by Dan Davis
And it was for nothing.
“Why did you even tell me this? I mean, you’re telling me it's all planned out, since before I woke up here. What are we going to do about it?”
Alina leaned over. “You can change your fate. We all can.”
“No shit,” Ram said, irritated by her condescension. “I’m not letting them do this to me.”
“Yes,” Noomi the driver said. “And you can change the fate of the other prisoners on this ship.”
“What prisoners?”
Alina punched Ram in the shoulder, then grabbed him by the upper arm, shook him a little. “Did you ever think where your body came from? Where all our bodies come from?”
Ram glanced at Milena. She looked annoyed, for some reason.
Alina shook Ram’s arm.
“Yeah, course,” Ram said. “Dr. Fo said we’re grown from synthetic tissue. Synthetic bodies grown in pods, in womb tanks like Artificial Persons only ours were grown without heads and then ours were grafted on.”
Alina sneered, her face twisted in disgust. “You can grow muscle tissue in a pod. You can grow bones and organs. But growing a whole person is different. The brain controls so much and computers, software, can mimic enough of the brain functions to get a body grown. But a computer is not a human brain and the resulting body is never in good enough physical shape for the needs of UNOP. It needs to be moving, to undergo compression and tension and torque and exercise or else it is not fit for purpose.”
“So whose bodies were they?” Ram had a sinking feeling down in his guts.
“Watch the screen.”
Up on the wall, Diego played what looked to be security camera footage, recorded from various vantage points, mostly high in the corners of a room. Ram saw shapes moving around a long, tubular interior, seats and beds and exercise equipment. People. Great big people. At least half a dozen of them. The scale was easier to make out because there were normal sized people in amongst them. The room was long, narrow, with familiar dimensions.
“This is on the Victory, is it?”
“These are some of the bodies grown for the subjects.”
“They’re Artificial Persons, right? Genetically engineered to be this big but without consciousness,” Ram said.
Noomi Alina’s driver spoke up. “Whether they have consciousness is debatable. Certainly, they appear able to experience suffering.” She sounded extremely bitter.
“Appearances can be deceptive,” Milena said.
Noomi glared at her. “Surely, you don’t mean that.”
“We do not have time for ethical debates,” Alina said, looking hard at Noomi. “Drop this, now.”
Noomi looked ready to argue for a moment before giving a single, tight nod.
Ram turned back to the wall screen. “That place looks like a mental health institution. Is it a live feed? Is this happening now?”
Diego shook his head. “This isn't a live feed, man. They’d be more likely to notice a hack in an active system. This is archive recordings from last year. After Victory was well underway. I only have access to a few clips someone saved in a subfolder but it’s enough to see what’s been going on.”
“But they're still on the ship now?” Ram said.
“Yes,” Noomi said.
“Some of them,” Alina said. “Some have been culled for parts.”
“We did not know,” Noomi said, clenching her fist. Not until you were woken up. They hid it from us.”
“That is the military style compartmentalization of knowledge,” Milena said, speaking softly. “Need to know.”
“Well, I needed to know,” Noomi said. “Keeping these people like this is an abomination.”
Diego pursed his lips. Obviously, no one agreed with Alina’s driver that the APs were people but no one called her out on it either.
Milena sighed as she clicked through the footage from different angles, different cameras that were synced together and explained while she did so. Some of the big people were seated, drawing with huge crayons on colored paper. Others sat on the floor stacking blocks and pushing toys around. A couple of others exercised in resistance machines or on aerobic devices.
Milena went and stood by the screen. “The Artificial Persons on the Victory are tank-grown, back on Earth before we left. As I’m sure you know, one great benefit to the use of ectogenesis tanks allows them to be gestated for way over nine months. With proper muscle stimulation in combination with the accelerated metabolism they can reach a physical developmental stage equivalent to a nine or ten-year-old human child in just over a year in the tank. That’s from inception, too, it’s amazing what they can do now. And then when they are removed from the tank they are reared in a facility like this where they can get the full-time care they need and can fulfill their genetic destiny. You are quite right about the limitations on their mental abilities, especially in terms of self-awareness and complex cognitive processes.”
“Oh man,” Ram said. “I didn’t know they get to draw and paint and play games. They look like giant, developmentally impaired children.”
“Precisely.” Alina sat up straighter, on the edge of her seat. “They never tell the public this information. They would have us believe the Artificial Persons are pulled from the tanks fully grown, blank slates, biological machines.”
“This is why the pro-human and pro-AP activist movements are willing to take action,” Noomi said.
“Terrorists,” Milena said. “They’re terrorists and this is a distraction.”
Everyone ignored her.
“They’re all so huge,” Ram said. “Already muscled like bodybuilders, like the subjects.”
“Other than daily sessions like you see here, where they practice fine control, they spend hours per day in strength training, muscle building, flexibility and stamina training. When not exercising they are eating and resting.”
“I can’t believe it,” Ram said, looking at Alina “Just like us.”
She nodded, her face clouded in darkness.
“There’s a big guy,” Ram said. “Even bigger than the others.”
