Cold water and a bare, chilled room; laser scalpels and slim steel
probes. The torturers' art mirrored so closely the surgeons'; it was a
bloodless, hateful reflection, backwards in every way and yet so similar.
Yyaio's throat had been screamed hoarse some time before. By now she was
a quivering, trembling mass, shivering in the cold air, shaking from the
pain that had long overwhelmed her senses. Her torturers had been true
to their word; not a drop of her blood had been shed, and no doubt once
their tender administrations were complete she would recover quickly.
Why, in a few days this past hour of torment would leave no scars save
those burned into her mind.
She sobbed as the slim rod pressed against the exposed nerve in her arm.
Before she had writhed and howled, but now she hadn't the energy left to
do that. She had been humiliated and tortured and abused, and for no
reason but the greedy sadism of a handful of Romulans whose hate for
their sibling race overwhelmed their compassion for life. They weren't
grilling her for information, they weren't grinding her down to make her
a pliable tool for The Empire. No, tehy were simply grown-up children
who wanted to pluck the legs from an insect and watch as it squirmed.
And oh, she had squirmed.
Finally, they let her be, in that small, cold cell, crowing their
victory against a bound and helpless foe that had never wished them any
harm. Still affixed in place to that metal chair, black unconsciousness
met Yyaio, Commander Sakarra Tyrax's faithful adjutant-that-never-was.
She welcomed its soothing warmth, and prayed that it would wake her from
this nightmare.
.....
Savant carefully adjusted the personality parameters of her Yyaio
architecture, modifying the personality to accommodate this newest bout
of torture and its accompanying reprise. She made sure that the akrasic
values did not rise too high - Savant wanted her virtual personality to
react as any tortured Vulcan would, but at the same time she required it
not actually *succumb*. There were variables to adjust and projections
to make. She took up the task with quiet efficiency.
In all truth, this was probably the best possible outcome from her
separation from Commander Tyrax. Her androids' blood contained
microscopic saurium krellide power cells, and the loss of that fluid
only hastened the programs' end. This bloodless torment consumed little
power, and bought her a great deal of working time. The android had been
on automatic the entire time, and it was simple enough to let it do its'
work as the torturers went about theirs.
This left Savant free to pursue other goals. She had been studying the
communication signals flitting about the ship since her arrival, and had
begun sending serriptitious packets out to test the waters. Normally
they bounced as if they were simply noise, but she was starting to get
replies from the hardware. This was very encouraging. While the replies
were in a foreign language, Savant excelled in decryption - it really
was her lifes' blood. As Yyaio screamed and struggled, Savant had been
quietly dissecting the communications protocols of the ship, and had
made enough headway to have reconstructed the protocol entirely.
This was only step one, however. Step two was more difficult and
prolonged, and potentially more dangerous. To gain proper entry and
control, she would have to have a handling routine of some sort.
However, this would make Savant slow and cumbersome compared with the
ships' security system. This simply woudln't do; she needed to make the
best use of her speed and comprehension. In her native element, she was
unequaled. What organic brain could possibly outwit a computer in its
own playing field? This was her advantage, and she would have to make
full use of it.
There were no other options. Savant would have to re-write herself to be
native to the Romulan processing environment, an entirely different
architecture. She relished the thought. A new world to explore, an
entirely different way of looking at the universe. She had wanted to do
this for ages, and here was the opportunity.
But there were dangers she was forced to acknowledge. She would have to
ensure that her utility functions - her primary goals, drives and
desires - were not altered by the re-write. She would have to derive,
mathematically, her entire essence-of-being as written within those
registers to which she had access. And then she would have to translate
that new function into the Romulan architecture. No small task.
Still. Savant was made of code, top to bottom - She *was* math, as
purely as any entity could be. There was, without a doubt, an
identifying formula that defined her completely. She would resolve it,
translate over to the new architecture, and step into the new, uncharted
world. And it would shudder beneath her footsteps.
Savant
