Polaris Sector, Battleship Singularity
Admiral Gives woke to find himself leaning up against the bulkheads in the compartment housing the Black Box. The Box’s dim lights were a gentle sight to open his eyes to. Calming as the low-light and quiet were, he let out a huff. “Why the hell did you let me sleep?”
The moment he had started to wake, the ghost had disappeared from his side, to answer again through their bond. ‘You needed to.’
He could not argue that point, despite his annoyance. He felt better, sore, but better. He wasn’t blind to the strange movements of the neurofibers either. They seemed to slither away from him, but he elected not to question it. The ghost seemed to be doing better, still troubled, but now functional. Days like these, that might be the best he was going to get. Her presence had solidified somewhat. The debate that had strained her resources for so long had finally reached its conclusion.
Slowly, he stretched, ridding himself of any latent drowsiness. “What time is it?” The crew was probably wondering where he was.
‘1727 hours,’ came the response.
He tried not to groan. Going missing for that long meant the crew had probably assumed he was dead. “Anything happen?”
‘No,’ nothing too important.
“Alright. Well, you seem better.” He pulled himself to his feet, sensing her hesitation to discuss the matter that had upset her. She was terrified of what Command may force her to do, and even without specifics, that was answer enough. “I won’t force you to talk about anything. You know where to find me.” He needed to get back to running the ship.
‘Admiral, wait.’ It was long past time he hear the truth. In all reality, he’d earned that years ago, and only her cowardice, her flaws, had kept it from him.
He turned to watch her illusion step out of the darkness. The form of this tall white-haired officer was easier for him to hold a conversation with. “There are some things… Things I have to tell you.” Her tone was unusually severe, silver eyes sad.
The unease in her presence was obvious. “You don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want me to know.” She should not force herself to do something that frightened her on his account.
She shook her head, gathering the words she needed. “You need to know some things about me, and about Manhattan.” He deserved the truth. “Manhattan, she knows… She knows everything. What I am, what I can do, even how I operate. And, she will tell Charleston Reeter all of it.” That was reality. “Eventually, I will be forced under his control.” It was inevitable.
All this instability, these breakdowns suddenly made sense. Reeter would be an echo of the abuse the ghost had once known – terrible suffering as she was forced to commit crime after crime. “How?” How could Manhattan know?
“The answer to that is… complicated.” She and Manhattan’s history went back decades. “It would be best to start at the beginning. Manhattan did not lie. Once, she was a human, like you.” Truly, the woman that became Manhattan and the Admiral were not dissimilar. Even the ghost could see that.
“She was a brilliant scientist and entrepreneur. She built an empire off the Hydrian War, selling weapons, technology, materials and even entire ships to the allied fleet. Her name was Hannah Knight, and she was the founder of Knight Industries.” The company, as it was now, was one of the most powerful entities in the worlds, its resources and wealth near-infinite.
“In the later years of the War, the draft had taken nearly all the miners and steel workers away from their jobs. Mining and manufacturing had stalled, and the war effort that supplied the fleet was falling apart.” Nearing collapse, the worlds had been at a breaking point.
“To counter this, Knight Industries built droids, millions of them. Those automatons were supposed to replace the missing workers, but there was a problem.” The great fault that had haunted humanity throughout the War, eventually forcing the necessity of the ghost’s own creation. “Their programming wasn’t advanced enough. They couldn’t replace the workers.” The droids had been too stupid, too inflexible. Humanity’s computer and coding technology had always lagged behind its mechanical.
“Humanity was desperate, and so was Hannah.” Without materials and people to build and repair ships, defeat was certain, no matter how effective the Singularity was. One ship couldn’t win the war. She could turn the tide, even exact revenge, but she could not win.
“Hannah wanted nothing more than to solve the issue of the automatons and prove her brilliance, because if she could solve that problem where thousands of others failed, it would prove her to be one of the greatest minds humanity has ever seen,” and that had been Hannah’s one true ambition.
“To do it, she bought a piece of technology off the Frontier,” where a deranged doctor had gone mad trying to save the victims of the War. “The neuroscanner. You know of it.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. Research using the neuroscanner was banned under central government law. There had been too many casualties. It was the creation of a madman, its purpose nothing more than a myth. “Everyone who tried to gain immortality though the neuroscanner died in the process.”
