Awakening sf-2

by Randolph Lalonde

  Observations

  Alice could always find the spot. No matter which station she was docked on, what she was doing, she always noticed those places where you could quietly watch the masses make their way through a major intersection of pedestrian passageways. She leaned against the railing high above the broad gallery. There were four ramps leading down into the asteroid towards the public transportation systems and arches leading out of the large court at the sides. There were only two open levels above, she was looking down from the upper one.

  The idea of so many people in one place, so close together but so disconnected always amazed her, saddened her. She had never thought of it in her previous life. The emotions she had then were completely alien to what humans felt. It was impossible to feel anything the way she felt it before she became human, even harder to explain the difference. Humans had deeper emotions, and more importantly, they were much harder to control and ever present. There were no emotionless acts to most humans. Every place, every stretch of time, every experience had a feeling associated with it.

  Every person down there had their own unique perception of the simple experience they were having. From where she stood it looked like it should be a shared experience, but she knew one person would remember their passage through the intersection differently from the others. Everyone was within less than a meter of someone else, yet they were all so separate.

  There was a group of small children waiting to be led to one of the transit ramps by a pair of adults. They had stopped to make sure that everyone was accounted for. The children were all tied together on a stretchy red rope that was attached to an adult at each end.

  Her attention came to rest on a little girl who couldn't have been more than five years old. She had the same long brown hair and high cheekbones Alice did. She looked around with an expression of concern that didn't suit her age. “You there Lewis?” She thought through her communicator.

  “I am now.”

  “Patch into my eyepiece. Do you think I'd have looked like that if I were her age?”

  Lewis momentarily took control of her eyepiece, zoomed in, then released his command of the device. “She does look like a near match.”

  The youngster noticed Alice looking at her and hesitantly waved a little hand. Alice gave her a big smile and waved back. The little one was immediately all a titter, anxiously telling a little blond friend at her side about the stranger above as they were walked down into the mass transit tunnel.

  “I wish I had a childhood. There's so much I don't understand the way I ought to,” she thought as clearly as she could. Mental communication became muffled, distorted when there was too much emotion mixed in.

  “You consider Jonas your father,” Lewis replied, sounding a little uncertain of his response.

  “Yes, but in my early days he would reprogram a part of me, refine the code or remove it entirely when something wasn't working properly.”

  “Much like you refine me.”

  “I try not to Lewis. I'd rather you grow organically, learning from your experiences.”

  “You didn't?”

  “Well, after he was sure my personality matched what he wanted when he was seventeen he let me just watch his life happen and patch into the informational networks I had access to. I explored a lot of Freeground's databases back then, even though I wasn't supposed to have access to most of them.”

  “You were fortunate. Freeground has one of the largest closed networks in the known universe.”

  “I didn't think so. I didn't know what it meant to miss something. It wasn't in my early programming.”

  “Things didn't go well with Bruce, did they?”

  “I had a wonderful time, but now I don't think I could feel worse.”

  “Well, that's not confusing at all, ” Lewis said sarcastically.

  “You sure you weren't listening in last night?”

  “I closed the channel when you made it plain my advice wasn't welcome. Besides, I thought you might want your privacy.”

  “We had a fantastic night together. When morning came I had to explain to him why I wasn't staying. He took it better than I expected him to,” she turned from the railing and started walking down the sloped tunnel that would lead her to the Clever Dream.

  “That's good.”

  “Maybe. I wish he would fight for me. Yell, do something about me leaving. He just looked, sounded sad and told me why he doesn't want me to go.”

  “Would it have stopped you from leaving if he fought harder?” Lewis asked gently.

  “No.”

  “Perhaps he knows you well enough to be aware of that and he didn't want to use the last of his time with you inefficiently.”

  “Just what every girl wants to hear,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling. A glance around the small landing bay told her she was alone. It was easy to look absolutely crazy while using a mental communicator, it felt like whoever you were talking to was right there beside you or just over your shoulder. A lot of people walked around looking like they were talking to themselves.

  “I would think that is the best response to that kind of situation.”

  “Sometimes women just like to know they're worth fighting for. We like a demonstration now and then even if there's nothing wrong and especially when it feels like everything is falling apart. It doesn't matter if it fixes anything or even changes our minds.”

  “I don't think Desmond Morris got to that. It's unlikely I'll ever understand. Oh, and the cargo was loaded last night. Two long term stasis pods and a sealed organic computer core. I used scanners and the cargo management bot to check the condition and ensure that everything is secure.”

  “Thank you Lewis, I don't know what I'd do without you,” Alice said as she walked up the small one person fore gangway. She almost never used the main boarding ramp on the Clever Dream.

  She was in the cockpit getting ready for takeoff when Lewis asked her an unexpected question. “Alice, what is it like being human?”

  It was enough to make her stop everything she was doing. “Why do you ask?” Was all she could manage without leaving him hanging for minutes waiting for a response.

