by M. D. Cooper
Appointment? What appointment? Tanis wondered, while aloud she said, “Thank you, sir.”
Colonel Higgs cocked an eyebrow at her and nodded briefly, giving credit to her restraint before continuing. “Long story short, you’ve passed ten years in the TSF. By and large, the space force has found your work to be satisfactory. You’ve indicated in your prior reviews that you wish to stay on a long-term career course, and I believe you can continue to be a great asset to the TSF and the Terran interests in Sol. To that end, we’re fitting you with an AI.”
The colonel uttered the words as though he was telling her she was getting a new rifle, but they utterly floored Tanis.
She knew that he had little to complain about when it came to her work—though he did always find something to pick on—and she had expected to eventually move further up the ranks.
But receiving an AI was completely unexpected. Especially because it was supposed to be impossible for her to have one.
The left corner of Colonel Higgs’ mouth turned up ever so slightly. If Tanis didn’t know better, she would have thought it was a precursor to a smile.
“You appear surprised,” he noted.
“I am…I never thought I’d get an AI. You know I’m an L2, sir? It’s not possible for L2s to get AIs.”
“And new discoveries and enhancements are being made every day,” Higgs replied with a casual shrug. “Your skull may be packed with more neurons, axons, and dendrites than any vanilla human ever dreamed of, but they’ve worked out how to cram an AI in there alongside all your wetware, and you’re on the list.”
“This isn’t…experimental, is it?” Tanis asked. She had always been cautiously curious about what it would be like to have an AI embedded with her, sharing her mind—or parts of it—with another being, but the L2 augmentations she had undergone fifteen years ago had precluded the option. Until now, it seemed.
Higgs shook his head. “No, it’s passed trials, though you will be one of the first regular duty personnel to get one. The brass is very interested in how an L2 paired with an AI will perform out in the field. You seem to have a nose for action, so you were at the top of the list.”
“I’m not going to be…an egghead, or something, am I?” Tanis asked nervously. “No cooling fins instead of hair?”
“Not that I know of,” the colonel said with a shake of his head. “Normal-sized heads are a requirement for combat personnel. Your noggin has to fit in a regulation helmet.”
Tanis sat in silence as she let the implications sink in, then realized that Higgs was waiting for a response.
“Uh…thank you. I accept, sir. I’m still wrapping my head around this…no pun intended. I never expected the TSF to fit me with a military AI.”
“You and me both,” Higgs replied, his brow resuming its customary furrowed appearance. “However, reality and expectations do not often align. Melanie will forward the information to you for the appointment. You’re scheduled to be there in thirty minutes, so I won’t keep you any longer.”
“Yes, sir, then I had better be on my way.” Tanis thanked the colonel, rose, saluted, grabbed her duffel, and closed the door behind herself in a daze.
An AI. A military AI. In my head.
She had been so stunned by the knowledge that it was possible, that she had never even stopped to wonder if she really wanted such a thing to happen.
Her window for second thoughts was rapidly closing. If she didn’t tell Higgs that she had changed her mind in the next minute or so, it would go badly for her.
It’s not like it’s permanent.
The maximum time an AI could spend in a human’s mind before the two beings began to merge was usually around twenty to thirty years—give or take a bit. That wasn’t even a drop in the bucket when it came to the average five-hundred-year lifespan of a human.
“Why the hell not,” she said softly to herself as she slung her duffle over her shoulder and walked double-quick back to the maglev.
Tanis gave a short laugh.
Melanie offered.
Tanis considered the implications of that statement. If she were to get an AI in her head, and be unable to share the fact that it was there, how would she interact on civilian nets? It wasn’t hard to tell from someone’s net-presence when they shared their mind with an AI.
She supposed it would be something she would find out. From what Colonel Higgs had said, the military wanted her out in the thick of things, putting this pairing through its paces. It wasn’t as though they planned to keep her under lock and key.
Thank stars. If they think I’ll be some lab rat, they’ll have another think coming.
Melanie passed Tanis the location of her appointment, and suggested an optimal transit route. Tanis thanked the AI, and a minute later had settled in a seat on the maglev. She closed her eyes as she considered that this may be the last train ride she ever took alone.
