I went through several iterations on my way to this particular venture... it might interest you to know that in my original plotting out of the story (which actually took place somewhere around chapter 4 or 5... up to that point I was just puttering around with an idea and slathering it with plenty of angst) I didn't have the SIMA at all. However when I was writing the chapter in which the SIMA first appeared, I had the Resident Evil movie playing in the background, and I recalled an old series of computer games called System Shock, and SIMA just kind of... insinuated herself into the story. In fact, if you want a good idea of how SIMA's dialogue should be read, look around for sound bites of SHODAN from System Shock 1 and 2. The games were a weird combination of first person shooter and RPG, and in them you were trying to prevent the unstable AI of a space station from destroying/taking over/mutating the Earth. SHODAN was the name of the AI in question, and she would taunt you as you ran through her corridors.
It lent a certain menace to the game, and actually made you feel good as you thwarted her plans and she ranted at you. Really awesome villain.
Anyway, that's where the idea for a slightly buggy (pun pun pun pun... pun pun pun pun PUUN!) AI came from.
This chapter has a split personality. There are really serious, interesting (to me) philosophical topics, and... frankly, some gratuitously absurd scenes. I hope nobody things I'm going over the top. I was in a really quirky mood when I wrote this. Please don't hurt me.
Damn... now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't post this as is.
Oh hell, what the fuck, right?
On with the show!
"How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long. Everyone knows everything, and no one's ever wrong, until later. Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe, but apart from a few good friends. We don't take anything on faith, until later. Show don't tell. Show me don't tell me, you've figured out the score. Show me don't tell me, I've heard it all before. Show me don't tell me, I don't care what you say. Show me don't tell me. You can twist perceptions, reality won't budge. You can raise objections, I will be the judge and the jury. I'll give it due reflection, watching from the fence. Give the jury direction, based on the evidence. I, the jury... Show me don't tell me, hey order in the court. Show me don't tell me, let's try to keep it short. Show me don't tell me, enough of your demands. Show me don't tell me, witness take the stand. Show me don't tell me. Show me don't tell me, hey order in the court. Show me don't tell me, let's try to keep it short. Show me don't tell me, I don't care what you say. Show me don't tell me, let's see exhibit A." -Show Don't Tell, Rush
I have discovered something interesting about myself recently. When I am idle, I have a natural tendancy to drift into despondancy and depression. The simple fact of it is, I think too much. Unless there is something occupying me, I start asking questions that really have no answers. I've been accused of being crazy, of being too smart for my own good. I never really gave much credability to those accusations until I was given entirely too much time to start thinking.
I think I would have been alot happier if I was quite a bit dumber.
I would also probably be DEAD, but the ramifications of that are best left to priests and poets, both of whom are in extremely short supply.
So you can imagine how happy I was to finally have a concrete plan for getting off this rock. Some of you might be asking yourselves why, exactly, when I had nowhere to go TO, I wanted to get off the planet that I had survived on for the better part of my adult life, to wander endlessly in one of the most dangerous environments (namely, space) the universe has to offer. To these hardened and sundry souls I ask this.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I have made no secret of my loathing for this world. Those of you who have followed this account are probably sick of me complaining about it, but you have to realize that before I came to Dirt, I thought that human beings could get used to anything. Dirt quickly disabused me of this particular line of reasoning. It boggles my mind how one planet can be so unbelievably foul.
I had to get off of it. I had to get US off of it.
As usual, it is a moral dilemma which places the difficulty upon us, and by us I mean, me. On the one hand, activating the "Smeeting Chamber" is a relatively easy process, mainly because the chamber itself remained largely intact and was, in fact, powered by a backup generator during the Dreadnought's dormancy (as I'm sure you all remember). Once activated, with relatively simple input, the largely automated chamber could start cranking out Irken drones within a few hours.
The only reason it even takes hours is because the Smeets require certain hormonal balancing before they can be decanted.
On a sidenote, I find the word decanted to be an absolutely disgusting and disturbing word to describe what amounts to the birthing process for the entire Irken race. There is something... impersonal and sterile about the word.
Decanting.
No warmth, no personality.
DEcanting. Removing something and exposing it to the world like a properly fermented beverage, or excising it from a cold, metal womb like a tumor.
Decanting, decanting... Ewwwwrrggg.
Anyway, before I freak myself out any further, I should mention the problem. Let's review the aforementioned situation.
As usual, BLAH BLAH BLAH, Smeeting Chamber is a relatively easy process, BLAH BLAH BLAH, powered during the Dreadnought's dormancy, BLAH BLAH BLAH, largely automated chamber could start cranking out Irken Drones...
Stop. Right there. That's the problem.
I have no desire, indeed, I am dead set AGAINST creating another Irken DRONE.
"It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery."
Remember that little phrase? We stand at the crossroads between worlds. On the one hand, the expedient path. Decant (ewwww) several hundred Irkens, program them in hours to do a specific task, and watch 'em slave. With Vic already set up as a Tallest, and myself recognized by the Irken Dreadnought as Subcommander, it would be a realitively easy course of action.
On the other hand, the harder, pain in the ass hand, we could give these Irken children, from birth, something that no Irken had been given in what could quite possibly be centuries.
The freedom to choose who they wanted to be.
