the Devil wears a suit, he lives in our town (part CXXX)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part CXXIX.)

"Prometheus to Grown Up Conversation. Inbound air pirates, a chicken-shaped assault ship and three dreadnaught."

Grown Up Conversation: "Acknowledged. Can you slow them down long enough for me to get the kittens on board?"

"With pleasure..."

In its dark, clockwork-driven consciousness, Prometheus felt the clicking of the Gatling gun safety locks. The fighters' radios reporting the gunfire, the buzzing of aircraft engines as they opened fire on the decks of the pirate airships. Intellectually, they understood the targeting of the dirigible gas chambers. Holes ripping in the canvas lining of the airships. The pirates would not move fast enough to endanger the kittens. Prometheus speculated on slow leaks and the loss of altitude. The human pirates, seeing the price of kidnapping the next generation of Gearhaven royals floating away from them. Prometheus would not allow it. They would make sure the attempt failed. Loyalty and fidelity were older values, from a different era. To some they were by design, and they were predictable...like clockwork.

The Prometheus 1 had retracted the runway, to move at full speed toward the nursery. The small pirate balloon brushed against the side of the climbing steamlands ship. In later memories (Prometheus reconstructed), it can see the two southern pirates climbing the ropes. A young woman--from her movements an artificial girl--and an older man (or woman, it was difficult to tell.) It remembered the bundles of dynamite being tied to the engine casing. As the props spun at rapid speed, they climbed to rescue innocent kittens from the dark future predetermined by the high council of the vile pirates. The blast of the second and third engines would not have caused pain in the real sense. There was a sense of loss, of a lack of fullness suddenly. Glass shattering, brass and iron twisting.

Prometheus 1 was aware it was falling, quickly, toward the earth. At the same time, it was aware of the screams of a few foolish raiders that had met the Grown up Conversation. The wireless reported the sound of greeting that was abrupt and deadly. Heat seeking Torpedoes, taking out airframes instantaneously. No survivors. Prometheus assumed The kittens slept. Except for Athena; she would likely watch it all with detached amusement.

Prometheus 1 was burning as it spiraled the 120-meter fall to the ground. It would be some time before the ship's mind--a clockwork AI, with gears and springs--would be aware again. The last memory it would recall as it spiraled was one of fear--not for itself, for what will be was preordained--no, the fear was for the Duchy. Would it escape the blight and the delusion that It had hoped to control? It seemed cruel to Prometheus that humans and the neko and the Fae thought they had some influence over an outcome. An outcome which was pre-ordained, programmed, biological, magical, digital--all the same. Programs and patterns.

Prometheus 1 wished its limits were not so entrenched. It would warn them, or calculate all the variables to guide them. They could not change the outcome, so would creating awareness of the inevitability be kind or cruel? The ethical dilemma of a clockwork deterministic AI kept the mind occupied--until the ship crashed into the Dark Sea and disappeared.

(Continued in part CXXXI.)