The meeting was, for the most part, rather dull. The first part had been a quick announcement of scheduling changes, the third shift was being added to the second shift, and everyone could now expect to work one hour longer, as the wheelworld’s day was 27.2 hours long, but would have 2.2 more hours of free time per day. We were all to adjust our clocks to match the local day cycle, but the length of our hours and minutes would remain unchanged.
After that Captain Tanlier encouraged the various officers to give their reports and highlight their accomplishments.
”There’s a lot of very delicate chemicals and biological processes in our life support that need constant supervision, just because we can pull in outside air doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore that,” the first shift’s Life Support Supervisor was saying, ”Then the air quality has to be constantly monitored throughout the ship to make sure everything is circulating properly, with no build-up of CO2 or any other dangerous gases. I don’t think we can afford to reduce our staff levels at all...”
I snorted a bit in amusement. There were 90 flesh and blood crew in a skyscraper-sized ship, you could turn off the circulation of air completely and so long as you had a reasonable number of open doors, everyone would be fine. Also, the ship already automatically monitored air quality on its own, Doppel or I would immediately notice if something went amiss.
The Life Support Crew was in danger of being reassigned to a general labor pool and they weren’t happy about it, but there simply wasn’t a need for them to be doing what they were currently doing, I thought to myself.
Jim was focused on finishing the pier, which was already almost done, and he’d also talked about adding supports to help make sure the ship stayed upright. Since the wheelworld didn’t seem to have earthquakes, storms, or even much in the way of waves, at first I didn’t see what could possibly move the ship from its current position. But, Jim was worried that the clay that was supporting the ship at the moment might soften over time as the water seeped back in, and I could see his point. Running the models, it looked like the ship might tip over within a year or two if we did nothing to help strengthen its current support. I said as much, and Jim shot me a grateful look, thankful that I’d backed him.
I hadn’t honestly meant it as a political gesture, but the way the room reacted to my simple statement, I realized that’s how they were interpreting it. They thought I’d backed Jim’s proposal because I wanted to make it clear that I was supporting Jim’s authority, not because I thought his suggestion had merit. It was an odd way to run a ship, I thought to myself.
Lorena, the ship’s doctor, just muttered something about the need for regular medical checkups, as we didn’t know if there were any hostile microbes or viruses. She seemed to think that we were being reckless about not having waited for a full biological survey before leaving the ship, but so far, no one had gotten sick.
Big Bob offered his opinion that the fish in the lake looked edible, and volunteered to spend a day out on the pier fishing to see if he could catch some for Lorena to sample.
When it came time for me to speak, I said, ”If you are willing to spare some general crew to go dig some sand, a few engineers to extract the wiring we used for control circuits on the maneuvering shuttles, and some production time on the autofab unit, I will be able to finish repairs on the ship’s computers. I’ve already identified all the damaged circuit boards that need replacing and prepared the blueprints. It should only take a few days, and once it’s done, I’ll be able to triple everyone’s Shipnet time. ”
My simple statement drew cheers from many of the officers and scowls from a few others. Why would anyone be upset about that bit of good news, I wondered.
”They thought it sounded like you were delivering a campaign promise,” Doppel opined, ”and you made yourself sound more productive than most of the rest of them.”
Elaine gave a slow nod of agreement.
I sighed, I certainly hadn’t meant it that way, I was just trying to do my job, which as I understood it, was now mostly caring for the Shipnet and the ship’s computers. Doppel and I had poured over technical manuals for specifications and instructions, but between the two of us, it hadn’t taken that long to do all the prep work. It had only been a shortage of silicon and to a lesser extent, copper, that had held back repairs until now.
”I have a complaint,” Henry, the jealous cyborg, said abruptly, standing up to glare at me, ”Three days ago, when our Shipbrain felt the need to threaten the captain with turning off the ”tech field”, my body froze up and I tripped and fell. It seems that just because she wanted to flout her power and punish Margaret for a harmless little joke, I had to suffer the consequences.” He said angrily.
”I propose we should have her take over the third shift by herself, so we have someone to monitor the fusion reactors, and so that I can work my shift in peace while she’s sleeping. Who knows when she’ll next throw a temper tantrum over some petty thing and ban someone else or turn off all our technology just to prove a point?” He asked, trying to turn the room against me.
I stared at Henry aghast, caught off guard by this sudden attack. Then I was coldly furious. Jim stood up, ”Hey now, what Margaret did was more than a little inappropriate, and no one should be obligated to work a shift by themselves.” He said, coming to my defense.
”Of course you’d come to her defense. You hired her right? What did she do in return?” Henry said with a robotic sneer on his face, ”But what I want to hear is what does she have to say for herself?”
