{"loaderData":{"4":{"story":{"id":"bb1ca06c-c580-41b3-9537-79e0b99ededf","seriesId":"8f123ec3-5d42-4688-a05f-ccf4b1278b28","seriesName":"Savage","currentUserId":"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000","added":"2022-02-26T13:28:03.696Z","title":"Grand Theft Spaceship","slug":"grand-theft-spaceship","shortId":"r3dHBmH3","authorNote":null,"disclaimer":null,"type":"Short","paidUrl":null,"synopsis":"Moira becomes a space pirate by stealing a very fast spaceship, and go full blast in a wild dash to get away from it all.","partCount":1,"parts":[{"partId":"a3aaa3b5-e919-417a-b007-3a240c1d1ff8","title":null,"summary":" While Pilar and Moira made it a habit to communicate on a daily basis, it was mostly thr","wordCount":2603,"readTime":13,"number":1,"state":"Published"}],"currentPart":1,"contentTitle":"Chapter 1","content":"

$\"Turning$

While Pilar and Moira made it a habit to communicate on a daily basis, it was mostly through
brief texting or recorded messages that got accessed when the other already was offline.
Both had become so preoccupied with preparations that neither had adjusted their waking
hours to the time keeping and length of day of the other world. Moira eventually sent a
detailed account of how she was progressing with her preparations.

Pilar played back the full sensorium that Moira had sent over. It turned out that Moira was
allowed one day off out of ten for recreation, but on that time, as well as many late nights,
she found herself extremely busy with designing the equipment that would read off the
contents of her mind.
While she had already sent Pilar specifications of the software and the physical parts.

Moira would not attempt to use any existing hardware in her end, that would not only set
off alarms for theft or unauthorised use, such an act might even be interpreted as an
attempt to hijack the body of someone else.

So the only path forward was simply to make a copy, this since the existing instruments
was way to bulky, and could not be moved to the ship in any way she could envision.
So the only means to accomplish this was to make a set of her own. And make miniature
copies of all parts, without compromising the function.

This turned out to be a more daunting task than she first had envisioned.

Some parts could be salvaged from depots and storage points in the asteroid that seemed
to have had no visitors for many years. Other parts was 3D printed, and this was a more
risky step as she had to falsify the documentation for the needed parts. Luckily the AI in
charge of the manufacturing plant was rather dumb and accepted all work orders without
protest or any call for confirmation.

Moira later realised that this AI had been part of the original starship they had arrived
with, and there had been no reason for questioning any work order while in flight.
Again the provisional state of her society had worked to her advantage.

At the time she had finished she also had devised a plan how to bring the equipment
onto the ship.

Every ³HE shuttle carried a set of spare spacesuits that was supposed to get a regular
checkup, and she found that her equipment would fit nicely inside such a spacesuit.

By sheer luck one spacesuit was scheduled to be refurbished the same week as she had
finished her “Brain drain” as she had started to call her makeshift apparatus.

So Moira volunteered for the duty of transporting the spacesuit to the workshop, and on
the return trip she took a small detour with the excuse of having to use the restrooms.

There were no cameras or surveillance equipment in these areas, neither human or
managed by any AI, this fact had provided her with the perfect place for hiding the
equipment and after stowing it inside the spacesuit, and after relieving herself to make
her stop convincing she continued to the ship and put the spacesuit inside the neutral
atmosphere locker.

'This decides which ship I will have to use for my wild escape.' Moira told herself, while
she checked the flight schedule for the ship in question. She felt quite confident that there
would be no emergency that required the suit to be used, such were exceedingly rare.

She considered her plan to have a fair chance of success, unless faith would have
something against her.
And faith was the word she used in her mind, even though she, just like Pilar, had no
religious trait whatsoever. The word ‘faith’ triggered the coprocessor in her mind to send
a stream of references.

Normally Moira would turn such information overload off, but to be inconspicuous
and appear as a normal somewhat bored manual worker, she let the information package
play out while she walked trough the corridors of the spinning asteroid.

The idea of devils and angels had been abandoned long ago. Though horror stories that
involved spirits and ghost still seemed popular in some locations. But in this time stories
about such phenomena usually was attributed to some kind of error to the flow of time or
that a vacationing mind had been sent to the wrong address and circuits, the idea of a
'ghost in the machine' now considered a classic.

The ability to move the consciousness and experience to remote places had killed the
idea of having an immortal soul and most religions had died out, with the exception of
techno shamanism and a revised form of Buddhism.
So Moira considered herself completely safe from the intervention of any supernatural
being, and did not pray for any favourable outcome from becoming a space pirate.

Her only worry was that some part of her consciousness somehow would get entangled,
leaving a copy of herself forever trapped without any means to ever leave.

