Issue 1 Downtime

Ashlie is wandering the grounds in what seems to be a pattern, though it doesn't necessarily appear to make much sense to onlookers. Occasionally she stops and stands still for a while before moving on or changing directions.

Emily was bored. She had some free time and she had been wandering about when she spotted something interesting. A fairly complex pattern.

With nothing else to do, she began to follow Ashlie.

Ashlie doesn't seem to mind, continuing on her path. Apparently she's covering most of the grounds with some kind of sensor sweep and chosing a path that avoids walls as much as possible as well as keeping the dorms out of the coverage. After a while she seems to come to the conclusion that the correct response is probably to try and talk to Emily.

"Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, ma'am," Emily says. She bows politely.

"Why are you following me?" she asks curiously.

"No particular reason. You seemed to know where you were going. I found that interesting, ma'am," Emily says. "I am sorry if it bothers you."

"Not at all. Do you want to know where I'm going?"

"If you do not mind, ma'am," Emily says.

The southern edge of the stables, then 10.4 meters past the front gate, from there 79 meters to the east and then back to the point." she helpfully provides.

"Interesting," Emily says. "You are collecting information about the area?"

"About my uplink grid. I had to perform an emergency shut-down and it has become slightly destabilized."

"Uplink grid?" Emily cocks her head. "What is that?"

"It connects this unit to the main system. A remote-control signal."

"Well, that certainly explains everything," Emily says.

"It does?"

"I imagine it does to someone, ma'am," Emily says.

"What's your name?"

"Emily," Emily says. "It is a pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Miss Inque. Would you mind if I took a picture of you to append to your school records?"

"If it will make you happy, ma'am," Emily says.

"I do enjoy complete records."