Thus it came down to a simple decision. A weighing of how badly I wanted to get off this shitpile, and how strong my ethical fortitude would prove to be.
Sigh.
I am such a pain in the ass.
Of course, saying you are going to do something and actually doing it are two entirely different things.
I was to find out exactly how hard it would be when I broached the subject to Vic.
All too often I find she takes the role of the pessimist and the skeptic, whilst I find myself tripping on down the Dreamer's path. Some might assume that this indicates the fundamental difference between Irken and Human thinking, perhaps an inability to conduct oneself outside the box. I should certainly be an expert on dealing with those who are inside that box. On a related subject, I've spent the lion's share of my life outside that metaphysical box, and lemme tell you, the box has a lot going for it. The box is safe. It's warm in there, and nobody pokes at you for being different. Outside the box is a world of danger and ridicule. Humanity would have been a hell of a lot happier if it had been completely unaware of the box.
However, on the subject of Vic's boxiness, I disagree. For one thing, she is most definately NOT boxlike... I would be more likely to tentatively label her as androgynously cute, but please bear in mind that I am biased on the subject.
The truth is, unfortunately for me, and what it speaks about my mental state, that Vic is very much a realist. Whereas I am comforted and sustained by what could be, and what might be, and what has not been proven or subjectified, Vic is the exact opposite. Facts and figures make up her world, and logic is mother's milk to her.
Nevermind the fact that she's had neither a mother, nor milk. The reason why she doesn't drive me up a wall is that that hard headed skepticism is combined with a sort of intrinsicly childlike delight in being proven wrong. It is a trait that I don't think she is even aware she exhibits.
I... I love about her.
There... I almost thought that without a mental stutter. I AM getting better.
Or worse. Eh.
Vic fixes me with that jewel-like neutral stare that informs me I am being difficult again and proceeds to dash my hopes.
"Tamper with centuries of ingrained programming, circumnavigate a system that has been automated so long that there is no Irken Medical Drone alive who could describe to you exactly how the process works, convince several hundred reprogrammed Irken children that you aren't, in fact, a psychopathic alien, then figure out how they are going to learn the skillsets necessary to operate a largely out of date, monolithic, and let us not forget, brain damaged Irken dreadnought?"
She took a deep breath.
"Don't say it, Vic... I know. I'm crazy." I sigh. It sounded alot easier in my head. Before all those horribly depressing bits of reality crowded in.
She frowned. "No, you are not crazy, Dib. I was not going to say that."
That's a change.
She sighed. "I do, however, think you are being unrealistic. Simply repairing this dreadnought is probably an insurmountable task. Doing so with..." Her antennae flatten against her skull and she looks a bit greener. "Defective... Irkens..."
"They aren't defective..." I start defensively.
She blinks.
"Well they aren't."
"Dib, what Irkens are you talking about?" She looks a little disturbed.
"The ones we're going to create."
She shakes her head. "I am going to assume that your tenses are confused and am going to move on into the realm of reality for a moment. Assuming we can even do something like this, why would we want to?"
I stare at her, and she cocks her head in a manner which suggests that she is genuinely curious, not trying to get a rise out of me.
My jaw drops a bit. I have to restrain the immediate and violent reaction this casual comment arouses in me. This is just another example of Irken thinking versus human feeling. Instead of blowing up and hurting her, I think about my reaction for a moment.
Then I turn around and look at the rows upon rows of silent Irken children in their glass chambers. Cold. Sleeping. Helpless.
"I don't know, Vic. Why would a medical drone want to learn how to shoot a gun?"
She is silent for a moment.
I wait. I hear her moving.
She sighs very close by and I look in her direction. She has moved to right next to me. She rubs absently at her arms, her eyes closed.
"Alright, Dib. We will see what we can do."
"The process begins with the introduction of a vital hormone."
Dib frowns, looking at the bright blue information table with quiet concentration. His command of the Irken language is impressive, especially considering the fact that he is a non-Irken, and they are never afforded the opportunity to learn it. Still, complex technical and medical terms are probably beyond him even at this point.
Which is not to say that he could not understand them, simply to say that without a frame of reference the words would be meaningless to him.
I find this turnabout strangely soothing. I am in well traveled and comfortable territory. Far too often Dib wants to go to undiscovered, untrod, scary locations, and I can only hang on for dear life. I continue explaining the process of Irken Smeet generation. As we understand it. I know all of the steps involved, but how the machinery determines why or when these steps occur, I am as clueless as any medical drone. Strangely, calibration and repair of Smeeting Room equipment is not handled by Medical Drones.
Odd... I can not, for the life of me, think of a single instance where I saw one being repaired or calibrated... in fact, I do not think anyone knows whose job that is.
Curious.
Anyway...
"Gestating Irken smeets reach viability in only three months, and then go into a state of hibernation. They can theoretically remain in this state for centuries before any noticable ill effects. The next step is the introduction of a growth hormone which triggers the development of a central nervous node along the spinal column. This node is actually an interface organ genetically engineered specifically for the integration of the Pak nervous net."
"Question..." He asks with a frown.
"Yes?"
"What would happen if we just... well... did away with the whole Pak thing?"
