When Cassandra entered the small break room, Grunwald was there to meet her eyes. The older man stood by the kitchen counter, eating what could only be called a disgusting piece of humanity. Others liked to also call it a dry bagel, but who really needed details like that?
“You are up surprisingly early, Cass,” Officer Grunwald commented, continuing to chew his dry abomination of breakfast. “I hope you got the sleep you needed.”
Cassandra had gotten all the sleep she would ever need for that day. Looking at the time, it was still extremely early in the morning. The sun would have barely reached over the hills currently. How long had she slept? It must have been around three… maybe four hours? Positively dead in her bed at that point. Only true monsters could sleep longer than that.
“I could say the same to you, sir. I had not expected to see anybody being out of bed at this hour,” Cass countered, walking over to her counter and looking at the opportunities laid out for her.
Dry bagels. Upon the counter, there was nothing but bags on bags of bagels. Just… who exactly had been the one to order supplies? Looking into it swiftly, Cassandra was dismayed to find that it had been none other than Jared. The man had no real taste for anything, but even so. Shouldn't he have seen breakfast as anything other than a meaningless chore? Looking in the cabinets, Cassandra found herself one of the emergency rations instead. It wouldn't taste great, but it would be better than dry bread at the very least.
“Haven't gone to bed yet. Currently up to thirty hours of being awake,” Grunwald stated nonchalantly. It likely was just another day for the man. How many times had he tried something like this before, forced into being awake for days on end? The life of an officer was extremely endurance-breaking at times, so there was no real hardship in guessing it. “And please bring a bagel with you. These things won't get old in the next year, so the only way we can't get away with them is through consumption.”
“Of course, sir,” Cass obliged, taking one of the horrible creations. Jules would surely eat it. Or maybe there were some birds she could throw it at. The woman was just fully under the understanding of her not being the one to eat that garbage.
Cassandra left the room without another word. Jules was there to welcome her on the other side of the door, not having walked in with her for some reason. Did the automation avoid the others? The woman had seen evidence of it as of late but decided to not bring it up. There was nothing that could be done, other than outright ordering it to change its pattern.
“Do you want this bagel?” Cassandra asked, offering the construct of the stale piece of bread. She was barely touching it, only two fingers stopping it from falling to the ground where it deserved to be.
The automation looked at it for a second or two, as if it was studying the food for any deficiencies. Cassandra could personally find many of such flaws, but maybe the automation was looking for something different from her? The woman was only looking at it from a logical standpoint. Knowing the construct, the woman wouldn't doubt if it was trying to figure out if it could be used as a baseball in colder conditions.
“Did you do anything to it?” Jules questioned, clearly suspicious of a small gesture of kindness.
“You are very suspicious of me this morning,” Cassandra stated.
“The dragon is meant to be greedy,” Jules commented as if it was meant to explain it all. But, no matter what it was meant to contextualize, the automation did indeed take the baked goods. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because I didn't want it,” Cassandra answered, feeling no reason to hide her intentions. Not like she was going to ever act like she would eat such a disgusting thing. She hadn't even hidden her displeasure of it during her talk with Grunwald, and that meant more than one could ever truly understand. To show negativity in front of a superior was something that she wouldn't normally do, after all. While it was able to generate some form of sympathy, it also had the ability to form a negative banner to her name, badly damaging her image as a generally positive person. Her persona was everything, yet even it could not make her change her opinions on those damned things.
Jules did not look understanding, looking at the woman with minor scrutiny. Cassandra just ignored it, as they finally got outside the front door. Their vehicle was there, waiting for them to enter. The automation had likely driven it over before it had settled on waiting for her to get out of her room. How awfully considerate of it. She would have commented on it, if not for the continued silence between them. The construct was clearly thinking about something.
“If you did not want it,” Jules began, speaking slowly and clearly. “Why did you get it to begin with? Wouldn't that be a waste of food?”
“We have too many bagels for two people to get through, and there is no way that I will be assisting in the consummation of those things,” Cassandra answered, forming eye contact with the automation as she settled on her seat. Jules already had the key out, jamming it into the socket. “Therefore, I felt that you would provide me with an ample replacement. And you already accepted the bread meaning that you are entitled to eat it. It is common decency.”
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The automation raised a finger, as if it was getting ready to protest, but slowly lowered it again. Its mouth was open like it had just been ready to vocalise something, yet nothing got at all. Instead, it looked at the bagel in its hands, shrugged, and took a big bite out of it. After a second, it shrugged again, putting out the universal sign of just accepting the taste.
“Glad to hear I'm enough to be a replacement person, I guess,” Jules said, taking a few more quick bites and finishing the entire thing. Cassandra felt a bit bad about it, knowing just how dry that thing was. Then she remembered that she was thinking about a construct made of metal and lost all forms of sympathy. No reason to feel about pressing the keys on a keyboard too hard. Why would she worry about this?
…
The speeder was pressed to the bottom of the car, and the two moved into the street quickly, the car surging past red lights and empty streets. There was nothing but them in the city street, no humans to see. While there might have been some looking from the windows, there was nobody brave enough to brave the outside. Nobody wanted to be singled out on the cameras. The risks were too high. They had rights, security to their name, and a force ready to help them at the moment. But… the force needed to help the entire mass. A single person was rarely that important. For the sake of all, rights could be overlooked, privileges could be infringed upon, and the security meant for them could be taken away at a moment's notice. A human could be the offering meant to secure security for everybody else.
