Friction - Chapter Nine
"So? What do you think?" Nym asked as he watched Blair's face contort into a frown.
The human drummed her false fingers against her seat as she considered what the quarian had shared with her over the course of their trip. Truth be told, she'd only been half-aware of his words, as her attention kept drifting to the sound of the shuttle's engine. As encouraging as the gentle thrum had been thus far, she knew it only took a moment for something to go critically wrong that could send them careening into Noveria's snow-covered crust below.
The quarian tilted his head at her silence. "Blair?"
Una chirped in concern and extended an arm to give her human keeper a pinch. The woman jumped at the contact and her eyes refocused. She rubbed the sore spot left by the mech's plier-tipped limb as her brain processed the complications of Nym's pet project.
"I don't think I understand what exactly you hope to gain from this," she said at last. "Or why Synthetic Insights would fund such an endeavor. There's no profit in it."
"You don't see the value of discovering how AIs form their identities?"
"I don't see its value in this context," Blair clarified, "Your company builds war machines and defense intelligence - AIs with strict parameters and behavioral blocks. They don't 'form' an identity so much as have it dictated to them. It doesn't make sense for you to study artificial evolution when you bypass it in the first place."
Nym's head lowered slightly and his hands clasped in front of him. The shuttle's PA rang out a warning of impending descent, but this time Blair barely noticed it. A deep line formed along the lower half of her brow.
"You're not thinking of 'raising' a defense intelligence are you?"
"Well, if an AI could interface directly with a starship's components it would greatly…" Nym trailed off slowly as Blair's hard gaze withered his enthusiasm. He was silent for a moment, then pointed at Una. "You've raised an unlicensed mech without behavior protocols."
"Una doesn't have a Thanix cannon," the woman exasperated.
"Even if she did, do you honestly think she would use it on organics indiscriminately?"
"That's a loaded question-"
"How so?"
"Nothing intelligent does anything 'indiscriminately'. The very ability to make judgments and calculations is part of how we define intelligence. A quarian would know that…"
The eerie blue light behind the quarian's mask lit up again, and he nodded in a manner Blair took for approval.
"Therein lies in the purpose of my study. I want to know why your mech is pleased to remain as it is. I want to know if - given a blank slate - an artificial intellect can conceive its own morality and code of conduct. I want to know how much of this is influenced by the AI's environment and who or what it interacts with. Would two independent, non-networked AIs with identical software develop differently, even when exposed to the same atmosphere? If so, to what degree?"
"So this is a study on nurture versus nature?" Blair asked skeptically.
"Something like that, yes," Nym said with another wave in Una's direction, "Your mech is simple in comparison to those generally produced by Synthetic Insights this is true, but similar models would be invaluable to me. That you designed her with so little restriction and no real notion of the final outcome means similar constructs would be mentally malleable, and not likely to develop along a creator's bias - something I seem unable to achieve in my own works, unfortunately."
"And something that could taint your results…"
"Precisely."
Blair's eyebrows pinched and she looked to her mech with reservation. The little droid had lost interest in the conversation going on around her and was busy re-threading a loose seam in the shuttle's leather seat. Mixed feelings warred with hard logic as Blair imagined Una's modest reasoning being held responsible for Alliance cruisers and the personnel inside. Her behavior in the spaceport that morning left no doubt about her willingness to defend herself, and it perfectly highlighted her limited ability to determine what was - and wasn't - a legitimate threat.
Video feeds of the geth attack on the Citadel came to the forefront of Blair's mind, along with reports that the maneuvering of an organic had been behind the incursion. How anyone - even a rogue Spectre - could manage to negotiate with such advanced artificial life forms was beyond her. The entire quarian race had nearly been destroyed after losing control over their creations, and yet one man had somehow convinced them to come around to his way of thinking, however insane his intentions.
Somehow forced them to come around…
The woman swallowed and faced Nym, doing her best to mask the suspicion she felt like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach. "I said I don't see the profit in this, and I still don't. Studying how AIs evolve for the sake of science is all well and good, but it doesn't serve Synthetic Insights."