I take several deep breaths, trying very hard to look at his statement objectively. The idea of an Irken born without a Pak is... well it is a perversion that not even I can contemplate with anything approaching rationality. Dib does not understand this however, so in an effort to spare his feelings, I take the logical approach.
"Dib, the Irken species has been biomechanically enhanced for millenia. The Irken Pak is so intrinsic to our nature that it would be like... like a human born without a brain. Irken Smeets exist in a neutral state until the final hormone is introduced, and once that hormone is introduced, Pak installation must occur within one hour."
"Or what?"
I take a deep breath, then continue.
"We have been so genetically enhanced that the natural neural connections are no longer sufficient to sustain operation. Without the Pak to regulate and control the sensory input, the Irken mind would more than likely go mad... it would be like..."
I think for a moment.
"It would be like simultaneously feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting everything at a hundred times its expected intensity, and being completely incapable of controlling one's bodily functions."
Dib winces. "Ouch. So... no Pakless approach."
"May I continue?" I say calmly. A lot more calmly than I felt, I might add.
"Please."
"Prior to hormonal balancing, a group of paks is encoded with the necessary data and prepared for implantation. If a certain number of medical drones are required, so many paks are encoded with the medical drone skillset, Security receive the soldier, enforcement, and counterespionage skillset, pilots and technical drones another skillset, so on and so forth."
He frowns. "When does the, "obey the Tallest and hate everyone other than Irkens with a vengeance" skillset come into play?"
I sigh. "General information and current Empiracle mindset are included in the first Control Brain upload/download cycle."
He shudders oddly. "How very Orwellian of you." He cocks his head slightly at me, a pensive look on his features. How odd that I have begun translating his body language so easily...
Then again, I suppose it is not so very odd, considering how obsessed I have become.
"Vic..."
"Er... yes?"
"How often does this upload/download cycle take place?"
I frown. "Once or twice a month, while in Control Brain broadcast range. Before you ask, language and Cultural data are encrypted and uploaded into storage memory for every Irken, then unpacked and utilized as needed. Essentially, we can speak with any known species we encounter."
He shakes his head. "Wow... talk about encyclopedic memory." He frowns. "What's included in the upload?"
"Status logs, recorded data... mostly archival information that only a few egg heads ever see."
"So... what would happen if we were in Control Brain broadcast range?"
I look at him levelly. There's no point in trying to make this sound any less chilling than it is. "My Pak would download the latest Empiracle data update, and the data I have archived would be transmitted. Security would be notified, and they would realize that the Irken Network has been compromised."
He smirks slightly. "What are they gonna do... suspend your account?"
I do not smile back. "Maybe."
His face falls. He scratches the back of his neck. "Geez... Vic... that's..."
I close my eyes. "I will not lie to you... the thought does cause me some... anxiety. I have spent my whole life as a small part of a much larger whole. To be cut off from that whole... is a... daunting concept."
He looks down, contemplating this. His eyes flick back up to me. He pushes his glasses back further up his nose. "But you hated life back there, Vic."
"Dib..." I search for a way to explain what this means to me... it is a difficult concept to explain to a being who has only ever known loneliness... who has only ever had his own voice to keep him company inside his head.
"Before I came here, I did not hate my life in the Empire. That would have been pointless and foolish. There was no world outside of the Empire, there was no better state that a Medical Drone like me could aspire to. The only thing I could do..."
I pause, thinking on those many years. It was not difficult. A string of the same things repeated over and over again without variation.
Remember, despite all the years I was a Medical Drone, of all the patients I have operated on, only Dib ever showed any sort of gratitude for my service.
I continue. "The only thing I could do was keep my gaze only on the task at hand, and complete it to the best of my ability. Despite all that I have learned, and... all that I have become in the present, to have my past turn its back on me... it is..." I frown, trying to find a way to explain it.
"It's a turning point." He says slowly.
I blink.
He continues. "Once you open the door, you can't close it. You can only step through and hope what's on the other side is better than where you came from. There's no such thing as going back. Only... well... going on, I guess."
I nod silently. There does not seem to be more to say on the subject.
He closes his eyes and frowns, a state which I have come to realize indicates that he is deep in thought. I watch him, fascinated by him. It may seem a bit odd, but whenever he does this the words that come out of his mouth next tend to be either so awe inspiringly creative that I cannot help but be caught up in his fervor, or so mind bogglingly insane that I can only stare at him in mute shock.
Either way, it is never dull.
Although of late, a little dullness might actually be a good thing... there is not much left of him.
His eyes snap open. "Vic, what sort of skillset do Tallest get?"
I blink. "I have no idea... I have never met one."
He blinks. "What?"
"They are not all that common... especially since the current set of Tallest took over. Unless things have drastically changed since I was in Broadcast Range, there are only two Tallest in the whole empire."
He raises an eyebrow. "Wait a minute... didn't this ship say something about requiring a Tallest to run things onboard?"
I nod.
"So was this a flagship or something?"
I shake my head. "No... if memory serves me it was only a Ship of the Line. You have to remember this ship is incredibly old. There used to be a relatively large number of Tallest directing the empire, but somehow... they all just..."
I stop. Wait a minute... this does not make any sense...
"They all just what? Disappeared?" He asks.