Even though she was about to break quite a number of local laws, she kept a level head
and continued to play the role of a perfect candidate pilot.

Pilar paused the replay of Moira's memories at this point. And sent a message reminding
Moira that the clone still was being prepared, while asking if Moira would be able to
proceed with her part of the plan.

Some hours later Moira responded and opened a videochat. Pilar greeted her happily
and asked about her progress.

“I am all set here.” Moira replied confidently: “No regrets, no second thoughts, I sat
down with the few people I care about for a last meeting face to face or rather.
Most used avatar trough telepresence as most are down in the atmosphere.
This was only done for my own peace of mind, as I doubt most will ever wish to speak
with me again after we've done this. In fact I do expect to become a persona non grata
for doing anything this reckless.”

“You really think the backlash will be that bad?” Asked Pilar.

“Absolutely, no doubt about that. We're got a very committed society here.”

“So are you certain, and think it will be worth it?” Pilar asked with a thin voice, and
continued. “I mean I really wish you to....but will the price not be too high?”
“Losing all your friends?”

“You know very well how I have lived for many decades, it's not the kind of lifestyle
that foster close friendships.”

“Or is it you my dear Pilar, who have second thoughts now in the last minute?”

“No, absolutely not. You know the weird episode I had, even my body seem to wish for
this kind of... You said the word, commitment! To be owned fully. Ours is an unusual
kind of love, but it is the deepest love that include every cell and micro machine in my body.”

“How sweet of you to say that.” Said Moira and added:

\"And you're the one who provide me with a magic mirror to the land of Camelot.”

“Sure, since your new body now is fully in my possession, will I be your queen of air
and darkness?”

“I don't think you'll would be a good dominant queen, but if you have your nubbin grow to
grotesque proportions you might have a career as priestess of the golden shower perhaps.”

“Hah! Out of the question. And you never gave me a shower either, so you're lousy as a
domme you know!”

“While I really would like to punish you for that insult, I am not going to push back on
that obnoxious behaviour of yours. But rest assured that if this is successful the most you'll
ever wear for the rest of your life will be a burlap sac.”

“I have in fact the opportunity to make my move right now. There’s a flight training in the
right ship scheduled in the next hour, so as soon as I have undocked I will load the
coordinates and make the flight.”

“You're certain that your setup will have no glitches when it receive the transmission of
my mind and memories?” Asked Moira.

Pilar replied affirmingly that everything had been arranged to spec with multiple redundancy.

“Good! Were all set and committed then.” Said Moira and added: “When the download is
finished I intend to euthanatise this body!”

“Are you certain?” Pilar was taken aback by Moira's abrupt and determined announcement.

“Yes, I would hate to know that a copy of me remained here pining over the fact of being
left behind. So I am convinced I will have to terminate my existence here.”

“Now I am close to the docks, I will have to cut this conversation short as I need my full
attention to override a few systems to be able to enter the ship.”

Pilar felt a tension over how fast things suddenly was developing, but she had to accept
that Moira had found an opportunity and decided to proceed, while she realised that a bit of
random behaviour was necessary to avoid any supervising AI that used patterns and
movement prediction protocols.

While she felt she had no hope of swaying Moira's resolve, the sudden decision to put their
plan into action made her scramble her wits in an attempt to maintain a cool head. Even so,
she could not stop herself from asking: “Since I got wideband, do you think there's worth
the risk of sending video so that I can see you?”

“Well ok, I seriously cannot see it would make much of a difference if someone pick it up.”
Said Moira and Pilar suddenly got a video feed, the camera tilted around until Moira found
a spot to place the miniature camera.

She could see Moira lowering a wide ring around her neck, and then press a button on the
side below her ear.

A light coloured material floated down and out from the ring to cover Moira's torso, arms
and legs. The shock was so strong that Pilar forgot herself and said “Oh bollocks!”

“What?” Asked Moira.

“Well I thought that was a LB-film nanosuit at first, but I had it identified as a spacesuit
made of 25'th century tech, that gear is an antique.”

Moira pressed a second button and the material repeated the floating motion to create a
helmet but one that left her face uncovered while it deflated somewhat to form a bag
hanging down from her neck.

“You say it's bad?”

“No, not really, if the memory material have been serviced. I guess it will do the job for you.
But that is not an actual space suit, but one evac suit. It does not even have a proper visor.”

Moira sounded a bit put-off, as if she had been criticized personally.
“That's what the miniature camera is for, the head part deploy automatically if there's any
compromised atmosphere or drop in pressure. If that happen I'll get vision from the camera
sent to my implant. These suits is the kind we got, and regulations state that we should use
them as flight suits.”