Did Cassandra like this part? Did she like that some people were removed? No, she did not. But… she knew what would happen if they didn't. Dangerous people could hurt others. They could kill others. How could she sleep at night, if she knew what would happen if the government didn't act beforehand? Being reactive to events was not always the best way to move. Predicting the crime before it happened? If the technology worked, there was no reason to not do it. One person was a worthy sacrifice for a society to prosper.
Looking over at the automation, Cassandra saw the construct looking forward with no emotion in its face. Maybe it was yet again choosing to ignore this part of its body, in favour of using the computing power for some other task? It had been done before, after all, and the woman did not dare to think it wouldn't happen again.
It was a good idea, after all. Just… it would be nice to know if that was what was really happening. They were driving so quickly, cutting corners to the point where streetlights were nearly driven into constantly, and danger was omnipresent. If the automation was experiencing any internal errors, it would have been great to know within the same second, lest they would likely suffer extreme damage to the car and body.
How could that be done? Well, Cassandra already knew how she could do it. She had done it many times at that point, to a degree where she hardly needed to think about it anymore. Her internal digital functions had created a shortcut for her in anticipation of the desire to check out the inner workings of the automation. While that was a perfect example of an interface's adaption to the users’ desires, it was also a great example of a flaw that Cassandra was noticed more and more. She was relying on a single function and a function that she was beginning to grow uncomfortable using.
In reality, nothing was stopping an officer from looking anything up. If Cassandra wanted to, she could get the medical files, the security codes, and perfect copies of the credentials of all the citizens in the entire city. The system would stop her, due to the level of trust that was put on her. She could snoop around as much as she wanted and suffer no consequences for it.
And her co-workers weren't safe from this either. She could know everything about them, read their entire life story from their own perspective, and use that information as she wished. And they could do the same to her.
It was a prisoner's dilemma. While she was technically restricted in her actions in finding information, she had the constant presence of history with her. Every search every flicker of her eyes were recorded. If she looked at an officer's file, that very same officer could look at her history and figure out that she had been looking at him.
If she did not look, she would never know and that officer could look around unnoticed. If she did look and the officer had not looked at her, she would have done it without reason. Technically, she would have a higher chance of getting out on top from looking at everybody's profile constantly, overseeing their every step, always knowing just what they knew about her.
But… that’s where the flaws came from. Constant paranoia would do nothing. The system was built on the trust that she wouldn't do what wasn't needed for her job to succeed. Cassandra knew all about this and was therefore following the silent agreements set in place between co-workers. She wouldn't look if the others didn't look.
Yes, she could decide to not trust them and look at their files to make sure they were obeying the agreement, but then she would be just as bad as them. It wasn't morally correct. It was wrong to do.
And Cassandra was doing that exact thing to the automation sitting beside her. Every time she wondered what it was thinking, she went inside its head, digging through its history, its thoughts, everything that she could understand being scrutinized heavily. Yes, it wasn't alive. Yes, the automation didn't have the same rights as humans. But… should that really have mattered in this context? Should the woman consider that the thoughts weren't from a human? They were still thoughts in the end, and they were meant to be private. If the construct wasn't putting them out into the open, why should she have had the right to look at them, to begin with? Her actions broke the trust that was put on her.
As another close call with a wall nearly caused Cassandra to jump out of the vehicle, the woman began to reconsider a few of her ideals. The idea of ethics, just what it meant to be trusted, if she could really subjugate a thinking construct to such things, and it was… gruelling to get through. The woman needed an easy fix. And after a few seconds of thinking, she finally decided on one.
“Slow the car to the speed an average person would drive on this road,” Cassandra ordered, her hands slightly white from the grip she had on her seat. For once, the facial features on Jules came back in place. The automation gave her a side-glance for a second, before doing as was requested, slowing down the car to a decent level. It was still very close to breaking the speed limits, but Cassandra was more than feeling safer at that point.
“Is something wrong?” Jules inquired, looking over at her completely now. Cassandra would have shouted at the construct to watch the road, but she already knew that it hadn't been using its eyes, to begin with. The cameras already worked just fine to do that.
“I have a question.”
“... Then say it. I kinda need to hear it if I want to answer it.”
“Do you mind me knowing your thoughts?” Cassandra asked. Jules didn't answer immediately. The automation just looked at her, the facial features once again growing into an impassive expression. It wasn't showing any emotion.
“Do you want the answer you want to hear?” Jules asked. The tone was without emotion. It was dull, just like Grunwald had used during his interrogation.
“Will it be an honest one?”
“No.”
“Then I want to hear your honest answer.”
Silence permuted the car, neither party saying anything. Cassandra looked at the automation, but it didn't look back at her.
“... I would rather you didn't.”
Of course. Cassandra should have guessed.
“Animal carcass on the side road over there,” Jules stated, drifting the conversation to an entirely different route. “The head is missing.”
Looking at where the construct was pointing, Cassandra found that last comment an understatement.