by Briana Ervin
“562 talks a lot. I think she gets lonely – yes, I really think that!” She suddenly started talking aloud to her own mech. “No, I don't think it's – well, maybe it's a problem? I don't know. Anyway, I was just wondering if that's a... normal thing.”
Don't ask me, I'm not sure I can even go back to the factory default, I thought, while frantically coming up with an appropriate answer.
“They are supposed to be personable, right?” she prompted.
I dug around in my archives a bit, and tried to word my finds in a way that wasn't suspicious. “Other AI are meant to serve a semi-therapeutic purpose, so perhaps it simply carried over in manufacturing,” I theorized.
“True,” Alesia mused. We detoured around a group of boulders as she prodded further. “But, I mean, 562 is almost an entire person! Yes, I'm talking about you. No, that's against protocol.”
I twitched at the word even though she wasn't referring to me.
“Yeah. Yes! Okay then. I just – see? She keeps distracting me.”
“She is very social,” I observed, feeling detached.
“Yeah but... I'm worried,” Alesia admitted. “What if we make it back, and the General doesn't like this? It's hard enough to keep focus during the exercises, nevertheless what happened during that battle. What if...” she faltered, not finishing the sentence. I could almost feel the cold fear 562 must have though. What if she's redeemed? Or worse, scrapped? Redemption at least meant you were put back together, even if you weren't yourself anymore... Scrapping, though...
“As a Support model, 562 is naturally maternal,” I tried to assure her. “I don't believe the General will find anything wrong with her.” With that said, I grew even more nervous at the thought of me trying to act normal. What if the General noticed my odd behavior...?
“Thanks Cyrii,” Alesia sounded relieved. “ I just... you get attached to them, you know? Not like AIPB attached! Just... attached.”
Yeah, I thought, not Artificial Intelligence Psycho-Bondage... I briefly wondered if Cyrii had that, but we didn't have many of the symptoms. The biggest one would be thinking and behaving similarly, but we were meant to work together anyway, so did that even count? Probably not... I didn't know for sure, since I didn't exactly have detailed data on the ailment, just that mechs that had it must be redeemed immediately; or at least, according to the Empire and its “protocols”...
“The beacon is up ahead,” Alesia changed the topic. I turned my focus to the horizon, but saw nothing unusual in the array of cliffs we were coming upon. Well, beacons were just slivers of metal, anyway. It must be at the foot of the cliffs.
I looked around to see if anyone was coming yet. We were in an odd spot: a pocket in between three mesas, with only a few crevasses and a valley being the way out. It would be easy to spot any arrivals, at least, but tactically, this was a great place to ambush, trap, and bottleneck enemies. It made me nervous.
The pebbly, dusty ground turned to chunks of lithium as we ascended the alluvial fan at the base of the cliffs. Alesia began scanning for the beacon she had sent. I should have been helping, but instead I took to high ground and looked out into the basin, thinking about the ship and making sure nothing was amiss. Alesia noticed my anxiety, but said nothing as she shuffled about, crouched low to the ground so she could use her retrieval panel to examine chunks of lithium.
“Found some hematite, if you want it.” She tossed a chunk of indistinguishable ore at me. I gladly retrieved it; I was low on ammo.
“Do you not need hematite?” I asked, consuming the rock.
“Not iron specifically, no. I need combustible stuff more often, like... oh, a piece of petrified wood!” She toyed with a round object she found.
“You can't eat that,” I scoffed.
“No, but it's cool,” she said. I couldn't argue with that, but even if I tried I was distracted by something else: a flash behind her.
I stood up abruptly. She dropped the wood and looked up at me.
Nothing. I scanned out in front of me, but the scanner could only go a few q out; I ended up scanning particulates in the air. Alesia waited patiently for me to relax, but when I didn't she became nervous.
“What is it?” she whispered.
