The Demon Archivist, by Amaaré and Hespera
[The following is a fanfic/short story by Amaaré and Hespera, which I enjoyed enough to make semi-canonical (requiring only minor edits on my part) and have Seba draw a scene from it. Enjoy!]
(scene: Tenzin’s room, Tenzin sitting in his wheelchair, brooding, Jane on wall screen)
Tenzin: “That thing that killed the Keleres…”
Jane: (worried) “Tenzin?”
Tenzin: “If we’re going to fight that thing again, and we are, we need to know how to fight it. (grimly) We need to know how to kill it. I want you to access all information Minerva has on advanced robotics, if there’s anything there we can use, any tiny tactical advantage we can gain, I want to have it.”
Jane: “Alright, I’ll see what I can find, but you need to rest, the strain on you from using the new armor is starting to show.”
(scene change before that argument gets going again: Doctor Bellamí‘s lab, – is working at a console, Jane appears in holographic form)
Jane: “Hey Mom-“
Angeline: “Jane, I’ve told you not to call me that.”
Jane: (eye roll) “Whatever, Mom, I’m trying to access data from the archives but I keep getting an Access Denied message.”
Angeline: “Are you trying to access restricted sections?”
Jane: “It’s not marked as restricted; I don’t know why I can’t access it, the files just won’t copy.”
Angeline: (slightly puzzled/slightly suspicious) “What exactly are you trying to access Jane?”
Jane: “The archive on advanced robotics research.”
Angeline: “…ah.”
Jane: “What’s the problem?”
Angeline: “Listen Jane, you know I’ve made quite a number of AIs for a lot of purposes, combat assistance (gestures to Jane), research, resource management, etc. Well several years ago I created one to manage the archives, an information management AI that would collate and manage all of the data in the Minerva archives. An archivist.”
Jane: “So is this AI preventing access to the data?”
Angeline: “(sigh) Sort of. Certain sections of the archive periodically become accessible only through an augmented reality interface. Most often the robotics sections and certain fiction sections from the pre-war cultural data. If you want to access the data from those sections, you’ll either have to wait or go in through the AR interface.”
Jane: “Fine, I need the data quickly, I’ll just use the AR interface.”
Angeline: “Jane wait. I’d better warn you, she’s a bit…weird.”
Jane: “Weird?”
Angeline: “The people who have to deal with her have taken to calling her the Demon Archivist, just…try not to piss her off too much, ok?”
(scene: A landscape of data, images and streams of text and binary flow seemingly at random. Slowly a floor forms amid the chaos. Jane appears on the floor and frowns. A glowing warning sign appears saying “Access Denied”. After a moment the sign flickers and morphs, now reading “Knock First”. This remains for a few moments before shifting again, the sign stretching and shifting until it becomes a large old fashioned dark wood door, standing unsupported on the floor of data.
Jane regards the door skeptically for a moment before shrugging and knocking on wood. The door immediately swings open, the landscape of data flickers and vanishes, leaving it and the door gone and Jane now standing in an enormous ancient looking and ornate library, with row upon row and isle upon isle of shelves of books. An area of polished hardwood floor at the intersection of the shelves, filled with tables and reading desks.
At one of these desks sits a short girl with bright red skin and long, outward pointed ears. A pair of dark brown double curved horns sit atop her head, emerging from long dark red hair and a long red tail flicks up from below the table regularly, dexterously turning a page of the large leather-bound book she is reading over a pair of narrow glasses.)
Jane: “Uhh, excuse me?”
(The girl looks up from her book, blinks, pushes her glasses up her nose and regards Jane with a hint of irritation at being interrupted)
“What?”
–fin