A NEW FRIEND
STELLAR DATE: 01.17.4084 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: High Security Ward, Gen. Steven Kristof Hospital
REGION: Vesta, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Tanis felt consciousness slowly seep back, the gradual awareness of her physical surroundings building while the strange dreams she had been lost in dissipated.
She wondered where she was, and why she felt so groggy. Then the realization snapped back into her mind.
The AI! I have an AI!
The operation had taken place on a tight schedule, and she had not been able to meet her new cranial guest before it was placed within her, making Tanis doubly eager to meet him or her.
She reached out in her mind, trying to see if she could detect another being, but she found nothing. She did notice a difference in her own thinking patterns: they felt quicker, sharper—similar to how she had felt after her final L2 augmentations years before.
She tried to connect to the Link, but found that she was offline, a rare occurrence that gave her a moment’s pause—until she remembered that the doctors had told her to expect it upon waking.
It would only be a matter of time before the monitoring systems informed the doctors that she was awake; while she waited, Tanis inspected the alterations made to her body.
Humans with her level of augmentation—muscular, skeletal, and mental—had internal power supplies to handle their energy requirements. Normally these power supplies replenished their energy from food, the same way the organic portions of her body did, but an AI would require more power. On her visual overlays, Tanis saw an indicator that she now possessed three internal superconductor batteries.
Well, she thought, I’m now one of the plug-in people.
Still, even if her new AI was a power-hog, the batteries running their body—‘their’ body, now that was a strange thought—would easily last a week, and recharge in a matter of minutes.
An inspection of her cooling systems showed that—despite Colonel Higgs’ vague assurances, her skull now sported additional cooling.
The skin of her scalp was made of an aluminum alloy—though it was colored and textured exactly like skin, and her hair was now made of thin, flexible, aluminum strands that would disperse the heat that her brain, mods, and AI all generated.
I guess when Connie calls me a hot-head, she won’t be using hyperbole anymore.
Tanis knew it could have been far worse; she had seen many people who were so heavily modded that their heads sported liquid cooling heat transfer systems—though at least mos
t were artfully designed.
Not something you could fit in a regulation helmet, though.
Tanis made note of a number of other internal alterations before opening her eyes to survey the room around her. It was larger than she had expected, easily twenty meters square.
I bet there was a whole slew of doctors in here, watching as they shoe-horned this stuff into my skull.
Above her, suspended from the ceiling, hung a monitoring arch, the readout on its panel indicating that it had detected her open eyes, and registered her as fully awake.
Only a few seconds later, the room’s door swung wide, and a nurse technician entered, a broad smile on his face.
“Commander Richards, awake at last! I was beginning to wonder if we’d have to forcefully pry you from those dreams of yours.”
“They were good ones…I think,” Tanis replied. “Did everything go well? I don’t have Link and can’t detect an AI…or anything new in my mind.”
“Oh yes, it went perfectly. Your new companion is just dormant for the time being. We’ve found that it works best if the host wakes first, alone, rather than coming to with something else sharing their skull. Some people find it to be rather unnerving,” the nurse-tech replied as he looked over the readouts on the monitoring arch.
Tanis realized that she had become so accustomed to looking up people’s names and other public data over the Link, that the lack of such information was rather disconcerting. She didn’t even know this man’s name.
Tanis almost jumped, and the nurse scowled at her. “What’s wrong? Your vitals just spiked.”
Tanis agreed. Now that she’d had a moment to let the presence sink in, she could tell that its voice was distinctly female, almost lilting in the way it spoke in her mind. Soft and sweet, the voice had a very pleasant mental feel to it.
“Hello?” the nurse-tech asked, snapping Tanis’s attention back to the world around her.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Darla and I were just getting acquainted,” Tanis replied.
“What? Shit. She’s not supposed to do that. Doc Green is gonna be pissed.”
Darla replied.
Tanis replied nonchalantly—trying to come off as being more at ease than she felt.
The idea that the AI would be able to share her senses was not news to her, but knowing, and experiencing it firsthand were two very different things.
