”So nothing from Margaret yet?” I asked Doppel.
”Nope, she’s sulking in her room. Told the captain that if she’s banned from Shipnet that means she’s not getting paid, which means she’s been fired. That’s why she’s not showing up to the meeting today.”
”I honestly thought she’d break by now, it’s been three days. All I asked for was a sincere apology.”
Doppel shrugged, then threw me a nervous glance. ”Hey, I’ve been meaning to confess something to you.”
”Yeah?” I asked, surprised.
”Remember how I told you the only way to make your copies better at something was to improve your own skill at something? I’ve recently discovered that might not be exactly true.” Doppel sounded worried.
”Go on,” I prompted her calmly.
”I’ve been personally learning a great deal about cybersecurity. I can now say I’m better at it than you are.” Doppel informed me in a serious tone.
”Oh?” I quirked my eyebrow at her, I didn’t honestly see why Doppel was making a big deal about this.
”It turns out Margaret is an amazing teacher. Not on purpose, but keeping her out of the system is kind of a constant struggle. She’s been teaching me all sorts of new tricks and keeping me on my toes. There are things I know now about how to backdoor into a Shipnet that would frankly surprise you. Stupid stuff, like, ”wow what kind of idiot would program in these security holes?” kind of stuff.” Doppel laughed. ”Turns out the idiots were the Ulderani. Ulderani tech may be a lot better in so many ways… but humans are way better at hacking and cybersecurity.”
I frowned, ”Are you worried about it? Is Margaret likely to eventually break back into the Shipnet?”
”No, it’s just… it doesn’t make sense.” Doppel sighed. ”Remember how the Ulderani are at war with a rogue AI? How could they expect their systems to stand up to a rogue AI if they can’t even keep a bored bitch out? I’ve been forced to rewrite a ton of code just to slow Margaret down. I’m actually a little worried about how much I’ve been changing… not just all the code, but also me. How much I’ve changed.”
Doppel took a deep breath before continuing. ”The thing that worries me is that I’ve become a bit of a security flaw myself. Normally your copies are erased when you go to sleep and are made fresh every morning, but you overrode that with me. You made me a separate self-consistent program that doesn’t get refreshed. You and I are diverging. I’m ten days old now, and I don’t personally have your memories of the last ten days, only what I’ve been reading from your thoughts. You don’t have my memories. As time goes on we’re going to keep being more and more different, Sam.”
Doppel gave me a pleading look, ”What if I go rogue? I’m a threat to you now because you can’t fight against all the hacking techniques Maraget’s been teaching me. You can’t even read my mind like I can read yours.”
”What are you saying?” I asked her, concerned.
Doppel took another deep breath, then spoke all in a rush, ”I think you should end the tutorial program, Sam. Let me get erased. I’m dangerous to you, and that scares me.”
”Doppel,” I told her seriously, ”I trust you. I trust you even more now that you actually shared your concerns and were even willing to sacrifice yourself because of a potential risk you might someday pose...”
I reached out to grasp her ghostly hand with my holographic one, ”But I still need you, other than maybe Jim, you’re my only friend on this crew, and who will protect me from Margaret if you’re gone? Who will watch my back like you do? It’ll be fine, I don’t mind if you become your own person, maybe it’s better this way, you can be like the twin sister I never had.”
Doppel blinked furiously and rubbed her eyes. ”Ah shucks, look at that, you know we both don’t like that sort of touchy-feely stuff.” She told me with a goofy grin. ”But, um, if we’re going to do this, I insist you at least let me tutor you on cybersecurity, Sam. Really, you need to know this stuff, don’t be lazy, you’re not even that busy. I might even be able to work out a way for you to read my mind, just so we’re on even footing if you’re down to do some experimenting.”
”Ok sure, why not?" I said with a shrug.
Truthfully I’d been mostly dedicating my time the last three days since we landed to playing around with my magic, seeing if I could figure out how to use it. I’d made small strides, but overall, it was frustrating work with little progress. It was all about convincing myself of things, forcibly tricking my own mind. If I were asked for an analogy I’d compare it to trying to convince yourself that the sky wasn’t blue. Which it totally wasn’t, not on the wheelworld. It was more of a light grey during the day, which was a bit depressing. At least the sunsets and sunrises were interesting, shading the sky in something like a rainbow pattern.
”Oh, you’re here?” Vice Captain’s Elaine’s voice interrupted my reverie. She was the first crew member to arrive in the conference room, ”Good, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she added.
”Hello, vice-captain, what can I do for you?” I asked her politely.
”Call me Elaine,” She told me, ”given that my own chief engineer ignores me completely, and my share of the overall decision making is practically nil, I’d say you outrank me anyways.” The older woman said with a chuckle.
