01100100 01101001 01100001 01100111 01101110 01101111 01110011 01110100 01101001 01100011 01110011 [Diagnostics]
My first stop was the screening room on the sixteenth floor. There were several, but that was the largest one, with the most panels and the fastest connection; the whiteboard outside indicated it was free. Slipping inside, I shut the door and sat down in a wheeled office chair, facing an arc-shaped desk. An assortment of flat-panel monitors, in various sizes, were mounted on the wall above it. In the low light, they loomed over me like dark clouds.
Set into the desk was a terminal, with a series of ports wirelessly linked to the screens. I popped an ear, pulled out a cable, and plugged myself in. A second later, the screens went live, with the standard readout of specs and stats; from then on, everything I did I could see on the display. I could have surveyed files without it, sure, but it would have taken longer – there was only so much I could process internally.
I began my troubleshooting by scanning everything in my library – all of my files, all of my memories, any data that might have glitched and manifested as the anomaly. I watched it all blaze across the screens. My thinking was, maybe what I'd seen was a misplaced memory, or a file I'd downloaded and lost; maybe it hadn't come from thin air. Not that I wanted to think my system was betraying me, pulling up the wrong things at the wrong times, but it would've been better than a virus. Better if I could figure it out.
No hits. Nothing. None of my memories so much as resembled the lightless place, much less came up a match. To make matters worse, I couldn't find it anywhere – not in my library, not on my desktop, not even in my logs where it should've been. Where I should have found the memory of the anomaly, archived with the other events of that day, there was only a record of my having been shut down. Impossible. I slit my eyes on the screens. If I have a record of it, I remember it. If I remember it, I have a record of it. If, and only if.
These are inalterable facts.
I disconnected and slumped in the chair. There were no more alternatives now, no room for denial. There had to be something wrong with me. If I were human, I'd have thought I was going crazy; since I wasn't, the word was broken. So I did what I was programmed to do, in a situation like this – what I'd told Aiko I'd be doing in the first place.
If any system could find a virus, it was mine. It's what I was designed to do. After all, if I couldn't keep myself in working order, how could I be expected to do the same for Zima? Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time – and that's a statistic, not a figure of speech – my software could hunt down and crush a threat within seconds, so I wasn't exactly worried. I wasn't happy, but I wasn't worried. Even if I was infected, at least there was something I could do. At least I could, as Zima said, shoot my trouble and be done with it, and move on to fortifying my firewalls.
I ran a general diagnostic, there in the screening room. An exhaustive search of all systems, for anything malfunctioning or compromised. Curled up knees-to-nose in the chair, I stared at the ceiling and wound my ponytail around my fingers, drummed my nails against the chair's arm, listened to the sound like a hornets' nest walled up in my chest. The buzz chased itself in circles, for what seemed like longer than usual, and then at last I heard a ping – the tone that meant the end of a search.
But—there was nothing. No bugs. No cracks in security. Not so much as an unnoticed update. According to my software – the best software in the country – I was operating flawlessly. Had I any blood, it would have drained from my face. Impossible. Impossible! Had I any breath, I would have held it, as I ran the diagnostic over again. I must have missed something. The program must have glitched.
Ping. Nothing. I ran it over again.
Ping. Nothing. Once more.
Ping. Nothing.
My system was convinced the anomaly didn't exist. I wasn't sure a persocom could feel numb, without shutting off its stimuli sensors, but if it could then I did as I left the screening room. Down the hall, there was a research room with an old-fashioned stationary computer, and it stood empty; coursing with nervous energy, I practically leapt into the office chair. I punched the power key and glared at the stationary's monitor, a touchscreen bolted to the wall. Come on, wake up. Wakeupwakeupwakeup!
After about twenty years of loading on the stationary's part, I plugged in and brought up its diagnostic center. It didn't have an all-inclusive program, like I did, but it had multi-part system surveys for bugs and security breaches, and from what I'd heard they weren't half-bad for a dinosaur. And seeing as I'd sooner crash than go to another 'com, it was pretty much my only choice. My diagnostics were never wrong – or at least, they hadn't been yet – but I figured it couldn't hurt to double-check on a system outside my own. If there was something wrong with me, it could be that there was something wrong with my diagnostics. Maybe the stationary would see something I couldn't.
