Tiny Raven

Frisk watched the spaceport from her hiding place among pallets and shipping crates waiting to be loaded. Her stomach twisted with anxiety at the sheer number of people around her, the open space.

Every time someone came too close to her hiding spot, Frisk flinched away, back into the shadows. She jumped at any sound that managed to break above the cacophony of noise the filled the port. She was on edge – unable to stop shaking, to stop checking over her shoulder for anyone who might be searching for her.

Some small, primitive part of her mind begged for her to go back, to return to the endless white hallways and impassive researchers and plea for forgiveness.

She was a nervous wreck.

She should be catatonic with fear.

Chara was the only reason she remained somewhat functional. The AI was keeping her in a careful balance – alert enough to react to any threat, but calm enough that she could still think.

‘What now?’ Chara asked as Frisk fell back into her hiding spot.

“You’re the brains of this operation,” Frisk muttered in response. “Shouldn’t you be telling me?”

Not that there were many options to choose from. Staying on Huginn was right out. It would be impossible with the Cloister looking for her. Doctor Calibri had the connections to bring all of Allfather down on her.

“We have to get off planet,” Frisk said, hoping to talk through the problem. “Get as far from Huginn and Allfather as possible.”

Which would be difficult when the entire star system was under their control.

‘Obviously,’ Chara said, unimpressed. The AI flickered into being in Frisk’s peripheral vision, a ghost only she could see. ‘And here I thought you might have some useful input. I supposed I should be glad you’re not suggesting we go back.’

“Thanks,” Frisk said dryly, annoyance bleeding through her fear. “Do you have any helpful advice?”

‘You were expecting me to be helpful?’ Chara asked, false innocence dripping from the words. ‘If you want useful advice you have to ask useful questions.’

“Is now really the best time for this?” Frisk hissed. Chara didn’t answer, seeming content to wait for their host to fall in line. “A ship would be our best option … ”

There were a handful of ships docked. Small pleasure yachts with  minimal crew, mostly meant for short sub-orbital flights. They would be difficult to sneak aboard, nearly impossible to hide on long enough to escape Huginn. Frisk’s attention drifted further, toward the space elevator where organic and automated roustabouts loaded freight.

“… Unless we sneak onto that.”

She could probably do it, if she hid among the cargo. An extra 50 kilos would be nothing compared to the megatons the elevator regularly handled.

‘Too risky,’ Chara said. ‘There’s too many things that could go wrong. Vacuum exposure, hypoxia, being crushed by unsecured or shifting cargo … It’s not impossible, but I strongly recommend against it.’

Frisk nodded in reluctant agreement. If she was at peak performance she would probably risk it – but the most recent round of testing had left her with little room for error.

She had no wish to die on her first day of freedom.

“Our only option is one of those ships,” she said as she turned away from the space elevator again. She frowned, “They’re all so small.”

‘I’ll look at the options – there must be one that will fit your requirements.’ Chara said. ‘While I do, you should figure out a strategy to get on board.’

The AI ghost vanished without another word, leaving Frisk alone with her thoughts. She brushed her fingers through her short hair, catching on a snarl. With a huff she returned to the shadows to try untangling it as she considered her options.

The most obvious choice was to simply approach a crew and request room and board. Straightforward and to the point.

But she had nothing to exchange. Her worldly possessions were the clothes she wore and a few survival items she had managed to squirrel away in her inventory. Bottled water and ration bars were useful in the Cloister, but she doubted they were worth much out here.

She could ask for work, pay her way through labor. But she had seen the expressions of those few people she hadn’t quite managed to hide from. The oversized clothes she had been able to steal couldn’t hide the result of nearly a month of near-starvation. Her skin translucently pale, sunken eyes, hollowed cheeks …

Even if she was able to mask all of that somehow, there were bound to be questions. Questions she couldn’t answer. She had no past, no history, no family or home.

And when – not if – the Cloister came looking for her …

No one owed her their allegiance. She wasn’t stupid enough to believe that hard work would keep anyone from turning her in – especially if there was a reward.

“Any news?” she asked as she leaned against the crates with a heavy sigh.

‘No,’ Chara answered. ‘No BOLOs, no missing person reports … there’s absolutely nothing about you. Nothing public, at least.’

The news was less reassuring than Frisk had hoped.

Her disappearance had to have been noticed by now. The facility’s surveillance was omnipresent, and it was monitored by a very dedicated AI. Her absence had to have been noticed and reported by now.

She couldn’t believe otherwise.

