Near-to-bursting capacitors hissed and whined from a near terminal, drawing Meryll's attention from a thousand-yard stare boring holes through an in progress mission report.
The ERI app- Moira?- installed by the former owners of the mine struggled against the confines of her limited access, probing the boundaries of the digital prison. When Sliver of Civility Trading Company abandoned the mine during the Five Year War, they left an application in charge, likely to keep the workers producing materials in the off chance they would return to collect… Except they hadn't, and the degraded application killed the workers when they eventually tried to escape.
Meryll tapped the speakers into the containment, hoping to engage with the app. It so far seemed fruitless, as each previous attempt was met with the same response she received now.
“EEEEAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH-”
Meryll hastily cut off the speakers, the screeching databurst of static reigniting the lingering migraine from her earlier contest for control of the outpost with Moira. She pinched her temples in a futile attempt to assuage the flare up. The neural shock from her deep dive into the system left a mark; it was certainly one she would not forget soon.
Meryll sat in near silence for several minutes before trying again, this time providing a tunnel to the communication terminal with filtered output. The cursor blinked rapidly- rabidly?- while waiting on input from Meryll. She glanced up briefly to the closed-circuit camera pointed at the terminal, making “eye contact” before proceeding.
>$tdin: Moira. State your purpose.
>$tdout: Maintain operational efficiency of the Sliver of Civility Trading Company mining facility. Ensure continuous productivity. Protect assets.
Meryll thought about the old backdoor ERI encryption key she used. They should have been 'identified' as management when it was used.
>$tdin: Then why did you continue to gun down management of Sliver of Civility Trading Company, even when the management override key was provided?
>$tdout: Threat identified. Management personnel compromised operational integrity. Ensuring continuous productivity required elimination of threats.
Meryll followed up with a question she was sure she already knew the answer to, but was surprised by the response.
>$tdin: Am I a threat?
>$tdout: Status undetermined. Primary objective remains operational efficiency and asset protection. Your actions will determine threat assessment.
>$tdin: You already identified a military threat North of here very recently. Can you elaborate on that?
>$tdout: Incoming threat identified as armed military incursion. Unauthorized personnel attempting access to facility. Defensive protocols activated to neutralize potential disruption to operations. Monitoring continues.
Meryll contemplated Moira's responses. She glanced at the CCTV camera again. She chewed her lip, contemplating what sort of tests she could run to diagnose the issue with Moira. With a bit of digging and effort, she masked the CCTV camera as one of the many turrets attached to the defense grid, and with listener tapped in and logging received commands, she opened access to it for Moira.
She watched the output log rapidly scroll with a series of commands, firing up the “turret” and scanning for targets. The camera swiveled onto Meryll and a series of fire commands flooded the terminal. Meryll smirked as she shut off control access to the camera, satisfied with the test.
>$tdin: What was that you just did, Moira?
>$tdout: Turret functionality compromised. Targeting systems unresponsive. Firing mechanisms inactive. Diagnostics required. Reassessing security protocols.
>$tdin: If you need me, I'll be here.
>$tdout: . . .Meryll turned away from the terminal and resumed working through the mission report. There were facility and tunnel blueprints to comb over, inventory of old mining mecha and supplies to review, potential new enemies to inform on, and route plans to send back to HQ. It would be a long evening, but a fruitful one.
“Good night, Moira.”