'A cluster of AI'

Who: Dysart
Where: Holly's core
When: 10 minutes afterwards
<snip>
The Comms unit on Dysart's chest hiss to life.
[Dysart...? Dysart... are you okay?] Rufu's voice filtered through.
Twinges of pain skipped across his body while his taxed hydraulics
pulled himself to his feet. A single plastic snap returned as a thumb
pressed the return button. The static silenced and Dysart responded.
"I'm fine... I'll call you back when I need you. Try to do what you
can to get that door open."
<end snip>
Dysart's eyes flickered across the painted green corridor. Although
his night vision was bottom of the line, it was certainly nice to have
even if it required the illumination from a handy torch.
This part of the Blue Dwarf had, surprisingly, remained in pristine
condition. The feeling was akin to walking into the twilight zone.
Somewhere, somehow, there was a Blue Dwarf that *didn't* require
cleaning or maintenance.
The mere thought boggled the mind.
His plastic suited feet clattered into a wide-filled area. The heat
wafting off the towers was so intense that it started to tax Dysart's
cooling system. This really wasn't saying much, standing too close to
a hot curry would do the same.
The giger counter began to skip around from 2000-4000 rads, more than
twice the amount to kill a normal human. He was going to need more
than a little scrub down to get all this crap off him.
Suddenly light flooded the room as a humungous flat screen monitor
flickered to life. Holly's glorious balding face quickly filled the
black void.
His large eyes rolled down to contact directly with Dysart's, the two
AI's stared at each other as though deers with shoulder-mounted
floodlights had encountered one another.
"Oh... hello Dysart, accidentally send a tanoy down here... didn't
expect you in my room." The AI stated with the same surprise and
horror as though a woman spotting her boyfriend trying on her knickers.
"Yeah... hi Holly, just... uhh... I'm just retrieving an AI backup."
The robot responded sheepish, holding up Rufus' modified light bee.
The massive-faced AI features softened slightly but the uneasy tone
remained. His eyes moved over to the left and an old lighting fixture
crackled to life.
"Tara Febuggure, yeah? She's over there."
Dysart flashed the genius intelligence a quick grin. "Thanks! Wait,
how did you know that I was looking for her?"
Holly, being only a head could only give a facial approximation of a
shrug. "Only a matter of time really, I knew Rufus was looking for a
way to bring her back. I'm surprised it took him this long to think of
it."
The robot arrived at the data entry terminal, his arm brushed away at
the console only to be mildly surprised at the lack of dust. "Why
didn't you suggest it before?"
Holly looked down at him with an uncharacteristically somber tone.
"Because I only offer advice when I think that it'd work. You can't
bring Tara back. Not really. A hologram might be a great copy but it's
still just a copy. How many Elvis impersonators have you seen that
have taken up his old career and married his wife?"
This managed to get a rise out of Dysart, even if he wasn't entirely
sure why. "HEY! A hologram isn't a copy! We're our own selves!"
"Wasn't saying that you where any less because you where a copy. I'm
just saying that you're meant to imitate that you aren't; kind of like
this PBEM really...."
Dysart blinked rapidly. "What?"
"'Nothin." Holly quickly stated, turning away.
The Machine coughed and spluttered to life, a jammed fan managed to
snap off one of its blades only for the rest of its twins to carry on
the job.
"Alright... let's see... 'Tara'." Dysart's fingertips clattered away
at the keyboard as names sped past his eyes. "Hmmm... that's
strange... the data looks scattered... over written by... JOHN WAYNE
MOVIES!?!"
Dysart turned back to the AI, his face an avatar of fury, outrage and
other general irate emotional descriptors.
Holly once again have another shrug. "Well, the skutters had to store
it somewhere. They keep the place clean and they can store their stuff."
Like a mad pianist, the robot's finger tips returned to slamming on
the keyboard. "Dammit... okay, I've got as much data as I can. It was
fragmented but hopefully worth it."
Dysart pulled a line from the computer and plugged it into the end of
the light bee.
"Download complete. Okay, please oh please let this work." The
Hacker/Janitor thumbed the on switch and underhanded the small object
a few meters to his front where it hung in mid air.
Should he be lucky, within two minutes this will be Tara Febuggure.
Should he be unlucky... well... let's just hope she didn't have hex
vision.
The lightbee let out a standard loading sound and quickly the
environment around it twisted and shaped. All the colours in Dysart's
visible spectrum danced before him. The physical outline of a new
hologram filled out, an image that was undoubtedly female. The Dark
blue Jumpsuit flickered to life as a crop of blonde hair cascade down
from her head like a sprout of wheat. The fair-faced woman, roughly 21
years of age gently open her blue eyes.
As though suddenly slapped in the face 'Tara' began to blinking
rapidly. Her eyes scanned up and down the darkened room, vaguely
recognising the shapes and voice around her. She finally took one
prolonged, fearful look at Dysart and mumbled.
"Oh god, I'm a hologram aren't I?"