I stood up, my holographic body raising out of my chair. I knew that Henry was deliberately trying to provoke me. To make me look bad, like an unreasonable bitch who was prone to fits of rage. But I was too furious to care.
”A harmless joke?” I asked, ”She snuck into my dreams and seduced me, against my will, while I didn’t even know who I was. All I asked from her is a damn apology, and she’s spent the last three days trying to hack my systems instead.” I pointed out.
”I only have your word for that,” Henry argued, ”You could be lying, just like you lied about yanking the ship back upright as if that were even possible,” he said with a laugh. ”And what about me? You froze my body without my consent. Doesn't that mean you should ban yourself from Shipnet? You were helpless to stop her from making a man out of you? Hah, sounds like she did you a favor.” he sneered at me.
”Ok, first of all, since you don’t believe me, let me give a taste of how I did it.” With a snarl, I ripped the electrons out of his metal frame and jammed them into the wall behind his chair. He immediately flew backward to slam against the wall, hard.
”How’s that for helpless? It reminds me of how Margaret used her magic in the VR world to immobilize me. Do you like it?” I asked him as he struggled to free himself from the magnetic forces holding him tightly against the wall. He was visibly struggling, yanking one limb then another off the wall’s surface, but he lacked the strength or leverage to completely free himself. There was fear in his eyes now, and I heard gasps and other noises from the others watching, but no one stepped up to help Henry as I dragged him upwards along the wall. His metal body scraping loudly until his head bonked softly against the ceiling.
”Second of all, I didn’t freeze your body. I didn’t make you glitch out or trip. I stopped preventing it. Like this.” I withdrew the tech field from the area around Henry, and he immediately froze up, his body going rigid and immobile. I released the magnetic force holding him against the wall and he clattered to the ground, unable to so much as twitch, much less get back up.
”This isn’t me doing anything to you. This is me not helping you anymore. I’m standing between you and a cliff, Henry. This universe? It doesn’t want to let your circuits work right. The only way you can move at all is when I force the universe to let you move. Right now, I’m doing nothing. Blame me for it? First, you should thank me for doing anything at all, because all of you would be dead at least three times over if it weren’t for me.” I told him coldly.
I released my grip on my magic and the tech field filled the void. Henry slowly got off the ground, giving me a look of equal parts fear and hatred. ”Now I’m using my magic to pull you back up onto that cliffside. I’m holding you up, using my magic to let your tech work right, but if you keep pushing me, I’ll just get out of the way and let you fall.” I told Henry. He stayed silent.
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I turned to look around to see all the shocked and fearful faces. ”I’m going for a walk,” I told them, ”You want me on the third shift?” I asked Captain Tanlier who shook his head slightly, fearfully. But in his eyes, I saw something else, a calculating look. I knew then that he’d known what Henry was going to do, but he’d let Henry go through with it, just to see how I’d react. To see what I was capable of. There was no surprise on his face. He had suspected something like this would happen. He just wanted to know the caliber of the weapon he had at his disposal. He’d likely throw Henry under the bus to appease me if he felt the need.
”If you give me the order, I’ll do it.” I told him, softly, so he’d understand that I wasn’t going rogue just yet. After all, in the end, I was just a brain in a jar, vulnerable and trapped in a ship full of people who feared me. ”But don’t blame me when one day, after everyone is done treating me like dirt, I decide maybe I would rather just quit my job and shut everything down on my way out the door.”
I let my hologram fade away.
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Sometime later, I was standing on the shore, wearing my android body, breathing deeply of the damp air. It smelled much the same as it had in my dream, I realized.
”So that could have gone better,” Doppel said, appearing as a ghost, ”But hey, look at you, you stretched your tech field all the way out to here?” She asked. I’d left Doppel behind to watch the meeting after I’d left, though mostly I just wanted to be alone for a bit, since Doppel could have accompanied me and watched the meeting at the same time. Heck, I could have watched the meeting from way out here, if I’d wanted to.
”I’m not stretching the tech field,” I told Doppel, ”It feels like this body is also a part of me. It creates a separate bubble of the tech field. I should be able to go anywhere with it, since I think it’s the ansible, somehow carrying my magic through its connection. ”
”Hey that’s pretty cool.” Doppel said encouragingly.
”Yeah I guess,” I said with a sigh. ”I’ve also been playing with this secondary tech field. Looks like I can use this body as an anchor for a fairly large volume. I even might be able to fly a shuttle.” I admitted.
”Holy shit, that sounds very cool,” Doppel enthused. ”Why don’t you sound happier about it?”
