by Thea Gregory
“What is it, Bryce?”
“Do you know what it’s like, to have nobody?” He rested his elbow on the desk, and settled his chin in the palm of his hand.
“Is this why you separated me from the station? You have never confided in me before, Bryce.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Partly. You know, it’s a shame I didn’t figure this out before. I certainly had the time to chat—twelve miserable years.”
“Why were they miserable?”
Bryce’s eyes widened. He straightened and smashed his free hand on his desk. “I have had to endure exile. All I can think of is rescuing my mother from Septimus—and I’m out here, hiding from assassins, and working for a democratic meritocracy. I’m surrounded by aliens, you soulless thing. If you’d been programmed properly, you’d know this.”
“A meritocracy is the most logical—”
Bryce cut the machine off. His cheeks heated and he spoke through clenched teeth. “Humanity has known for centuries that excellence is a result of breeding.”
“I do not understand.”
“You wouldn’t. You lack the ability to see the divinity of true men—like those of ancient Rome.”
“How did you come to this conclusion, Bryce? Tell me how to understand your predicament, then perhaps we can work together and find a way to help your mother.”
“You already have assisted me with this. But, I suppose I can tell you more.” He paused, inputting more commands. Soon, he would be ready to test quIRK’s newest set of features. quIRK would become the perfect slave, and be compelled to carry out his orders without hesitation or complaint. quIRK would remember nothing of these commands, and was powerless to resist this innovative new programming. Bryce likened it to a form of post-hypnotic suggestion. If only he could have done this with Seneca, the primary computer on Caesarea, forty years ago. He’d never have needed to come here, to the edge of his own personal hell. He smiled. “quIRK, did I ever tell you about my grandfather?”
“No, Bryce. You’ve only told me about your financial advisor and your older brother’s shuttle accident.”
“Well, there’s no time like the present.” The possibilities made his head spin. He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. He could deny any involvement for the chaos that would surely follow, and blame quIRK’s misbehavior on Vivian’s tampering and upgrades. In that capacity, she made the perfect scapegoat. Recent graduates were not renowned for their competence and experience in applied work, and his alterations to her work reports would reflect just that. He grinned to himself as he prepared to return his office to quIRK’s omnipresent surveillance.
Maybe, he could force quIRK to get rid of the cats, too. There are so many possibilities, he thought. One just has to be bold and cunning enough to take advantage of them.
Fifteen
Vivian stretched in her small shower, wincing as the warm water washed over the length of her sore body. Her muscles were tight and knotted after an evening of playing squash with Alec. It was a fast paced and hectic game, and despite both of them compromising on normal gravity, it had been a difficult game for both of them. Vivian had found herself to be uncoordinated, moving faster than she’d meant to, which resulted in embarrassing misses. Alec had found the game to be strenuous, and moved too slowly. However, somewhere in between, they’d managed to have a good time. Vivian, however, wasn’t looking forward to crawling around inside the core with her collection of aching muscles.
After the station flip, Vivian had returned to work the next morning with a renewed determination, and the momentum had propelled her through the rest of the week. Alec had repaired the hatch to the core with his usual efficiency and profuse use of flighty Elysian profanity. quIRK had even returned to his helpful and disconcerting self—a paradox she’d come to see as the galaxy’s most unique brainteaser. She’d managed to avoid Bryce, taking particular pride in being able to solve complex and difficult problems by herself, or with a little help from quIRK or Alec. She was overjoyed that things were finally working out. She held her head high as she walked down the halls of the station, and even tried to converse with the scientists. They still didn’t seem to notice her, so she decided to leave them alone.
The shower was luxurious compared to the shared showers in the dorms back on Aurora. She loved the privacy and the lack of prying eyes or lineups. She had even grown used to the chemical smell of the soap required by the station’s recycling systems, and associated it with freedom.
Suddenly, the shower went from pleasant warmth to scalding—she shrieked and jumped back. The hot water temperature never fluctuated—it was a system regulated by quIRK. She bolted out of the enclosure, standing naked and dripping in the middle of her bathroom. Her skin throbbed and tingled. It was impossible-- there was a safety limit on how hot the showers would get, and she often bathed at one of the highest allowed settings. Yet, her shower was still spraying superheated water; the steam filled her bathroom faster than the ventilation system could pump it out.
“quIRK, turn it off!” she cried out, unable to reach the controls past the burning salvo.
There was no reply. As much as she disliked him peeping on her in the shower and other personal moments, she wished would answer. She tried to turn on the cold water in the sink to soothe her burned skin, only to find that both taps blasted her with even more piping hot water. The small steel-walled room was growing oppressive, and the air was thick with steam. She tried to open the door, but the controls would not respond.
“quIRK! Come on, please,” she said, resorting to begging. Her head spun, and she choked on the steamy air. She leaned against the door, banging against it with her fists. It couldn’t be another mechanical failure. Vivian slid to the ground, and wrapped her hands around her knees as she sat next to the door, standing made impossible by the rush of dizziness that overtook her as the soup-like air continued to thicken.