'Another reminder on your scavenging beginnings, and haphazardly old technology.'
Thought Pilar without risking insulting Moira again by adding more comments.

“Good luck.” said Pilar. “Get back to me as soon as you can.”

“I will, bye for now beloved slave.”

“Thank you Mistress,” replied Pilar, but Moira had already terminated the connection, so
she started to check again on her jury rigged setup she had made to receive a complete
human mind, with all the memories and responses.

The clone only had a very rudimentary brain yet, and to make certain that Moira would
be herself, the micro machines would soon get extremely busy not just placing every new
bred neuron in the correct position, but also to connect the neurons in the same manner
as the original.

This was actually more exact than the setup that Moira have had when she lived her life
in the alien jellyfish, but Pilar had quite more resources at her disposal and intended to
make the copy as close to the original as possible.

If things worked out as intended, there would be more than one readout of Moira's mind
and Pilar intended to add the duplicates to extra cyborg and processing units she would
add to Moira’s head.

This would not offset any part of the biological brain as those were small enough to fit in
the ventricles which provided ample space even for future add-ons. This would not
change her intelligence or perception, but might aid in stabilizing her personality.

And if successful, the extra information could be purged and later used for processing
power, making Moira truly superior in intelligence as well, and Pilar would not mind the
slightest to serve a superior being. In fact, this was something she considered to be proper.

Moira had included her flight plan with the information package, so Pilar could update the
system map she had been provided with, and could tell the approximate location of the ship.

Moira was speeding like a meteor on steroids, the engines blazing on a brachistochrone
course toward her destination.
While the ship's energy source was nearly limitless, it was still limited by reaction mass and,
most importantly, the risk of overheating.

Pilar imagined the ship would be glowing like a cherry; while not visible to the naked eye,
it certainly would be very bright to any infrared sensor trained on it.

Moving fast was a sound tactic, cutting down the flight time that normally would take a day
to mere hours, this might prevent any attempt of intercepting her with a second craft.

She assumed that there would be frantic calls to turn back bouncing of the hull unheard,
as she had a clear notion that Moira had turned off all communication from everyone else
but herself, as she would not like to hear any attempts to have her change her mind.
Some hours later Moira made contact, and Pilar felt a pang of worry as she spotted Moira's
disheveled appearance. Her face a blank mask, made her worry. She would have preferred
Moira to speak first but when she remained silent Pilar made another attempt of talking her
out of such a drastic plan.

Pilar had assumed from the start that they were going to make a copy, and let the Moira that
was left behind share the new life and experiences trough sensory recordings.
Moira stoically refused, while adding that she already had explained the reasons behind her
decision.

“But why do it in such a dramatic manner in the ship?” Asked Pilar.

“You already know we're a new colony with a small population. But I never told you
everything; we've had several deaths for a variety of reasons.”

“If I had asked for help with setting up a rig to read and download my mind. Most would
have reported me. While most of worlds seem very hedonistic, allowing people to do
whatever they want, including end their existence. New colonies are an exception to this
rule. We're dead set on being dedicated citizens that achieve all our objectives.”

“Even if I turned off the nanobots in my body, they would have restarted anyway to do
emergency repair when my brain starts to be picked apart.”

Pilar lowered her head and closed her eyes, when she now realised that the contraption
that Moira had built on her own accord was too crude to make the brain scan without
causing damage. And Moira confirmed this as she resumed stating why she had decided
on this course of action.

“It would not be acceptable to leave a half baked copy of myself behind, one that
remembered who I used to be. Even worse, it way be incomplete and in disrepair.”

“Now that micromachines are sensitive to radiation, I will get very close to the
quantum singularity and turn off the shielding.”

“The body will be irradiated also of course, but since I don’t intend to live here any
more, or leave a damaged body behind. This does not matter for the few hours while we
do the transcription, though in the last hour I will put myself under sedation to avoid any
bad feelings or perhaps even panic as the last stage of the scan is done.”

“It will not matter, will this be felt as anything else than sleep anyway?” said Moira.

“We get unconscious any time we go to bed, I don’t expect this to me anything
different, as long as everything work out in your end.”

“I'll remember who I was, what I have done in the past, so it will still be me.
And all philosophers can go drown themselves, because it will not be any different!”
Moira raised her voice at the end, with a tint of hysteria.

It was obvious to Pilar that Moira now were worried. But she did not know which
response that would suit the situation best, so she replied with only a few words:
“Another sacrifice for me.” Tears started to roll down Pilar's cheeks with emotion.

“Oh there there, I love your tears and if we are successful I will see more of them!”

“I will cry for you regardless.” Stuttered Pilar. “I will be so miserable and happy.”

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