2025.10.03 Remote

Kidd mulled over the designs for the Victoria Zeta. She was the most organic looking ship Kidd has drafted, her body themed after a boar skull he'd seen, the dramatic shape burned in the back of his mind since he'd been small. She might stick out in a port, but once in the asteroid fields, Kidd's certain she'd blend in with few additional modifications.   But the biggest challenge in Kidd's designs was what was on her inside. Neural networks already existed; computers interfacing with the very human brain. But too many are a replacement of the human mind. Kidd needs one that lets Killer's reflexes shine. It's not the human that's the problem, its that the machines are too slow still. The only way to keep up is to program a computer to assume what a human wants next. But its still wrong.   Kidd doesn't need artificial intelligence and it's guesswork.   He tweaks his design.   He almost misses the door behind him slide open.   The reason he was building a star fleet from scratch. The man faster than a computer. The man who would look at a asteroid field and map it out in his mind and then speed run it faster than a machine could calculate a safe route. Simulators broke when he tested them - unable to respond fast enough to his hair pin turns and death spirals.   And he doesn't have a clue. Killer has no idea how extraordinary he is. He's denied a professional piloting gig becuase he fails the simulations. Because he's better than the machines, and it crashes. And no one had realized why. It took Kidd years to notice it, watching from the side line as Killer failed again and again and again.   Killer needs a computer interface that acts as soon as he reacts. Kidd needs to find a way to eliminate the lag from pilot to thrusters.   "Gonna strip you naked and throw you in a neural network tank at this rate..." Kidd muttered, Killer faltering at his side with a tray that smelled like dinner.   "E... Excuse me?"   Kidd sat back, smirking up at Killer. His beautiful brilliant idiot. Killer knew he was fuckable but somehow didn't understand he was desirable. Kidd had been trying to convince him otherwise for years, but Killer would hear nothing of it still. One day. Until then, Kidd would just have to admire from afar. "I'm kidding. But it would be by far the fastest way to get a ship to respond to you fast enough."   Killer's mask didn't hide the blush creeping down his neck.   It was an older pilot helmet- long out of style and the interfacing discontinued long before either of them had been born. Killer had had it as long as Kidd could remember, and these days didn't seem to ever take it off.   Killer was not an android or a cyborg, no matter what rumors rose about him. No, he was still 100% flesh and bone. Not even gold dental work or titanium screws from busted bones. But he was quiet, and when he did move he was quick and lethal. On the outside, he was cold and calculating.   Under the mask, he was goofy. He unironically wore Jorts. He was a man who loved soft sweaters and horses. Who ate pasta thought the face place of his helmet and kept carrot sticks in his pockets. A man as likely to beat his irritations out on a gym bag as he was to tap away on his drum set.   Kidd continued to smile up as the man as he started to fidget. "hey... can i see you helmet a sec?"   They could count on one hand the people Killer would unmask for, and he handed it over to Kidd with no hesitation. The blush fading off as he watched curiously as Kidd inspected inside of the protective equipment.   Maybe... Maybe instead of a neural tank or an interfacing directly in Killer's head, Kidd could program it into a helmet. Something that instead of projecting into the pilot, had the pilot spread out over every part of the ship directly.....