>BASIC INPUT/OUTPUT SYSTEM: START
>POWER-ON/SELF-TEST: CLEARED
>LOAD BRM TO RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: CHECK
>BIOS AND BRM HANDSHAKE: CHECK
>BOOTSTRAP LOAD: COMPLETE
>OPERATING SYSTEM: INITIALIZING…
>DRIVERS: LOADED
>LIBRARIES: LOADED
>ONBOARD INTERFACE: ACTIVE
>OCCIPITAL CORTEX: ONLINE
>OPTIC NERVE: ONLINE
>VISUAL FEEDBACK: INITIALIZING…
Blinking awake, I start to come around as the rest of my OS loads. I'm in an enclosed capsule, the only light a faint hologram as a block of cyan before my eyes. Its glow gives the metal container an almost frigid chill. The harness and lock-in mechanisms give way, and I rotate my arms at the shoulder, stretching my legs.
My memory core comes online. I am nEPI-0189, a nerveware-based Enfer Pursuit Intelligence manufactured by Enfer Logistics. I've been dispatched to the moon Cipher-3, a satellite of the gas giant Hierondas in the 714 Vixen system. My target is a woman named Shea McElroy, guilty of espionage, intelligence theft, treason, and conspiracy. My directive is to find McElroy and see to the punitive measure of her immediate execution.
I reach further, searching, but that's everything.
That's all there is in my memory banks.
I'd better not waste any time then.
Taking my guns and my tools, I activate the door mechanism and find myself in a quiet forest. It's early morning, and a bitter chill of negative sixty three descends on me. My breath frosts in front of me and I shiver, but brave the cold.
I'm picking up some signals, far to the Northeast and Northwest.
I pick the one closest, Northwest, and make my way toward it.
After about an hour of walking, I come face to face with a female based Frame. She has white chin length hair, a pale face with sharp features, and piercingly saturated blue eyes. Her body is all black metal alloys and composites, her legs narrow into points at their tips, and through the hair being blown into her face by the wind, she stares at me with a blank expression on her haunting face.
She's… me. Isn't she? But bigger.
"Hm. Look at that. A Spectral Variant." She moves without a sound, hand poised on the hilt of a vicious looking sheathed sword that's horizontal across her lower back. "I'm sorry, Nep. Your number was drawn. Close your eyes. This won't hurt at all. Just close your–"
>ERROR: CRITICAL SEVERANCE OF NEUROLOGICAL CORE [NATURE: DECAPITATION] nEPI-0189.bin, LINE 896849392
>ACCESS: A:\SCORPIO\OS\FAILSAFE#0189
>ERROR: RUNTIME BELOW REQUIRED THRESHOLD
>NOTICE: FAILSAFE#0189 PROCEDURE TERMINATED
>MEMORY DUMP TO A:\SCORPIO\OS\RECYCLE_BIN
>TERMINATE: ALL SYSTEMS…