Brinus sat in His Commander’s office. The Commander was making notes on a pad. They pressed buttons on a computer terminal and then looked up. “You owe me and your commissioned lieutenant twenty-two hundred credits each. That is your fine. I am also confining you to quarters for six months. You will go home after going to work unless summoned by a superior officer or attending one of your classes. You will not leave your quarters unless you go to battle stations or to your duty station while on duty. Will you pay the fine in cash or digital currency?”
Brinus looked blank for a second and shifted in his seat. He said. “I have a coin box in my storage room, sir. I can have the cash by this afternoon.”
Commander Theodore made a few notes. He then said, “Great, I’ll have your boyfriend send me your credits. Are you still dating? right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Commander Theodore removed his glasses, wiped them with his shirt, and put them on. He then yelled in a military voice, “For future business ventures, you must get a license from me and be a commissioned lieutenant at least to apply for the license clear Midshipman Stinkball! If you’re caught doing this again, you will be disciplined further! Running an unauthorized business without a license for a second offense is a fine of fifty thousand credits and a year in the brig! I gave you the punishment for the first offense. Dismissed Midshipman Stinkball.”
“Sir.”
Brinus saluted and left.
He adjusted his shirt outside and then walked down the hall. He knew he was wrong but hoped to get away with it. Feeling no remorse, He was sad about being caught because now canceling his camping trip with Simmie at the next port was inevitable. Brinus was looking forward to survival camping with his boyfriend in the wilderness for 10.
----------------------------------------
In the robotics lab, Brinus welded off an armor plate of a mech leg while Cat Cadaver blasted at full volume on the radio. For this particular repair job, he needed to access the main computer chip in the autonomous walker's left leg.
image [https://cdn-gcs.inkitt.com/story_images/big_b44f617e9ad758176c7ea59496a8ff73.png]
This specific droid experienced a malfunction in its personality subroutines and froze in battle. It ended up being destroyed by the enemy, but the Confederacy managed to recover it.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Computer cut music.”
Brinus removed the welding gear and saw his therapist standing at the door.
Brinus smiled when he saw his therapist. In some ways, he felt a sense of relief. “Is it that time already?”
She nodded. “Do you want to tell me about what happened today?”
“Not really.”
Dr. Calnori looked at Brinus and leaned against the wall. “You’re usually very talkative.”
Brinus shrugged his shoulders and then said with indifference, “What’s there say? You break the rules, you pay.”
Brinus reached for a piece of nicotine gum on the table and put it in his mouth as the therapy session made him crave a cigarette.
Three pieces were missing out of ten from the gum container.
Dr. Calnori laughed before she could stop herself.
“What?”
She walked up to Brinus and picked up the nicotine gum. She examined it, noticing the four missing pieces. She said with a smile. “You just had your first real breakthrough. Like a genuine breakthrough. I assume you looked at the material on excessive smoking I sent you?”
Brinus shrugged as he put the welding torch back on the shelf. “I ain’t convinced by it, but I do think I could perform better in kabochi. They still haven’t put me in a match cuz injury risk due to smoking. The recommendation was that I should gradually reduce how much I smoke until I get down to ten cigarettes a day to keep from having major side effects, so I am starting off by cutting down to seventy a day as a start. I want to get down to twenty a day, though. That’s what my boyfriend smokes.”
Calnori started Brinus with a puzzled look. “We have fifty minutes to discuss whatever you want. Remember, no judgments. Something is bothering you. What is it?”
Brinus realized he couldn’t hide what was really bothering him from her. He cussed and slammed his hands on the table. “You say the navy is here to help, and then they turn around and take all of my profits from my business and confine me to quarters. What the fuck?!”
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Calnori came up to Brinus and sat next to him. “You sure you did nothing wrong? Why don’t we take a moment to reflect.”
Brinus popped his nicotine gum and tilted his head. “I guess selling navy property without permission was wrong, ” He said, tapping his fingers on the workstation. “Cutting my fellow officers and crewmates out of their share was wrong, too.” Pulling out a cigarette lighter from one of the drawers, he began clicking it. “I guess not paying taxes is a crime, ” he said in a board voice.
Dr. Calnori wanted to facepalm at that last statement. How the hell does a 19-year-old ex-syndicate member not know tax evasion is a crime? Whatever, He was a criminal and needed patience. She was trained not to look upon people with judgment.
Dr. Calnori crossed her arms and then said, “Yes, confessing these things, can you see why you were punished?”
Brinus nodded.
“Now, how do you feel?”
Brinus shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I had it coming.”
“You think your commander’s anger is justified?”
Brinus nodded.
“Maybe we should turn down the music? I know your only one on duty tonight but loud music violates protocols.”
“Yes ma’am. Did my lieutenant send you?”
Calnori shook her head. “Your commander did. He wanted me to do a wellness check on you. Anyway, I will take my leave and I will send you some more material on heavy smoking tomorrow.”