Milena and Diego nodded at him. “We assume that is the model that they utilized for transplanting you onto.”
Ram sighed. “Man, look at him. Playing like that. As if he’s enjoying himself.”
“It is a travesty,” Noomi said, bitterly.
“No,” Milena snapped. “It is necessary. Think about what we are facing, as a species. Rama, we’re not showing you this to make you feel bad. I do believe that the Artificial Persons have no self-awareness, they are not conscious, they certainly have no free will.”
“How can you say that,” Noomi cut in. “The reports Diego hacked say that despite being tank grown in artificial wombs, there are still individual differences. This one, Rama Seti’s one, liked coloring the best. Coloring and painting and he would become irritable and uncooperative when faced with prolonged physical training.”
“Same as me, then,” Ram said. He looked down at his hands. “What I am now, this thing that I am. It’s more him than it is me.”
“No,” Milena said. “Who you are, your sense of self and your awareness, it is all in your brain. Who you are is still you.”
Ram didn’t quite believe her. He certainly didn’t feel like his old self, from back when he was living in in Delhi, living in Avar. But then, had he really been living at all back then?
Diego shifted in his seat, cleared his throat. “Our normal inclination is to refer to the AP units as individuals, using he or she and thinking of them as living creatures. When actually it can’t be proved that it was alive in the first place. Not in any technical sense.”
“If you buy that falsehood, Diego, then why are you here with us now?” Noomi said. “I do not believe that you believe it. It is not an argument, it is not philosophy. It is spoken to shut down argument. How about you prove that you are alive? He looks very much alive to me.”
Diego nodded. “But you know they are designed with an un
derdeveloped prefrontal cortex. That they effectively have no true self-awareness. No consciousness. No free will, not even the self-reported awareness of it. They are simulacrums. It is likely that we are projecting, anthropomorphizing these creatures. Seeing things that aren't there because they look like people, act like children.”
“This is immoral.” Alina stood, crossing her pale, veiny arms across her chest. “Perhaps I will refuse to fight unless the remaining heads are euthanized and the bond-ready, ectogenetically grown simulated humans are kept alive for the duration of the mission instead of being used for parts or replacements.”
“They would laugh in your face,” Noomi said. “I’m sorry, darling, it’s the truth.”
While they were talking, Ram rubbed his hands over his face and paused to look at them, turning them over to look at the veins on the back snaking under the skin. Veins that had belonged to someone else, that had pumped someone else's blood into someone else's heart.
“I can't believe this,” Ram muttered, without thinking. Everyone turned to him. “I'm sorry, this is just crazy. So you all want to save the Artificial Persons on the ship from being culled for parts, is that it? Are you all pro-human terrorists or something?”
Ram noted how all eyes in the room flicked to Alina.
“They're people,” Alina said, shrugging. “It is obvious. No matter what scientists say.”
Noomi placed a hand on Alina’s biceps.
“I disagree,” Milena said and Diego nodded in agreement.
Diego spoke quickly, rushing to get his words out. “Look, whatever they are, I agree with you, Alina that creating them, farming them and culling them like this seems cruel. But when we signed up for this, we knew we were giving up any ethical concerns we might have had. The ends of this mission are so important that the means are justified. We are all expendable if the mission is a success, we agreed to that. This Artificial Person thing? It’s fucked up. Sure, totally. But you’re wrong about our cabal here, Rama. These Artificial Persons are not why we’re here. We are not even here to save our own lives. We simply want to ensure the success of the mission and we don’t believe that sacrificing our lives to Mael will do that.”
“To answer your question,” Milena said to Ram. “We are not attempting to save the Artificial Persons.” She held up a finger to Noomi, who bit her tongue. “Not right away. We’re showing you these images in part so you understand how much you’ve been lied to, how much you are a pawn, just as much as that Artificial Person there on the screen. We’re here save ourselves and to save the mission.”
“Yeah, and you are one of the people who lied to me,” Ram said, astonished. “You withheld how long I was in a coma for, you knew I was going to be used, you must have known.”
“I did what I had to do for the sake of the mission,” she said. “But now I have additional data, I realize my decisions weren’t actually for the greater good.”
“Additional data that they’re going to kill me?” Ram said. “I appreciate it and everything and I really don’t want to die, certainly not to that evil fucker and I don’t want to give Zuma and UNOP the satisfaction but if I’m so useless, why don’t you just let them? Surely, I can’t impact the mission much either way and then you’re not risking anything.”
“It is not merely you,” Alina said, her eyebrows knitted together.
“We're all on the hit list,” Diego said. “Look at this. When I hacked this data I saw how we were all amongst those indicated to be targets for Mael's psychotic outbursts.”
“All of us, as in...?”
“All of us in this room,” Alina said. “And some others who we felt we could not trust with this information. Mael's cronies are in the firing line also, for example, but they are our enemies just as he is. Others would possibly join us but we cannot be certain of how they would react and so they are not here. And you will not tell them.”
“Sifa,” Ram said. “Te Zhang.”
Milena inclined her head, confirming.
