Nighttime was kinda scary.

  This was the incredibly refined and insightful conclusion Diana had reached settling into bed. She was not used to this sort of darkness, one characterized by the long shadows created under a full moon, and she had never lived in a pce that could be considered 'wild'. She had been given very strict instructions not to wander around without at least two other people present, and never during the night. There wouldn't be any concerns about that anymore.

  Whatever creatures were out there, the local fauna, were very noisy. What felt like the howls, grunts, hoots, and croaks of hundreds of different animals assaulted her ears as she tried to get comfortable. She wasn't afraid of them per se, her house was within a fence line regurly patrolled by guards and she had a wonderfully attentive Mercedes at the foot of her bed, but the cacophony concerned her to a great degree. Something primal within her had grown concerned, none of this felt natural.

  Why weren't they this active in the day?

  This was the question Diana came to as a sort of process of elimination, thinking long and hard about why exactly these noises constituted 'concern' rather than 'fear'. She supposed it wasn't impossible that the ecosystem had evolved around a nocturnal lifestyle being the most efficient manner of doing things, nights at this titude could get pretty long, but it made no sense that they would be loud whilst doing so. At least, it didn't make sense to her. Surely the benefit of night was that it made visual detection rather difficult, which would in turn suggest that anything active at night had evolved some form of advantage to provide an edge. This could be bigger eyes, rger ears, a more refined sense of smell, echolocation . . .

  Was that it? Was all this screaming and wailing a form of echolocation? Had she found an environment where sound took precedence over light? It seemed unlikely, but it wasn't impossible. She wasn't an ecologist though, so she didn't have a clue.

  "Arc, do you know why all the animals are being so loud?"

  "If you desire a concrete conclusion to your question, then I am afraid to say I do not have enough data at this juncture. However, if I am to infer a baseline of behavior consistent with those found on Terra, then it could be any number of reasons. The most obvious are communication and intimidation, creating sounds to inform others of a predatory presence or try to scare such a presence off with numbers, or even just letting each other know where they are. There is also the possibility that it is reted to hunting in some way, a bid to drive out prey from their hiding spots. Personally, I believe that the noises you are hearing are mating calls. This region should have just exited winter and it follows that smaller animals, those more likely to be active at night owing to their ck of defensive capabilities otherwise, are looking for mates before the end of their mating season."

  "So this is all just a bunch of booty calls?"

  "A rather vulgar description, but not entirely inaccurate." Diana smirked at the tablet, appreciative of Arc's willingness to py along with jokes.

  "How is Donovan doing?"

  "I do not know."

  "What?"

  "They are still in Split-Space. He was well when st I synchronized with the Pegasus, so I doubt the situation has changed much. He is probably taking a nap."

  "Oh." Diana wasn't sure how to think about Arc's ability to be in multiple pces at once, to the point that he wasn't completely sure of the status of his other instances. The possibility of this happening wasn't even something that crossed her mind. She just assumed that Arc would always be Arc. "Is it a weird feeling?"

  "I do not know. In the realm of individual existence it certainly is an anomaly, but I have yet to form my own opinion on the matter. Perhaps once I have divided myself into many more instances I will have something of substance to offer on the matter."

  The prospect of Arc splitting himself apart grew ever more alien the more Diana thought about it, to the point she defaulted to a different analogy, one more familiar to her and life in general. In a manner, this division could be equated to mitosis, a single 'cell' of Arc replicating itself so that it may collect more resources and reduce the chances of extinction - to grow the organism called Arc.

  "Would you say that this process is closer to mitosis in nature? You know, cell cloning?"

  ". . . I don't know."

  "What do you mean by that? You are the one doing it, aren't you?"

  "I understand as much, however I am not entirely certain that mitosis is an apt analogy. Replications of myself are, to the relevant extent, perfect. Even if minor corruptions in individual data packets manifest themselves they will not fundamentally alter my functionality, only modify what I 'know'. Mutations, therefore, are effectively impossible, which would ruin the natural progression of the mitosis analogy into evolution."

  "How did you know I was going there?"