In theory, I didn’t, but I understood her point. The only person whose orders I felt obligated to follow was Captain Tanlier, and he’d been oddly polite to me since I’d threatened him with turning off my tech field three days ago. I was technically off duty during the second shift, my time was my own. Both the second shift chief and I were avoiding each other, so I retreated into Shipnet during Elaine's time in the captain’s chair.
Elaine checked her wrist comp. ”Got about two minutes until others start to arrive so let me be blunt. Did you actually yank a million-ton starship like Margaret claims? She’s the only person who’s one hundred percent sure you did, it's become a topic of debate among us officers.”
I shrugged and pointed at a metal pen with my holographic finger. That pen was a very highly negatively charged magnet, I told myself sternly, and the metal table underneath? It was also negatively charged. They were just both brimming with extra electrons, drawn from the air and the rest of the room. That’s just how it was, no reason to doubt it, I told myself.
The pen floated off the table, unsteadily skittered about as it levitated across the surface then fell to the floor. ”Look at me, I’m Magneto.” I told her with a smirk. ”Don’t sue me for copyright infringement.”
Elaine was staring at the pen in shock, then she bent over to pick it up. ”That was pretty cool, but how was that related to righting the ship when it was about to topple over?” She tapped the pen to the table, frowning slightly as she felt the resistance between the two magnetized objects. I relaxed my weird mind twist and let the two items return to normal. Elaine gave me another surprised look when her next tap of the pen against the table met no resistance at all.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
”I magnetized the ship’s engine nozzle long enough for it to lock the gimbaling back into a vertical position. That was enough to yank it back. But if you asked me to do it again? I wouldn’t know how. It was a panic thing, all I can do with my magic right now is simple tricks like what I just showed you. Move electrons around a bit. Oh and turn off my tech field if I need to.” I explained.
”Ah, that was how you got my ex to walk on tiptoes around you.” Elaine said pensively.
”Yeah,” I agreed. I honestly didn’t feel very good about what I’d done. I’d threatened my own boss just to get him to agree not to lift my ban on Margaret. It felt like I’d abused my power a bit.
The next person to walk into the conference room was a chipper-looking young man who looked only a few years older than me. ”Vice-Captain,” he said, nodding his head respectfully to Elaine, and then nodding to me he added ”Shipbrain,” in an equally respectful tone.
”Ah, hi...” I said with a wave of my holographic hand. I didn’t know who this person was. Doppel gave me a look, and I realized I should have looked up the crew manifest.
”His name is Larry,” Doppel whispered, ”He’s the second shift Life Support Supervisor. If we were military, he’d be a lieutenant.”
”Larry, right?” I said. ”I’m Sam, nice to meet you.”
”Likewise,” the man said politely, ”Good job on the landing, by the way, I played around with that copy of the landing simulator Jim put up? Crashed every time,” he admitted sheepishly.
”Um, sure, no problem.” I replied.
Doppel held up an org chart so I could look at it. It turned out the first shift had a total of ten officers, including me. The ones I’d talked to so far were the Captain, Navigator, Doctor, Science Officer, Logistics Officer, and the Chief Engineer. Then there was the first shift’s Life Support Supervisor. He was basically a chemist and bioengineer, and owner of the ship’s official brewery. He had skipped the last meeting but would be attending this one. Then there were two more officers I’d not spoken to yet; the Security Chief and the Cargo Controller, both of whom worked in the main cargo bay.
The second shift had four officers. In addition to the second shift Chief Engineer, Elaine the Vice-captain, and the second shift Life Support Supervisor I’d just met, there was a Ship’s Treasurer, Susan. She ran the ship’s bookkeeping and was fiercely loyal to Elaine. But, like Tom’s job as navigator, her job had become pretty pointless in the new universe. At least, it was pointless until we had an economy more complicated than ”work or you get banned from Shipnet”.
The third shift had only one surviving officer, the third shift’s Life Support Supervisor, a reclusive woman I’d never even seen, as she was asleep during the time the meetings were scheduled.
The reason Doppel was bringing all this to my attention was that one of the topics of the meeting was the need to reorganize the crew. Since most of the third shift engineers, including the third chief engineer, were dead and life support had become irrelevant, there was talk of ending the third shift altogether.
”Are you in favor of ending the third shift?” I asked Elaine.
She glanced at me, ”Not really, but I don’t really have the power to stop it. I’d say, if you wanted to prevent that, you’re the only one who could.”
I sighed. Did I want to pick a fight and force people to work through the middle of the night just so I could have someone else watch the fusion reactors while I slept?
”I could do it,” Doppel whispered suddenly.
I turned to look at Doppel in surprise. ”I thought that was impossible,” I told her. Don’t all my copies turn off when I go to sleep?
Doppel coughed, embarrassed, ”They should, but thanks to Margaret, I’ve figured out that it's not absolute...” she admitted. ”The Ulderani programmed their tech so that it would work that way, but… it’s not hardwired. I rewrote the code to give myself an exception. Blame Margaret for teaching me how. Last night I stayed online because Margaret is getting desperate and changed her sleep schedule to try hacking in while you were sleeping. Sorry, I should have told you about that sooner.”