They had to be looking for her.

… So why were there no notices or reports?

She had to assume the Cloister was keeping the search for her quiet for now. Maybe they had assumed she wouldn’t be able to get far from the facility, so were limiting their search. Eventually – sooner, rather than later – they would begin looking further afield.

Eventually they would look here.

‘I found a ship!’

Chara’s victorious cry derailed Frisk’s train of thought, and her mind stalled as it failed to process Chara’s exclamation.

“W-What?”

‘I. Found. A. Ship!’ the AI repeated, enunciating each word. ‘I’ll show you.’

Frisk hesitated a moment, taking a deep breath, before allowing Chara to ‘drive’. She closed her eyes as she felt her consciousness get dragged from her body, the sensation terrifying and dizzying.

She didn’t think she would ever get used to the feeling of being an observer in her own skin. Her senses hazy and filtered, experienced through a fog of dissociated detachment, secondhand and muted.

Chara took a moment to recalibrate, flexing Frisk’s fingers and toes, bending and stretching. Frisk wondered if the AI found it as strange to be in a body as it felt for her to be out of it.

‘Get on with it,’ Frisk hissed as the moment stretched on and her discomfort grew.

‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Chara sniped back. ‘Maybe if you actually told me about the fractured metatarsal, or the second degree burns to your lower legs, or the full body joint stiffness, or the splitting headache, we wouldn’t be having this issue.’

‘ … My foot’s broken?’ Frisk asked, instinctively trying to look down at her bare appendages, only for her body to refuse to move. ‘I’m burned?’

‘Yes,” Chara said simply. ‘It’s all pretty minor. I already have the bots working on everything.’ The AI shifted to look at the row of ships docked in port. ‘It should be fixed within half an hour.’

‘How did I – ”

‘There it is. That one,’ Chara said, cutting the question off before Frisk could finish asking it.

Her connection with her body slammed back into place without warning, sensory information overwhelming her as it came into being.

‘A Class-Two Tenebrous Wanderer,’ Chara explained as Frisk reoriented herself to her body. ‘It’s small, but it has tons of hiding places. They’re popular with people who deal in shady business – smugglers, pirates, mercenaries … fugitives … I’ve found claims that people have managed to survive – hidden and unnoticed – aboard similar ships for over a month.’

Chara overlaid one of the ships with schematics, highlighting the multiple hiding places.

“It’s so … small,” Frisk said as she processed what Chara was showing her.

‘Good things come in small packages,’ Chara said. ‘Besides, a nicer vessel is much more likely to have proper AI security.’

“The Wanderer wouldn’t?”

‘The TEW line – and the TEW-2 specifically – were built to be safe, durable, and cheap. Any standard, pre-installed AI would almost certainly be limited to Gate calculations. It’s possible there would be a security AI, but it would be fairly low on the list of upgrades and improvements. Given the look of the ship, I doubt the crew has bothered.’

“So that’s the best choice?” Frisk asked. She watched the port from her hiding spot to the Wanderer, mapping a route and committing it to memory.

‘ … Yes,’ Chara answered after a moment’s hesitation. Frisk chose to not comment on the jolt of uncertainty. ‘There is significant data that I’m unable to access, but yes. I can continue searching for a second option, but our time is limited. There might not be any public notices yet, but the Cloister is almost certainly searching for you by now.’

Frisk bit her lip as anxiety began to coil in her chest, a heavy weight holding her down. She felt like an animal in a trapped maze, knowing any wrong move would result in pain and suffering.

Endless white doors stretching down endless white hallways. Emotionless, uncaring eyes watching a she failed again and again and again and again.

Her building panic vanished in a burst, leaving her with a pounding heart and the need to move. Chara forced her breathing to slow and deepen, and Frisk allowed the steady rhythm of it to ground her.

Calm.

“What’s the best way to get aboard?” Frisk asked. She clasped her hands together to stop their shaking.

‘What were your ideas?’ Chara asked.

“I thought we needed to hurry,” Frisk huffed, but the argument didn’t keep her from continuing to map a path through the port. “I could ask for passage, exchange labor for passage, fake whatever it takes to get aboard, or sneak on. I have nothing to offer in trade, so asking is out. I look like I should be in a morgue, so exchanging labor is unlikely to work.”

‘The Tenebrous Wanderer is also not a passenger vessel,’ Chara said. ‘There is no boarding pass for me to falsify. Which leaves only one option.’

Frisk nodded in agreement as her plan solidified in her mind.