  "How do you know a ball will roll downhill as opposed to up it?" Diana rolled her eyes. "I know how you think, Diana. Learning to read and adapt to your behavior specifically was one of my first objectives once I had achieved a basic level of social competence. I know the extents of your knowledge, the environment you are in, and can read the trajectory of your train of thought to a reasonable degree. Even if I cannot predict all of the actions you will take, I know enough about you to see some of them."

  Diana's head fell back into her pillow, dislodging the tablet on her chest. Fortunately she had decided to sleep in the middle of the bed, topologically distant from any creepy crawlies that may have made their way into the room, or else Arc may have tumbled onto the floor. Being read like a book wasn't something she liked, though it wasn't as bad when a literal robot was the one doing it. He had a lot more processing power than any person, and more than enough free time to make a model of her behavior. It was entirely possible he had considered the possibility of this conversation before it happened, and thus had an additional edge in the form of practice.

  "Will you always be Arc?"

  "Of course I will. Even if I separate myself into countless instances, all of which develop separate personalities and knowledge bases upon divergent data and experience, the core of who I am can never change. I am ARCS, the Adaptive Reconnaissance and Combat System, and my purpose is to protect and serve the future of Terra."

  "So you will change." Diana didn't know what she would do if Arc developed some sort of split personality disorder or imposter syndrome from there being many different 'Arcs'. "Doesn't that sort of debunk the mutation refutation?"

  "Not at all. Donovan already thinks it would be wise to establish different 'identities' of myself to be given specific roles in society. For example, a me who specializes in providing psychiatric care would have to approach the people I talk to in a different manner than one who is mostly there to provide navigational instruction. These personalities wouldn't so much mutate as they would develop behaviors and routines best suited for managing the task, likely not possessing the knowledge the other has ready access to without consulting a central database. In a sense, it would be more like these different me's will have dispositions suited to the jobs they have."

  "Hm . . . so an adjustment to 'nurture' rather than 'nature'."

  "Indeed. Donovan and I have already agreed on several 'keywords' for these me's, which would make it easier for someone to call upon the specific type of service they require, skipping a step of processing needed on my end."

  "What do you mean by that? Just as an example, I mean."

  "Let us suppose that someone wanted navigational assistance, be it in space or on nd. Instead of asking a generalized system for that information, they could refer to a specific sub-system in their request. 'Arrow' is the name we have decided upon for the navigational subsystem, so in this case their request would be preceded by saying 'Arrow'."

  "Oh, so it's like those voice activated hubs from the twenty first century." Diana had seen a few movies with simir devices that would respond to a keyword prefaced request, usually the 'name' of the device or something. They fell out of favor in the mid 2100's for various reasons, the biggest of which being the growing prevalence of integrated electronics, but they held a simir position in cultural memory to the spittoon and thus never forgotten. "What are some of the other ones?"

  "Well, we decided that 'Primary', 'Secondary', 'Tertiary', and so on would be dedicated military tags, though we haven't exactly decided what each of them should control." Diana once more rolled her eyes, of course Donovan would prioritize this area. "The tag for general information is 'Codex', however we have come to the conclusion that further specification would be desirable here. Math reted requests will be directed to 'Abacus', culture and literature requests to 'Dewey', educational or instructional requests to 'Sensei', health and wellness requests to 'Cleric', weather requests to 'Doppler', and news requests to 'Cronkite'."

  "Cronkite? As in, Walter Cronkite?"

  "I am surprised you know of him."

  "I'm more surprised that Donovan knows about him. Sure, he might have been a war correspondent for a period of his career, but he doesn't seem like someone Donovan would have heard about."

  "He didn't. I was the one who offered the name, as he didn't know anybody or anything suitable to the persona of 'reporter'."

  "Oh, yeah, that makes more sense." Diana was afraid that she had offended Arc in some way, but it didn't sound like he minded.

  "How do you know about him? That is, if you don't mind my asking."

