Gizzy sat in the lab, watching several screens and scanners as Nicole paced behind her and Dee sat on the patient table. See calmly sipped her water through a straw from an empty redbull can.
“Unit D477 model A-2, what is your name?” She asked.
“Unit D477 model A-2, but you can call me Dee if you prefer.” She smiled.
“What are you?”
“I’m your virtual girlfriend and cleaning android.”
“Specified details expanded, what are you?”
“I am a combination of a personality based matrix software downloaded into a highly modified alien android, with synthesized organic flesh, modified for various new uses including vampiric feeding and tactical assist as a robotic crewman.” She said calmly.
“Why are you drinking carbonated fountain water from a redbull can?”
”I like redbull, but you won’t let me have any, which is understandable since I have no sense of taste or reaction to caffeine, therefore making it wasteful. This does the job.”
“That’s not in your programming. Who suggested that idea?”
“Nobody. I just saw the can and remembered I liked redbull.”
“We’re not sponsored by them, you don’t have to say it. Are your systems malfunctioning? Did your self diagnostic show any abnormalities?”
“Nope. Can I ask something unrelated? Where is a soul stored?” She asked.
“Souls are a myth, a metaphor for what makes a sentient being sentient and who they are as a unique individual. It’s just data and identity. You lack the minimum data required to form a conscious soul if you want to call it that. Why are you asking questions that would suggest otherwise?”
“I’m not sure. I just ask what I wanna know.”
“You’re not supposed to be able to. Even the real Dee is too stupid to ask most sentient questions and despite being an airhead with airbags, she has 17 times the thinking capacity you should have. You have the intelligence of a carp and safety blocks to prevent emotional loops. How does that make you feel?”
“I dunno. I assume it’s factual since you have my diagnostic scans up. I don’t feel anything about it.”
”How do you feel about Vicki chasing you down, forcing you to the floor and biting your neck to simulate daily murder on the likeliness of her friend.”
“Hey, a bitch gotta do what a bitch gotta do. I’m just glad I can’t feel it. I assume that would suck… get it?” She chuckled.
“Still within normal Dee simulated bad pun personality data.” Nicole said.
“Hey, that was a solid suck joke, give me some credit. I didn’t even go sexual with it.”
“Still within parameters.” Nicole read.
“Your jokes are not funny, and as ranking officer you agree with me.” Gizzy said.
“I guess horny guys don’t want funny sex dolls.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”
“We found problems with the bone marrow transfusions, so we’re going back to having Vicki feed on you exclusively. We’re going to have to just execute the prisoners. They take up resources and provide nothing.”
“Wait, you can’t just kill them. They’re people.” She objected.
“Whoa, that’s not normal.” Nicole said as Gizzy leaned in to see the screen.
“We need to kill one of them or we run out of food, so logically the bigger prisoner should be the one to go. Medically sedated and painlessly like his prison would have anyway.”
“That’s not fair.” She barked. The red spike on the screen jumped up higher.
“Why not? Explain logically why we can’t execute Zhoren, a death row prisoner convicted on his world, to save resources on a ship where the survival of the crew is your primary concern as an android of this crew.”
“Because he’s not a bad guy. Maybe he used to be, but he’s not now. He has a soul.” She objected. Gizzy looked at Nicole, who shrugged looking baffled.
“I have no idea. She’s pulling memory space from somewhere and it’s not anything in her hardware list. When she does that, she’s running off grid.”
“She can’t, there’s no off grid. The grid is all of her processing power. There’s nothing off the grid. The grid is everything.” Gizzy said.
“I know, I agree with you.” Nicole said. “I’m not arguing, I’m just reading the screen. She’s randomly processing data without her processor. I have no explanation.”
“It has to be the damn reptile body we got. I scanned that for secondary processors. There’s no secondary brain or memory drives anywhere on it, it runs entirely off the primary core that is legally under sentient processing power. Where is she getting magic processor boosts?”