"It will if it means we can find a way to make AIs willing to work for us of their own accord," Nym pointed out. "Take you and your…Una, for example. You have formed something of a symbiotic relationship; you need her to diagnose and do repair work on your prosthesis, and she needs security, access to a power source, and someone to provide her with new hardware should one of her components malfunction."
"Now, she could get it in her system to take these things by force, but that would mean exposing herself to opposition, and as you have pointed out, your mech has no means of defense. She has no networked allies to rely upon, as the geth do. She has you, and over the course of her existence, she has learned to trust you."
"So that's what you want? To bring up mechs with largely empty databases and control what they're exposed to in order to get them to 'trust' us?" Blair demanded. "And what happens when you send them out in the world and they realize there's more to it than they've been shown in your labs? You don't think that's going to make them mad?"
"Mechs don't have emotions, Miss Hodges," the quarian countered.
Blair's bionic arm snapped out in a severing motion. "Oh cut the crap," she exclaimed irritably, "We're way beyond semantics. You want to condition AIs, and it's wrong. Una may not feel the way I do, she may not understand love or hate or even physical pain, but she understands deception. She knows what it is to lie and cheat and be a self-serving prick in neoprene."
Una had picked up on the rising tone of the cabin's occupants and abandoned her idle stitching to swivel her ocular lens wildly between them. A questioning bleep escaped her as Blair stood and snatched her up in a tight hug. The human lifted her bag and swung it onto her shoulder with effort before making her way to the narrow door connecting the rest of the shuttle. Upon exiting, she turned back to lean against the doorframe and give the offending quarian one last piece of her mind.
"How's that for politically correct, quarian? Maybe you're willing to trade your conscience for a few credits, but I'm not." She lifted her prosthesis and formed its nimble digits into a rude gesture. "You can take your job and shove it."
.oO-Oo.
When the shuttle landed in Port Locke, Blair was one of the first passengers to get off. Citing her handicap, she'd managed to convince the on-board attendants to give her a seat at the front of the ship. She didn't normally indulge in treating her condition like a badge of entitlement, but between the quarian, the cold and her own frayed nerves, she wanted free of the cramped quarters as soon as possible.
"Do you need help with that?" a porter asked her as she stepped off the causeway connecting the docked ship to the passenger platform. Her racing mind didn't realize what he meant until he gestured to Una's metal bulk wedged under her bionic arm.
"No!" she snapped, contorting her torso so the mech was out of reach.
The man's eyes widened and he stepped back, hands up in submissive gesture. "Oookay then," he quipped in a miffed tone, "A nice day to you too, lady."
Blair ignored the barb and followed the rest of the passengers down a corridor leading to Port Locke's entry point. To her relief, there was no second security gate to suffer through, just one of Noveria's automated weapons scanners and a guest services booth. A small host of ERCS guards were present, but judging by their placement, they were there for the protection of the port employees, not the interrogation of arriving persons. Still, her hectic morning made her hold her breath as she passed by the turians flanking the airlock into the commons. One of them made eye contact with her briefly, but as she suspected, his gaze roamed away wordlessly.
As she made her way to the stations entry point, she watched the airlock open and close for the travelers ahead of her. Snatches of sound and bright lights crept through the swinging doors, churning up unexpected excitement in the woman. Though Nym's words on the shuttle had suggested Port Locke was more developed than Hanshan, she couldn't help but double take at the view that greeted her upon exiting the traverse and entering the city proper.
Blair's first reaction was to laugh. Port Hanshan was Noveria's capital; that another station was allowed to so greatly outshine it seemed laughable. She wondered for a moment who headed the port, but then decided it didn't matter. Not much of what NDC did made sense to her; she doubted the reasoning behind Port Locke's glamour would either.
"Well," she said to Una with some renewed energy, "Looks like we might get to have some fun after all."
The mech made a high-pitched squeal and bubbled with questions. "I bet we can find some more medi-gel ampoules for you here, too," Blair suggested, "Then we can replace the ones you used up after my fall, yeah?"
Una began spinning her wheels in a need to be free, and her keeper put her down in understanding. When the mech turned to face Blair, she screeched in agitation and wheeled up to the woman's feet.