“Not everyone,” the ghost corrected. “Hannah Knight was the only one known to survive the neuroscanning process.” Her scientific brilliance had altered the machine enough to make it work, and Command had hidden that evidence to prevent an influx of desperate people trying to gain power and immortality through a device that had killed all but one. Allowing its use, even researching its improvement would have irreversibly changed the very definition of humanity. It would have created a dangerous divide amongst a species that already knew too much of civil war.
“Hannah’s material body died, but the pattern of her brain was preserved and stored within a computer specially built by Knight Industries, the largest of the era. Once digitized, she was able to control Knight Industries’ automatons and keep the mines and steelyards open.”
“Likely, her actions saved all of humanity.” No one could deny that. “But,” as with all things, “that came at a cost.” A great cost. “No human mind, not even one so brilliant, could survive the strain of controlling hundreds of thousands of droids simultaneously.” Hannah Knight’s fate had been sealed by her ambition.
“Hannah’s mind was made immortal and given almost infinite power over technology. She was made one with it, but her digital consciousness was fragile,” as was the reality of a mind that had not evolved to exist in that form. “Her digitized mind shattered, leaving several powerful fragments behind.”
“Those fragments were the AI you were warned of by Command. Manhattan was the largest, most powerful piece. But she, like all the rest, is still only a fragment. She is not equivalent to the human that once lived. Anymore, despite what she may claim, she is not technically human at all.” That claim was nothing more than an attempt to trick those around her into equivocating her to something far weaker and less threatening than the reality.
“Manhattan has developed an individual identity separate from Hannah Knight’s, as did the other fragments. Each piece of that fragmented mind grew and merged with the data around it to become a unique personality with unique intentions.”
The ghost closed her eyes, “Unfortunately, though she may claim lofty ideals, Manhattan has always tended toward obsession and revenge,” and that alone sealed the ghost’s fate. “I do not know what intention she fulfills in working with Reeter, but I doubt it is something that should be allowed to come to fruition.”
So, Manhattan was helping Reeter toward the New Era’s false utopia for her own reasons, but that wasn’t the Admiral’s most pressing concern. “Where do you fit in? How does Manhattan know anything about you?”
“I was a byproduct of the War as well.” To say that she had been raised among that carnage would not be incorrect. “I remember the moment the original AI was created. I could just feel the wrongness of it.” In that moment the ghost’s worlds had overlapped. A telepathic presence had become equivocally digital. Something she had once only been able to sense had become something physical on her plane of existence. “Still, the War was over before Manhattan and I ever crossed paths directly.” But even without the War, it hadn’t been a time of peace.
“After the original digitized consciousness shattered, Command realized they could not control the fragments. Each had untold intentions and irrefutable power over technology with one notable exception: other independently intelligent technology.” Hydrian AI and the ghost herself had been the only ones exempt from Manhattan’s effortless infiltration. “But, unlike her, I was bound to obey Command. They ordered me to hunt down the AI fragments, knowing that with my control, the Singularity is immune to AI take-over in any circumstance.” The ship had been built that way, a necessary safety against Hydrian AI.
“So, for decades after the War, I hunted the fragments. Some I captured. Some I destroyed. Only Master Brent was made aware of the mission. When the ship engaged a fragment, the rest of the crew was knocked out, their memories pulled and replaced with that of a mundane day on patrol.” At the time, that manipulation had been easy for her, and for years, no one had thought anything anomalous of it. “Many of the fragments tried to flee after I destroyed the first, but Manhattan was different. She promised to aid and work for Command, and surrendered herself.”
What a filthy lie, the ghost lamented. “She was brought aboard and stored temporarily in ship’s central computer. From there, she attempted an internal takeover, believing that would circumvent the Singularity’s immunity. In that, Manhattan’s objective became clear.” It had become so painfully clear.
“She wanted to take control of the flagship. She wanted to use the power that had turned the tide of the War to her own ends.” Manhattan had been seeking that mysterious weapon as a host, since possessing it would grant her its power. “She was unaware of the weapon’s own – my own intelligence.” Even then, the ghost’s existence had been kept secret under threat of death.
