Janny soon discovered that this was the slowest spacecraft he had ever travelled in. He knew Lestili's ship was slower than Ennet and Grescin's but as far as he could remember the outside of this one was bright blue, so it probably wasn't useful for stealth purposes either.
"Interface: how often can I eat a carb-bar and not run out before I get to the Hub? I have... one moment... I have sixteen!" Janny announced, silver-wrapped bars flowing between his fingers as he rooted through the box under the dashboard.
"Destination ETA: four hours. You can eat four bars per hour until you reach your destination," the interface said. It added, "This would be eight hundred per cent of your recommended daily calorie intake."
"Ah," Janny said, closing the box. "I did not realise we were so close to the Hub. I thought Lestili and I travelled most of the night. Or, you understand, my rest cycle. I suppose everything is night around here..." He gazed out the window into the nothingness before him. "Interface, if I woke up ten minutes before we reached Lestili's Hide Hole, how much sleep did I get?"
"I transferred camera footage with the interface on the TIPO stealth craft. You had exactly one hour and thirteen minutes of sleep," the interface said. Its voice stayed even, as if that wasn't an utterly ungodly thing to hear.
Janny shook his head, blinking rapidly. "Wow. I... well.. I suppose set an alarm for four hours from now. Ah, wait, supper! Well, I suppose you don't have to wait. Go ahead and set it anyway. Three hours and fifty-five minutes sleep will have to do, I suppose."
The carb-bar was slightly sweet, but overall it was difficult to swallow all of it without something to drink.
"You'd think hydration would be important too," Janny muttered.
"Do you need access to water?" the interface asked.
Janny jumped and hit his head against the ceiling. "I... hadn't meant to say that out loud. Haven't done that in a while. Anyway, yes please."
A tray slid out the dashboard with a little cup held in a circular gap. It was only about an inch high, with a taut peel-off film lid.
"Are you sure that's not jelly?" Janny asked.
"This is a water capsule. Estimated necessary hydration for original journey. With shortened journey, as Lestili would say, go wild," the interface said, barely changing intonation even when relaying the words of the much drier Lestili.
Once he'd taken the water and replaced the capsule, he wriggled back to try and settle down. He flattened his form out the best he could, poking his feet around the sides of the carb-bar box and lengthening his neck so his head could tilt back on top of the headrest.
Janny awoke to the interface screaming at him. It wasn't loud but Janny had been having the deepest, warmest sleep he'd had since all this had started.
"What?" he snapped, desperately trying to fully open his eyes. His eyelid and cheekbone form had started to merge into each other - he really did need to get something for that - and he'd only just managed to jerk them apart.
"Repeat: incoming," the interface said.
"What? No! Oh, Gods why. Put the map on the screen, or something else useful." Janny groaned and ran his hand across his forehead. A projection appeared on the window with a little blue dot representing them, and something red coming at him from the left.
"What in the world - well, off world, I suppose - is that?" Janny exclaimed. He peered closer. "Is that another missile?"
"Identification in progress," the interface said, "Indentification in progress. Identif-"
"I get the idea!" Janny cried. He jerked his legs back from around the box and was met with a roar of pain going up his thighs He rolled up his loose black trousers that his hotel room had provided him with back on the Hub. "That can't be good... Please don't let it be another missile..."
His trousers could only be rolled up just past his knees but there were three bright green streaks poking out, straight and sharp, and they got thicker as they disappeared beneath the fabric.
"Interface: what the heck is wrong with my legs?" Janny asked. He croaked a little halfway through the sentence, eyes wide.
"Would you like me to pause identification?" the interface asked.
"No, no," Janny muttered. "Identify away. I'm sure this horror will still be here for you to diagnose later..."
"Identification complete," the interface said. "Object pursuing is a TIPO stealth ship."
"What?" Janny spluttered. "I thought Lestili was ages away!"
"If TIPO operative Lestili had begun pursuit after your last interaction she could have narrowed the distance by now, but is unlikely to have reached this far. None of surrounding TIPO ships have been identified as hers," the interface explained.
Janny frowned. Something hadn't been right there. Then his mouth opened slowly, his eyes widened and he focused on the map. "Oh. Oh no."
The red dot on the left - so like the one that had represented Lestili, though Janny supposed most red dots probably did look alike - had been joined by another by its side, and two over on the opposite side of the screen. Janny gulped. He thought perhaps he had heard somewhere that TIPO squadrons travelled in fives.
"Interface: are you sure there isn't a dot missing from this representation?" he asked, holding tight to the steering wheel to stop from shaking.
"This is an incomplete TIPO squadron," the interface said. "Additional identification suggests that the missing stealth ship is Lestili's. This is her squadron."
Janny sighed, hung his head forward. "Great. So once again, angry space people think I'm Lestili."
"High likelihood," the interface replied. "Would you like to begin evasive manoeuvres?"