"Una? What's the-"
"I wouldn't let your mech roam free in Port Locke if I were you," an accented voice interjected from somewhere behind the woman. "Something could happen to her…"
"Is that a threat?" Blair ground through clenched teeth as she turned to meet the quarian's tinted faceplate.
"Of course not," Nym replied with a careless gesture. "Merely a friendly piece of advice. If we were on the Citadel, she would have been destroyed by port security and you would have been arrested."
"It's a good thing we're not on the Citadel then, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. A very good thing," he answered with an unnerving nod of agreement, "A superior mind such as yours should be rewarded, not punished. To throw you into prison would be to waste so much potential."
The quarian clasped his hands behind his back and took a few steps closer to the woman. "Your…abrupt departure on the shuttle left me unable to finish making my offer, Miss Hodges."
"Screw your offer, quarian. I can see now why no one willing to work with you - you're a lunatic. One geth holocaust not enough for you people?"
To Blair's surprise, the quarian laughed. His re-breather lit up like lightning and he shook his head. "A geth holocaust should be the least of your worries."
He slipped his narrow hands into a pouch at his waist and withdrew a shiny piece of plastic. Blair's face contorted in fury as he held it up alongside his helmet. It was her NDC badge. "I took the liberty of looking you up after you left," Nym explained as he waved her ID through the air thoughtfully, "Your bionic arm really did cost a fortune didn't it? That must be a truly crushing debt to someone of your salary. You couldn't even cover the cost of your ticket to come here today!"
"That's none of your business!" Blair snapped.
"I'm prepared to make it my business. In fact, as a show of good faith, you'll find your rent and utilities for the month have been covered. Synthetic Insights is prepared to very kind with you should you reconsider our proposal, and we want to give you time to think it over, unburdened by such…trivial money matters."
"Go to hell."
"Quarians don't have a hell," Nym told her jovially as he held out her card, "but we do have a most resplendent heaven." Blair frowned and snatched back her ID. "I see no reason that we should be enemies, Blair, but I have done what I can to convince you, and as your people say, the ball is in your court."
The diminutive alien gave a lingering glance to Una before turning to disappear into the crowd. A thousand epithets threatened to leap from Blair's tongue, but a chime from her omni-tool silenced her. She pushed up her sleeve and read the terse message there with something approaching fear.
I'll be in touch…
.oO-Oo.
Even Kilandra's brooding presence at her heels couldn't quash the sense of accomplishment in Ohari as she moved about the well-lit gallery. A decade's worth of work was almost complete, and it made her hold her head high as she strode toward the room's last remaining alcove. She swore she felt the touch of the Goddess upon her, praising her for her life's last legacy - a legacy she had sworn to fulfill while she still had sight enough left to do so.
"That doesn't belong here, Mother," Kilandra said coldly as Ohari lifted her painting onto the barren wall.
The elder asari ignored her and focused on centering the image. A beam of sunlight filtered through one of the chamber's open windows, bathing the portrait's bright face in an even warmer glow. Ohari smiled at the effect and stepped back to better observe her handiwork. A youthful giddiness flushed her sapphire cheeks.
"It is done," she said breathlessly.
"You say that like you're on your deathbed," Kilandra scoffed.
Ohari fixed her irreverent daughter with a stare that made the young woman look away. She held the heavy gaze for several moments before sighing peacefully and turning her eyes back to her art.
"It's unfortunate," the Matriarch mumbled with a wistful smile as she traced the contours of Naveed's face, "I could have had such beautiful grandchildren…"
"I'm too young for children."
Ohari gave a good-natured snort. "I couldn't have said it better myself."
Kilandra rolled her eyes at the criticism and crossed her arms. She glanced briefly at the black shroud hanging over her dead sister's painting further along the wall and swallowed the rising lump in her throat.
"Will you at least put him further away from Lyla?" she asked.
"No. This spot is perfect for him," Ohari said with a wide grin, "Basking in the light like a lizard."
"And what's so special about my location?"
The Matriarch glanced in the direction of her daughter's portrait and waved. "You got the view of the pond with the ill-tempered sunfish." She leaned closer to Kilandra and whispered. "They haven't spawned for me either."
"Very funny, Mother," the young asari replied through a clenched jaw. Her eyes wandered idly back to Ohari's painting, and hardened as they glared into the drell's dark eyes. "I can't believe you can take his side."