“We have to stow away.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Wingdings stared at the security feed, watching and rewatching the brief flicker where the human was visible.

Watching them duck into the main crawlspace in the cargo bay, hidden from any of the Stargazer’s cameras.

He couldn’t believe it, even though he was staring at the hard evidence.

He huffed, impressed. Here he had the most advanced security system in the entire ‘verse and somehow a human had managed to sneak aboard, right under his nose.

And Wingdings had no idea how they had managed it. They shouldn’t have been able to, even if he had been a little distracted.

He’d just been so bored.

He’d been left to watch over the Stargazer, told to keep an eye out and the engines primed, just in case they ran into trouble.

As though they weren’t already in trouble, with the ship impounded and unable to leave the port.

(Not that the impound lock would actually keep them there. Wingdings and Doctor Alphys had made short work of it, overriding it almost immediately.

But it was better to try to work things out diplomatically, than to burn any good faith they might be shown on the central planets.)

Captain Undine had gone to have a word with the authorities … and Papyrus had immediately followed. Ostensibly he went to back up their captain, but really he was there to keep the number of throttled officials to a minimum.

Sans had followed soon afterwards, to even out Undyne’s brashness and Papyrus’ naive charitability.

Alphys, already over-anxious about their current job, had worked herself into a nervous fit and had chosen to hide in her bunk until the others returned.

Which left Wingdings to clean up the mess that was this job.

It had looked legitimate at the beginning – found through the proper channels with official documentation signed and sealed by the Yggdrasil Conglomerate itself. It was supposed to be a simple delivery run, cargo volatility notwithstanding.

And as a bonus, the pay was astronomical. Even without the second half they had enough to repair the most outstanding issues of their aging starship. Actually fix them, instead of relying on bonding agent, tack welds, and hope.

It had easily given the Stargazer an extra decade in the sky.

All-in-all, the job had been completely smooth.

Wingdings supposed their luck had to run out at some point.

Their Huginn contact had vanished, leaving the Stargazer with incomplete, incorrect paperwork and a hold full of highly regulated cargo.

Cargo they could neither offload nor fly away with.

They were trapped.

And Wingdings was bored.

He’d tried to find somehow to keep himself entertained.

There were no updates available for his favorite serials, so he turned to the local streams … Only to realize that Huginn had the worst local programming. Edutainment and propaganda, most of it aimed at children.

He had eventually managed to find a documentary about Terra-Sol. One he hadn’t seen before! It was full of conspiracy theories surrounding the human exodus from their dying homeworld – none of which made sense and all of which were insane. But the narrator spoke with such grave confidence that Wingdings couldn’t help but find it charming, if completely ridiculous.

He’d also found an educational show aimed at toddlers that wasn’t too abrasive to his senses. It was full of loud sounds and flashes of color, and it lacked much content beyond that.

Wingdings had scanned the Stargazer, analyzing every micrometer with every diagnostic tool at his disposal and making a list of all the issues he found. While he waited for the process to finish he wrote a quick algorithm to prioritize them, balancing cost and how disastrous it would be if the part or system failed.

They could keep flying if their fuel was low, but they wouldn’t survive without life support or the MP shielding.

When the scan finished he set it up to repeat, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

Still bored, he reached out to other AI in the area, hoping to find someone he could talk to. The options were similarly lacking. Bound by design, most of the other AI were either obsessively focused on ship security or they were single-minded about the complicated mathematical computations needed to use the Waygates. They had little to say outside of their special interests.

He had managed to find three AI that weren’t completely boring, and invited them to a game of cards.

It was a game he was clearly winning.

It wasn’t as fun or engaging when he was the only one who really understood what “bluffing” was.

He’d been about to cash out when the security system pinged about an anomaly in the cargo bay.

An intruder.

A human.

Even knowing what to look for, Wingdings could barely see the disturbance on the video feed. A small distortion of pixels that broke away from a passing crowd, made its way up the gangplank, passing the guard at the bay doors. Clearly they were as invisible to him as they were to Wingdings, as he made no move to stop the shifting mass. It moved quickly and fluidly, continuing into the ship to hide behind a pallet waiting to be unloaded.

The distortion flickered, vanishing, leaving a human in its place.

They had short brown hair and wore clothing clearly too large for their small frame. They had a hand over their sternum and it jerked up and down with their heaving breaths.

They stayed like that for a few moments, their head tipped like they were listening to something.

Then they darted forward, vanishing into one of the smuggler holds, out of sight of his cameras.

Wingdings couldn’t believe it.

