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mc776"Do we really need broadband, though?"
"Yes! And no, I am not going to hack my private link to Mother for it! She'll see everything!"
"All I'm saying is that it's only another two weeks or so, and we're getting enough Internet, mostly."
"I--we--had to wait half an hour for your Panthanaton update to finish uploading this morning! Zomboblaster XII is how old now!? A mod for that game shouldn't take up that much space, our net is just too slow!"
"Well I'm sorry (again) that everyone had to wait! But it has to take a lot of space because it needs those internal libraries to procedurally generate rules for the undead that spawn on the map! Even now I've only gone through a couple of the biggest, well-documented afterlife mythologies on three planets!"
"But it's all text!"
"A few movies too!" And copies of copyright statutes with the phrase "fair use" auto-highlighted. "Look, I'm just saying, we've got Internet, it's working, and it's just--well, a single one of these Cuties cost us more than both our ships' weapon systems combined - new! We should only launch them in emergencies!"
The Ellobius could only load up to two Quantum enTanglement Interceptor satellites at any time, in addition to its weaker integrated QTI. Each one had a random, but practically always finite lifespan; their power would discharge like a battery or a spring, and once so discharged all you had left was an overpriced, oversized radio/etherspectrum satellite in high orbit. A QTI once engaged could not be shut off for later use, and it cost almost as much to retrieve a spent satellite and recharge (or, rather, reassemble and reintegrate) it as it did to buy a new one.
They had run completely out of QTIs a few weeks after Gunnerbot was born. The Ellobius had been stranded on New Harfang for months, and supplies of all sorts were low. It never stopped raining during that year they were there, and that lifeline to the outside world was the only thing keeping the crew alive and sane until they could break the storm giant siege.
Then one dark and stormy night Dan spent the last of the QTI juice downloading several petabytes and a few hundred hours of extreme-quality VR gay fetish porn.
One of Gunnerbot's earliest formative memories was, therefore, Captain Alvarez threatening--no, actively trying--to shoot Commander Vook's balls off with her plasma derringer, shouting obscenities of the sort that, along with a few other search terms, Gunnerbot has since programmed a failsafe in his own processors not to be able to look up: he could not view any contents, of course, but the names and file addresses were bad enough.
It was not until Jae Finkelstein joined the crew that anyone could convince Gunnerbot that a "yellow-bellied sap sucker" was an actual bird and not merely another euphemism for an indecent act.
Now, however, Ai just scoffed at the word "emergencies." "Well, fine! Be that way! I'm not going to wait for you or Orgoth any longer!" No sooner did they say that than a rapid triple-burst of explosions rocked the entire beach, as three great balls of hot gas and smoke blasted out of somewhere at the Phlogistroni's position. Sand and water swirled everywhere as Gunnerbot hastily turned on the Ellobius' stabilizer jets to stay aright.
Sensors picked up the bright orange steaming fireballs of three QTI satellite pods meandering into the purple sunset sky. When the smoke and dust and waves cleared, the Phlogistroni, still wrecked and unable to use its own stabilizer jets, lay three quarters buried in the sand.
Maggot and Star burst onto the bridge of the Ellobius. "Are we under attack!?"
"Just the principles of temperance and frugality!"
Orgoth's communicator sprang to life. "Gunnerbot! I'm in the engine room! What the hell is going on out there!?"
"Ai was arguing with me about whether to launch a QTI and they just launched three of them!"
All Gunnerbot heard for a full ten seconds was the light background noise of a comm being left on with the other person saying nothing. He then heard a few seconds of typing. His monitor showed the Ellobius establishing a connection with a satellite, followed by something downloading from uisqtp://secure.diy.lets-cyber!.edu.utf to various personal devices in the engine room. A few more seconds of nothing, then Orgoth's comm channel suddenly added the Phlogistroni to the conversation.
Orgoth was sounding a bit choked up. "Thank you."
Gunnerbot displayed a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on a screen only he could see.
prompts
Date: April 30th, 2018 20:02 (UTC)- Grey
- Ambivalence
- Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker
unofficial 5 (no ad money was paid): https://cutiescitrus.com/