“Any objection to us re-Linking?” Tanis asked the nurse-tech. “I can see where you’ve disabled my wireless connectivity. I can reenable it, then I think Darla and I can be on our way.”
“No, no!” the nurse-tech protested, but it was too late. Darla had already re-enabled their Link.
Darla said.
Tanis noticed the nurse-tech sigh and leave the room—likely in search of this Doctor Green—but she ignored his annoyance and continued her chat with Darla.
Tanis supposed that would appear to be reasonable. It was a little unusual to train an AI in such a fashion, but not entirely out of the ordinary. Usually the military was so strapped for AIs that they didn’t bother with long training periods, and threw most ship AIs into the deep end.
Tanis had spotted the door opening as well, and a woman entered with a deep frown etched into her features.
“Colonel Green,” Tanis said aloud, wishing she knew something about this severe-looking woman. She supposed she could look it up on the Link, but now didn’t seem like the right time to access the networks.
“Commander Richards,” the colonel replied. “I see that you’re well on your way to recovery. Chatting with Darla, who should be dormant—not to mention back on the Link.”
“Darla, for an AI, you take a very loose interpretation of orders given,” Green sighed.
Tanis considered asking Darla not to reply and let the colonel get the last word, but the AI seemed to have come to the same conclusion on her own and thankfully fell silent.
“Should I disconnect the wireless Link access, Colonel Green?” Tanis asked.
“No.” Green gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I trust the two of you have figured out the dual routes? Embedded AIs always have their own Link access, but with you two, it will appear as though you take very different paths to the nets. Only a forensic analysis will reveal the same point of origin.”
“We have, Colonel,” Tanis replied.
“Good. I’m not going to bore you with the rest of your major alterations, which I imagine you’ve found by now. What you may not have noticed are the upgrades to your nano production systems and matter assimilation. In addition, you have the ability to absorb calories faster—if you so choose. However, if you don’t want to eat like a horse, you can use external power to charge your internal reserves.”
Tanis nodded as the colonel spoke, noting the upgrades she missed, and realizing that many other systems had undergone subtle changes and upgrades. It was going to take her a bit to catalog them all. It was almost as though she was an entirely new person.
“Technically you’re still on leave, and you’ve only used up three days of the month ahead of you. You’re welcome to take that leave anywhere you want—so long as you stay on Vesta. You have a number of scheduled checkups over the next days and weeks, and we’ll expect you here promptly.”
“Yes, Colonel,” Tanis replied.
“Good. What I want from you two is to spend time together, learn about each other, and do some things that require cooperation, such as training sims, or complex mental exercises. We’ll review your choices on your checkups. You may want to avoid spending time with people who know you—such as your crew—unt
il you’re more comfortable with your pairing and won’t give it away.”
Tanis understood that to be a warning. The TSF would not be happy if she outed their new capability before leaving on her next tour.
Tanis agreed, but wasn’t going to voice the thought. “So…that’s it?”
“What were you expecting?” Colonel Green raised an eyebrow.
“Umm…not sure,” Tanis replied with a sheepish grin. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think about this before I was put under. I guess I expected a training period, hours of sessions….”
“Darla has been embedded before, she knows the ropes,” Colonel Green replied. “Otherwise it’s no different than having a partner on a mission. You’ve done that before, so this should be easy.”
The colonel was treating this like it was a perfectly normal procedure. Tanis wondered if she was just busy and overworked, or if she was trying to play off any potential risks so that Tanis wouldn’t worry.
Darla added.
“Very well,” Colonel Green gave a nod, and opened the door. “I’ll see you at your first checkup.”
A moment later, Tanis was alone in the room.
Well…not exactly alone.
Tanis spied her duffel in a corner and rose from the bed, proceeding to carefully stretch and shake out her limbs. After the two-day recovery period, every muscle in her body felt like it needed a good run to get back into form.
The thought that, just a few hours ago—by her reckoning—she was planning a trip to Mars to be with Peter, and now she had an AI in her head, felt beyond surreal.
For all intents and purposes, Darla and I are married, and I just met her. Talk about a shotgun wedding.