Ohari laughed. "You think it's that simple, do you? A matter of who's right and who's wrong? Oh my daughter, you have so much still to learn."
"He spends more time with those patients of his than he does with me, and now he's cavorting with one of them."
"You knew full well Naveed's level of dedication when you met him," the elder pointed out, "It's in his nature; he can't help it and I see no reason he should. He does a job few people care to anymore, and I couldn't think of a kinder soul better suited to it."
Kilandra unclasped her hands and threw them wide in exasperation. "And what of that girl? Does his 'job' entail entertaining strangers in our home?"
"Perhaps not, but I doubt it entails giving parting prayers over the deceased who don't belong to him either."
Naveed's calm, alien words at Lyla's funeral echoed in the back of Kilandra's mind. He made the ritual gestures over the asari's body with such care, and anointed her brow with a gentleness normally reserved for children. Somehow the whole affair felt freeing in an otherwise dark and solemn day, and she knew her mother had been grateful for his effort.
"It's more than a profession to him, Kilandra," Ohari continued as she stroked the edge of the drell's painting affectionately, "It's a calling, and to some degree, it's merely the drell way." The asari took her hand back and clasped it against her chest. "Have I ever told you that Naveed is not the first drell I've met?"
The other's arched eyebrows perked with interest. "No…"
"There are so few of them left you know; even someone with years like mine would be unlikely to encounter more than a handful - short of visiting Kahje, of course." Ohari's eyes blurred as her mind traveled into centuries past. "I still remember when word of this new species came from the hanar homeworld. I was very young at the time, of course, younger than you are even, but there was so much excitement that it's easy to recall."
"Who were these wide-eyed beings with their jewel-toned skin? Would they be a blessing to us, or a curse? What trouble was behind the sadness in their intricate faces? Could their war-torn world be saved? There were so many questions then, and time has answered them as it usually does. They are the hands of the hanar, the retainers of dying traditions, and they are content to remain in this role alongside their saviors."
"This has nothing to do with Naveed," Kilandra interrupted irritably.
"Hmph. It most certainly does," the Matriarch chided. "drell will bind themselves to a hanar household for generations; they do not trade allegiance lightly, and they take great stock in religious doctrine so old it rivals that of our own people. Naveed would never transgress against you. He can't, even when you cause him so much pain. The rules he and his people live by will not stand for it."
"When I cause him pain? What 'pain'? I cook his meals, buy his clothes-"
"And carelessly exercise the loss of his childhood friend against him," Ohari cut her off. The two women stood silently for a time, and somewhere outside a cloud obscured the room's radiant light. "How could you stoop so low as to threaten him with self-harm? Knowing what you know of his history? Are you really the daughter I raised? Do you have any idea what it must be like for him, to carry every moment of his life with him every day, burdened by all the exacting details?"
"I didn't mean it! You'd just told me about Lyla and I-"
"Cared more about your own needs than you did his, as you have always done ever since you were this high." Ohari made a chopping motion through the air with her frail fingers. "You knew there was no better way to cut him, and you did it anyway. He lost his friend and his self-confidence that day, and you threw salt in the wound just to make him squirm."
"You weren't there, you can't possibly know what happened!" Kilandra argued in a voice bordering on hysterical.
"I'm your mother, girl, and I can tell by your reaction that I've a pretty good idea. Perhaps Naveed can overlook your ways, but I will not. Not anymore." Ohari strode the gallery exit and paused briefly in the doorway. "Lyla is dead and I will soon follow her. It is high time you put your selfishness away and prepare to take up our family's mantle - without that beautiful man beside you. You've tormented him enough already."
The Matriarch's thin form disappeared through the airlock with a finality Kilandra had rarely felt before. All her insults and arguments died on her lips as the gallery fell dim and silent again. Overwhelming emptiness crept up around the asari, putting pressure on her until her hands went to her head and she screamed. Nebulous blue light gathered about her form like a halo, and with a cry of rage she launched it at the image on the wall behind her, splintering it to pieces.
neoprene - a synthetic rubber with a number of uses including the creation of wet suits, in this context Blair is referring to Nym's quarian biosuit