After being told that they had two episodes in the can, Joe spent some quality time with his new electronics and a good book. He also got some good sleep, but he had weird dreams about the World AI dropping him on a trust fall. What he’d expected to wake up to was crepes full of peaches and crème fraîche with a sprinkling of powdered sugar. What he did wake up to was more rude.
Some gloopy gel was dripping off his hair, falling in sickening plops along his shoulders. Someone had made the effort to wipe his face, but his ears felt plugged, and he had trouble blinking his eyes open. He didn’t want to open his eyes, so he focused on sound first. You know how you don’t notice something constant until it stops? Joe hadn’t realized that there was this constant hum that resonated in his body while he was in VR. Now that the hum was external instead of internal, he noticed the lack.
His mind whirled! Had they figured out that they’d made a mistake and that he wasn’t a criminal? Had his parents posted some bond to have him released? Was he being considered for parole? Joe got excited at the thought of going back to his old life, which was almost idiotic if you compared it to his virtual life, but he wasn’t thinking all that straight as he was waking up chilled and covered in goo.
Now he was ready to open his eyes, so he did and saw a small room. It had a couch (which he was laying on) that was liquid proof and a little slippery, but it curved against him in a way that made it so that he didn’t just slip off of it. There was a lamp with light that hurt his eyes a little bit, but blinking helped. His eyes almost automatically noted the light above the door that glowed a soft green in a window-like thing that probably showed on both sides of the closed door. There was a comfortable chair, tissues on a little side table, and a round trash bin that looked empty from where he sat on the couch.
It was almost like a doctor’s office, except that the chair and exam table were comfortable instead of sterile. Joe guessed he’d gotten used to having clothes magically appear on his body because it took him a few minutes of looking around to notice that he was naked, save the gel and light hospital-like blanket that covered his body. He moved to wipe his hand through his hair to dislodge more of the gel, but it came up short. It was only his left hand, but it was shackled to the bed, and that made him notice that his couch was a “safe” distance from both the door and the comfortable chair.
Joe spent some time using the blanket and his right hand to clear out his ears and get some of the worst of the gel off his hair, if only enough so that it didn’t plop disconcertingly. This caused a few wrestling moves as he slid all over the little couch, but he was making progress when the door opened.
A short man with a military haircut and a non-military waistline shuffled through the door, a clipboard more prevalent than his face. He flicked a switch on the wall and the light over the door switched from green to a purple color. He wore a comfortable suit that looked like it belonged on a homicide detective, and it was crumpled like he’d slept in it for a few nights.
“Hello, there,” the man smiled a professional smile at Joe over the top of his clipboard. “I wouldn’t bother with the gel. It’s rather messy, but I’m used to it.”
“Uh, okay,” Joe said, and missed his Clickbait talent.
“I’m Dr. Phendal, the incarceration center psychiatrist and assistant warden,” he introduced himself and sat in his comfortable chair. Joe didn’t know about most people, but the term psychiatrist sent a chill of dread up and down his spine and all the way to his little toe. “There’s no reason to be alarmed as this is just a routine checkup.”
“Okay,” Joe drawled out his answer slowly and Dr. Phendal wrote something on his clipboard. The symmetry of his note scribbling and the pen clicking of the Detective the night before had Joe even more confused.
“Your case was flagged last night for inspection and luckily, I had a last-minute cancellation today and so I could squeeze you in,” he was smiling still, and this time Joe could see his lips. His eyes were suspiciously kind and crinkled along with his smile. “You’re Joe Cockran Denphry, correct?”
“Yes,” Joe answered, following Jean’s advice again because, in his mind, this man was just like that Detective from the night before. Joe blamed it on the fact that he’d once again woken up in a strange place with no warning and was being judged. The last time something like this had happened, he’d been spider food for hours before he’d managed to adjust to the shifting surroundings.
“How are you feeling?” and Dr. Phendal’s buggy-kind eyes locked onto Joe like a specimen in a petri dish.
“Confused,” Joe started to blurt out all sorts of things and then stopped. “Am I being released? Did they figure out it was a mistake?” Yeah, that’s what he finally came up with.
Dr. Phendal laughed and Joe's gut sank. For him, this was funny, but Joe hadn’t been joking. He could see it from Dr. Phendal’s perspective. He saw people like Joe all day every day. Criminals. Probably all different kinds of criminals who did all sorts of crimes. Joe could see how this could be funny to him, but it was devastating to Joe.