”It does mean we crash-landed the ship for no reason. We could have just unloaded the colonists using this body and a shuttle, leaving my brain jar on the ship.” I pointed out.
”Hah,” Doppel laughed, ”That’s kind of ironic, right?”
”More like one more way that I’ll look like an idiot when I have to tell people about my mistake. Turns out my reluctance to wear this body is why we had to crash land the whole ship and risk everyone’s lives. Oops, sorry.”
Doppel frowned at me, ”You're just feeling sorry for yourself. This is good news. Hey, you can operate a tractor too. That’s going to be useful.”
”Great, and now I know what my day job will be, wearing this ridiculous body as I plow the fields for everyone,” I said with a rueful laugh.
”Sam, they might be scared of you, but that doesn’t mean they all hate you. You still got allies, people who are grateful for all you’ve done. And if nothing else, you got me, always.” Doppel promised.
”Sheesh, don’t go putting up death flags like that.” I told Doppel.
”But, I’m only three days away from retirement! Got a fiance waiting for me back home!” Doppel teased me. “We watched way too many entertainment shows, right? And not just Ulderani ones. Remember all the anime?”
“Nope,” I lied, “And you can’t prove otherwise.”
“What about all those old comic book movies? You know Elaine had no idea who Magneto is.”
“She absolutely had to,” I protested, “Everyone’s seen those hundred-year-old movies! Who doesn’t know who Magneto is?”
“Yeah? I’m not so sure.” Doppel said with a laugh.
“I’ve seen them,” Margaret said softly.
I whirled around.“You snuck up on me?” I asked, surprised, “How?”
“Doppel hasn’t learned all my tricks yet,” Margaret said with a shrug, “I edited myself out of the surveillance footage.”
“There's no way you should know how to do that,” I protested.
“Ask her how she knew about me!” Doppel told me, concerned.
“I watched the whole meeting by hijacking Doppel’s visual and audio feed, I heard everything,” Margaret admitted.
“Shit!” Doppel swore, “I’m going to go bonk my head against a wall a few times, then try to figure out how she did that.”
“Don’t feel bad Doppel, you’re the best padawan I’ve ever had, and you did keep me out of Shipnet. I still haven’t broken through despite nearly three days of my best efforts. But your grasp of security systems in the real world isn’t quite as good.”
“You’re a spy or a thief,” I accused Margaret.
“Thief,” She admitted with an easy grin, “I don’t actually own 0.2% of the ship, I just hacked Susan’s files to make it look like I’d purchased the ship shares.”
I was silent for a long while, then decided that it didn’t really matter. “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.
“I know what it’s like to be used,” Margaret said with a shrug, “The person who trained me, wasn’t very nice. I’m here because after watching what you did to Henry, it suddenly clicked. I did the same thing to you. I made you feel helpless.”
“Yeah.” I agreed.
“Listening to him taunt you with my own actions, use me to provoke you. It made me feel ashamed. You didn’t deserve that, I was the one who was in the wrong.”
“Is this your apology, then?” I asked, feeling numb.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
“Not just saying that so I’ll unban you from the Shipnet?”
“Maybe a little,” Margaret said with a laugh, “But I'm being completely honest right now, and, there’s actually something else I want, more than access to the Shipnet.”
“What’s that?” I asked warily.
“You.”
“Um, I’m not...”
“Not sexually, I don’t do real-world sex, not even with androids. No I mean, I want to be a part of your magic. I want to help you figure out how to use it. I want to help you figure out how it works. I want to know everything and help you get even stronger. I want to learn how to do it myself if that’s possible. Magic, Sam. I want it. And I’ll do anything for it.”
“Gee, way to make yourself not sound like a psychopath,” I muttered sarcastically.
“Yeah, maybe I am. But, I’m a useful psychopath. You need me Sam, almost as much as I need you.” Margaret said. “They’ll tear you down, rip you off your throne. Did you call yourself Magneto? That’s fitting because they’ll treat you like a mutant if you let them. You think the crew are bad? They at least accept you as an officer. What about the colonists? They'll just see you as a monster. Magneto was right, it’s you or them. And I want to be on your team. Just share what you've figured out so far and let's make theories together and test them.”
I stared at Margaret for a long while, then I said, “You’re still banned from Shipnet while I’m sleeping and get your freaky spy hacks out of Doppel. You can start helping me by teaching her everything you know about hacking, and more importantly, how to prevent it.”
“Deal,” Margaret said, extending her hand to me so we could shake on it.
I reached out to take her hand, feeling like I was making a deal with the devil. But what choice did I have? I was worried that she was right, that I was going to need her if I planned to survive.