“Why would they sacrifice any of you guys. Me and Alina I can kind of understand, maybe even our drivers because of association with us? But why Diego?” Ram asked, looking at him. “You're not even in the barracks. He doesn't even know you, does he?”
“There are a number of intelligence officers on board who can provide similar analyses but it seems as though Mael has complex, racist feelings about African people and killing me may be a way to make him feel good about himself.”
“That's insane,” Ram said. “And I know I'm expendable, much as I hate to say so but they told me that from the start, near enough. But, what, all of you are in line to get murdered, too? Just to keep Mael happy? That can't be right.”
“Zuma has set herself upon this road,” Milena said. “She's staking everything on pandering to Mael's every killing urge. Samira wasn't his first murder, just the first on the ship. And we know his pattern, it is rather typical for a serial killer. Mael's urge to kill will only intensify and then his frequency will increase, culminating in an orgy of violence that Zuma hopes will peak when he fights the Wheeler. If she holds that view, and it certainly seems that she does, then all of us are expendable. Why me? I was Samira's driver and now I'm yours. As well as that, he finds me physically, sexually attractive and we know that alone has driven him to kill in the past. Alina, obviously she is lined up to be one of the last, should Mael need it. There are others on the list. There are hundreds of decision trees detailing potential sequences but all of us are on most of them.”
“We are running out of time,” Diego muttered, tapping on his screen. “Our absences will be noticed shortly.”
“What are you planning on doing about it?” Ram asked. “What can we do?” He looked around at each person in turn. “We have no leverage, no way to change anything with strikes or protests. If Director Zuma is willing to help him kill then no matter what we do, they'll back Mael all the way.”
Alina looked down at Ram. “Not if he is dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY – PUNCHING UP
They were planning to kill the Subject Alpha. They wanted Ram to help them. For all he hated and feared the man, his instinct said that they were crazy.
“You can't kill Mael,” Ram said. “You said we weren't going to endanger the mission.”
“Mael is the one endangering the mission,” Alina said, eyes wide. “Zuma and the others are enabling him to do so but with him gone, they will have to change their focus.”
“His stats are consistently better than anyone else's, including yours,” Ram said. “You say you want the mission to succeed. That's why Zuma is doing all this in the first place. I'm not saying I want to die but everyone says he is a legend in his own lifetime. A combat genius and that’s what the human race needs if we’re going to survive. He has only become greater since joining the project and this mission.”
“But why has he improved to such an extent?” Milena said. “No one doubts his abilities. But Director Zuma, Chief Executive Zhukov, Bediako and the others are making this whole mission about him. Every opportunity, every adjustment, it's all designed to improve his performance at the expense of everyone else's. What if Alina was able to get the same kind of support? Wouldn't she be consistently better than Mael? Even our lives are just tools.”
“Maybe they're right,” Ram said. “I hate Mael, too, alright. And I hate Zuma and the rest who did this to me but if it's true that we get one shot at the alien before it's curtains for the Sol System then none of that matters. You all signed up for this at some point, right? Now you're getting cold feet? Right at the end of the whole mission, out here at the edge of the system? What is it, nerves? You want me to join this rebellion or whatever but you have to stick with your teammates or else the team falls apart, you included. I've seen it happen in Avar many times. Best thing to do is to suck it up.”
“Suck it up? You're going to be killed, Ram. That's what we're talking about here, and not just you.” Milena took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I kno
w you don't care about Artificial Persons and you don't really know us very well yet. We signed up for this, so in some way perhaps we are responsible for your abduction and confinement, guilty by association. But are you willing to die, you, yourself, for the mission? You'll never know what happens. You'll just be dead and you'll never know whether we won or lost. You'll never know what great gifts are given to humanity in victory. And if we lose, everyone else will be dead, too but you will miss out. Humanity will be holding hands and stepping into the abyss together but not you. You'll have already gone out in ignominy. And you'll never even see the fleets of alien ships that come to bombard us or enslave us or whatever they're planning. You'll never find fame or fortune, in the real world or in Avar when we get back to Earth. You're willing to give up your future, whatever it is, just to avoid rocking the boat?”
Ram rubbed his face. “You made some pretty good points, I guess.” He wondered what they would do if he said no. What would they do if he left and went and told Zuma what they were planning? They were waiting for him to make a decision. “Alright. Fine, let’s kill the bastard. How are you going to do it? They have those remote switches, right, to paralyze us at the flick of a switch. You attack him, you’ll get dropped.”
Alina snorted. “Diego?”
Diego was nervous, edgy, checking his screen repeatedly. “That's right about the remote switches on you guys but I'll temporarily disable them when Alina makes her move on Mael.”
“Why not just flick Mael's switch?” Ram asked. “You can drop him and Alina can break him.”
“We'd like to,” Diego said. “But the only way I can get access is through the emergency system. It’s an all or nothing version so if I push the button, all of you guys will be equally out of action and there’s no point doing that, right? On the other hand, I can block anyone from turning you all off, should things go wrong. But individual subject deactivations are operated by their drivers, by Director Zuma, Dr. Fo and the Captain of the Marines.”