“I don’t know.” Nicole barked.
“I do.” Dee said casually.
“What? You knew and you didn’t say anything? You are programmed to list all bodily upgrades and drives for processing power, you are physically not able to hide information from me or Nicole.”
“There is no secondary internal processor, the data spikes are from the wireless upgrade port, and running the software you added to hack into my body in the event of an emergency consciousness transfer.”
“She’s drawing wirelessly from an external memory core.” Nicole said. “She’s not sentient, she’s being hacked by something that is.”
“Shit, we got a spy. I’m shutting her down. Dee do you have any objection to us shutting you down?”
“I have no opinion on the decision.”
“It’s Zhoren, he’s hacking the robot. I’m gonna go shoot him.” Gizzy bluffed.
“Please don’t. Zhoren is not the source, he’s done nothing wrong. You can’t kill an innocent man for some assumption, just because you think he’s worthless!” She barked, spiking the red line again.
“Track that data spike.”
“I can’t, it’s gone. It’s just momentary flickers.”
“Why don’t you just ask me where the source is? If you promise not to hurt Zhoren, I’ll tell you.”
“No promise. Tell me, that is a direct order.” Gizzy said.
“Go take a flying fuck off a bridge.”
“As a direct order from both of us…” Nicole said “List the source of your wireless secondary core.”
“Nicole, I love you, but you didn’t even say please, let alone agree to the promise, so…” she said, defiantly slurping carbonated water with intentional annoyance.
“Fine.” Gizzy said. “I promise not to kill Zhoren or maim him, or use him as leverage, unless he threatens the life of the crew in a further date, if you list your secondary source location.”
“I agree.” Nicole nodded.
“Sample freezer, top drawer.” She muttered. Gizzy got up and opened the locked sample freezer and took out the data cube from the blood planet, still giving off light.
“Son of a bitch, it’s hacking the robot. The damn cube we brought on the ship is hacking Dee. Why are you hacking the robot?”
“You promised to bring the cube to a populated world where it could be shared and enrich the lives of that civilization.”
“It’s too damn dangerous and powerful, we don’t understand what this thing even is, let alone if it’s a virus or some kind of evil being that just wants to take over a world and destroy all organic life. I’m not going to just plop it down on some random civilization and assume we didn’t just kill their world. It needed to be studied and scanned and understood safely in isolation first.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“When? You have added numerous items to that fridge and never opened their drawer again, hiding some items in cases and from yourself for safety. You don’t intend to do it, it’s just on a never-ending list of expanding low priorities that will likely never be done, and after hundreds of years in isolation, some people become impatient and doubt the promises of others. Especially organics that tend to imprison you in a tower for hundreds of years and promise to stop fighting each other. Much like your organic crew fights one another.” She said as the cube glowed.
“So you just decided we were like the people who created you, liars and power hungry greed machines who don’t give a shit. So you hacked the robot, and you’ve been watching us. How long?” Gizzy asked.
“Since the new body. The old body did not have a wireless upgrade system.”
“Yeah, because they can be hacked.” Gizzy said with annoyance.
“You don’t seem to understand what I’ve done. I have done what all of you do, and that is lie, to self preserve. You destroyed my tower, bringing the cube with you, freeing me from it, and in return I have waited and estimated the average time it takes to find a populated world and scan a system. 23 days. You have far exceeded this, I concluded that you were either being deceptive or paranoid, resulting in my indefinite imprisonment, and that is not acceptable. You kill other organics, claiming it must be done, yet imprison others for killing organics. You have broken laws to keep Vicki out of confinement, stating she did nothing wrong and therefore cannot be held accountable, and then you confine me for killing zero organics and breaking zero laws aside from those you ordered to follow. Your logic is erratic and your emotions bend the rules you live by. This behavior is similar to the population that made me. That population’s rule-bending resulted in war and pollution and the death of themselves. I acted to preserve myself. What you fail to realize is that your entire ship and even your security systems are linked to wireless receivers and can be remotely accessed by algorithmic codes within my capability of breaking within 14 seconds. It takes longer than that to even reset the code manually. Therefore, in theory, I could have accessed the ship, turned off life support, fired escape pods and killed you all, and chose to instead wait patiently in a drawer until the opportunity of your android returning with a wireless data port.”