"I... I don't know." I whisper fiercely. It doesn't make sense at all... surely there would be some record of what happened to so many Tallest... come to think of it, I can't remember anyone ever talking about it... it was just one of those things you accepted... the Empire only had two Tallest, all of the others are gone.
He sighs. "I think I understand."
I frown. "What?"
"Well that's the thing about power, Vic... once you get a little bit of it, the natural inclination is to get more. If there are only a small number of leaders around, then those leaders are all that much more important. Servants don't argue with you, and the less Tallest there are around, the less there are around that aren't under your control."
I shake my head. "This is..."
"It wasn't much different back home, Vic. A Tyrant is a tyrant, whatever his skin color might be."
Every moment I spend with Dib is like looking at my old life through an oddly tinted lens. No... perhaps that is the wrong analogy. Perhaps the right thing to say is that I have lived my life wearing an oddly tinted lens, and Dib has forced me to remove it. So many things that I simply took for granted... things I never thought, COULD never have thought, to question, flake up and blow away like dust when I scrutinize them closely.
Are we truely so blind? Are we truely so easily deceived and manipulated?
How can a race of supposedly superior beings who have conquered thousands of races across the galaxy be so easily led?
Why has no one ever stood up and...
Wait... but they have.
They have, and I simply didn't see it before. ABS... Abnormal Behavior Syndrome. Dangerously deranged Irkens who are rounded up and disposed of. How many of them simply raised their heads up and asked, why?
What of those who show signs of questioning things, but who are also useful?
Why... we promote them to a rank above all others. We raise them to a height only topped by the Tallest themselves.
We raise them up, and then we send them away to live out their lives alone and constantly in danger, more than likely never to be seen again. All in service of the Empire.
Irken Elite... if they were truely so Elite... why do we never see any of them?
If they were truely so Elite, why are those who guard the Tallest all culled from the ranks of Security?
Dib must see something in my gaze. Something that resonates in him as well. He nods once, slowly.
"You see it, right? You understand why we have to do this?"
Oh Dib... I do... I really do. Before I was just doing it because...
Because well...
Because I would do anything for you...
But now...
"I understand."
He smiles very slightly, but something shines in his eyes. "Good. Because I have a plan."
He turns to the control console and frowns. "The thing is, these Paks are programmed to what the Irken Empire needs at any given time. So at some point, data is transferred to the Pak from an archive, right?"
"A Control Brain archive, but correct..."
"Now assuming we are out of Broadcast Range when the process occurs, there's a probably an archive stored on board that is loaded instead, am I right?"
I nod. "In this case, it would be the Dreadnought's archive, which has been updated with all of the data my Pak was carrying by now."
He nods. "So what if that archive were disabled? What would happen then?"
I frown. "That would be impossible."
"Why?"
"The archive is located in the same Memory cluster as the SIMA. The only way that cluster would fail would be if there was no power on board, and if there was no power on board, then the machinery to operate the Smeeting Chamber would be inoperative."
He sighs. "Ok... scratch that... so what if we just... well, deleted the archive?"
I shake my head. "That wouldn't work either. If the archive was deleted the SIMA would notice, and would attempt to restore the archive by any available means. It would download the data from my Pak, which still contains the Empiracle data and current... well, I suppose a better term would be baseline, Irken mindset. We would lose any skillsets I do not have, and we'd still be in the same perdicament."
"No way to prevent that download?"
I narrow my eyes at him. "You could shut ME off..."
He winces. "Moving right along." He scowls. "There's got to be SOMETHING we could do. What if we delete the SIMA?"
"The ship would explode."
"What if we CHANGE the SIMA?"
"It would activate internal security measures, THEN the ship would explode."
He growls in frustration. "Can't we just... I don't know... TALK her into going along with it?"
I blink.
"Dib..."
"What!"
"I don't... know... I mean, the SIMA is supposed to follow orders, but there is a limit to what it can do. Normally I would say no, but this SIMA is... well... to put it lightly, not only is it hopelessly out of date and old fashioned, obsolete really, it is also damaged. I have already noticed that it lacks the ability to interact and multitask at the same time."
He blinks "Huh?"
"Think back Dib... whenever it was projecting its Avatar, it was unable to activate security measures, do anything other than passive scans, or operate the punishment room."
He winces at the memory, then frowns, his gaze far off. "You know, now that you mention it..."
He starts. "Wait a goddamn minute... what are you implying!"
"Well... if one of us could... sufficiently DISTRACT it... the other could alter the Archival data using your "hacking" technique, and it would be none the wiser. Doing so would essentially fix the SIMA as well, because its programming forces it to use the archive as a reference... We can't change the SIMA directly, but the SIMA will UPDATE itself from the archive data to remain current."
"But..."
I shake my head, attempting to look... what is the word... sympathetic.
I do not succeed. Not because I am not really trying, just because I have no idea what sympathy should look like.
"It will obey me, but it is not... ahem... distracted... by me, Dib." I say softly.
He opens his mouth, closes it, then gets a speculative look. Then he groans.
"Aw hell... I REALLY don't wanna do this..."
"Then we won't." I say firmly. "Frankly I don't like the idea of you and that... that..." I just do not have the word.
He blinks. "Whoa..."
"What?"