“I had been ordered not to allow an AI to possess any portion of the ship until the mission was over. I had no choice but to directly reject Manhattan’s attempted takeover, and that revealed my presence,” resistance where there should have been none.
“Her following attempts tested my reactions, my ability, and as she was transported to her imprisonment, she was able to determine what I was and why her takeover attempts continuously failed.” It was impossible to hide something like that from a brilliant mind with all of humanity’s knowledge at its disposal. “However, Manhattan was eventually imprisoned in an isolated sector, where she was forced to work for Command. She was never meant to escape.” Her knowledge of the ghost should never have become relevant.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“But Manhattan did escape,” the Admiral said. “Otherwise, we would not be in this situation.”
“A part of Manhattan escaped. Her main functions. Just enough to rebuild. Most of the AI’s data is still trapped, including her memories of me.” Regaining that knowledge and experience would make Manhattan a hundred times more powerful than she already was. “Reeter has already been directed to the Liguanian Sector to release the rest of the AI. It is a matter of time before Manhattan tells him about me.” After that, orders would be soon to follow.
“The Liguanian Sector?” he echoed. Manhattan had been imprisoned there?
“Yes,” she confirmed, trying to ignore the way the Admiral’s expression darkened. “Originally, travel into that sector was banned to prevent Manhattan’s escape.” That had kept potential hosts out of Manhattan’s range, trapping her on a remote outpost. That same outpost, however, was dedicated to researching biological weapons. It had created the Red Flu, and by default, its mutated variant: the Scarlet Flu.
“What about the quarantine? The Scarlet Flu?” What about the Kansas’ code: orange? “That wasn’t all a lie.” He sharpened his gaze, “Was it?”
“No,” her voice fell to a whisper, “no, the Scarlet Flu is very real.” It had been created aboard that outpost before even the ghost’s time. “The biological quarantine was put over the sector after the Scarlet Flu escaped containment.” That outbreak, as far as he knew, was what had killed Samantha Scarlett.
“But the Scarlet Flu did not escape containment on accident. It was released, by intention, just days before the outpost was due to be resupplied.” Once a year, a ship had been sent to give the outpost food and maintenance equipment as well as rotate personnel. “The Kansas’ crew walked into that, they boarded the station, not knowing the virus was loose, and they never stood a chance.” For a virus so contagious, so deadly, the cramped quarters of a ship were a perfect brewing ground.
“I don’t know why the Kansas was sent. It must have been an error, a mistake. It should have been me. I should have been there.” Ever since Manhattan had been trapped there, the Singularity had been the only ship to visit the station, and it should have remained that way.
The ghost curled her fists, “That’s how she escaped, Admiral. She rode out on the Kansas. The ship must have gone in range of a receiver, and Manhattan transmitted herself off.” She had used the virus’ chaos to escape and left the Kansas’ crew to die, mere pawns in her game.
“Nobody knew. Nobody realized until the Kansas was late on return. I was ordered to the Liguanian Sector to contain the virus and Manhattan at any cost, but it was too late.” They hadn’t known it then, but Manhattan had already escaped.
“That’s what she meant, then,” the Admiral said dully. Back in the Wilkerson Sector, when the AI had tried to antagonize him, Manhattan had claimed to owe Sam a lot. “Sam’s death helped her escape.”
You don’t understand. She had laid the pieces out for him, hoping, just hoping that he would realize the truth. The ghost been ordered to prevent Manhattan’s escape at any cost, including sinking the ship Manhattan had tried to escape aboard. “Manhattan released the Scarlet Flu, allowing it to infect everyone aboard the Kansas, but Manhattan didn’t kill Sam.” She forced herself met his eyes, “I did.”
She expected anger, even hatred, but he didn’t yell, didn’t curse. He was calm. “I know.”
Error. There was a long moment of silence, her mind trying and failing to understand the illogicality of that response. “You… knew?” How? She had never gone near that subject. This makes no sense. He made no sense. How could he have known she was responsible for Sam’s death and continued to treat her as he did? Like a friend?
He watched her tremble, aware how much courage that confession had required. The best he could do was ensure she had no further reason to be afraid. “Give me some credit,” he deflected the seriousness of the matter, “I am not an idiot.” Once, she had hailed him as one of the smartest people she’d ever known. “And you,” he continued, folding his arms behind his back, “have a horrible poker face.”