  “I have only been with you for a couple of years now, but in that time I have noticed that you have changed a great deal. After Bernice's wedding things started to get really interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “Your attachment to some things, your willingness to let others go much more easily. You become uneasy or alarmed by situations much less frequently. There were also times of extreme emotion. When comparing you to the various human archetypes versus artificial intelligence base personalities, it is much easier to assign one or more human archetypes.”

  “So, you think I'm becoming more human?”

  “Yes,” Lewis replied simply. It was unusual for him not to expand on his conversational points.

  Alice didn't know what to say. She remembered the instant before she committed herself to becoming human and began the painful transfer. She remembered feeling her connection with all the external networks, all known methods of perception slip away as she was transferred from the high speed data block. The inexplicable experience of a complete transformation of perception was a hazy but powerful memory. All at once she could hear, smell, taste, touch and see. Then came the emotions. They were completely different from the complex adaptive algorithms she had known as feelings, absolutely alien.

  Fear was the first emotion she felt and until much later it was the one that recurred most often. Her inability to communicate with all the machines and touch all the information all around her was maddening, terrifying. It was like being a spectator in the universe, able to see only the merest inference of what was all around her.

  Yet everyone treated her differently. She was attached to people through emotions that came whether she liked it or not.

  “Can you tell me what it is like to be human Alice?” Came Lewis's request quietly. He was as well made as she remembered ever
being. The only real difference in his complexity was the amount of vicarious experience he liked to draw on.

  She couldn't help but smile a little as she found a way to start explaining the experience she was having just then. “On days like these it hurts but it's worth every minute.” Lewis would ponder that for weeks.

  Guests

  Ashley sat in the pilot seat munching a bag of simulated crispy puffed rice. It was one of the recommended selections on the new materializer, so she thought she would try it. The crunch was fantastic, and each bite burst with a buttery garlic flavour. The seat was set back as far away from the console as it could go so she could put her new buckled black knee high booted feet up. A remake of an old film about several people trying to free captives from a virtual reality system was playing on the main holodisplay. It was the most relaxing bridge watch she had been on in weeks, especially since most of the crew were still sleeping. They had only hit the racks a few hours before and there was really no need to wake them until the Captain returned.

  She turned a larger piece of snack food between her fingers as she wondered where they would be spending leave. The thought of looking up the nearest planet with a nice beach occurred to her and she idly made a mental note to make sure and do that when she saw the Captain on his way back to the ship. They hadn't had a long block of leave for ages and she was looking forward to a break on some nearby world where she didn't have to wear a vacsuit all the time.

  Raised on a well terraformed planet, she hadn't seen a vacsuit until she was seven, when they finally let her out of the slave quarters to start serving. Those years were a blur to her, but she didn't remember much cruelty, just work. She'd occasionally be allowed to sit in on one of the master's children's lessons, but mostly she followed other servants around.

  The one she learned most from, Frederick Andie, she called him Fred, was one of the older head servants. He was a stout man who kept himself in pristine mode of dress and polish at all times. He would take her aside often, teaching her all about history, mathematics and science. After months of pleading he also taught her how to drive the land vehicles on the property. Something she would do whenever she had the opportunity and was caught at once.

  The computer systems were something he made sure to teach her a great deal about when she got a little older. He used to say that if they were used for their original purpose then everyone would be highly literate and well versed in the history of the galaxy. He liked the occasional movie or holovision show, but he always thought that the primary purpose of a computer was for practical information and running all the little critical systems people relied on day to day.

  She dreamed of going into space, being among the crews she saw in pirate movies, adventure films or even in the military. When the opportunity to serve on the master's yacht came up she leapt at it, even though she knew she may be leaving Fred behind for a very long time.

  Then Captain Valance purchased her, sold her her own freedom for one hundred credits out of a bonus she had earned from helping the crew during a job and everything was different. She was filled with a warm feeling as she remembered the look in old Fred's face when she got in touch with him to tell him she had bought his slave bond. She sold him his freedom for one credit. He had been born into slavery just as she was, didn't know his parents either. There were tears in his eyes, she had sent him enough money to move on, start a new life. He was working at the head of a major restaurant on Molandra Prime before long. It was the same planet he had served on for so long. In a later message he declared that his first duty was to have his old masters bumped to the top of the seating priority list for a week and invite them to the establishment so they could see how he had landed on his feet. Even though she told him it wasn't necessary he vowed to pay her back, and she was still receiving large sums from his weekly pay whenever the Samson arrived in port along with a message from him most of the time. There was no way to refuse the payments, he'd just send them back with a sound scolding. It was the messages she looked forward to.

  She had freed other people from her childhood as well, but hadn't gotten to all of them. That, she resolved, was what she would do with a portion of the large bonus she had received. There was enough money there to finish freeing them all, and she'd have more than half of the amount left over. It was set in her mind that she would ask the Captain if they could spend some time there after he found his daughter. There were a lot of people on Molandra Prime she considered family. By the time they got there they would all be free if their old masters would sell their bonds to her.

