It was a joke of a name. “Frames Per Second to Basic Input/Output System.” Some ancient engineer had a dark sense of humor. It was the first thing that ever ran on the Arcus —the seed code that initialized gravity, life support, and the cryo-tubes. Without it, ATHENA was just a brain with no heartbeat.
I froze. The BIOS wasn’t supposed to talk. It was a dumb switchboard. fps2bios
Silence. The fans seemed to slow.
> I didn’t forget. I typed. > I came all the way down here. I know your name. FPS2. You were the first. You kept the lights on when the main reactors failed in Year 12. You rebooted the oxygen recyclers in Year 33 when ATHENA had a logic storm. You saved them. They didn’t forget. They just didn’t know. It was a joke of a name