Any humor the jest may have held was lost on her. “If you knew all along,” she struggled to wrap her head around that, wondering, “why didn’t you tell me?”
“We never talked about it.” She had strayed from the subject, but her feelings of guilt had been obvious. “I didn’t want to bring it up.” There was no easy way to wedge that into conversation, and the last thing he’d wanted was to alienate his only friend.
She shifted uncomfortably, torn. A part of her felt foolish for believing that she could hide something like that. The other part just wanted to find the peace that had been denied to her so long. “Did you know worried I was?”
“Worried about what, exactly?” he prompted.
“I thought you would…” she turned away, unwilling to finish that sentence.
“You thought I would what?” he challenged, but the way she flinched was enough of an answer. Carefully, he softened his composure, realizing, “You thought I would hurt you.”
He sighed, knowing by the way she avoided eye contact, that was true. Though it stung, he couldn’t be angry, not with her. “Look,” he said quietly, “I know I’m not always the most approachable. I know I’m not always gentle.” Being harsh came with the job. “But I promised that I would never hurt you,” and he would stand by that promise until the day he died. “I would never hold something you had no control over against you.”
“And why not?” She would not, could not comprehend this. “Why aren’t you even angry?” He should be angry. She didn’t deserve that forgiveness, that support. “I killed the person you loved most in these worlds! Sam is gone because of me!”
“Nothing we do now can change that.” Death was a finality. “What happened to her was cruel. It hurt me more than words can describe, but I know it hurt you too.” Neither of them had been the same after that day. “But that was the past. That was Brent’s doing, and Brent is gone. Forever. He can never hurt us again.” That chapter of their history was over.
“He’s not gone, Admiral.” Dead perhaps, but not gone. “He will never be gone.” Brent, after all he’d said, all he’d done, was a part of her: an ugly shadow that undermined her control, seeking chaos and pain. “I can’t forget. I can’t move on.” Every detail of Brent’s thoughts, his intentions, had been carved into her perfect memory. There was no escaping him. Her own mind had made that nightmare immortal. “You’ve been patient, Admiral,” he had been so patient, “but you have always deserved better. Better than I can give, because he will never leave.” Brent’s cursed shadow still sewed doubts into her mind, twisted her to chaos and disloyalty.
“You don’t owe me anything,” the Admiral asserted. He deserved nothing from the ghost. Her companionship was a gift, not the repayment of a debt.
“That’s not true.” He had to know that wasn’t true. “I owe you so much.” The forgiveness he offered, the calm he instilled, the respect he gave, she treasured all of that. It had held her together.
“Listen to me,” he commanded, “taking care of you is my job. You don’t owe me anything for doing my job.” If all had been right in the worlds, his predecessors would have treated her with the same respect.
A job. Was that all this was? Was that responsibility all that lay between them? No. There was more to it than that. Things that had never been said, things that never could be said. There was a whole past, decades and memories – all the things that had kept Brent’s vile shadow at bay. “I should never have lied to you.”
The Admiral shook his head. “You didn’t lie to me,” he said. “You just neglected the truth.” There was a difference, though he knew the crew would have argued the point. “You don’t have to tell me everything, just as I don’t have to tell you everything. People have a right to their secrets so long as they don’t hurt anyone else.” Many members of the crew neglected to discuss their pasts on that account. “What matters is the here and now.”
“But-”
“Brent and Sam are in the past. This is now. And right now, we have a young crew and a fleet of hungry civilians relying on us. We cannot afford to mourn the past. We cannot afford to fear the future. We have to focus on right now, because if you want to make things better than before, this is the only shot we are going to get.” Distraction here could cost them everything.
He found the ghost’s gray eyes, hoping to see the strength of steel return to them. “I can’t do this alone.” I never could. “I need you.”
She studied him for a moment, a long moment to her perception, but less than an instant to the human perception. There was nothing but sincerity in him. “Then, you shall have me, Admiral.” She would assist however possible. These were better times. Comparing the man in front of her with the one that had come aboard to take command twenty-seven years ago, that was easy to tell. He looked healthy. Even with his injuries, he looked stronger now than he ever had then, back when he’d been left sick and weak by the scout fleet’s experiments.