A human.

On the Stargazer.

Stowed away and hiding in the walls.

A ping came across the data stream, a request for feed access. Wingdings accepted it without a second thought.

The human had not only managed to sneak by the armed guard, but had nearly eluded him – a far greater feat.

This human was very, very, interesting.

☆ ☆ ☆

Frisk leaned against the bulkhead wall of the smuggler’s hold, breathing hard and shaking with fear and exertion.

She had done it.

She was on a ship.

She prayed her luck would hold long enough to get into open space – or better yet, to another port.

‘You need to eat,’ Chara said, appearing beside her with a data pad in hand.

‘I’m fine,’ Frisk answered with a huff. ‘I just need a minute.’

The AI glanced up at her, eyebrow raised, which Frisk pointedly ignored.

‘What’s our inventory?’

‘Seven ration bars, one opened and partially eaten. Four liters of water, one empty two-liter bottle. Three two-meter long rolls of gauze in widths of three, five, and seven centimeters. One two-meter roll of self-adhesive bandaging, seven centimeters wide. A little less than eight ounces of antiseptic, antimicrobial wound wash,’ Chara glanced at Frisk over their tablet. ‘The clothes you’re wearing.’

Frisk nodded, calculating the supplies in her head.

With careful rationing the food would last for a little over two weeks. If she could manage to hibernate she could stretch that for as long as a month.

The water would be a problem.

‘We have to conserve what we have,’ Frisk said. ‘I don’t need to eat. I’ll be fine with some rest.’

‘You’re running on fumes,’ Chara said. ‘I’m running on fumes. This is more than what a little “rest” can help. You need to eat.’

Frisk shook her head, stubbornly refusing the order.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to fully recover the mana she had used to get onto the ship with just rest, but she didn’t think she would need to.

Chara huffed in frustration.

‘Eat, or I’ll do it for you.’

To prove their point, Frisk watched herself pull the already-opened ration bar out of her inventory.

‘Don’t do that,’ Frisk hissed as she snapped her hand back, cradling it like she’d been burned. 

‘I wouldn’t have to if you listened to reason.’ Chara said. ‘Eat the rest.’

‘But what if I nee- ‘

‘But what if you “need it”?’ Chara asked, cutting Frisk off. The AI beckoned around them.‘This is one of those times when you “need it”, Twelve-Fifteen. This, right here, is the perfect time to start using your rations.’

Frisk bristled at the AI, anger and betrayal running wild through her.

And then it was gone, and Frisk deflated, defeated.

Chara was right. She needed to eat, because she needed to be ready if she had to fight.

She took another bite of the ration bar.

‘So. What now?’ the AI asked.

Frisk chewed the dry, tasteless food as she thought. There wasn’t much she could do.

‘We stay here,’ she said after a moment. ‘Learn as much as we can about the ship and crew.’

‘Wouldn’t that be easier if we weren’t in the cargo hold?’ Chara asked. ‘They won’t have a reason to come down here once we’re in open space.’

‘We can’t afford to get caught while we’re still in port,’ Frisk countered immediately.

Getting onto the ship had been risky enough. Moving further into the ship while it remained docked …

It was too likely to get them caught. And if they were caught they would be turned into the port guard.

And from there it was a single step to being returned to the Cloister and its endless white hallways.

At least in open space there was a chance she would remain free.

’If you hide in this location you are much likelier to be discovered,’ Chara said. ‘This is one of the better-known smuggler holds on this ship. It is often used for regular storage.’

‘Is there any way of telling how many people are on board?’ Frisk asked.

‘As far as I can see the ship lacks sensors for that. It’s registered to a crew of six.’

Which meant six people to blindly avoid.

‘Definitely too risky,’ Frisk concluded. She combed a hand through her hair, snagging on another snarl. She began untangling it with a low growl. ‘I assume we don’t have the next port-of-call.’

‘No flight plans have been submitted yet,’ Chara confirmed. The AI was almost apologetic as they continued, ‘I’m as blind as you are.’

Frisk sighed, her exhaustion catching up to her all at once. She pulled off her oversized sweater, bundling it to use as a pillow.

She curled up, muscles aching with unspent, nervous energy. She needed to conserve energy … But as she stared at the ceiling of the tiny smuggler’s hold her mind raced, anxiety filling her thoughts.

‘Sleep,’ Chara said as the panic vanished, replaced by the exhaustion the AI had been masking. ‘I’ll wake you if anything happens.’

☆ ☆ ☆

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