“No, I’m sorry,” Dr. Phendal was still chuckling as he said it. “Your case has been flagged for possible Stockholm syndrome. Do you know what that is?”
Okay, granted, Joe hadn’t given very intelligent answers to things so far, but was that really an excuse to be so patronizing? Joe swallowed down hope, and his disgust for this guy. He was truly trying to be a good guy here, but this guy didn’t make it easy.
“Yes,” Joe answered clearly. “Stockholm syndrome is where the victim becomes enamored with their tormentor.”
“Certainly, that is one way to look at it, but in this case it’s less about victims and torment, and more about someone incarcerated falling in love with their jailor,” Dr. Phendal explained, his brows and cheeks merry like he was Santa Claus or something. “We have noted an unusual generosity in your behavior patterns that have us concerned.”
“Uh, huh,” Joe really missed Clickbait.
“There was a punitive incident recently?” Dr. Phendal let his brows inch up and Joe wanted to snatch them off his supercilious forehead.
There were two factors to Joe's perfectly rational dislike of this guy’s profession. First, all potential authors are required to take several psychology classes to infuse realistic characters into their works. Joe knew enough of the psychobabble to get by. Secondly, everyone who fails at their chosen profession goes into mandatory psychological counseling and Joe's counselor was a complete asshole. They do IQ and EQ testing and then the counselor sits with the candidate for a while to figure out what they might be qualified for and if the candidate can get training in another field. Joe had thought that psychologist or counselor might be the thing for him, but his counselor had been a total jerk and classified him as hopeless and unsuitable for further career training. Sure, Joe's IQ was high enough and if left alone in a room by himself, his EQ tested okay, but he’d flunked on EQ because he was an introvert and didn’t present in a way his counselor could understand. Joe didn’t understand that it was Joe’s fault that his counselor's divorce had left him bitter and unjust. Joe had complained, but it had come off as sour grapes for being denied further training.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Punitive incident?” Joe choked on their term for the spider torture.
Dr. Phendal looked down at his notes. “Yes, it says here that you had trouble adjusting to the incarceration environment and were subjected to an alternate option that was less appealing than the one you chose.”
A red haze lowered over Joe's vision. There is nothing more unfair in this or any world than someone who blatantly chooses to downplay your trauma by couching it in less tragic language.
“That isn’t exactly why you’re here today, though,” Dr. Phendal looked up and tried to sound reassuring and stern at the same time. “You’re here today because we think you might be experiencing inappropriate emotions toward your AI superiors. I’d like to stress that you are not in trouble, and that the things you say here will not negatively reflect on any real person.”
“And what happens after this meeting?” Joe asked, his fingers plucking at the edge of the blanket.
“Once we’ve had our little chat, you may qualify for re-assignment to another incarceration program,” Dr. Phendal explained, his clipboard on his lap and his hands spread wide. “It would be random, of course, as you are an inmate, but it would free you from a potentially harmful or traumatizing personality realignment.”
Good gawds! These people and their word juggling, Joe thought to himself. In English, this guy was saying that Joe would be randomly chucked into another door.
“We’re showing that you spent a majority of your earned VR perk points on AI upgrades,” Dr. Phendal transitioned with a glance at his watch. “Could you explain your reasoning?”
The sarcasm monster in Joe really wanted to say, “Because I’m madly in love with the sadistic bastard who tortured me with a giant spider for what felt like two lifetimes.”
“It’s just how I was raised,” Joe ended up saying what he thought his mother would like to hear. That tended to get him out of trouble with her, so maybe it would help here. “When you take care of others, they tend to take care of you right back.”
“Is that part of your religious upbringing?” Dr. Phendal scribbled, but then looked back up at Joe when he didn’t answer right away.
“So, I’ve got to be a religious nut to be kind?” Joe's sarcasm monster did NOT say out loud. “We might not have been devout churchgoers, but my parents taught me values anyway,” was what Joe settled on instead.
“I see,” Dr. Phendal's eyebrows rose a few inches and his pen scribbled. “Do you feel that your AI overseers pushed you to buy upgrades for them over yourself?”
“I don’t think so,” Joe answered, keeping his tone flat.
