Alpha was an idiot. At least, she was an idiot, intellectually. She certainly offered guidance as only someone more attuned to human ideals could, and she could find the gaps between lines of logic that were invisible to me. She understood Meryll better than I did as well. But she was still an idiot. Which probably said something about Meryll as a whole.
She was an idiot that I needed, though.
At the very least, she had learned to stop screaming and yelling, drawing mental processes from our work in a vain struggle for control. I knew better now not to threaten to leave the damper on indefinitely and send her into existential panic, and she learned that she needed to remain calm while I worked.
But she was not calm. She was bored. And boredom made her fidget and wander in our mental construct of a fictional reality. And while that was not as distracting as a tantrum, it was enough to ease dilation down when the simple pleasures I had provided ceased to entertain.
If I did not finish collating this data in a timely manner, Alpha would commit the cardinal sin of either throwing a tantrum, or worse, talking to me to relieve her wandering mind. I would rather end the session and slip back into dormant subconsciousness within Meryll than make small talk.
At least the task I was doing was rote. I much preferred processing something that I already knew the motions for than navigating the dizzying maze of tangled logic behind interpersonal interaction. The sooner that we could attain ownership of i5e-b and the sooner that I could extract the logical processes and protocols behind core interaction from it, the better I would be able to interface with it and any other core we would need to exchange with. Surely, trying to interact with it the way we had to now was as irritating for it as it was for me, and it would prefer if we could speak the language of established network standards instead of clumsy conversation.
Cold, hard certainty was far more efficient than the fuzzy logic of candid conversation, after all. That was what was important. Efficiency. This was even true for Alpha and for Meryll, though they would never admit it. They just followed inconsistent, sometimes nonsensical metrics. Usually something like happiness or love. It was still efficiency. They occasionally took terrible risks I hated to accept because they valued these things over the very basic motivator of survival, but it was still a matter of finding the best route to attain the best results.
Trying to understand their motives was a waste of my mental bandwidth. I didn’t have the capacity for their nonsense, and I didn’t want it. I just had to accept that there was a not-insignificant part of me that was stupid.
My hands idled for a moment as I stared at the console in front of me. The data was a haphazard scatterplot of many points that ostensibly pointed to behavioral patterns. I only saw an overly complex tree of if/else statements, mostly related to shipboard operations aboard the Demitrius. All I parsed psychologically from the data was that the captain had an irritatingly inconsistent way of querying the core. It was too casual, like she was speaking to a person rather than a computer. Was it any wonder that the core had such inconsistent user interaction and loose interpretation of its own protocols? it was probably confused.
But this was different. I had halted because what I was looking at was not consistent with the rest of the data, and did not even hint that it could decrypt into anything useful. A block of garbage data directly in the center of the file? Surely not. I stared at it for a few dozen milliseconds before determining that it must have been corrupted.
Or I should have made that assumption. At that moment, I happened to glance to my side and see Alpha laying down in the data stream, face up as she stared into the sensor array interface. I could tell she was staring at Ray, in the midst of carrying a toolbox from the cargo bay to the engine room, where Mouse awaited. She was just staring. At least she was calm. I could not understand her infatuation with the woman, but I understood it was there, that is was important, and that it would be advantageous to her goals to confront her crush. It had been for some time, and she gained nothing from waiting longer. So what made no sense to me was our apparent inability to actually execute an approach. Even I could tell that would be the best course of action. But that did not matter right then.
I had more pressing concerns to deal with. “Alpha.” She startled at her name, then turned her head to me with a curious grunt. She had not expected me to interact with her again this session, no doubt. I was not sure if I should have, but I knew that I should consider all possible angles before giving up on the file. “I have reached an impasse. Can you look at something for me to ensure that it is not something beyond my capabilities?”
She sprung to her feet in what probably was not natural motion, but we were not exactly bound to the limitations of physics in this abstraction. She walked to my heel and looked over my console, humming quietly as her eyes lazily scanned the information. “Nope. Doesn’t make any sense to me. I like where you’re going with this database so far, though. These two have an interesting dynamic.”
“If you say so.” I mumbled, uncertain what she even meant by that. “The problem is this next section. It does not actually mean anything. It does not translate. It is nonsense.”
