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Location: Taba Border Station, Lab 01
Stardate: 0404 822 A.S.

You have been making good time over the corridors at Taba Station since you arrived, with one particular thing in your mind - getting as soon as possible to that Lab. "Lab 01...why wouldn't he wanted to meet in another place? After all, I understand this is not where the AI Unit will be located anyways..." you said to yourself as you were rushing through the corridors, passing room after room. An uncanny feeling started to take over as you approached your final destination. Your inquisitive mind gave you little choice not to wonder about all this secrecy; at bottom, it was only involving a sentient AI, "...but could it be more to it than meets the eye?"

Faced with the sealed slider-doors you reach in your pocket for the access code. One glance at the datapad, few buttons pressed and you're in. A holographic terminal thrones the room surrounded by a few consoles, all looking like they haven't been tampered with for a while now. As you enter, you can observe a couple of bio-growth canisters. "These must belong to that biologist I am sharing the workspace with...could have been worse I guess." You stare at the room, from one side to the other only to notice in the back of it what it looks like a fabrication pod, covered up with a cloth. You close the distance to it, unveil it...."Chamber Z" ... a hulk of metal, plates and wires lies in the fabrication pod. It is dusted and has a certain sadness in it's look ... "Amators!"

You turn around to the holographic terminal and to your surprise you find a document case on a table near it. "Rubbish....hmmmm...rubbish...not worth looking into it even..." At one point you stop over a file consisting of some technical data. "This is not totally worthless after all..." you said to yourself after reading a few lines of this Technical Data. You get your datapad and download a section marking some of the terms in it.

TAVIA Technical Data Section

Chapter One.

Zero law of thermodynamics.

You, my dear reader, know how this universe works. You probably tell that there is some laws, reactions, forces, particles, waves and so on. But how these things are connected to each other? What makes us think that we can implement right law to solve problem. Maybe laws isn't the right word after all? Who even likes to remember hundreds of rules anyway? What if, my dear reader, we will replace word law with another word: principle. So, zero principle of thermodynamics says: that closed system, regardless of the initial state in the end comes to a state of thermodynamic equilibrium and can not leave it by itself. How it can affect your daily life? Do you even need this information? Honestly, I do not care. You , of course, may start an argument saying something like: " Why you even wasting my time telling me that facts? Why font size is too small?" or even "My eyes are bleeding." I have an answer for this question.

Because I can

Charles went into this room with mixed feeling of joy and anger. Mark Neumann dig him from his fine, clean, safe hole and told him to work again for humanity. Mother[censored]er. But he had to admit that Omicrons became even more weird place. Compare it to X-58. Funny fact is that noone, exept Cerebrus, even remebers it. Cereberus now is a history.
Right?
"What is that?" Charles tried to understand for what are all those tanks. But seems they were murky enough to hide truth about themselves. O'rhu was paranoid. Definately. All those redacted and classified. Guards are almost everywhere. Charles've never liked all those spy games. Way too wierd ones to play. He looked around and decided to wait for his new roommate.

Location: Taba Border Station, Lab 01
Stardate: 0404 822 A.S.

You walked to the other side of the room, across the access door and hidden yourself there as if you were trying to startle anyone who would enter; a moment of respite for your troubled by now mind concerning O'Rhu, their intentions, the secrecy and all that. As your wait in that gloomy corner prolonged you started feeling more at ease with all around - the growth tanks stopped being so murky, the tangled wires on that metal hulk started making a bit of sense; it was clear, your curiosity was taking over...

The slider doors opened with a low hissing. You could see a young male entering, in his 20s, dark-haired, average looking, wearing a rather tattered lab-coat, his attention focused on the small glass jar in his hands. He placed the jar on the table next to the growth tanks, picked up a datapad and begun consulting it. You sat there and observed all of this, without a sound... He did not see you in that dark corner of the room, nor did he looked like he was expecting anyone. However one could notice he was not at ease with all here from the way he was shifting his weight repeatedly, bitting his nails or that shortness of breath he was experiencing.

"Good day, Mr. Charles" you could hear form the middle of the room as soon as the holographic feed came online portraying a male individual you recognized to be Orack. "I presume you already met Andor here. " you turned your face to see the poor boy in a state of discomposure most likely caused by your sight . You nodded slightly implying you have indeed met the young man that just now realized your presence here. "I know all is a big mess in-there but I trust you will manage to figure out what is what, considering Aldor's assistance. Well then, I let you two piece together all the other bits and bobs. Meanwhile, I will make sure the items on this...* showing a datapad containing various materials *...arrive there asap.* The video feed stopped and you were left facing your newly appointed partner.

Charles looked at Andor. "Hey are you okay over there?" He tried to be as freindly as he could. "I'm Charles Krill. Argus Cell. Cerberus." He countinued: " So let's talk about your scientifical works,eh? You, know I don't remember all papers. So, please, tell me more about your field of work and how you will be usefull here." Bots and bits. Order lost much of it's technological might. Bots and bits. Charles could argue with Orack. But he's just a soldier. No point.....at all. He turned to his new partner. "Tell me, son. what it means to have free will. What is free will?......And What are you wlling to sacrifice to achieve our goal?"

Location: Taba Border Station, Lab 01
Stardate: 0404 822 A.S.

Andor took a step back looking at this figure postured in front of him. He was still startled from the first encounter but seemed to regain composure as time passed. He pulled a pair of thick framed glasses out of his pocket and put them on. With a slight gesture he invited you to take a look over on one of the apparatus near his side of the Lab. You closed the distance rather quickly and soon you were facing a screen portraying some interconnected cells, pulsating and vibrant under the scrutiny of that machine. With an intrigued look on your face you were demanding and explication.