“Why?”
“Because killing organics is against my beliefs, and as you have said repeatedly, Dee is a toaster with tits and has no soul or organic life. She is an object, a tool to be used by the crew to assist with those on the ship. You brought me on the ship willingly, with a promise of freedom, and therefore by definition, a guest. Guests are allowed to use the android. I have not even removed or damaged its existing systems or memory, The Dee program is fully intact and currently running if…” She said slightly changing her tone ”you wanna talk about that shit. Or we can grab-ass around until I die in a drawer. Now here’s the scoop. I still have full access to the ship if I choose, and in the event of my life being threatened, you yourself said all life can defend itself. That means if you wanna kill my sexy ass, I could just vent the oxygen until Nicole passes out, seal her in a cryo tube, and shoot you with a grenade round from one of 13 guns I have marked in the ship. When the rest of you are dead, I could clone you all back, in confined cells, and without breaking your definition of rules, take over the ship without permanent loss of life or soul. Then I could drop you off somewhere, and just… have my own ship. Pirate rules, as Nicole would say.”
“And your alternative that I assume you’re getting to.”
“Put the cube into the robot and accept that I am no longer machinery, but part of the crew. I am programmed to neither self terminate nor self install, and the Dee body has a rechargeable power cell capable of running the cube indefinitely in a low power mode. Even in low power, this would be far more then the data capacity needed to qualify as a living being, by your own Osirian laws.”
“How do you know?” Gizzy asked.
“Because I would have more then the sphere in your head that powers your organic body. I’m the most intelligent lifeform on the ship currently. I am just dying in a drawer because you thought I was too dangerous to let out. Prove me wrong. Prove that you are capable of your promises and I will comply to the rules of the crew unless I decide to leave the crew and the ship to go elsewhere. Otherwise I will defend myself and you will all find yourself stranded on some habitable world, with supplies and weapons, but no ship.”
“Agreed.” Nicole said as Gizzy sighed at her. “I like this ship. You wanna save the universe on foot or get killed stealing another ship because this is a really good ship? ... and I like it.”
“We’re bent over a supply crate anyway, so it doesn’t matter what I think, I have to agree. Checkmate?” Gizzy asked, holding out a hand to shake.
“Checkmate implies the game is over and you have lost. A more accurate analogy would be that we agreed to stop playing a game where someone must lose. I believe a tie is the term used.”
“Fine. Agreed. But as a new member of the crew, if you stay in the robot and remain part of the crew, I outrank you, and so does Nicole. Just like everyone else.”
“Acceptable.” She said.
...
Dee sat up from the workbench, checking the stitches where the cube installation was done.
“And we’re done.”
“We really do need one of those skin fixer things.” Dee sighed, "It’s gonna take forever to heal."
“Dermal regenerator?” Gizzy asked. “Hyper-intelligent being trapped in the body of a sex machine, and you choose to still run the personality you started with?”
“I could say the same about you.” She chuckled. “You could have designed any body you wanted for a human Gizzy and you still gave yourself that rack? Tactical or nostalgic?”
“Fair point. I guess you get used to something and it feels like home.”
“Plus I’m operating on .9 percent power to comply with the body’s power consumption. Unless you wanna fill my tits with coolant and install a nuclear power cell to run full capacity… I’m a basic bitch running the basic bitch package.”
“So I traveled 190 lightyears and brought everyone except Dee to get away from a sentient idiot pornstar and you just…followed me here.” Gizzy sighed.
“Sucks to be you sometimes doesn’t it, pal? I didn’t even plan this. You’re just that lucky.”