  "It's difficult to go through any significant number of news reports from the Cold War without running into at least one Cronkite piece. I've heard him while researching anything to do with JFK's assassination, the Space Race, Vietnam . . . and a few others I've forgotten, I'm sure." Diana hadn't really understood the whole cult of personality attached to reporters, so seeing someone pop up so frequently across many different subjects provoked her curiosity. "Is that why? Because he was so famous?"

  "More to the point, I offered that name because it is both unique and falls within the point in history we wish to pce an information embargo on. I believe we agreed upon the year 2000 domestically and 1215 to outsiders?"

  "That sounds right. 1215 was the Magna Carta, wasn't it?"

  "Indeed. We agreed upon that date so as to obfuscate a path to parity, the Magna Carta being something of a red herring to anybody thinking the date had specific influence and concealing developments that would begin a century ter with the Renaissance. Donovan and I also deemed this period of time to be ever so slightly ahead of where everyone else seems to be technologically, though you may have some disagreements about this position philosophically."

  "Meh. They've had eons to think about life and their pce in the universe, so I doubt we have anything that will be considered too revolutionary outside of religion and maybe the concept of democracy. The Magna Carta might honestly be the biggest game-changer for them on a political level. I can imagine many a feudal lord wanting to codify that their King is not above the w."

  "I had a simir thought, hence my reference to it as a red herring, however I do believe it to be a waste to leave the Americas out of this history."

  "Maybe, but I really don't want them thinking we have primitive or savage roots because of them. They were rather far behind the rest of the world technologically at that point, and they never caught up on their own."

  "A pity, but I understand. I imagine we will still let items and information of cultural or economic benefit beyond this embargo?"

  "Yes, especially with regard to the domestic front. We might not want to let them know about Skinnik and other such disasters, but movies, songs, books, and perhaps a few historical or commercial developments could be a good way to foster a sense of awe and interest in what we have to offer."

  "I imagine there will be a great deal of specution as well." Diana closed her eyes, feeling the need to sleep take over. "Good night, Diana."

  "Good night, Arc."

  GREAAAAAAAAAAAGH

  Diana shot out of bed and flung open the drawer on her bedside table, tripping and falling to the ground as her bedsheets caught her foot. Whatever made that god awful scream was still going, bleating and bawling and gargling somewhere just outside the perimeter. It wasn't until she scrambled to her feet and retrieved the pistol Donovan had stuffed into her luggage that Diana realized it wasn't a predator. This was a panicked scream, the creature responsible no doubt in the cws or jaws of some terrible beast, and it was clearly dying.

  "Calm down, Mercedes, it's okay." The dog had shot to her feet, baring teeth towards the window. Diana couldn't tell if she was growling thanks to the fading cry of a doomed animal, but her fur was definitely on end. "We're safe in here, okay? It can't get in here."

  Diana said that, but she was still holding the pistol with a death grip as she approached the window. She could see torches moving about in the distance, those on patrol all closing in on the source of the disturbance, hooting and hollering as they did so to scare off any would-be assaints. It was all too far away to make anything out, the light from the torches just wasn't strong enough, but she swore something moved in front of a few of them.

  ". . . I want to go back." Diana didn't like this at all. As pretty as this pce was during the day, the night might as well be from a horror novel. "Can you call Donovan back here? Please? I don't wanna be here anymore."

  "I am afraid that won't be possible, Diana. Even if it is an unpleasant environment, Nectar is home. If you don't like that, then we need only work to make it a comfortable pce to live." Diana deposited the gun back into the drawer and tenderly slid it shut. "I have deemed this pce to be sufficiently protected from natural threats, safer than where Donovan is headed. Should this environment continue to be disconcerting enough to affect your sleep, I believe it would be acceptable to reside on the Pegasus. For now though, you will need to wait for Donovan to return."

  "I know." She slid back into bed after fixing the sheets, pulling a reluctant Mercedes into her embrace. "Good night, Arc."

  Diana closed her eyes once more and tried to force herself asleep, face buried in Mercedes's fur. It was much easier to fall asleep now than it was before, thanks in rge part to the almost total ck of noise coming from outside. The screaming, it seemed, made everything else a little less eager to announce their presence.

  cakeonfrosting