Snippet Wednesday.

Bit of a snippet for today.

            “So,” Hammer said by way of introduction, as Oakes tossed bulbs of coffee around, “the plan is pretty simple.  We’re going to access Connie’s maintenance hatch here,” he said, pulling up a diagram, “and Pete and I will enter the hull.  We’re going to be met by one of the IT techs from the Admiral, who’s got a replacement control package for the hulk.  We’ll pull Connie’s primary housing, and the backup housing.  Once we pull the primary, we slot the replacement package in place so the hulk keeps its orbital position, pull the secondary and we’re done.  You’ll need to have a little work done back at Tarkas to have her installed, but beyond that, there should be no issues.”

            “What kind of work,” I asked, sipping from the coffee.  It was hot, but you can’t always get everything perfect.

            “Cross links and a couple of holographic projector heads primarily.  Connie might have a couple of other things she wants to feel comfortable, but that’s something you’ll have to discuss with her,” he said grinning.

            “Things like more memory or a bigger, shinier case, I hope.”

            “Or a faster, dedicated hard wire connection to the archives.  You never know what an AI’s going to want.  Peirot, the security AI, insisted on having a small room set up that he could decorate like the apartment of the detective he’s named for.  I can only imagine what we would have had to put up with if we’d named the damn thing Sherlock,” he said, shaking his head.

            “Oh, I don’t know, working out of 221 B Baker Street couldn’t have been that bad.”

            “True.  I just can picture an AI trying to figure out how to get an incense that smelled like cheap Turkish shag tobacco though.  Or worse, one having one of Holmes’s ‘down’ periods.  Can you imagine an AI in a funk?”

            “Oh, hell no,” Jayne said, grinning impishly.  “Not something I’d want to see.”

            “Course, his seven percent solution would have only been lines of code,” Oakes said, one eye on the instruments that showed we were on a normal insertion path for orbit.

            “Seven percent solution,” Arenson asked.

            “Holmes used cocaine when he got really bored.  A seven percent solution, injected.”

            “Ahh.”

            “Yeah, the Victorians were a little more up front with their drug use.  Although, if I remember correctly, Watson does tut Holmes a couple of times about his use of cocaine as a pick me up,” I said, looking over the plan Hammer had sent to my tablet.

            “True.  But in the end, Holmes keeps going back to cocaine and tobacco.”