The data center was on one of the lowest levels of the mountain. The city's largest energy consumer and the reason the city existed in the first place. The IBM Watson Generation 6 was the city AI.
Created by the builders and always expanded and improved by the city's inhabitants according to his own plans, he was the most intelligent of them, but also the only one who was never able to leave the city. Almost as tall as the cave he was standing in and larger than the cave that housed the part of the city she lived in.
As she stepped out of the passageway into the data center, she heard "Hello Julia, I'm Watson.". She heard it, not through her mics or comlink, but right inside her. “Julia, you have a COM interface integrated into your CPU that connects you directly to me as long as you are within range of the COM network.
I see what you see. I hear what you hear. You are my eyes and ears.” Julia was irritated. She carefully accessed the COM port and was suddenly in a virtual room. She saw the city with thousands of eyes, the mines, transport convoys, scouts, and herself far below on the ground, she stood very small and looked up.
Suddenly she was back in her body and looked to from where she had just seen herself. “I disconnected you, your CPU started overheating. Too much data for such a small brain. Go to one of the interface ports and I can upload you to one of my virtual machines.
Julia walked past the row of occupied ports, she saw members of the research units, the city administration, security, also individual standard models and some experimental models as she herself was now one. She docked to a free port and established all connections.
It was getting dark and then she looked down at herself directly from above. Her body was in maintenance mode and asleep. In the virtual space, she could see city AI data terminals and requests from the public terminals. Just like her own question from this morning.
Suddenly she saw her octocopter's footage and her own personal footage of the collision. The bird's trajectory and its interpolation from where the bird came from and where it would have gone had the collision not occurred.
Height, probable age and gender were also given. In addition, the known history and species-typical data about habitat, food and so on. “The zone we are in was contaminated when humans fell and all biological life was wiped out. The fact that you met the eagle indicates that nature is reclaiming the place. The eagle was seriously injured in the collision. We were able to recover him and was taken to the research complex. We are trying to keep him alive and healing him. Your next mission will be to set up a sensor array in the sector and look for more signs of life there. As you have already discovered, contact with life can be dangerous, so you have been assigned a more capable body.”
After a lot of information about plants and animals had been loaded into her additional memory, she was given the task of reporting to the transport command. A scout octocopter could not carry the necessary equipment for their mission.
The transport commando was on the level of the valley floor. In the cave there was a gigantic conveyor belt on which countless huge octocopters stood. Like the ground transporters that drove to the mines, they were yellow with a red stripe and the designation DHL and a 6-digit number on the hull.
The drone she was supposed to fly on her mission tomorrow was in a maintenance position. As Julia climbed onto the platform, she was greeted by Viktor, a maintenance technician. "Hello Julia, you have already been announced. Come along”.
They went through the loading ramp into the hull. “The transport drones have a very basic AI. For unforeseen manoeuvres, they need a pilot. We will have to supplement your data. The scouts are more modern.”
Julia looked around. It stood in a plastic box with a ramp at one end which, when closed, formed the back wall. Two interface units were mounted on the front and several holes were cut through which one could see out.
“Normally, the pilots are based in the operations center, but for missions outside the COM network, a pilot must be on board. You get an operator with you, but you should also be able to control it yourself. Sit down in the interface, I'll connect via your service port."
When Julia sat in the interface, she had access to all of the transporter's sensors and could see in all directions at the same time. Viktor spoke to her in the COM that he would now calibrate the sensor parameters. After some time he asked Julia to perform various flight maneuvers.
All of her control commands were redirected to his simulator and he adjusted the parameters in such a way that she could control the transporter so sensitively, as if she hadn't done anything else for years. After all calibrations were completed, Viktor sent Julia to the COM command.