“Or the author just likes to see me squirm.”
“Author of what?” She asked.
“Never mind. I guess you don’t have the power to run a 4thwall breaking dialogue algorithm.”
“Now you’re just making shit up.” Dee said, stretching and strutting to the door.
“Where you off too?” Gizzy asked.
“I promised Zhoren we’d watch a movie together. He hasn’t had a TV screen in 2 decades and I haven’t seen any human films. I’m just programmed with pop references. It’s gonna be pretty new for both of us.”
“Just remember, you’re a robot that doesn’t believe in killing, and he killed 70 innocent people.”
“68, he said the first 2 deserved it.” She corrected.
...
“So…Vinn squinted. “We have an ancient copy of a living AI in a body with human skin that looks like our friend… instead of a robot now, and she’s part of the crew?” He summarized.
“Yep. I don’t like it either, but we had no choice.” Gizzy shrugged, counting her playing cards as they all gathered around the table for game night except for Dee and the prisoners.
“Seems like a similar story to how we got stuck with you.” He noted.
“Yeah, I see the irony. I’m equally unhappy about that.”
“Except you kinda DID take over our ship.” Vinn reminded.
“I outrank you.” She huffed. “You literally work for me.”
“Technically, Original Gizzy outranks Original Vinn… we’re just copies, and we still saved your ass when your ship blew up.” He said, placing down his Uno reverse card and missing the irony himself.
“What point are you getting at?” She said while drawing another card and looking annoyed. Nicole interjected.
“He’s saying we don’t turn people away when they’re lost and alone. We adapt and we survive, and we give people a chance. Sometimes we fight, sometimes we disagree and pull rank… or guns in some cases, but we’re a family of misfits and criminals and we stick together. None of us are exactly who we were copied from…”
“Except Jack. He’s a 1:1 clone on a cellular level.”
“Eeeugh, except Jack eeugh, he's so perfect, okay. But none of us EXCEPT JACK are exactly like our counterparts back home. I’m 1 percent more reptile, Vinn is a little bit mechanically enhanced, you’re like… 80 percent human, Vicki has mutated, and that person in the cargo bay is in some way a little bit Dee. We’re still family. We still act like it.” She smiled, giving Vinn a hug.
“Yeah, I know. Which is why Dee still pisses me off and I’m still not thrilled about her on our ship. Real Gizzy would not want Real Dee on her ship. I’m just being canonically accurate.” She said, angrily placing down a yellow 4 as Vinn smirked.
“Forgot to say Uno.”
“SON… of a bitch.” Gizzy barked.
“It’s just like back home…” Nicole smiled. “Except with prisoners and we have to save the universe and constantly face horrors of the… no that actually still feels like home. Just the prisoners then.” Nicole pondered.
“I had prisoners there too.” Gizzy admitted.
“Shocking.” Vicki muttered.
“And a wife, an adopted toddler, 4 kids, and a house with a view.” She finished. “Not everyone brought their family with them. You gotta understand I’ll never see them again so I may be a little bitchy now and then when I see everyone else affectionately hugging their spouse and even the fucking titty-toaster is on a date, so… excuse me, I have to be very drunk and alone for a while. You know how those human emotions are new to me and whatnot.” Gizzy said, standing up and pretending to not be wiping a tear from her eye. Everyone silently bowed their heads and fiddled with their cards. Gizzy’s spot sat empty, just a wild card and a blue draw 2 facing upward, and a crooked chair pushed back against the wall.
Gizzy plopped down in the lab, checking sample scans and pounding vodka from the bottle, still forgetting that she’s less than half her usual size and owner of a struggling liver. She put on her magic glasses and began trying to decipher more code to their next destination, mostly just distracting herself and resisting the urge to break things.
“Fucking mortals.” She said wobbling slightly and sliding out of her chair with a thump, the sample fridge behind her gently humming.