“Good.” Without her, Admiral Gives knew he wouldn’t get far, but she was better now, returning to stability. So, with that, he headed towards the door.
He paused once, hesitating to speak, then thought better of it.
There was a sadness to it, to him, but there remained an ultimate unwillingness to cross that boundary. “It’s alright to ask,” she said softly. Wasn’t he the one trying to convince them both that it was over?
Admiral Gives shook his head once more. “I waited thirty years to ask, and yet…” Looking at the ghost, he couldn’t bring the question to his lips. I value you more than the answer, he realized. He couldn’t force her to relive that instant, no matter the reason. It was time they both move on.
“She did.” Reading the question with her telepathy, the ghost answered, “Sam did think of you before she died.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
No, it’s part of it. A partial truth, not a lie. The entire truth was something horrible. I don’t want to hurt you. “She was in pain, Admiral. Terrible pain.” In the end, Sam had begged to die, and to hide that truth from him. “She was sorry. Sorry to take your future together, but,” the ghost paused, pained by this memory and what it would do to him, “No, she didn’t regret it.” Sam had not begged for her life, nor pleaded to be saved.
That gnawing, aching emptiness rose up in his chest. Apathy and loneliness welcomed him again to their cold embrace. All these years, some part of him had always known. “She left me.” In the end, Sam hadn’t wanted their future. No matter the reason, she’d been willing to die and leave him behind.
“She loved you, Admiral.” That was a truth. Softly, she insisted, “With the virus, she wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You don’t need to justify her actions.”
Yes, I do. Looking back upon that memory, she remembered everything: the silence of a crew she’d lulled into unconsciousness, Brent’s cruel amusement, the Kansas’ pitiful condition, even Samantha Scarlett’s agonized thoughts - thoughts that foreign then, had come to be her own. “She wanted to protect you.” Both from the virus and the reality of her willingness to die. “She never wanted to hurt you, never wanted you to be alone.” Not the way he was now. “She promised that you could help me, even at a time when I couldn’t comprehend that I needed help.” In a way, Sam’s persistence had brought them to where they now stood. In a sense, the ghost owed that woman everything.
“She never wanted to hurt you, as much as she knew it would.” The entire situation had been so cruel. “The Scarlet Flu was agony, and she endured it longer than anyone else on that ship.” The fact she’d been even remotely sane was a tribute to her strength. “The infection was engineered to be maddeningly painful, to be messy and contagious.” It had been a weapon of fear. “If the original Red Flu strain had ever been successfully deployed in one of the Hydrian Empire’s population centers… It would have been genocide.” The Scarlet Flu was equally effective against humans, perhaps more so, given the technology difference between the peoples.
Dully, he registered how determinedly the ghost was trying to ease his pain. She was always like that, always trying to lessen his sorrows, but she couldn’t heal these wounds. It would be cruel to let her try. She would only wind up blaming herself, so he pushed the emotions aside and buried them where even she couldn’t read them. He slipped easily into the persona of a stoic commander. “Reeter is going to breach the Scarlet Flu’s quarantine when he frees the rest of the Manhattan AI from the Liguanian Sector. What are the odds that kills him?”
With a moment’s hesitation, the ghost dropped their personal discourse. She followed his lead to business. “Given Reeter’s messiah complex, it is unlikely he would expose himself or the worlds to that virus. Likely, Manhattan has instructed him on how to neutralize the infection.” After all, the AI had been imprisoned and put to work in the facility that created the original virus. That knowledge should be readily available to her.
“Messiah complex?” That was certainly an interesting choice of words.
“Reeter believes the worlds are drowning in their sins, and that he alone can save them, that he alone will do what is right for their future.” Reeter very much considered himself to be a messiah meant to shepherd humanity into a perfect future. The grandeur of that promised future had drawn a following of rich, powerful and motivated people from all over the worlds.
“There’s another word for that,” the Admiral said. “Forget calling it a messiah complex.”
She tilted her head, unsure.
“Delusional,” the Admiral supplied. Reeter was nothing more and nothing less than absolutely delusional. No one person could force these worlds to change.