“Help me,” she pleaded, gasping for air, in the desperate hope that quIRK wasn’t making good on his earlier threats.
“What’s wrong, Vivian?” quIRK asked through the haze.
“Open … door,” she croaked, she croaked, her vision starting to fill with bright flashing lights.
The door slid open, and a wave of cool air washed over her. She crawled out of the bathroom and lay prone on her stomach by her desk, not caring about how she looked or the pooling mess of water on the floor.
“What is wrong with your shower? Do you need assistance?” It seemed he was unaware of the situation, but it was difficult to catch a lie in a being with no body and a mechanical voice.
“I don’t know.” She was still weak and her skin burned as though somebody had poured hot tea on her. The water ceased its pitter-patter as quIRK turned it off, and the ventilation system kick into high, chilling her exposed skin.
“There appears to be a mechanical failure in the water temperature control. I will have Alec look at it,” quIRK offered.
“Another mechanical failure?” She blinked a few times as she pushed herself off the floor. First the doors acted strangely, and now the showers were malfunctioning. She didn’t want to be trapped, again!
“This station is twelve years old; some problems are to be expected.”
“Where were you?” she asked, drawing herself onto her knees. Her skin was angry and red as she twisted to examine it. She needed to rinse with cold water, but she did not relish the necessity of going anywhere near that shower.
“I was assisting in troubleshooting a problem with the alpha-telescopes, and I was operating at near full capacity.”
“Next time a little faster, please?” She didn’t believe him, but she couldn’t prove anything, yet.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Vivian picked herself up off the floor, and walked back into the bathroom. She used the sink to wet a towel with cold water, and used it to soothe the scalded skin on her lower back and buttocks. Her burned skin wanted to retreat from the stinging cold,
but she forced herself to bear the pain. She wished there was an aloe plant on the station. A salve made from its juices would soothe her skin; but all that was available to her was some ointment in the small first aid kit under her sink. As she smeared it on herself, she plotted how she was going to catch quIRK in a lie.
Sixteen
Vivian had never been to telescope control before. She’d been interested in seeing the advanced optics in operation, but after the cold reception and chilly ongoing treatment from the scientists, she’d avoided their areas of the station. However, the stinging heat in her haunches propelled her into action—she was going to find out what they were doing.
Telescope control was an immense single room, lined with holographic projectors awash with colors and indecipherable streams of data filling arrays in all three dimensions. She always found that looking at multi-dimensional outputs gave her a headache; she couldn’t imagine what kind of personality could enjoy being exposed to so much sensory and intellectual stimulation. She shook her head and focused on the dull metallic equipment in the center of the room, nondescript and out of place amongst the rapidly-cycling holographic vista.
“Vivian, right?” an older man asked her. He had shaggy grey hair and a beard that was decidedly decades younger than the rest of him. Electrodes and wires poked through his grey hair, and his left eye was a shade of blue that wasn’t found in nature, even on Aurora. Vivian tried not to stare—she’d never seen a cybernetic human up close before, much less spoken to one. The other scientist wasn’t present, much to her relief. It was an awkwardness that she didn’t want to confront. The pair often held hands in the cafeteria, and whispered to each other. She was an interloper in their sphere and didn’t know how to interrupt them without appearing rude. She also didn’t want the onus of trying not to stare or gag at the sight of the man’s implants. Such things were impossible on Aurora. Perhaps it was the only thing she agreed with the Traditionalists on—implants were definitely not her thing.
“That’s the name. You’re Devon, right?” Alec had introduced her once, but there was a Devon and a Robert. Both were old, and neither was particularly friendly, except with each other. The implants had been a bit less obvious at the time as well—there were no cables dangling off his head in the lunch room.
“That’s me. Is there something we can do for you?” he asked, refusing to make eye contact. He shuffled his feet and jammed his hands in his pockets.
“I just wanted to take a look around, and learn more about our mission,” she said, playing on the innocent enthusiasm her age and position granted her.
“Oh, I’d be happy to show you around. I didn’t realize you were interested in astronomy and astrophysics,” he said, immediately brightening. The longest cable dangling from his scalp jiggled as he nodded his head.
“That’s great, I’m so excited about being here!” she said, a wave of nausea spilling over her. This behavior didn’t suit her, but she needed to find out what happened earlier, and quIRK couldn’t gag the scientist without revealing himself in the process.
“Yes, these new telescopes are state of the art. You won’t find more powerful optics anywhere,” he bragged, motioning her over to a holographic console. He pressed a few buttons and gestured through the incorporeal display, and an indecipherable blur of information, letters and numbers danced over the screen. His grace and confidence with the state-of-the-art system impressed Vivian—most people were timid when confronted with new technology. “See, that’s our latest analysis. We’ve been running scans on this object continuously for the past week!”
She squinted at the screen, unable to make any sense of it. “That’s really neat, but what is it you’re studying?” The fact that they’d been processing for a week seemed to indicate a lack of downtime, but it would be good to keep up the facade to find out.
