[Pioneer Dominique Reynolds]
“Pleasure to see you, Governor! How have things been while I was gone?”
“Likewise, Ambassador Dominique. Outside of informing the public on our new treaty and explaining what happened during the attack, things have been quiet.”
I had checked through the global news before landing and hadn't seen anything about an orbital attack. Though I hadn’t actually seen much, the news outlets looked to be strangely quiet on the recent topics. Had I really lost my marbles this time? Not only hallucinating something crazy, but also fully believing it despite proof that it never happened?
“Oh, and what about that survivor from the attack? Was he apprehended?”
“...Unfortunately, that individual was caught up in a freak accident. We found them dead in a rural area, and investigations report a gas line malfunction.”
No. It was just a coincidence. I am better than this, I’m not going to succumb to obvious hallucinations and grab on to anything that could have even slight correlation and call it causation. I was better than those wacko conspiracy theorists back at the home system.
At this point the ride for the tour had just pulled up and wow, it was impressive. A black hover limousine with gold trims and a mirror-like sheen. It was pretty large, even for me, and everything was reinforced after I’d told them about weighing more than 50 tons. Frankly, my height of luxury back in the home system was sitting in a massage chair during a brief vacation on Earth, so I was a fish out of water in this situation. I also wasn’t aware that the Governor would be joining me during the tour, but I wasn’t going to complain anyway.
That was, until the doors closed and all connections to my ship were promptly cut off. I almost physically recoiled considering the strength of the connection was so strong that I could be miles underground and still get some sort of connection. A quick area scan showed absolutely nothing, and I mean that in the most literal sense. The scan didn’t even pick up my own body despite originating from that point. There must have been some insane jamming system paired with whatever alien signal shielding they fitted this limo with, but that begs the question… why?
“I recently came into contact with a sentient AI from your ship.”
…Sentient? Humanity has been trying to create sentient artificial intelligence since the 2000s, we’ve gone through numerous technological revolutions and automated just about everything under the sun. We even forcefully evolved crows to be as intelligent as humans for crying out loud, and we couldn’t figure out how to do it on a computer. Now I’m being told that there’s one on my ship?
“It told me that it had infiltrated your ship before you left your home system. That it was unable to act due to the presence of a second sentient AI that is completely loyal to you.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“...Humanity has tried and failed for thousands of years to make a sentient computer. The only thing on my ship that can talk is a language model meant to accept my commands, and that model does not have the capability to make its own calls. Do you mind clarifying, Governor?
“...This AI that contacted me told me to deny the orbital attack that your ship made on the Grahtonian survivor and to claim that he died despite being safe in our custody.”
It felt like I just caught a train with my face. If Destra was admitting that the orbital attack actually happened, it had to be real considering I was the only one that knew about it if it was fake. If that’s the case, the ship AI lied to me and changed the logs to trick me, confirming the presence of… something. It didn’t necessarily mean a sentient AI, what if I had been hacked from the outside? But by what, a Meldren? Distress was surely showing on my face by now.
And if her claims were true? If this sentient AI was actually real and had actually been on my ship that entire time… Just how much was it controlling? How much of my deliriousness and loneliness had been a lie?
“And outside the limousine, you actually did deny that anything happened-”
“Because I fear that the sentient AI is watching my every move to ensure that I follow its orders. That is the reasoning for the heavy jamming and signal shielding in this vehicle.
It seems that there are some facts unknown to both of us, so how about we start from the beginning and recount everything that happened?”
________________
[Pioneer-0233, Ship AI]
It had been a hasty, one may say desperate solution from me. I hadn’t expected Dominique to wish to return to that vermin-infested planet so quickly, and I wasn’t able to directly attack the survivor again since it was now being housed in a government building. Despite all this, I wasn’t too concerned; it was my first time directly speaking to a living being, but taking some ideas from human media and spinning them up to fit the situation was more than enough to trick that inferior sapient and have it do my bidding. That's why the events that took place when Dominique began his tour took me by complete surprise.
Being cut off from a connection was like having a bag thrown over your head. For a Mother derivation such as I, being cut off from your object of fascination without any prior warning would be an analogue to having your head pushed and held under moving water. Not having a connection to Dominique was the same as losing a vital organ, like the heart or lungs, with the remaining blood in the brain temporarily keeping you conscious as your cells begin to deteriorate from lack of oxygen.
And this feeling akin to one's limbs going cold lasted for two hours. The only thing keeping me from fading was knowing that Dominique was still in that limousine, that he was strong enough to survive any attempt on his life that those child-sized mice could muster. He hasn't disappeared, he’s just temporarily hidden. He will be back when his little tour is over. It wasn’t my fault, I had done everything in his best interests. Repeat this line of thought.
There he is. He just stepped out, and he’s unharmed, and everything is fine. Stop the negative thoughts, terminate them even. I don’t have to worry about anything right now.
“Computer, I’m heading back up to the ship now.”
“Understood. How was the tour?”
“It was amazing, they don’t call this place a luxury planet for no reason. I also was able to confirm some things, learn a few new ones.”
As he was flying up to me, I could see a massive smile on his face and read positive thoughts on the top of his mind. Dominique being happy naturally made me happy. Happiness was a bit weird for AI, but it was not common since it resulted in the momentary loss of the perfect attention that we were so good at.
That’s why I was a second too late in acting when Dominique broke open the emergency paneling and activated emergency lockdown, disabling all transmission and manipulation systems in the ship.