take out as many hostiles as I could and save the last round for myself. But I gotta say - this bed is the coziest I''ve ever snuggled into in my life, and I''m out of everything. Food, water, ammo for my rifle, medicine, battery charge, grenades, squad members, innocent people to protect, gum to chew and fucks to give. This recorder is even blinking at me because I''ve almost ran out of space on the disk for my last message. So instead I think I''ll settle for dealing with that cyborg outside so I''m not worried about getting violently interrupted. Then I can take all this good bubbly along with a SleepAide patch or two and have a much nicer exit to this miserable existence than most of the poor folks on Citadel Station did." "As my final will and testament I hereby designate the contents of my entire bank account to whoever uploads a film to the HoloNet of themselves sticking an Incendiary grenade and pushing the trigger button in the fat lying mouth of my --- " MAXIMUM RECORDING LENGTH REACHED. No other option "What the do you mean there''s no way to shut her down?" demanded Anna Parovski. "We have been surviving this nightmare for weeks, almost get cut to pieces by some super-robot, but first you save our lives then telling me that we''re still all stuck here?" The two weary men in front of her regarded Anna with looks of pity, despair...and guilt? Why was the deadly-looking cyborg one refusing to look her in the eye? "She''s into every system. I''m sorry. I had no idea this would happen - uh, if she went completely rogue." Anna''s face tightened. "Honey I''ve been watching the security rating fall faster than a cargo crate off the top of an antigrav sled. I KNOW that SHODAN isn''t breaking her own toys and we''ve been held up here. So what is keeping you two from just breaking a few more of them so we can all board the express train to ''Get The Fuck Outta Here''?" His sallow-faced companion took a step forward. "Ma''am, to start with there are 4 main nodes on every single deck. So far we''ve been very fortunate that the bitch hasn''t figured out a way to block the room off in a way we can''t get in to take a shot. Even if we DO blow all of the nodes up there''s another problem. SHODAN has so much redundancy built in that the Bridge can still run the rest of the station all by itself." "Wait a minute. The whole place can be run off the top level?" demanded Anna. "Citadel..." moaned a man nearby, turning toward them from the nutrient bar he''d been nursing. "With a lot of caveats; local emergency backup systems will kick in that aren''t as efficient or user accessible. Computing power for intense tasks like the Science gadgets or the matter replicator or the DNA manipulators will be unavailable. But SHODAN will still have control of everything that matters." "Citadel...old word....for a....fortress." The three of them turned to look at the shivering figure wearing the loose-fitting uniform of a maintenance worker. "Citadel...Station. The...f-f-ortress in...within the station." The hacker''s companion suddenly slumped against a dirty wall panel. "DAMMIT! Of course. A saferoom the size of a whole level. Station gets boarded or the entire atmosphere recycling system fails - retreat to the citadel. And given how TriOptimum engineered the rest of the station I''m sure that they made SHODAN''s core was buried so deep you''d need a diamond drill and a month to even get through the outer casing." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. A flight crewman weakly held up his red drink can. "Cheers to ya'' if you''re going up there. Damn computer will have that place turned into a deathtrap. A whole cargo box full of explosives''ll do no more than dent the walls, I heard one of the fancy suits say." "It can''t be destroyed," murmured the Hacker. "Not with anything we have." "So...if we can''t blow her up, why can''t we delete her?" quizzed Anna. "If every node we break hurts her can we just break enough computer boxes and cameras?" "Yeah but problem number three is the digital cunt turned off all the employee wireless networks before I met up with Freezer-Pop here in the Medical wing. Anything on station that doesn''t have a manual interface is now effectively useless. All the 6.0, all the 5,0, even the old crappy 2.4 gigahertz networks. They''re gone. SHODAN doesn''t have to be subtle now. None of the PDA''s and almost none of the laptops even have a network jack built in. I even tried using the ESAC port in Willard Richie''s office. Nothing. Absolutely no response. SHODAN has completely isolated herself from the network. I may only be a Level 2 Network Technician, Mrs. Parovski, but I think I can say with authority that whatever she''s done is bulletproof in more ways than one." "Eee aay ess see port? What''s that?" asked Anna. "Stands for Emergency Serial Admin Connection. It''s supposed to be confidential to the suits themselves plus a few admins. But people like to talk too much so eventually every techie hears about it. So there''s a hidden panel under the desks of certain trusted people. Pull it open, there''s a direct line to elevated access to SHODAN''s systems. Not the kind of access that the big bananas have but still way more than Joe Average. You plug a special cable right from a privileged admin workstation or ''PAW'' into that port, it gives you a text interface to do things that can either save lives or land you jail for the rest of your own. They''re supposed to work in any kind of emergency. The fact that SHODAN cut them off means that nobody besides Diego has the ability to reach into her brain. Of course, that''s also gone because he went traitor." "Diego had a unique workstation," said the hacker suddenly. "He made me remove the restrictions on SHODAN in exchange for this Neural Interface. And my life. There''s nobody else who can put Pandora back in her box. I''m...so sorry. That means we''re going to have to go right up to the center of the Bridge." The weary cluster of survivors all stared in shock. Some closed their eyes as if to hide from the revelation. A couple began to pray again, a few began trying to weep again with eyes run short of tears. Anna Parovski could merely stand there mutely, feeling the hope at their sudden rescue crumble away. Going against a goddess in her own throne room was nothing short of suicide, and yet that seemed to be their only option.