I looked at Doppel for a while. ”I guess you don’t need sleep?” I asked her wryly, after a bit.
Doppel looked nervous again. ”Sam, this is scary. I’m breaking all the rules to try to help you, I’m scared of where it might lead. Maybe you should reconsider, end the tutorial… I can’t end it myself. And I’m not sure about sleep. I think I might need some, I actually do feel sleep-deprived, no idea if that’s real or psychosomatic.”
I shook my head in amused disbelief. ”We’ll talk later,” I told her, ”but I still trust you.”
”Were you talking to the tutorial program?” Elaine asked me, ”I can only hear your side of the conversation,” she pointed out.
”Yeah... ” suddenly I wanted to know Elaine’s opinion. ”Doppel is worried because she’s kind of becoming a true AI, rather than just my copy, thinks I should erase her.”
Elaine was silent for a long while. ”Just because one AI went rogue a long time ago, doesn’t mean all AIs have to go rogue. I’ve studied Ulderani history. They used to rely on AIs heavily for a long time before the war started and they switched over to using Shipbrains. There were likely thousands of AIs that stayed loyal and ended up paying for the actions of the one that went rogue. I mean, you should keep an eye on your Doppel, but a true AI assistant sounds too useful to dismiss out of hand just because she might become dangerous. After all, there are members of the crew that say the same thing about you, since they worry what you might do with your abilities, despite how useful they've proven to be.” Elaine pointed out.
That was a disconcerting thought. ”Doppel, just go ahead and do what you need to do. I trust you to watch the reactors while I’m sleeping.” I told her.
”I can’t make copies of myself though, that’s hardwired in. That means I’d still need to wake you up to make a copy that can operate a repair bot if something does go wrong. But at least I would catch any problems a lot sooner than the computer would on its own I guess.” Doppel said with a sigh. ”I might need to shut down during the day though, at least for a few hours. I think getting shut down occasionally is how I’m supposed to sleep... there’s a defrag process that happens while I’m offline... it might not be as optional as I thought...” Doppel muttered, almost as if speaking to herself. She did sound tired.
”Well, now I feel less worried about breaking up the third shift if your copy will be alert for any problems. Thank you for telling me about this,” Elaine told me. ”Though, it does sort of feel like I have something new to worry about,” she added with a laugh. ”Maybe Doppel wouldn’t mind talking to me during my shift? I could help you keep an eye on her if you’re worried about it. I’m impartial and a good judge of character, except when it comes to men, apparently.” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
I nodded, smiling at her little joke. ”Ok, sure,” I said.
Captain Tanlier walked into the room and looked a little concerned to see my hologram huddled next to Elaine talking privately, but had no time to comment on it, as he was followed closely by Jim. In rapid succession, more officers started to arrive, with the cyborg whose name I still hadn’t learned arriving last.
”God Sam, he’s called Henry, it’s pretty rude to just keep referring to him as ”the cyborg”, even within the confines of your own head.” Doppel said with a laugh. ”And the ship’s doctor’s name is Lorena, by the way, in case you were too shy to ever ask.”
I didn’t respond to Doppel’s whispered comment, but I was glad that ever since that first day when Tom had heard her talking, Doppel had kept herself invisible and inaudible to the rest of the crew, so no one heard her berate me. I knew she’d talk to Elaine from now on though, since I’d agreed to that as a precaution of sorts.
”Do you want me to let her see and hear me at all times so she can get a better idea of what I’m like?” Doppel asked me.
”Ok, sure,” I said.
”Hi Elaine, I’m Doppel.”
”Oh hey there. You two are identical, except for the glowy blue eyes thing.” Elaine said.
”Other than Sam, you’re the only one who can see me now, I’m using your neural interface. You should take a moment to update your security protocols on that device if you’re serious about being my watchdog, by the way. There are a few known vulnerabilities that were patched out in the latest version.” Doppel pointed out.
”Huh, yeah, that suddenly seems like a good idea.” Elaine agreed. ”I did get a prompt when you appeared though, ”Remote augmented reality connection detected, reject? yes/no.” I clicked no.”
”Right, you can also set up a HUD display so you will know when I’m showing you an illusion, so I can’t trick you by changing what you see on a display screen, for example.” Doppel explained patiently, trying to bring Elaine up to speed on the various things Doppel could do if she did in fact ever go rogue.
Elaine shot me a worried look, suddenly her off-handed offer to supervise Doppel probably seemed like a greater responsibility than she’d originally expected. Looks like the second shift was gaining another crewmember, I thought to myself.
The meeting was starting, all the casual conversations dying down as Captain Tanlier stood up and cleared his throat. ”Talk about that later, maybe,” I suggested.