Loading malware detection suite. I watched the words flash onto the screen with narrowed eyes, synthetic nerves strung too tight to fidget. Initiating malware search part one on humanoid unit 01165B.
Five excruciating minutes passed, while the stationary scanned the first half of my data. I don't think I moved once the whole time. 0 results found, it finally announced with a ping. For whatever reason, I had the presence of processor to be vaguely offended, that I should share a default search tone with this—this thing. Initiating malware search part two.
Another five minutes slid by like molasses, if possible even slower than the first. 0 results found. Proceed to security fortification suite?
God. The stationary may not have been as saccharine as most persocoms, but it was a hell of a lot dumber. I tapped yes on the screen.
Run security fortification diagnostic on humanoid unit 01165B?
I'd never hated another computer so much.
In any case, it did what I asked. It insisted on calling me humanoid unit 01165B, but it did what I asked, and it confirmed what I'd feared: zero results. All of my nervous energy melted into dismay. My head swam, all at once heavy as lead; I groaned and let it drop into my hands. I knew, the second I heard that last ping, what I was supposed to do. Like most all 'coms, when faced with a problem, I was programmed to first investigate and attempt to solve it on my own – and if that didn't work, report it to my owner.
Well, not owner, per se. Zima and I didn't have an owner, but we had a whole network of supervisors, both direct and indirect; at this stage in the game, I should've been reporting the anomaly to a Ms. Hanako Yamane. Since we retrieved most of our assignments from Aiko, I'd only met her a handful of times. And there was nothing I wanted less than to drag my ass to her doorstep now, to turn myself in as defective.
"Hello?" A rap on the door jerked my head towards it. Before I could answer, it swung open on the perpetual sneer of Kaori Kano, and her hapless persocom May. "We need this room," she said snidely, heels clicking as she sauntered in. "Get out."
I was done there. I could've left. And if I were an ordinary 'com, I would have, with copious apologies for inconveniencing Ms. Kano. But I wasn't, and I didn't, and though I never much cared whether I inconvenienced anyone, I could take special pleasure in inconveniencing her. I didn't know what Ms. Kano did, specifically, aside from work in the offices. All I knew, from my fortunately few dealings with her, was that she was as two-faced, self-absorbed, and generally obnoxious a human as you'd ever find – and seeing as I disliked humans near as much as I disliked persocoms, that was saying something.
"Your name's not on the whiteboard," I informed her, without moving from my seat. "You can't just tell me to leave."
"Well, that's what I'm doing. And this is important, so be quick about it, too."
I sat back in the chair. Stared her down with one eyebrow raised, considering just how wrong her attitude rubbed me right then. All humans believed 'coms existed to serve them, but at least some of them were nice about it; Ms. Kano, on the other hand, seemed to think I ought to be licking her boots. "You have a computer," I pointed out, nodding at May. "Why do you need the stationary?"
"You are a computer. Why do you?"
Well. There wasn't much I could say to that. Not without telling her about the anomaly, anyway. So I set about closing up shop, wasting as much time as I could; while she stood there with her arms crossed, tapping an impatient foot, I logged off the stationary click by click. I shut it down, so she'd have to boot it up again. And when I unplugged, I didn't let the cable snap back. Instead, I held the end between my thumb and index finger, and it slid slowly back into its port in my ear – the panel of which I then shut manually, with a smirk and a satisfying click.
"If you need anything else," I said to Ms. Kano as I left, channeling Aiko's signature chirp, "please don't hesitate to kiss my ass."
She shut the door the second I cleared the threshold – slammed it, more like. Even so, I could hear her sniping to May. "Can you even believe her? She thinks she's hot shit because she gets to babysit the data bank. Like that makes her any better than other 'coms." She snorted. "He may be hard to replace, but she's not."
As if I didn't know.
