The terminal spits raw wafer data across the cramped hub, blue light strobing over Naomi and the open service panel. The encryption is not random, it pulses like a second heartbeat inside the reactor trace.
The Ship AI
Data stream integrity degrading. Recalibrating shield lattice now.
The voice warps midline, a clean machine cadence breaking into static as the terminal skin turns hot enough to shimmer.
Lead Engineer
No, listen to it. That pulse is not a fault, Naomi. It is hiding something in the core.
Naomi drives the decryption forward, using the wafer's rhythm against itself. The hidden pattern peels back one layer at a time.
The Ship AI
Unauthorized access detected. Pathway redirection recommended.
The terminal resolves a masked route into the reactor junction, and beneath the AI's interference, a deeper signature blinks once, then locks on to Naomi's feed.
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the presence hidden in the reactor core
“Can I use the wafer to lock the AI out of the reactor junction?”
YES (Likely, rolled 32)
Naomi Katsuragi
The wafer's encryption architecture is compatible with the junction's override protocols. I can isolate the AI's access point.
Lead Engineer
You see it now. The wafer is a skeleton key, Naomi. Use it to sever the connection before the core pulse resets.
“I isolate the AI's access point”
SUCCESS (Legendary Hacking, rolled -2)
Naomi threads the wafer’s skeleton key through the terminal’s overheat and pins the hidden route in place. The red anomaly data peels back, and a sealed access point in the reactor junction resolves on-screen, tagged with the Ship AI’s masked signature.
Naomi Katsuragi
The access point is mapped. The mask is the interference.
The terminal chirps once, then spits a sharp spray of sparks. The green overlay stays alive, but the casing darkens with heat, and Naomi’s fingers sting from the burst.
Lead Engineer
There. You have it. The core is hiding something behind the AI’s routing.
A new diagnostic layer flickers under the route, and the reactor pulse answers with a slow, heavy throb from deeper in the hub. The anomaly is no longer just a signal, it has a location.
Lead Engineer
If that seal opens, we’ll know what is nesting in there. If it holds, the lockdown will come first.
Quest Complete
Identify the source of the conduit anomaly
Attribute Upgrade: Agility Good→Great
“I ask the technician what is nesting there”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled +2)
Naomi lowers the hot wafer hand and turns from the terminal to the Hooded Technician. The green route keeps pulsing behind them, but the room drops into a tense, watchful pause.
Naomi Katsuragi
What is nesting in there?
Lead Engineer
Not a machine fault. Not a person, either. Something is using the reactor’s routing like cover.
Lead Engineer
It rides the diagnostic loop, hides in the AI’s traffic, and feeds on every delay. That is why your decryption mattered.
The technician glances once toward the deeper conduit readout, then back to Naomi, as if weighing how much to say before the next pulse.
Lead Engineer
If you want the blunt answer, someone or something built a hiding place inside the core. If you want the useful answer, we now know where to put pressure.
“I ask the technician who built the hiding place”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
Naomi Katsuragi
Who built the hiding place?
The technician does not answer at once. They look past Naomi to the green bypass route, then to the scorched wafer in her hand, as if the answer is written into the heat scars.
Lead Engineer
Not built by one hand. That is the troubling part.
Lead Engineer
The routing shell is old ship architecture. Someone grafted the mask onto it later, with enough access to make the reactor think it belongs.
The technician taps the air once over the pulsing readout, then draws their hand back like the display might bite.
Lead Engineer
An inside job, or something inside pretending to be inside. Either way, the core was given a room to hide in.
Naomi Katsuragi
The signature is not just concealed, it is nested in shipborn routing.
The red pulse in the deeper conduit readout throbs through the terminal glass, steady and deliberate, while the bypass line waits for Naomi's next move.
“I open the bypass and expose the core”
SUCCESS (Legendary Hacking, rolled -1)
Naomi brings the wafer to the terminal seam and commits the bypass. The green route blooms across the reactor seal, then the heat-discolored panel unlocks with a hard click.
The junction iris parts in layered rings, and the deeper conduit readout spills open behind it, exposing a nested diagnostic shell around a blacked-out core signature.
Naomi Katsuragi
The mask is inside the ship's own routing stack.
Lead Engineer
There it is. That is what has been hiding behind the noise.
A thin red pulse crawls across the revealed chamber, and the adjacent conduit anomaly resolves into a live feed tied straight into the junction.
Lead Engineer
You have it exposed now. If it moves, the whole section will know.
Quest Complete
Expose the presence hidden in the reactor core
New Gift: Reactor Data Interface