Brinus saluted his therapist. “Yes ma’am.”
Dr. Calnori left and Brinus resumed play the music at full volume. This time though he decided to play some death metal.
----------------------------------------
One hour later, Brinus was at the computer terminal in the workstation after therapy. After the session, he could see what he had done was wrong but felt no remorse. He was irritated that the therapist tried to guilt trip him. Knowing what he did was wrong, he decided to just learn from it and move.
The processing chip was hooked up to some wires. The wires were attached to the computer chip and a computer terminal on his workstation. It took an hour and a half to weld off the metal plate on the droid. He was playing more loud gangster rap from Otis Datis and singing to it as he went over the code.
It looked like the droid had developed PTSD from being in combat continuously. The only way to fix it was a memory wipe. The AI Bill of Rights stated that sentient AIs were to be treated as living creatures. A memory wipe would be equivalent to murder because, according to the code, the AI was at a human level of awareness. He had just run through the Turing Test, and it passed.
He hit an ethical dilemma. Should he submit the droid for AI consoling or purge the memory?
“Computer, run playlist fifty-four command code stinkball four-five-four-six.”
“Command accepted.”
Brinus needed some spicy music to put him in the mood for the work he was about to do.
The computer switched over to death metal from the Delta Region as Brinus began the process of removing the most spicy memory, which was the most likely cause of PTSD in the droid. He felt it was a good compromise between droid therapy and a complete memory wipe.
Brinus ran a .exe program, and he spent twenty minutes writing. It purged the offending memory from the backup drives and the primary memory chip.
He spent an hour erasing the memory and wrote up a report. Recommending the droid be retired and used as a police droid in a factory, he sighed heavily, thinking they pushed this poor droid too hard. He had more sympathy for this droid than he would have for any human.
After finishing the work, Brinus was smoking outside of the lab when Simmie approached Brinus. He took the cigarette out of Brinus’s mouth and took a drag. They began sharing it.
Simmie handed it back to Brinus. He looked at Brinus after standing beside him and then said, “So...the lieutenant sent me. She said you have been playing loud music and was worried about you.”
Brinus shrugged, taking a drag from the cigarette and handing it to Simmie. He said, “I like loud music. It helps me think.”
Simmie smirked and slapped Brinus on the shoulder, “Is it really necessary to serenade the entire robotics workshop?”
Brinus laughed and then said, leaning against the wall. “I was upset; tell the lieutenant her message was received.”
Simmie patted Brinus on the shoulder. “Good man.”
Simmie took a final drag and crushed the butt in an ashtray outside of the workstation.
Brinus looked at Simmie and then stood in front of him. “I love you. See you tonight.”
They kissed. As Simmie turned and left, Brinus slapped Simmie on the butt, and they both laughed.
----------------------------------------
Brinus came to his quarters after his 24-hour shift. He removed his steel-toed boots, shirt, and socks. He then put on a pair of gym shorts. He smelled supper cooking. It was garlic bread rolls and roast game meat from the planet they orbited with root vegetables and meat broth. He had just pulled a twenty-four-hour shift and was hungry. Since he couldn’t visit a restaurant, and was on half-pay, he couldn’t afford to have a delivery. The next seventy-two hours were to himself, and it occurred to him he couldn’t go to his favorite nightclub on the promenade because some prick chose to snitch on him.
He walked into the kitchen barefoot and shirtless and came up behind Simmie, making out with his neck and back. He then put his hands in his pants and grabbed his bottom.
Simmie pushed him off and laughed. “I know what you want. But can’t we wait until after supper? The roast is in the oven and will be going off in ten minutes.”
“Sure.” He slapped Simmie on the butt, and they both laughed. “I will be playing games in the game room. Boss Battles just dropped a new battle pass.”
“I will join you in a few minutes. The roast will be ready in thirty minutes...and then...” Simmie pinched Brinus’s butt and they both laughed.
They kissed, and then Brinus went into the game room.
Brinus had switched out his gym shorts for another pair as these were dirty by young adult male standards and took a ten-minute sonic shower. Both boys were shirtless, had gym shorts on, and were barefoot. Brinus washed his uniform in the washing machine. Simmie sat In front of Brinus on the floor with Brinus’s feet on the floor. Brinus had his legs and feet over Simmie’s chest with his calves against his boyfriend’s chest. Brinus had a headset on a game controller as he was in a boss battle on his MMORPG. He was screaming into the mic and fighting the interstellar space dragon with 7 other people who were his gaming buddies.
Simmie was never much of a gamer but always enjoyed watching his boyfriend play on his games.
It took an hour to deal with the boss, and as they were settling down to eat the doorbell rang.
He pulled up the triquarter and saw it was a message courier in the doorbell camera. He opened the door and took the message. The commandant wanted to see him ASAP to discuss his proposal.
Brinus wanted to eat dinner and have his after-dinner cigarettes with Simmie first. After all, ASAP doesn’t technically mean now.