I should have gone to Ms. Yamane. I shouldn't have had any choice but to go to Ms. Yamane; no matter what I wanted to do, no matter what I wished I could do, my programming shouldn't have left it up to me. But against all logic – logic meaning disturbingly little at that point – I found myself at a fork in the hallway, musing over which way to go. One corridor, carpeted and softly lit, was labeled Administrative Offices, Sector Three. The other, which lead to a flight of stairs, read Persocom Storage and Care.
On the one hand, I thought, looking down the first hallway, I could go see Ms. Yamane. I could tell her I'm seeing things I can't be seeing, and remembering things I shouldn't be able to remember; I could tell her I know something's wrong, but I don't know what. I could spend the next few days – few weeks? few months? the rest of whatever counts as my life? – in the maintenance bay, sprouting cables from every orifice, being taken apart piece by piece. Hearing nothing but the drone of machines. Seeing nothing but grey. Seeing nothing at all, if they decide I'm a lost cause, and shut me down for good.
On the other hand, I thought, looking down the second hallway, I could go take a bath.
Maybe it was the glitch talking, but the decision seemed clear.
The staircase led to a cellar beneath the building, all labyrinthine halls and fluorescent lights. As soon as they were off-duty, every persocom in the building reported there to power down, until they were needed next; most of the rooms were long, dark, hangar-like vaults, lined with individual recharge pods. A few others were dedicated to miscellaneous upkeep. And one of those was labeled Sanitation – 'com code for bathhouse.
It was empty, which was good. The last thing I wanted was to be chatted up by Sally Screensaver while I tried to unwind. My costume was fairly complicated, with about six thousand buckles to undo and twice as many garters to pull off, so I hit the switch to fill the bath while I went about stripping down. By the time I'd shed what felt like a metric ton of leather, the tub was full and steaming, and I was very much ready to get in.
I felt the heat climb through my body, different than the heat at my core. Unlike the dry, mechanical warmth inside me - the result of a hundred active systems packed into about five feet of chassis – it was soft, and gentle; it spread its tendrils slowly through my limbs, as I sank into the water up to my chin. I closed my eyes and lay back against a tiled wall. I'd get to the actual washing soon enough, but for a moment, it felt good just to sit and soak up the heat. To watch the steam swirl through the air, my ponytail float on the water's skin. To forget everything, if only for a little while.
But I could never relax for long. I wasn't like Zima. I couldn't let things go, let things be. I overthought everything, and that day, I started to think about pleasure – why I could say the bath felt good, or for that matter enjoy anything at all. It wasn't to the government's benefit, to give me pleasure sensors. I'd do my job just as well without them. Then again, what was pain without pleasure? How could I know what pain was, and use that knowledge, if I didn't know its opposite? I realized I had pleasure sensors because pain sensors made them necessary. Because there was no dark without light.
Consequently, I asked myself, wandering down a dangerous path, is there no dislike without like? Can I be programmed to be hostile towards an enemy, without the capacity to feel affection towards a friend? Can I say I hate Ms. Kano, without being able to say I love—
No. No, no. Too much. Too far.
Still. I couldn't not think about him. Sitting there, sifting the water through cupped hands, I realized something else – I needed Zima now more than ever. He would've known what to do, or at least he would have made me feel better. I always felt better with Zima around, though I did my best not to show it. I should have told him about the anomaly when I had the chance.
After my bath, I towelled myself off and got dressed again, before heading for my pod. Which wasn't all bad, at the right time. I was tired of thinking, tired of worrying, and shutting down for the night meant none of either; in a way, my pod was the only place where I really could relax. And because we were important – well, because Zima was important, and I was linked to him – we had our own set, installed in a little room apart from the others. Coded door and everything.
The pods resembled upright steel coffins, with glass doors. Inside, they were cool. Without looking too long at Zima's – because I couldn't look too long at Zima's, when he wasn't there – I stepped into mine and hooked up to the recharge ports, staring out like tiny black eyes from either wall.
Every time a 'com hooked up to its pod, the pod ran its own set of default diagnostics – a routine check-up, just as a matter of course. Before I shut my eyes, I watched for the results on a little screen, set into the inside of the door.
All systems functioning. 0 results found.