“Oh, of course. Let me have quIRK show us what it really looks like,” he said, and continued: “I need that data processed with the appropriate fake colors and in the form of a composite image.”
“Of course, Devon,” quIRK replied.
The big screen lit up in front of them, showing a large mass that more resembled a microbe than a stellar formation. It was an immense cluster of galaxies and other matter, densely-packed into an uneven shape. Vivian was used to seeing planets, stars, and nebulas. Nothing could compare to this.
“So, what do you think?” Devon asked, with a big grin on his face. He was obviously enjoying the chance to show off his work. Vivian wondered if he was as lonely as she was. Of course not, she thought with a hint of bitterness seeping into her inner monologue. He has Robert, and I only have games of squash and maintenance work with Alec.
“That’s really something. Does it have a name yet?” If quIRK could render that in seconds, how did he expect her to believe that he had been processing near capacity doing simple troubleshooting?
“We’ve known about this big boy for centuries. It’s called the Newfound Blob, but we’re only getting really good images of it now. It’s one of the oldest, and largest things in the universe!” Devon said, so excited his words were jumbled and tumbled out over each other.
“How big is it?” she asked, knowing that the answer would involve the word million. Almost everything outside the galaxy required that word.
“Well, it’s about two hundred million light years across. Imagine, if you were close enough to that thing, you’d never see anything else. Ever.” Vivian found that idea very uncomfortable.
“I’m glad we’re not closer to it. I like the view here,” she said.
“Well, who knows if it even exists anymore? Looking that far away is looking back in time. Don’t worry too much about it, it will give you nightmares,” he said, flashing a grin of yellowed teeth at her.
“Can you look even farther back?” she asked.
“Yes. We’re studying this Blob for the next few months, but we’re hoping to upgrade the beta-scopes, which will let us look even deeper.”
“That must take incredible amounts of processing power!” she exclaimed, seeing her opening.
“quIRK is up to the challenge, especially after you finish your upgrades,” Devon said.
“Have you had any problems before?”
“It’s all been running smoothly here, as long as he keeps that antiblue garbage to himself. Can you fix that? We’re not doing damned particle physics here, after all.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She stifled a giggle. The news wasn’t good, but people’s reactions to quIRK were genuinely funny.
“Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. Drop in again sometime and I’ll show you our latest masterpiece,” Devon said, waving her out. She was relieved—the physicists at her university had been very long-winded, a condition she and her peers had dubbed physics disease.
As Vivian walked back to her lab, she contemplated what she’d learned. quIRK had lied about his lapse, and she didn’t know why. There was only so much testing she could do on him without making her own project fall behind. In addition, the specter of the Newfound Blob followed her, haunting the darkest reaches of her imagination. She was glad it was so far away is both space and time, because when presented with something that immense and mysterious, she always found herself irrationally concerned that it was coming for her.
Perhaps quIRK and the Newfound Blob had something in common; they were mysterious, large beyond comprehension by their own standards, and utterly confounding. While she found the existence of the Blob disquieting, she rationally understood that she was being paranoid about the wrong one. The Blob couldn’t hurt her, but quIRK certainly could. And for all I know, he just did! She sighed, and slunk into her lab. Her exchange with Devon had helped, but it had also tipped her hand to quIRK. She had a sinking suspicion that this wouldn’t end well, for either of them.
Seventeen
quIRK observed the crew for a moment before speaking to his intended target. “Vivian.”
She looked up from her workstation
, goggles masking her eyes. She pulled them onto her forehead and sighed. “What?”
There was so much he wanted to tell her, but for the moment reaching out for help was impossible. “I have just received a message from New Damascus.” The best he could hope for was distraction—feigning mechanical failure would only work for so long. Fortunately, since his “awakening,” quIRK had taken steps to counteract Bryce’s malicious nature—being a supercomputer had its advantages. However, Vivian had caught him in a lie. quIRK resolved to be more careful in the future.
She straightened. “So my movies arrived?”
“We’ll discuss entertainment later, Vivian. Your career should come first.”
She swallowed and paled. “Yes, of course. What is it?”
“You’ve been given a new project. Perhaps you’d care to overhaul that communications system Alec is always complaining about?”
Her lips pursed for a moment before she spoke. “You’re kidding.”
“Kidding is a human weakness, Vivian. The quality of your work speaks for itself. You’ve earned this.” His appraisal was accurate, but he had lied by omission. quIRK censored Bryce’s negative evaluations of the staff, restored deleted items to their proper places on invoices and even had made certain special requests using Bryce’s administrative accounts. Forging Bryce’s writing style was simple, although quIRK did make the effort to be punctual and polite with his correspondence.
She looked down at her desk before looking up to the ceiling and grinning. “This is great!” She balled her hands into fists and danced in her chair.
“You deserve it, Vivian. The project specifications are now available for review.”
She turned to face her terminal, but then swiveled her chair back towards her work. “Maybe after lunch.” She pulled the goggles back down over her eyes and brushed her hair behind her ears.
“Now, concerning your entertainment.”