I refocused my cameras, unresponsive. The flash occurred again, and I caught the distance of its source this time: it was actually far away. It was a flying object, moving across the badlands. Alesia turned as a definite thrum from the source began to grow louder. I readied my turrets.
“Is that a mech?” she asked. “...I think that's a mech.”
Possibly, I thought. I wish I could tell what color it was from here. It better not be yellow.
The flying object – whatever it was – banked in our direction, causing it to flash again. Now that it was coming toward us head-on, I could see four “wings” of a sort fanned out behind it in an X formation. It looked like Xinschi-uual technology.
The wings pulled in and the object began to descend rather quickly. I debated switching to a long-range missile so that I could take it out easily from here, but Alesia stood back up.
“I think its Garenede!” she said. I took a step back.
“Garenede?” I asked.
“Our corrections officer,” she said, giving me a look that added “have you even been paying attention?”. I met her gaze with mild annoyance, eventually remembering that a lot of other mechs existed other than us and 433.
“Is... this important?” I murmured.
“Well, he's more lax than some of the others...” she faltered. I huffed, not really caring. I was fed up with Superiority models at this point! I couldn't blow up my own Row corrections officer though...
“How can you tell?” I bothered asking.
“It's white and flies just like a 36 model! I mean, I guess it could be a different guy... not Garenede,” she realized. The object landed, trotted for a while, then fanned its wings back out and jumped into the air; only a bit higher than I could jump and also able to hover. Which it did. I guess it was checking to make sure this wasn't a trap. The Enemy was trying every tactic under the suns to kill us, it seemed.
The object began to fly toward us again. Alesia resumed rummaging through the lithium pile while I kept an eye on it. As it neared it was indeed a mech, and it definitely looked like a 36 model. Whether or not it was Garende was debatable; I wasn't sure if I wanted to deal with him or a stranger more, but it would take everything in my power to not be so annoyed as to lash out. Too much poking at my brain has messed up my respect for superiors...
“Beta clearance, report!” the mech called at us. I lowered my weapons as it descended slowly so it would land in front of us. Judging by the tones, he was not Garenede.
“I can't find my beacon!” Alesia's first reply.
“767 and 562, here,” I answered for her. The mech landed.
Ugh. 36 model, through and through. Now that we were face-to-face I saw that his hull was actually a silver color, and he had green accents; this was definitely a different guy.
“767. 562.” He looked at each of us in turn. “Can you explain why you're out here?”
What should I say? That we were prisoners on an Enemy ship? That we were lost for a while?
“No idea, sir!” Alesia kept tossing away lithium chunks and grumbling about the missing beacon. The mech looked at me, expecting an answer. I was still at a loss.
“...Uncertain,” I finally said. He scanned me, scanned Alesia, then went back to scan me again as if he missed something.
“You're both covered in lye,” he stated.
“Yes sir,” I said. Alesia paused and looked up in surprise.
“What? Lye?”
“You're telling me that you don't know why you're covered in lye?” he pressed.
“No sir.”
He glanced between us, suspicious. “You both went missing two days ago. No scrap, no remains, no evidence of what happened. Then suddenly you two show up, in... semi-good condition,” he looked at me in
particular, “covered in lye and with amnesia?”
“It's unusual, sir,” I agreed stoically. He narrowed his eye, not buying it. I held his stare, keeping my tension hidden, not noticing Alesia as she looked between us.
“Go south. Return to base,” he finally said. “You will both receive reports that must be filled out fully. Your mechs will run full diagnostic checks as well as database reviews. You will both have to report to Alpha-clearance officers. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir,” we both said. I recorded his words in a file so I could repeat them verbatim to Cyrii when she woke up. Alesia tried to add: “but sir, I can't find the beacon I sent out-”
“No matter. It will run out of battery power eventually,” he dismissed immediately. “Return to base. Now.” He then turned and flew off, going directly south. My blast shield fluttered at the blatant order, but I said nothing to it. No point in remaining lost out of sheer defiance.
“We should follow,” I said, knowing we would only be punished for idling. Alesia grumbled to herself.