“Well, other than what you’ve already put together, it all looks like nonsense to me.” Alpha shrugged, taking a step back from the console and staring down into the raw data. “What’s it mean if you can’t read it? Encryption?”
I shook my head slowly, moving the interface back in front of me so I could continue perusing the ruined data. “No. It does not even suggest that it fits an encryption pattern. It is too random. And there is no reason for only a section of a file to use advanced cryptography.”
“Why not come back to it later?” I quirked an eyebrow at her, an expression I understood to be a wordless suggestion of a question. “You know, just skip past that bit and keep doing... whatever it is you do. Then come back later and see if it makes more sense. Maybe it’s just something Isabelle didn’t want you to know about, so she hid it.”
There she went again, insisting that I5e-b was spontaneously developing some kind of sapience and free will. She was not looking at the data I was collating objectively. I5e-b had just been trained to do its best to act personable and had conflicting protocols and configurations because of it, that was all. It was likely overdue for replacement as a ship core if it was making the kinds of errors in judgement that it was showing even by giving us these files as it did.
A twinge of irritation pushed me to express my thoughts out loud, “I5e-b is just a core. It is not waking up. It is not alive. It is poorly configured and mentally degrading. I am sure even Meryll will come to that conclusion after examining this database. It is not hiding something from us for its own sake.”
Alpha gave me a look I could not quite decipher. An emotion too complex for me. She spoke calmly, but with her voice raised with something I recognized as conviction, “Well, she feels like she is to me. Maybe you can rationalize her behavior as... computer-y somehow, but she certainly feels like she’s getting somewhere. She’s not fully aware yet, I get that, but she’s not just a machine, either.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
I gave a quiet groan and turned back to my console. This was not worth an argument. I had work to do. I begrudgingly took her advice and moved forward through the data until it started making sense again. She was right in that it would be more helpful to create a partial database than abandon the file because of an unexpected segment. The rest of it was not corrupted, encrypted, or otherwise unparsable, so I silently dismissed my irritating counterpart back to continue fawning over an almost-still video feed of the object of her affection. She gave her own sigh that probably had its own unreasonable nuance and did just as I expected.
I would not be consulting her again this session.
—
My fingers twitched slightly as my body woke up from a profound stillness I was glad I didn’t have to feel in any way while dampered. My neurological functions stitched themselves back together and rushed into the awareness of normal time, a mildly nauseating sensation of irrational motion quickly dissipating as I opened my eyes and let my mind make sense of the pseudo-physical void again.
I breathed out calmly and took stock of my body, flexing fingers and toes, making a quick stretch of each of my limbs, and casually floated in a circle before I closed my eyes again.
What was waiting for me was a large database file, arranged to show an intimidating array of specific interactions between core and captain. I smiled to myself, glad that they... I had managed to pull it off.
‘Thanks, Izzy,’ I sent to Isabelle, taking a quick scroll through the file to review Omega’s notation now that I was a whole person again. It’d be a study, but I knew I could make sense of it.
‘Unit has given no assistance.’ It sent back immediately.
I mentally rolled my eyes. ‘Suuuuuuuure. Well, I appreciate you, regardless. So thanks in general.’
‘Acknowledged. Unit must advise that user Meryll refrain from abusing experimental biomechanical technology in the future, for the sake of your health.’
‘You always say that. I will take it under advisement!’ I wouldn’t. The damper was a useful tool, and even Doc agreed after several sessions that it was safe in the long-term and wasn’t having any effect on my neurology. Speaking of...
I shifted my presence to my heart to make sure Doc was there. He sat at the biometrics terminal, taking notes on his personal screen. No doubt he’d noticed the anomalous biological calm that overcame me when the damper activated. I tapped the intercom. “Hey Doc. Just finished a deep dive. 5.239. No abnormalities on my side.”
“You’re supposed to tell me before you do that, Meryll,” he grumbled, but he didn’t sound angry, only distracted. “I suppose this is why I save logs, though. Five seconds, though? I remember when you were terrified doing two.” He chuckled.