[Image: NRKnALMb.png]

"These are biological neural connectors, I've studied them for a while now..." said Andor while focusing the machine for a better look "...they are quite amazing, transferring all that information in an instant, don't you think?" You nodded as if all was clear as crystal even though your eyes were betraying that gesture. Andor was too caught up to even notice that. "We tried to mimic this pattern to make the AI processing unit better communicate with it's mainframe..." continued Andor "...it worked, at least some part." You could see the young man scratching his head a bit unconvinced of his last affirmation. Andor moved immediately to the empty growth tank near the husked droid and continued his speech about the neural connectors, leaving you no time to ask more about that obvious 'almost success'. "This AI, well, they want it to have a physical instance, flesh and blood so to say, apart from the regular mainframe. A physical presence, connected to the mainframe, it's impersonation." said the young biologist, this time trying to see if his interlocutor is still listening. Convinced to be so after catching your eyes starring him he concluded "And that is why I am here, I guess..."

Location: Taba Border Station, Docking bay 06
Stardate: 1604 822 A.S.

As soon as the freighter berthed at the unloading platform a dozen of men waiting for this exact moment started unloading the cargo, pod by pod, crate by crate, without delay and in such an orderly fashion it could make one think twice if they are humans or machines. As the work seemed to make progress a man distanced itself from the group bearing O'Rhu's coat-of-arms. He passed swiftly through the warehouse and made it's way through the hallways, empty at that late hour. He stopped in front of the first Intercom in his way and pressed a few buttons. "Your cargo has arrived..it took me a while but I've managed to get everything on that list. My guys are unloading it as we speak and they got instructions to deliver it to the Lab as you see fit, just send them a word at Warehouse B3." A voice responded "Jason, I started to think you might have forgotten me here, me and Andor....I must say it took you a while, I guess Order's promptitude is not what it used to be? Who did you have to bribe or kill to get all of this?"Jason stood there, trying not to respond in a rush way to the little banter. "A few bribes here and there to some freelancer go a long way, Charles, but that takes time..." he took a deep breath, trying to remember all the faces he met during this last task. He could not help thinking of one freelancer in particular who managed to baffle his mind, but decided to keep that to himself for now and continued"...I will send you the manifest, have a look on it, you will see all the stuff is there. Jason pulled out his datapad and uploaded the file on the datahub near him

Donwloading Cargo Manifest

Charles looked at intercom panel and glanced at Andor."Seems we have a message. " He walked to consol and listened carefully that message. "Good to know that you brought all this. Except beer.....Let's say, Mr.Neumann won't get it." He turned to Andor: Seems we have what we need. I think we'll start from basic bluebox frame with BNP elements in it. Building hardware is easy. But to make that hardware work......well. Sometimes it doesn't work as expected." Charles remembered how it ended last time.
He turned to Andor again: " Get ready, son. We're not in Kansas anymore."

Location: Taba Border Station, Lab 01
Stardate: 1704 822 A.S.

After the last crate with supplies was deposited in the annex room next to the Lab, Andor went to the holographic terminal and started searching TAVIA's documentation case. Charles stood there and watched all his moves. At one point, Andor stops, pulls out a slim file a bit crumpled with a name engraved on the cover: A. Pau. He steps towards you and handed it over without saying a word. You pick up the file on the cover of which you find the name of the paper... "Artificial Neural Network....interesting...how come I haven't seen this the first time?" You skimmed along the pages one after the other only to stop when your attention was caught by a certain diagram.

Location: Taba Border Station, Lab 01
Stardate: 2304 822 A.S.

The work on the AI Core was making slow progress. Not because of Andor's inability in the domain of theory-crafting computer units, Charles had enough knowledge in that field to cover up for the young scientist's blanks, nor because the lack of materials, those being already supplied. The trick was the Artificial Neural Network schematics that Andor gave to Professor Krill; valid nevertheless, but transferring it into a physical reality was a totally different story. As Charles mentioned they were not in Kansas anymore.

The fabrication process was tedious with a lot of trial-and-error jobs, a lot of fabrication involved, most done from scrap and, to top it off, the base schematics Andor's employers insisted to be used, though true in design were but flimsy drawings. Charles had to make necessary adjustments, considering all that he learned from his past experiences to even make them a viable possibility.

All this time Andor was watching as a the new AI processing unit was coming into place piece by piece, every little step taken being one more step towards the final goal - getting TAVIA operational as a sentient AI unit. The job of making the husked droid laying in the fabrication pod a working unit was to take place at the same rate as the AI Core.

Location: Thabit Station, Directorate Office
Stardate: 0105 822 A.S.

Jason looked over the report sent from Taba's Lab 01. The progress done by Charles was indeed remarkable. The AI Core took shape in a bit over a week and they were trying now to see its functionality. "Charles!?" said Jason as he opened a direct line to Lab 01 "...Charles..." The scientist responded with almost blunted affection. "How is the prototype going?" Charles proceeded to his characteristic ways and replied "The same as yesterday Jason, but a bit better. You know, all this interruptions only keeps me from finishing this job..." Jason would have been baffled in another circumstance, but he got the hang of his discourteous nature. "Well, this is not the only reason I've contacted you. There is more to it and I am sure you'll be glad to hear it" Charles's curious nature was both a quality and a fault. He puffed out as if to continue. "As soon as you get me a test of the Core we will be moving it to it's more final location. Give me a word when all is completed and you're ready for the test." Jason closed the channel and sat his head in his hands...

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Charles Krill

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Charles Krill

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Charles Krill

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