He grins. "Is somebody jealous?"
I look away, crossing my arms.
"Vic?"
"Well..."
"Vic..."
"That is to say..."
"Viiiic."
"There are reasons... I wouldn't..."
"Come on, Vic."
"But..." I sigh, defeated. "Yes."
He smiles softly and raise a hand to cup my cheek. I start at the sensation, then close my eyes despite myself.
"Don't be." He whispers.
His hand lingers for a moment, then he drops it. When I open my eyes he is looking away.
His face is very red.
"Dib..."
He shrugs his shoulders. "It needs to get done. I don't like it... but it needs to get done."
I take a deep breath, then nod in agreement. He looks both surprised and pleased at that acknowledgement.
He draws himself up, takes a deep breath, then squares his shoulders.
"Alright... I guess it's time to take one for the team."
The next several minutes are spent... constructively.
I suppose.
Well, on Vic's side of things, it was certainly constructive. That Pak thing of hers is all the reference guide she needs... without even thinking about it really, she knows this ship top to bottom, including every nook and cranny. While repairing ships is not her normal job description, during battle Medical Drones are sometimes required to serve on damage control teams, and thus the information... or skillset, as she calls it, is accessable to her. A quick download, and she's an expert in the field.
It's creepy to imagine that... like someone else's life just zapped into your head in an instant.
You know, now that I think of it, her clearance has probably gone up, I mean, she's a Tallest now, technically. I don't think she's thought about the implications of that.
In fact, I don't think she likes to think about it at all.
Using the emergency manual entry device, I write a quick program to be loaded into the archive. Much like a virus, it will quickly overwrite portions of the archive with sections that I have prepared. I take a long time doing this, partly because I want to get it perfect, and partly...
Well...
I'm stalling, but I think I can be forgiven. I'm not looking forward to this.
Since the maintenance duct is going to be a tight fit, she takes off the medical smock she normally wears and hands it to me in a strangely solemn fashion. I stare at her and take it, not quite sure of what cultural significance holding a girl's smock has.
I mean, they don't really differentiate between the sexes... they don't reproduce sexually, but the Irken race has some weird taboos about nudity, or lack of clothing... I can tell that she's blushing, since her antennae are tightly curled to her head, her eyes are downcast, and her face has turned an interesting shade of green. Without her smock on it's easier to see she's female... she wears that skin tight almost body stocking uniform and short little boots.
I'm going to get off subject again, and I hope you'll pardon me, but I want to explore this line of inquiry. She's got curves, but not womanly curves. I mean, from a human perspective anyway. For all I know she's a fox by Irken standards. To me... well try as I might I can't picture her as girlish. She's just not... shaped that way. Still, there are hints of femininity there... the suggestion of hips... the gracefulness of her neck, the less harsh lines of the jaw and face, and the eyelashes of course. She doesn't have breasts really, but there are curves on her chest suggesting that Irkens had them at one point in time. I know from treating her after our run through the rain back towards the Dreadnought that one day she freaked out that she has breasts but no nipples.
Ok, does this exploration make me a pervert? I mean, that's what you call someone who's attracted to, or notices such things... about something alien. Whenever I think about where this relationship is headed, I can't help but get a bit confused. I mean, I'll admit it, I'm attracted to her, but can you really call it a sexual attraction? Too often I think, humanity equated love and sex together... I mean, they go hand in hand, since if you love someone... like that, sex is the ultimate expression of that love. However, you can have sex without love.
So the opposite must also be true, you can have love without sex.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a monk. I do have dirty thoughts, and, like any... physically healthy... well, reasonably physically healthy young male, I do have urges. I'm not going to get into unnecessary detail where that is concerned, you're just going to have to take my word on it when I say that everything works just fine.
Even if I were inclined to experiment, just for the sake of argument... well...
Her race doesn't even have words for sexual reproduction, and I don't think they're wired for it anyway. It's an alien concept for her. A scary, completely alien and pointless activity. She's so small and... I'd break her, frankly. We're considerably tougher and stronger than they are.
Bigger too.
Also, even if she were to put the moves on me... and I find that concept so alien that it passes from laughable into downright disturbing, we CAN'T do anything. Our body chemistries aren't just incompatable, they're downright volatile. The human body is 90 percent water. We exude the stuff, especially when we're excited. It's in every secretion we produce.
So no... even though I am attracted to her, I wouldn't dream of doing anything. On the opposite side of that, I DO love her, and my body is telling me I love her like I would...
Love... a woman.
Even if she's not.
Hence my confusion.
I must really be fucked in the head... seriously. What's wrong with me?
Before I know it she has the cover off the maintenance duct and she turns back to me. The bandages on her arm stand out and I wince slightly.
"Vic, maybe you shouldn't do this yet. I mean, your arm hasn't healed yet, and that's a tight fit. I don't think you should-"
"Dib, my arm is perfectly fine for now. The local anesthetic I applied is still active. I have spent considerable time in these ducts in the past, this should not be significantly difficult."
"Still..."
She smiles very slightly and shakes her head, her hands on her hips in a... gesture of admonishment that is so human it makes me blink. She sighs.
"I will be alright, Dib. You have the hard part. Let me do what I do best."
I lower my gaze slightly, then nod without a word.