How unnerving it was to Joe to realize that his actions were so out of character for any human incarcerated in this way. It was so inconceivable that he would retain his generally good character even after being incarcerated unjustly that they thought he was crazy because of it. If kindness was crazy, then Joe had to switch the script before they tossed him into amputee-land. Sitting on this slippery couch where the furious clench of his muscles caused him to ignobly slide around the couch didn’t help Joe with trying for dignity, but he clenched his fists and tried anyway.
“I’m showing that you were made aware of an upgrade that would provide a bed and another that would upgrade your VR food choices,” Dr. Phendal tapped his pen on his clipboard.
“Yes,” Joe opted for Jean-level brevity. He didn’t need stats to try to be smart about this.
“And yet you chose to upgrade your assistant and the World AI, even though those upgrades were far more expensive than a bed and food?” Dr. Phendal pressed with a scribble and a tap. “Why is that?”
If Joe couldn’t just be kind, he’d have to come up with reasons that made his moves seem clever instead. Joe did have ulterior motives when he chose the World AI upgrade, but he didn’t think they’d like the idea that he was trying to bribe his captors into treating him better, especially when a smaller upgrade probably would have sufficed. Considering that Joe had passed up the furball love upgrade, he couldn’t say he was trying to gain favor with his cohorts in some idiotic ploy to overthrow his captors either. Joe didn’t want to be considered a kiss-up. And everything Joe said was going to be analyzed by humans in moods that he couldn’t begin to predict, so it had to be innocuous too. Joe was feeling like it was impossible, but then he thought about their viewer count, and ratings.
“I did it for the ratings,” Joe claimed. “I figured if I was going to get out sooner, I’d need a successful show and I don’t know anything about that.”
“Really?” Dr. Phendal nodded like every word out of Joe's mouth was utterly fascinating, something they must teach in a class Joe wasn’t offered because his stupid counselor thought he couldn’t string two sentences together.
“Yep,” then again, maybe his counselor was right about his not being able to string sentences together, but this guy was employed, and he wasn’t Mr. Congeniality either. “I mean,” Joe felt pressed by his own internal demons to do better with his explanation, “they know the business better than I ever could, so if I was ever going to get to two million viewers, I’d need their help more than one more measly point in my own stats.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Phendal was saying as he scribbled across the page twice. Joe didn’t know how he was writing more than Joe was even saying, but he was resisting his curiosity. That and the shackle held Joe to the stupid slippery couch that if he squirmed too much on, he was going to be more than psychologically exposed to this… person.
“And now that I’ve upgraded them,” Joe went on, reasonably aloof for the fact that he was sitting butt-naked on a chair oozing of goo with nothing but a heavy sheet to cover himself, “it would be cruel to have to start over with another more basic model. Don’t you think?”
“Considering that you are incarcerated and have lost your right to self-manifestation until such time that you can more functionally fit into society again,” Dr. Phendal was saying, but then Joe was replacing the big pompous words like “self-manifestation” with “dignity” and “more functionally fit into society” with “conform to our uptight, intolerant standards.” Joe zoned out on whatever else he had to say and just did what he’d done as a kid when his dad was mad and trying to make a point.
“Of course, you’re right,” Joe intoned, flinging just a bit of goo off the chair and onto the floor. “I’m grateful for your concern and for having this chance to…” Joe zoned out again. It was a valid coping mechanism. If people didn’t do it, wouldn’t their brains melt out their ears or something? His would. Joe wasn’t saying anything important. He was just fluffing Dr. Phendal's ego so the World AI he’d just started getting along with wasn’t archived and Joe wasn’t dumped into Little House on the Tundra, a little-known Russian remake of Little House on the Prairie only more Dostoevskian with a little more Russian literary themes like famine and misery than pluck and optimism of American literature.
Once Dr. Phendal was done being a dick, Joe was put back in his pod, a very unnerving experience. He was led into a warehouse with lines and lines of these pods all hooked up like they were Matrix batteries and considering that he’d just been stuck in a box of a room having a very Matrix discussion (minus the blue and red pills), he felt a bit disconnected from both life and reality. Two huge security guards almost literally picked him up to stuff him into the top of a washing-machine-like device with an octopus of tubes and wiring that did not look safe as some of them oozed a bit and others sparked. Then Joe was drowned in goo. It was only then that he understood the mercy of having been shot with tranquilizers so that he missed this the first time.