"In this thing?" Janny exclaimed.
"You do not have access to any other crafts at this time."
"Well, there's no harm in trying. That's what I say," Janny said. A moment later he was upside down, the whole craft corkscrewing around. He glared at the window. As far as it was concerned, he was the right way up. "I am sure this is helping."
"Low likelihood," the interface replied.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,732 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
And hopefully I can do this and two more before I stop for the day.
First Impression: Well that was quite a fun conversation between Janny and the interface. The interface is used brilliantly to bring the humor into the situation without compromising the seriousness of the situation.
Anyway let's get to it,
Well that was indeed quite a tiny distance.
It just randomly transferred all the camera footage during Janny's entry for what reason exactly? Or did it do this on command or something?
So this has been used enough times by Lestili to pick up some of her commonly used phrases.
And this command was somehow understandable. It doesn't seem very concise to me.
Well that's interesting...I wonder what purpose that's going to serve in the four segments that are left in this story.
So that's a separate identity tag? Why did all this information not get transferred in whatever was used for the initial identification.
A great ending there. It's a cliffhanger as much as its a really funny line.
Aaand that's it for this one. Two more is what I'll manage after this I believe.
Overall: Well we are thrown into some action this time with Janny quite possibly having to take the lead. I love the way you're written the dialogue for the interface. It's very realistic to an interface and you can see Janny's hesitant and tentative commands. And now to see if Janny survives this encounter.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey Bisc!
I love the opening to this chapter. Honestly, I think the dialogue between Janny and the interface has been my favourite exchange of the story so far. It brings out a lot of Janny personality, in my opinion, in the way he's so entirely relaxed here. That probably sounds odd since he's literally talking with an interface robot guidance machine and not another being.
Janny seems surprised/shocked by this concept, which leads me to believe that this is either a lot of sleep for his species or not that much at all, and I can't tell which. I think it's "not much at all", because he goes on to say he'll sleep for another three hours, but I just wanted to let you know I wasn't too clear on that.
While I do enjoy this line and it's funny, I think it'd have even more of that comedic impact if you wrote that he was pretty sure it's jelly before hand, or he squinted at it (if he can do that), or is generally suspicious of the appearance of this water before he says this.
I don't know if Lestili programmed the interface to do this or it just has been around her long enough to recognise her behavioural patterns, but either way, it's great!
And I continue to love the interface xD
Okay! I was complaining about the lack of panic in the last "incoming" scene with the two missiles, and here you completely turned that around and I love it! Janny's panic in this scene is much more palpable. His dialogue is hurried, he panics about whatever is going on with his legs, he's frantic. There's a little more insight into his thoughts in this one as well, which I appreciate.
This is a pretty short chapter, so I think that's all I have for you today! I also started this review several days ago and never got the chance to finish it, so here's me finishing it, but I apologise if there's a blip in quality because of that!
Anyway, great job! I hope you're have a wonderful time, and I'll be back for more! <3
Alright! Let's take a look at this chapter!
""Interface: how often can" <- should be a comma after "interface" rather than colon.
So this has gotta be the most relatable moment in here, ""Destination ETA: four hours. You can eat four bars per hour until you reach your destination," the interface said. It added, "This would be eight hundred per cent of your recommended daily calorie intake."" - ha I love that bit, because even though it's from this computer interface, people definitely make those calculations all the time in modern day too.
I like that you're treating the computer interface a bit like a character, like in this section, ""This is a water capsule. Estimated necessary hydration for original journey. With shortened journey, as Lestili would say, go wild," the interface said, barely changing intonation even when relaying the words of the much drier Lestili." adding a few non-typical-computery dialogue pieces definitely makes it more endearing almost like R2D2 in starwars.
I think that Janny's emotional reactions to danger are a bit unbelievable, particularally on how they switch back and forth so quickly, I think that's alright if it's a character thing for them to always be sorta numb to danger, but I think it kind of think it should be more consistent. Like in this section at one point Janny is shaking with fear, and then the next they are doing the maneuver and Janny is just making sarcastic comments to the computer and seems more angry than scared. I wasn't really following exactly whether whatever the computer said about Lesli's squadron meant that they weren't in danger anymore, but it seemed like an odd transition to me.
Overall, this chapter was brief, but did have bits of humor and then action right at the end.
alliyah
Even though Janny's committed to this mission, I like how you can still tell he's not fully comfortable talking with the computer, through his kind of awkward, stuttering speech.
This short paragraph didn't make complete sense to me. It was screaming, but not loudly, but enough to wake him up from an amazing sleep? I get what you're trying to say, but at first glance, it's unclear to the reader.This line is hilarious.
Love the relationship (if you can call it that?) between the interface and Janny; the interface is a great comedic character, and exemplifies Janny's sense of being out of place in the role he's currently in. Good chapter.
Thanks for such a quick review!