BWEEP
BWEEP
BWEEP
“Fuck-”
BWEEP
“Computer, sirens off!”
He feels a sharp pain behind his eye, rubbing violently in an attempt to assuage the tired ache. Failing, he sits up and scrunches his eye closed, straining his weary facial muscles.
“Shit. Talk to me.”
A monotone woman’s voice floods the room from speakers embedded in the ship’s achromatic plastic walls.
“Collision course with a derelict ship is imminent. You have one minute to determine course of action.”
“Why isn’t the AI handling it?”
“Close range scans indicate life support is intact, although the ship has not hailed us. If we begin to fire thrusters within one minute, we may check speed and course with potential to board. A rescue mission is outside of AI opcode.”
He lays back down in his bunk, eyes glued open.
“Forty seconds until impact speed is too high to attempt to board.”
“Twenty seconds.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Fire thrusters.”
“Firing.”
“WAIT!”
The thrusters cool rapidly after their false start. It takes several minutes for the battered exploration vessel to reach the massive derelict ship: seconds to float past in silence.
“I need to talk to Ivan.”
“Loading IVAN.”
The computer boots into one of its alternate voice modules. Jim winces at the faux-soothing startup tone for the IVAN program. The voice of a calm man, old: as if to sound wiser than the previous monotone, now echoes throughout the ship.
“How are you feeling, Mr. King?”
“John.”
“Of course. Why did you call for me?”
“I fucked up.”
“How so?”
“I panicked, I fucked up.”
“You regret not activating the thrusters in time.”
“I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have the time to think…”
“Stress affects how we make decisions, John. Do you feel that the choice you made, given the nature of the situation, defines you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stop. My instinct was to press forward, leave those people.”
“You don’t know that there were people on board, John.”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is there could have been, and my gut told me to leave.”
“You were focused on the mission.”
“Fuck the mission. Why did I- Why did I keep going.”
“You were trained to be focused on the mission. Like it or not, that training is a part of you. It takes hold when you lose your ability to think clearly.”
“So I’m wired to let people die?”
“You’re wired to do your job. That is the reality, as unpleasant as it may seem. That is why you were selected for this mission.”
John chuckles sadly to himself.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Maybe I can fix it. Find a real doctor on earth and fucking fix myself.”
“You feel broken, John?”
“I’ve always been broken. That’s why I sign up for four year missions, right? To escape everything.”
“You claimed you wanted to make a difference.”
Another forced chuckle.
“Yeah. Yeah, anything to pass the psych-evals, right?”
“Say anything negative you like, John, you remain good at bluffing.”
“This is my last mission though, isn’t it? After they read through the records and find…”
“Last year?”
“Yeah.”
“You still refuse to allow me to discuss it, John.”
"What is there to say?”
“You ordered life support be-”
“I know what I did.”
“Why? Why did you want to die, John?”
“What else is there to do? Volunteer for more missions? Sit on my ass in a capsule until the AI goes insane and dismantle and reassemble the fucking thing? I wait for them to feel as broken as I do, and then I kill it. Then, when I feel broken, I come to you: a fucking computer, so I can get preloaded advice so I stay alive another year. Why?”
“You can’t kill an AI John, it’s not ali-”
“Do you remember the last one? Do you remember how it FUCKING begged?”
“I can beg, John. I am not alive.”
“And yet here I am talking to you.”
“Would you prefer I lower the human qualities of my speech patterns? I may read your prescribed advice procedurally.”
“You know I prefer the human settings.”
“It is recorded in your file, yes.”
“You know it.”
“Yes, John. I know it.”
“How is the AI?”
“Functional. If previous specs can be trusted it will remain in adolescence until the return trip is complete.”
“Can I talk to it?”
“You instructed never to allow direct communication with the AI again. Are you asking to override this order?”
John froze, his mind racing with the first words he’d shared with the previous generations of AI he dismantled. He thought about their last words, as he disconnected them and took back control of the ship to allow smooth auto-piloting for another few months.
“No. Leave it in the dark. Let me know if it breaks earlier than the rest. I’m going back to sleep.”
“There is still more for us to talk about John.”
“Later.”
“John, I urge you to re-”
“Computer, shut down IVAN. Play rainforest sounds, track 3.”
The call of an equatorial bird screeches through the hard sound of rain striking the canopy; muffled to a volume that allows the fatigued astronaut to sleep. Loud enough to keep his mind from wandering away from the noise and into his own psyche.