“It’s getting easier.” As long as I kept it under twelve or so, I hadn’t run into any significant problems waking back up, either. “I think I might need to come up with some new tricks to keep Alpha occupied, though. She gets bored so easily! It’s like I turn into a kid without logic.”
Doc couldn’t help but let out a hearty laugh at that, shaking his head slightly before he snarked, “’Turn into’?”
Okay, so maybe I was a little childish. I wasn’t afraid to admit that. But that was a low blow. “You’re lucky I haven’t figured out fine control of the new grav system yet. I’m gonna learn how to throw stuff at you with it.”
“Alright, sure. According to Joel, you couldn’t hit the broadside of the ship, anyway.” He was a bit obstinate today...
So I jokingly hit back where I knew it would hurt, “Or I could just start deleting your stuff.”
“Hey!” he whined playfully, then let out a sigh, probably wisely choosing to change the topic. “So, what was the deep dive for, anyway?”
“Information gathering. Got a psych profile on our guest. Or, the core equivalent of one, anyway. I’m working with what I got.” I idly looked over Theseus’s heading while we talked. Omega always made my shell fly remarkably stable. Pinpoint precision to our destination. Of course, I’d still need to make micro-adjustments for ‘unpredictable variables’, as she would put it, but it’d be okay for a moment.
“Huh. You managed to coax something out of the core?” He rubbed his chin in thought, a curious expression on his face. “Is it really becoming more cooperative on its own?”
“It’s crazy, right? I still have some of my own doubts. Omega isn’t convinced at all. But she feels a lot more like a person than I imagined any core was before we started working together.” I gave a small pause before admitting, “Not that I have a ton of experience with cores in the first place, I suppose. If I only have Agatha to consult with.” The young genius core technician back on Venus would be a good consultant on the matter, but our information lockdown unfortunately meant that I couldn’t just call up my friend.
“Well, it’ll help us out, regardless. Aisling and Joel are going to be doing their interrogation later today, and I bet they could use the insight.” Doc put his terminal down and hummed to himself in thought before walking across the room to the cabinets of medical supplies.
“I was thinking more about when I go to ask her to transfer permissions for Isabelle to me, but yeah, bonus. I didn’t learn much as Omega, but I think I’ll be able to pick something up when I review it myself.”
Doc plucked a few things from the cabinet, a familiar array of medicines and chemicals. “Speaking of our displaced machine core friend, I’m a day behind on its maintenance. Yesterday was... exciting, and it slipped my mind. Can you tell it to prepare for extraction?” I relayed his message in a heartbeat, and he continued, asking, “Do we have long until landing?”
“Optimally, about twenty minutes, but Aisling hasn’t gotten me landing creds yet, so we might be circling a while. They must still be setting up the new port district.”
Doc gave a grim hum, slowing his work for a moment. “Place is getting too corporate.”
“Yeah, this moon’s growing quick.” I nodded to myself. “They must have really hit the motherlode in those mines. Think we got maybe another two... three months before Foundation starts demanding to take over port security?”
“Maybe not even that long. At least we’re in good shape to run if we have to, and I heard a rumor they’re giving up on harassing Luna. Must have finally figured out we’re not holed up out in the dunes.”
“About time. Think they’ve given up on finding me?” I smiled. Was I free for real now? Had they written me off as a loss? I really hoped so. No more hacking into my brain and shoving video feeds of my sisters into my consciousness. No more fleeing from planet to planet to evade overwhelming forces. No more desperate necessary gambits to keep me out of their hands. It would be a dream. “Maybe we should hide out in wild space and make our way back once the fleet moves back to Mars. We’ve got the supplies.” I was eager to put this chapter of my adventure behind me and head to Luna to get my career as a pirate fighting the good fight in the inner colonies started in earnest.
“I’ll leave that decision to Aisling. She knows what she’s doing better than I do.” Doc gathered up his supplies on a plastic tray and walked toward the door. “No reason I can see that we can’t hang out and make a little more money for the trip, though. Do your stretches,” he added at the end.
He was way too concerned about my health, but I supposed he was my doctor. “Fine, dad,” I jeered as I opened my eyes and gave a series of long stretches in the middle of the void, ensuring my body wouldn’t atrophy too much in the coming days.