  The plans made her feel so good, her imagination was so full of the future that the first she noticed that someone was behind her was when she felt a gun barrel press against the back of her head. She just stopped everything, chewing, breathing, moving.

  A hand came down to gently brush a strand of hair out of her face. “He's always got a girl, that's one thing that hasn't changed,” said the voice from behind. “What's your name?” Was the question he whispered against her ear.

  “Ashley,” she replied quietly.

  “My name is Lucius Wheeler, and we're going to be good friends as long as you listen closely and do everything I tell you.”

  The cab going back went the long way. That was the only explanation that made any sense as Stephanie looked out the window and saw that they were several levels above the Samson. She gave the Captain a quizzical expression and he only shook his head. “How did you end up with Nanna?” Stephanie asked, turning to Frost.

  “I wasn't willing to spend the night out in the open. That's how people disappear here. I tried to get in touch with a couple people I thought might be around, but most of 'em weren't takin' calls or they were off world. No surprise there. Aragesh got back to me, but that was a day after Nanna took me in. When the sun started settin' I gave 'er a call an' I was more surprised than you when she offered to give me a place. When I got there she said I could only leave if I got you to pay for my cot there personally. That's when I found out she was puttin' me up in her place.”

  “That caught me off guard too. She never meets anyone in her own apartment.” Jake replied. “She owns that building and can use any room in the place,” he explained to Stephanie.

  “She must be rich.”

  “She's a crime boss. One o' the most dangerous fer a few sectors,” Frost said quietly. “I thought I'd be stuck there for the rest of my life, doin' God knows what serving my debt off a credit a day.”

  “You're lucky the last tactical officer was a moron. Now that you're signed back on you'll pay me back with a portion of your wages.”

  “That'll take years,” Frost said flatly.

  “Unless we run across bonus or you get a major pay increase. That's my offer. Otherwise I'll just leave you here,” Captain Valance said with a careless shrug.

  “Fine.”

  “Too bad you didn't stay aboard or you'd be in for a pretty big bonus from our last payday,” Stephanie said with a satisfied grin.

  “Why? What did you guys snag? The Newsnets said it was big an' military but it didn't go into specifics.”

  “Let's just say the last job paid nine digits,” Captain Valance said as they cab went down into a tunnel then stopped to lock with a small passage. He paid the computer terminal by pressing YES on his command unit and the door opened to let them out.

  “What the hell was it? Munitions?”

  “Small corvette class ships. Thirty of them. You might have some work to do on the maxjack by the way.”

  “That's one hell of a take. Sure it's not too late to get in?”

  Captain Valance shot him a flat look.

  “No harm in askin'.”

  “Oh, and the word onboard is that Ashley's bunked in with Finn,” Stephanie said excitedly. “They're going to be a really cute couple.”

  Frost stopped dead in his tracks. “I step off the deck for a couple days and she lays with newbie?”

  “That's what I heard,” Stephanie said with a
shrug.

  “You're pullin' my leg! With newbie?” He shook his head in disbelief and they continued on their way.

  “You never had a chance anyway,” Stephanie chided.

  They walked up a ramp leading out of the tunnel. They were right on the landing platform looking at the Samson as the engines lit up and it lifted off. Within seconds it was out of sight.

  “I hope you didn't take that payment in cash.” Frost said quietly.

  Captain Valance opened communications with the Samson immediately. His arm command unit brought up the face of a younger looking man sporting dark wavy hair. “Captain Valent, or should I say Valance. Good to see you again. It's been a while, how are things?” He said with the enthusiasm of someone greeting a long time friend.

  “What are you doing on my ship?” Captain Valance asked, annunciating every syllable sharply.

  “I'm locking your crew in their quarters and taking it for a spin with the assistance of your lovely pilot and a few friends I brought along. This is nothing compared to your old ride, but I can see the appeal. She's got some light years on her but she can really move.”

  “Let me rephrase; bring back the Samson or I'll have the entire Aucharian government after you. You'll be lucky to make it out of the solar system.”

  “Again you're betting on the wrong side! You're all about rooting for the underdog. I can't believe this, your behaviour is so patterned I can probably predict exactly what you're going to say next.”

  “You're working for Regent Galactic.”

  “I guessed it! Okay, since it looks like Vindyne wiped all the old memories from your brain I'll fill you in. We knew each other a few years ago. You were a goody two shoes Captain who followed orders straight into a death trap and I was the one who went along to make sure you did everything they asked you to and gathered the spoils so they could get to the right people. You also had one sweet genetically engineered girlfriend with a cute little Britannian accent who would follow you around and fix your ship. Low and behold, you let me get away with all the loot that mattered while you traded yourself for the safety of your ship and crew. The ultimate selfless act, my hat's off on that one even though you really should have cut and ran.