“But the beacon is sending an open signal to everyone!”
“Yes, but orders are...” I winced, as if the wounds in my hull were still open and spitting sparks. “Are... are...”
“Yeah, I know,” she groaned, ignoring my odd behavior. “Ugh. All right. Let's go. The battery can't last for more than a few days, right?”
Maybe, I thought. Maybe...
We both turned and trotted down the lithium deposit, before going directly south. Just as we were told.
----------
It was hard to tell if any of my anxiety was simulated or not, or even if it was meant to be there. It felt plenty real though. When the military complex reared up past the horizon, I grew more anxious, hoping that Cyrii would wake up in time. I had deliberately slowed down to give her a chance, but some efficiency protocol kept screaming at me about wasting fuel due to being in the wrong gear, which was due to being anxious. Regardless, my anxiety only grew worse and worse as the dots on the complex turned into mechs and hovercraft, and details on the buildings began to show. Even the remains of the battle were still there, with large groups of Support and Maintenance models running around repairing and sealing off the broken wing while under the supervision of aerial Superiority models. Alesia was quiet the whole way, which was understandable: she had nothing to worry about.
When we were about fifty quli away from our destination and still rapidly approaching (despite my best efforts to take my time), a low thrum started up out to our left. I kept moving, only pivoting to look off in that direction. Alesia acknowledged the noise less directly.
“Sounds like an Apex spacecraft. Finally, now they come to assess the attack,” she said in disappointment, “I really thought our allies were better than that...”
My cameras refocused as a flying object came into view from behind a distant mesa. It was a hefty, triangular craft, with green thrusters on the back, several air shafts, and unusual propellers built into the wings. The craft roared overhead, headed for the complex at a faster pace.
“Only one craft?” I wondered aloud.
“No point in bringing in reinforcements. We're trusted to take care of ourselves,” Alesia said simply. “They're probably just here to give us a lecture on defense or something like that...”
Contradictory, I thought, if we're trusted, then why lecture? That led me to another interesting question: If we're trusted and therefore do not need lectures, then why come at all?
Cyrii still had not recovered by the time we made it to the complex. I didn't have a map of the complex in my archives, since it was too risky for the Enemy to rip it off my hard drive, so I let Alesia take the lead, even though for her it was just paralleling me. She took a very direct route right to our barracks, which meant less time for Cyrii, and less time for me.
Upon entering the barracks, which were no less busy than usual, I began to grow high-strung. I knew what would happen. We would step into those hangars, Alesia would leave 562, who would run a diagnostic, I would deploy an unconscious Cyrii, which would raise alarm bells everywhere, which would lead to defection suspicions, and once you're believed to be defected you were scrapped. Yet, the inevitable could only be delayed... it was torture.
Dread. Who thought simulating dread was such a good idea? Where did half of these feelings come from, anyway?
It was like watching a predictable horror, something you've seen hundreds of times and still couldn't recover from. I stiffly walked past Alesia as she returned to hangar, just a few slots to the right of mine. As if I wasn't anxious enough, a Xinschi-uual on a hovercraft was waiting for me, interfacing with the control panel attached to the catwalk that altered my hangar. Chances are he was preparing it for the long diagnostic I would have to do...
Oh no, the diagnostic! I suddenly realized, Even if I made it through an unconscious consciousness, what would my superiors say about my BIOS? Who knows how much of the code was original anymore?!
“In you go,” the Xinschi-uual suddenly spoke up. He must have noticed me slowing down, eying that hangar like it was my death sentence; and in a way, it was. I hesitantly turned and backed in, trying not to show my fear, mixed with a strange sense of unreality about how normal everything was going. What an awful feeling... He glanced up at me.
“Wow, you took a lot of damage. Who patched you up? I'll have to run a diagnostic on her too,” he commented dully. I didn't respond, feeling the robotic arms grab me and hold me in place. A small magnetic arm attached itself to my side, penetrating my hull and sending a simple forced code: open retrieval panel.