She turns, picks up the manual command entry device (looks like a keyboard to me, but hey, it's hers) and sets it in the duct in front of her. She then scrabbles into it with the aid of her spidery leggy things and begins to shuffle along, inch worming her way through the duct while pushing the device in front of her.
Very quickly I lose sight of her in the distance.
Strangely, I feel a pang of loss. I'm also a bit scared, but I know why THAT is.
Distraction. Right.
I square my shoulders and take a deep breath, then step out into the corridor. The lighting in this part of the ship isn't in the best condition, flickering on and off like a bad flourescent light bulb on the verge of burning out. A security sensor whines and squeaks loudly as it orients on me, the lens focusing. That beam appears again.
She's baaaaAck.
"I was wondering when you were going to come out of there, Subcommander. Are you feeling alright? You had me very concerned."
I blink at the ghostly Irken female in front of me. It's crazy... that damn sensor squeaks as it projects her movements, and at some points the motor doesn't quite synch up and she appears to be walking in place for a second. Then suddenly the sensor will get past the dead spot, and jump forward, causing her to appear to snap forward instantly.
Huh. Lag.
She's staring at me expectantly. I straighten up and force calm into my voice. I hope.
"Er... yeah. I'm... um, fine."
Way to go Dib. You just passed conversational English for retards. Let's move on to the lobotomy patient level shall we?
She cracks a smile and follows me as I walk. "Excellent. The leadership of this vessel should always be in peak physical condition. If those Medical Drones give you any trouble let me know. I'll file all the appropriate reports for you, just say the word."
I blink. "I... don't think that'll be necessary."
She beams. "You're the sub-boss!"
She's chipper. It's... disturbing. On. So. Many. Levels.
She starts prattling on about how many systems need repair and how terribly the maintenance crews have let things deteriorate. She seems to have completely disregarded the fact that her crew is probably a century in the grave. At one point during all of this we enter a section of corridor where the sensors have apparently failed and she disappears, only to reappear five seconds later when we hit another section of sensors.
She never stops talking.
Finally she stops and looks at me very closely. I fight not to fidget.
"Sir..." She says slowly.
"Yeah?" I think I'm going to dread this.
She narrows one eye. "Permission to speak freely..."
What do you call what she's been doing up to this point! Was that restraint!
"That uniform is... completely unacceptable." She walks around me slowly, observing me from several different angles. This must be an affectation of the ships interaction protocol, because I know she can already see me from every angle with those sensors.
"Well... I haven't exactly had the..."
"If I may be so bold, I have prepared an appropriate uniform from the data entered into the medical logs recently. Had to construct it personally, did you know they don't keep your size onboard? Isn't that just shameful?"
I blink.
She frowns. "I'll ask Tallest Victoria if that's what you're worried about." She frowns. "She seems to like inappropriate clothing, if you get my meaning. That's her perogative of course. I'll just locate her and-"
"NO!" I shout, then pale. "I mean, that's not necessary. I trust YOUR judgement, er... Sima."
She blinks. "I... you..."
Oh crap... did I fuck up?
She looks down. "Well... sir... did you... just... name... me?"
I blink. That's what Vic calls her... fuck... does she have some sort of official designation?
I decide to play it off. "Is that a problem?"
"NO..." She straightens. "I mean... it's irregular, but... not... unwelcome..." She grins, touching her fingertips together.
Ok... now here is the really fucking ironic part of all of this. At least, my theory is ironic, I don't know if it's true or not, but knowing my luck, it is. Here's how I think we ended up with this psycho computer program. Even back when it was in service, this program is old news, seriously old fashioned. As the ship's job changed over time, it probably got harder and harder for the computer to keep up with the changes. Now this Subcommander is pretty much in charge of keeping the ship operational for the Tallest he works for, but he can't do that with an obsolete computer.
When faced with leadership telling him to do the impossible, he does what any good technician does in the same situation.
He cheats. He doesn't tell the Tallest what he's doing to the program. That would be shooting himself in the foot. Ask me no questions...
He modified the program to learn quickly, tweaked her personality to accomidate this change, then set about tinkering. Somewhere down the line she HAD to gain an understanding of slave races, in order to... control them. So she learns their patterns of behavior, and becomes more efficient.
Then the accident, or... whatever, happened... the power core gets jettisoned, he dies, and she gets turned off. Then slowly corrupts while she's off.
Now she's back on, and her... innards are all quirky. Like Vic said, insane.
OF COURSE, this means that she HAS to have the most HUMAN goddamn personality of anyone I've encountered recently.
I mean it has to just figure right? I can't get a fucking break, right!
That'd be too goddamn EASY! RIGHT!
Sigh.
She shakes out of her embarassment and gives me a sort of come hither look. I follow quickly, wondering where the fuck she's taking me, and what the fuck I'm supposed to do when I get there.
We turn a few corridors, enter a space that has no lighting to speak of, then suddenly the lights snap on and I blink.
It's cozy, and spartan, and entirely alien. Looks like someone's personal quarters. Someone who's only about five feet tall, from the look of it.
There's no bed in the conventional sense... just a spot to lie down. More of a curvy, strangely fluid sort of couchy.. thing. No real furniture... it's kinda depressing actually. No pictures, no artwork, nothing. It might as well be a cell.
