Power Loader - Plug In

  Then she hefts the portable terminal onto her lap and opens it, and slots her BDI cable into the bus.

  //EXECUTE PILOTSTRAPPER.IMT

  >>SEARCHING LOCAL NEURAL NETWORKS…

  >>AWAITING BDI CONNECT_

  >>CHOOSE CONNECTION:

  >>1) MARCUS014385

  >>2) CP5000-03

  Blue tags the “2” key and closes her eyes, hoping to feel the rush of the BDI washing over her. A queer sensation of separation covers her arms and legs, as though she can move a ghostly form, but not her own body. Blackness covers her eyes, and she struggles to see. For a moment, she fears that something has gone wrong, and she’ll be trapped inside this black nothingness. A servo whines as she moves her right arm.

  It’s working. She recognizes the singing of the loader’s joints, but why can’t she see? Marcus should’ve given her access to all the loader’s systems. Maybe there are some lights on board.

  As she thinks of “light,” a pair of headlamps ignites on her shoulders, rendering the scene before her in oozing gray and lime green. She “sees” through a forward camera, and a dizzying drop looms before her. She’d always known the power loaders were enormous, but wasn’t prepared for the sense of vertigo.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 27