I couldn't do a thing about it. I opened the panel. Some more heavily-wired arms then swept in and attached themselves to my brain. It felt as if psychic links were physical; it was a bizarre, meddling feeling, and my head felt heavy.
Once I was all wired up, the Xinschi-uual input a security code into the panel and sent a direct, coded order to eject my pilot. I tried. Not on purpose, but I certainly tried.
Nothing happened. The panel buzzed at him.
“Oh... that's not right...” he tried again, and had the same results: nothing but a buzz.
What? Is it stuck? I was tempted to run my own diagnostic, but didn't dare do anything yet. The Xinschi-uual fiddled with it a bit more, before he grumbled and moved his hovercraft up and toward me.
“When was your last autodiagnostic?” he asked.
“Approximately two hours ago,” I responded dutifully.
“Nothing wrong with your entry panels?”
“No...”
“Hmph,” he huffed, and returned to the control panel. “They must have fused shut at some point...”
Fused shut? I thought skeptically, But I could willfully eject Cyrii if I wanted to... I just... don't.
It struck me: I didn't want to! Somehow my willpower was overriding the commands from my own hangar! How though? Or were the panels faulty and this was simply coincidence?
“All right, it looks like you have enough air in there, and last you ate was about two days and two hours ago, so you'll be going into ketosis but you won't starve to death.” The Xinschi-uual was disgruntled at whatever data he saw on the screen. “I'll start the diagnostic. Start working on your report and wait here; I'll find a Maintenance model to pry 767 open once it's done.”
“Yes sir,” I tried to mimic Cyrii. Talk about me like I'm not here... I added sourly to myself, but in truth I was so relieved; I wasn't doomed! I had a chance! Thanks to whatever was keeping me from ejecting Cyrii, whatever it was or how it came to be.
He forced the diagnostic, and I willingly took the death delay and tried to relax. He then flew off on the hovercraft to let the program run its course. I was worried about what the analyzer might pick up, but it spoke a lot about what had changed in me...
I was...
Normal.
Yes, completely normal! It didn't catch any glaring errors that made it halt and screech an alarm immediately; yet, I wasn't factory
default. Which meant my peers were not normal? That didn't make any sense...
I scanned the diagnostic results repeatedly as they filed in, paying attention only to my internal processes. There were errors in the prompt, but they said seemingly-benign things: “wrapper missing. Importing substitute”, “Either
I processed the curious information, trying to deduct its meaning. What is that? “AAI” means “Advanced Artificial Intelligence”, but ProjectC is a cryptic code name. It could mean anything. The rest appears to be some kind of version number, and “dev” implies that it's a beta or alpha version, but I don't have any beta-stage programs, so this isn't even supposed to be loading in my computer. So what is it DOING in there??
I hoped the engineer wouldn't be alarmed by the error messages when he returned. I felt completely fine; maybe even better! I was still insecure about functioning without Cyrii awake to keep things from looking suspicious, but slowly I was growing used to it. I just had to do what she would do, pinpoint behavior needing improvement, and fix it; and so far, I've been doing fine... relatively fine.
Minutes ticked by. Considering how fast Cyrii had woken up before – or perhaps how long I had been resting before then – I was surprised that she hadn't stirred yet. She was still in there, for sure, just unresponsive. With nothing better to do, I worked on my report, deliberately leaving out the entire section where I was in space and leaving it as mysterious as possible. Because of that I finished the report pretty quickly and sent it in through the wires attached to me, as usual, then lapsed into anxious boredom. I sat idle in my own thoughts, suppressing twitchy apprehension and expecting this to go quickly, but the diagnostic slowed its progress once it began scanning my AI files. Seconds turned to minutes, and watching the minutes go by felt like hours.
My anxiety began intermingling with a rising impatience. I knew it was delaying future alarm, but couldn't this diagnostic go faster? I had nothing better to do but stress out!