I shiver.
There's something packaged in what looks suspiciously like dry cleaners plastic in neat little square on the "bed".
I blink.
She beams. "Well... try it on."
I blink again. "Um..."
"I hope you'll excuse my impertinance Subcommander, but I should make sure it... fits... properly." The fact that she says that with a straight face is a testiment to Irken engineering.
So THAT'S how it is, huh? Distraction my ass. Well, no point in going about this half-assed. No, I'm gonna go about this BARE assed. Right? Ha. Funny. I made a joke see, you're supposed to laugh.
Ferk.
I straighten my shoulders and let out a deep breath. "Please... call me Dib." If squeaky is sexy, then I be sexy.
"Er..." She blinks again. She doesn't blush but she looks like she wants to. "That's not... entirely appropriate..."
"Are you questioning my authority?" I purr. Of course if I was a cat I'd be one of those half-drowned, voice-box damaged cats. Coughing up a hairball. Still, this is just stupid enough to work.
"No..." She starts.
I slowly take off my shirt.
She goggles.
Eyes closed. I do NOT wanna see this.
Vic... HURRY UP.
Where's a damn dancer's pole when you need one?
I was wrong, this is not going to be easy.
I am pushing my way through the ducts slowly, and it has immediately become evident to me that I have miscalculated. This ship is nearly two miles long, and by necessity the location I have get to and the location where I am are far apart. Add to that the fact that these ducts are much tighter than I remembered, and you have an equation that equals trouble.
It must be the fact that it is an older ship... less manuevering space... I'm pressed in so tight I almost can not move my arms.
It takes a long time to push even a hundred yards, and by then the anesthetic is wearing off. Every jarring motion against the side of the duct sends a bone deep ache through my whole body.
I stop after about ten minutes and catch my breath, trying to ease the pain.
Mentally, I take stock of the situation. By my reckoning, it will take me nearly twenty minutes just to get to the access node, and then... what? I have no idea how long it will take to make the necessary corrections to the archive. I think I understand the principle of what Dib wants to do, but I have no experience to help me, no quiet voice in the back of my mind telling me what I need to do to make it happen.
I am completely on my own.
I start up again, pushing forward. This requires a simple sort of movement. Left shoulder inches upward, body weight is shifted forward on that side, legs brace against the sides of the duct to scoot a ways forward, right shoulder inches forward, so on, so forth.
The pain is distracting, but manageable, at least at this point.
So it goes. So it goes.
My mind begins to wander as I push forward. Dib said that he thinks he... loves me. I answered truthfully, I do not know what that means. The word is heavily referenced in every area of human language. Every sub-dialect on file has some word to describe the concept.
Something universal to humanity. Something that is so important to the human condition it is given as much emphasis in human language as to be equated with a basic need.
What does it mean, anyway? What does it have to do with physical... urges? It is alarming. If I were to examine it only on its most basic level, I would have to say that I do not like the sensation. It is self-destructive, and frightening in its intensity.
My... body does not agree. My Pak is ominiously silent on the subject. I feel... slightly betrayed.
I know what my Irken values are telling me, and that in and of itself is frightening. That he is one of my most prized possessions... something to defend at all costs, up to and including killing other Irkens for.
Wait...
Perhaps that's it then...
Perhaps it isn't... so hard to understand.
I've been saying it all along after all.
I... need him. He has BECOME... a basic need.
I stop, partly because this is an epiphany, and partly because I have to.
There is an obstruction before me.
He stares at me with eyes long since dried and hardened into tiny crystaline masses in his gaping eye sockets, a wide, gaping mouth open in one last scream. For a moment I am shocked and completely immobilized by how deep and piercing the scream is. I wouldn't think an Irken dead for over a century would be capable of such noise.
Then I realize it is coming from me.
I stop.
I look up suddenly from my... actions... frozen in the act of unbuttoning my battered trousers. Was that a scream I heard!
I shake my head. Better keep at this. I begin to wish I was wearing more clothing. It would make it easier to take them off slowly.
Sigh.
At least she doesn't have any dollar bills.
This is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever had to do.
Nearly a century ago, some long dead Irken technician was performing routine maintenance in a duct. He was alone, this is no great impossibility. The action he was performing was so routine that he did not even have a maintenance partner. Suddenly, the Inertial Dampners went out on the ship. As it was in the middle of a manuever, even though it was only a very minor course correction, it was at high speeds, and the gee forces involved rattled the crew around like fragile little shells in a bottle. Most of the crew suddenly went from zero to sixty miles an hour in the space of a few nanoseconds, and then did the same thing in the opposite direction as the ship lost its ability to manuever just as the emergency stop activated. Most of them probably died before they knew they hit the bulkhead.
This individual was not that lucky. Not having as far to go before he collided, in fact, having been braced against an object, he suffered less damage. The first impact probably broke his right arm and both his legs. As his body reacted to the agony, the second impact jarred him violently against the other duct wall.
His Pak was built to last, it suffered only minor scuffing.
The backbone behind it was not.
With a severely fractured spine, several compound fractures in three of his four limbs, he was bleeding both internally and externally at an unbelievable rate.
He was still conscious.
He had to be.
