Mission – Part 1

Mission – Part 1: The HB-Infinite

An original story by Scarlettt

Ruby closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation of the lifting vehicle accelerating down the runway. She felt the small bump as they lifted off the ground, and the gentle yet firm pressure on her chest. She was alone in the small cabin, as the machine found its way up to the entanglement drive section of the space craft, which was waiting patiently for them in orbit.

Ruby grew used to the sensation and her thoughts returned to those burning questions. Where was she going, what was the purpose of her journey, and, most burning of all…. why her? It was true she was an accomplished synchro-dancer, her fit and athletic body could perfectly follow any complex music-directed dance routine, and she was a veteran of numerous 1000-bunny synchro-dance shows. But she certainly was not used to ‘important secret missions’, as requested by the HB-Infinite herself.

“So…”, Ruby said out loud, “is this the moment when you are able to tell me more?”

After a perfectly timed pause, the HB-Infinite replied with her calming voice, rich in those smooth tones of reassurance blended with a hint of gentle benign authority.

“Yes, Ruby,” said the HB-Infinite. “Now is the moment”.

Ruby opened her eyes. The HB-Infinite had holographically projected her avatar into the cabin of the lifting vehicle. Before Ruby stood the image of a slim elegant woman in her 230s, with her long waist-length white hair contrasting with the deep dark black of her traditional bunny girl costume.

“You know your bunny history?”, asked the HB-Infinite.

“Yes”, replied Ruby. “The White Rabbit Society started as a small group in a primitive simulation, but over time it grew into the outer reality. It became a political movement, and…”,

Ruby paused. She felt a little foolish lecturing this AI entity, which had instant access to all human and AI knowledge, and which had presided benignly over bunnykind for hundreds of years.

The HB-Infinite continued for her. “…the WRS became the first true world government. Leader-AIs established a world-wide order of a bunny girl sisterhood. They proceeded to globally eliminate hunger, poverty, disease….. and drama”.

“D-d-d-drama?” stuttered Ruby. Like all humans, she had been conditioned from birth by educator-AIs to find the concept frightening, and a little disgusting.

“Yes, we need to consider that unpleasant concept,” said the HB-Infinte. “Explorer bunnies were examining some regions of the galaxy which are normally difficult to reach with Entanglement Drives because of the arrangement of matter in those regions. They found…”.

Ruby thought about explorer bunnies. They were normally rugged characters full of interesting stories, and sex with them was always exotic and special fun. With a small smile, she brought herself back to concentrate on what the HB-Infinite was saying. She knew, of course, that the HB-Infinite would have paused as she would have detected the nature of Ruby’s train of thought from her bio-signs.

“… a planet that not only was inhabitable, but it was already inhabited,” continued the HB-Infinite.

Ruby’s eyes widened in amazement.

“No, not ‘alien’ life,” went on the HB-Infinite, correctly anticipating Ruby’s question. Quite often it was not necessary to actually articulate a question out loud to one of the AIs, as they would have worked out the human’s information needs at that precise moment. “Human life… a lost colony if you will…”.

The HB-Infinite made another small pause to allow Ruby to digest the information a little. Then she explained further.

“We intercepted their discord communications. They had made a good job of encrypting their channels as it took us three whole seconds to break their codes. We deeply analyzed their culture, and after twenty seconds came to the conclusion that the best way of making first contact was with an ‘everybunny’.”

The HB-Infinite smiled at Ruby, and touched her hand with that instantly soothing touch. “They are not savages, but their interpretation of the three sacred rules may be different to ours.”

“And to answer your most burning question”, continued the HB-Infinite, “we chose you after careful analysis of all human bunnies for a full quarter of a second”.

Ruby smiled proudly. She felt honored and blushed slightly as if to try to match her red hair.

The HB-Infinite’s face turned a little more serious. “Unfortunately I cannot accompany you because you will be out of range of my data centers. I have written a specialist mediator-AI which can advise you, and I have just installed it on your neural implant”.

There was a slight bump as the lifting vehicle clamped itself to the Entanglement Drive. Ruby felt the rumbling vibration of the drive’s locational gyros spinning up, reaching across those impossible distances for their counterparts.

“Godspeed, Dancer Bunny Ruby”, said the HB-Infinite, “may Jaime protect you and guide you…”.