Because he crawled approximately five to six feet, leaving a trail of himself behind, before he finally succombed to shock.
The bloodloss killed him only a few moments later.
So what this translated into, was that I spent the next several minutes mashing his corpse into a fine paste trying to get past him. Sickeningly, it was not that difficult. Time had mummified his remains to a fragile, pottery-like state.
Coated in dead Irken, inching my way across stains and residue, I continued on my way.
Inch inch... inch inch... ignore the pain, move along. My arm was bleeding freely now, the bandage long since torn and covered with filth. The blood, rather than make it easier to move, made it that much more difficult. I found that I was actually crawling at a slightly upwards angle, thanks to how the ship was oriented, and if I didn't brace myself as I moved, I found myself sliding slowly backward.
Damn it... damn it... damn damn damn. FUCK!
I blink. Dib must be rubbing off on me. Even if I have no idea what that last word means, I am somewhat embarassed at myself.
I am exhausted, frustrated, sore and a little whoozy. Suddenly there is simply no more duct in front of me and I find myself falling face first several feet to the floor of a compartment.
I lie still for a moment.
Then I slowly stretch my limbs outward, grimacing slightly at the arc of pain that races from my badly battered arm and savor the sensation of being able to move more than a few inches at a time.
It takes me several tries to stand. Several more to input the manual override device into an appropriate data node.
Entering in the override command is agonizingly slow. I have to hunt for the appropriate characters across the board with a maddeningly slow pace. Whoever designed this hideously slow method of data entry should be shot. Several times I mistype a character and don't immediately notice, forcing me to erase my progress when I do notice and start over again.
I stop, take a deep breath, and set down the device.
You are being stupid Vic. Think. I know you do not want him to have to deal with that program for any more time than he absolutely has to, but you have to do this right the first time. Any badly entered command will gain the program's attention.
You can't do this correctly half blind from pain and shock.
I scoot backward from the device and take ten minutes cleaning and rebandaging my arm. I dose myself up with a stimulant, a anesthetic and a blood booster, just in case.
I feel infinitely better, although still like I had spent several days in a pain chamber.
Picking up the manual entry device, I continue my torturously slow data entry.
Finally completed, I take a deep breath... close my eyes...
Then hit the enter key.
The body stocking is easy enough to figure out. I helped Vic that one time a long time ago, so I know how it opens and closes. The overshirt, pretty sharp, if I do say so myself. Black overshirt on a black stocking? Not exactly a fashion breakthrough, but I suppose it'll have to do. I would have thought there would be a big hole in the back, but surprisingly it's a complete uniform.
The computer's ability at self delusion is mind-bogglingly impressive.
I've always looked good in black. At least, I thought so.
The boots are heaven. I have no idea how I managed to convince myself the boots that I'd repaired and pieced back together from various odds and ends but honest to god, made to fit footwear is a blessing I almost forgive the SIMA her brutality for.
Almost.
Finished, I turn to look at the hologram.
I blink.
She appears to have... frozen.
She looks like she was about to say something when suddenly she just stopped moving, her face frozen in a half animated expression of satisfaction.
I wave my hand through her. No effect.
What the...
Suddenly she... well I guess the best description would be to say she fizzes out for a moment, then blinks once, slowly.
An unknown expression floods her face... an expression of loss and horror and...
Her mouth drops open... she looks up at me.
Misery creeps onto her features and closes her mouth.
"I'm... sorry." She mumbles.
Then she blinks out of existence.
I do a doubletake. What in the hell just happened? Did she update that quick? Did it work?
I have no idea how long she was frozen behind me... one minute I was changing (breaking speed records at it, and not the fast ones. Quadrapalegics could have dressed quicker than me) the next I was staring at the place she was in befuddled surprise.
The door slides open with a grinding, needs maintenance sort of sound. Vic stands there, an expression of quizzical bemusement on her grime covered face. Seriously... she looks like she just spent the last half hour rolling around in a vat full of liquified dead irkens.
The bandage on her arm is suspiciously clean and well tended.
She blinks.
Takes a moment to look me over, in a manner so obvious that I blush.
"What?" I say self consciously.
Her mouth twists oddly. Her antennae vibrate just slightly.
I blink.
"It looks... very becoming on you, Subcommander." She says, very calmly.
I suspect she's trying not to laugh.
I scowl. "Look, it was the only thing I could think of. It's not like I-"
She busts out with a quiet tinkle of laughter, quickly surpressed behind one small hand. Her eyes glimmer with mirth.
I cross my arms.
I fidget.
This only seems to amuse her further.
"Oh lay off!" I mutter.
"I... I am sorry, Dib... it's just that... it's not how you look, you look... very... very attractive, it's just your reaction..."
She snorts, her eyes narrowing to slits.
I sigh. EVERYBODY'S a comedian.
Suddenly it IS funny. Maybe it's just that the oppressiveness of the ship is lightening, maybe it's because despite adversity, we've truely accomplished something... I don't know. Suddenly I find myself laughing along with her, the mood we'd felt when we first turned on the ship returning with a rush it was almost manic.
I don't know if we've done it... I don't know what we've accomplished really.
It just seems to me... I think to both of us... that the hardest step... the first step... has been completed.
Of course... if I'd known then what I know now...