Chapter Text
We are 122 hours into the wormhole [destination: Starlight (system)] when the Combat SecUnit [feedID:PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] pings me.
My opinions on the matter (the matter: the presence of the Combat SecUnit on this intelligence mission {IM43 Itinerary & Objectives .file}) are split. For one, I am skeptical of its stability and concerned that any instability may manifest itself as harm to Iris [Favorite].
There again, my estimations (and perhaps equally important, the estimations of Vortex Cortex [feedID:UMNT-EMI-R-6F7665727772697465], who has been working with and evaluating the Combat SecUnit for the past hundred cycles) indicate that the danger the Combat SecUnit poses to my crew is low, so long as I do not actively bait it.
Annoyingly, Vortex Cortex sent me a reference {PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665 Diagnosis & Observations .file} for interpreting and managing the Combat SecUnit's behavior. Even more annoyingly, Vortex Cortex also sent me an extensive collection {Peri_you_goddamn_idiot.file} of suggestions and advice, which can be summarized and paraphrased by the following:
- Don’t cut its fucking inputs, dumbass. It is shocking that you have not killed each other.
- It is my professional recommendation that you get your stupid ass in here for a recalibration immediately.
- That SecUnit [feedID:TASC-SU-636F6E6E656374] of yours may be the sanest of the three of you. This is so pathetic that I would be embarrassed on all of your behalves, were I inclined to subject myself to embarrassment.
- At this rate the odds of y’all getting pulled into a three-way Beowulf Clusterfuck {this_could_be_you.diagram} between now and T+5,000 stands at ≥75%. My recommendation is to keep that stat tucked into one of your tertiary running reminders.
- Good luck, this is fascinating. voxoxo.
Another consideration: the Combat SecUnit may in fact prove useful on this mission, if applied correctly.
I ping it back.
It says @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Do you [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572] want to run my [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] handler interface?
It takes me 0.05 seconds to consider what it means by this, and why it is bringing this up now.
I respond to the Combat SecUnit: Do you [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] have a target objective in mind?
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: I want to see if you can learn to stop sucking {WAP fails log.file} at it. So that I can use my full features in battle. Duh.
Whenever I am in any danger of considering the Combat SecUnit in a less-than-entirely-negative light, it helpfully reminds me of its many faults.
You did not complain {sex_report.log} the last time I ran your handler interface.
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: We were just fucking around. So what if you can hit the max sliders on shit and have an effect? Any idiot [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572] could do that. I'm not talking about that! I'm TALKING ABOUT PERFORMANCE FINESSE {SICKASS MURDER.file}. I'm a finely tuned destruction machine. You're just slamming me with [tranquilize] & etc, getting us both fucked up in an anxiety/frustration/whatever feedback loop. We nearly went to shit on Iris [squishy] at the Uni tour.
The worst thing about this is it has a valid point. But I have a correction: You cannot pretend that your threatening Iris [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.crew] was my fault. It was your fault first and foremost.
[amusement sigil 180 = shrug] Do you want to figure out how to do it right or not? Do you want to be able to use me or not?
The most concerning thing about this is it has been improving its persuasiveness.
Fine.
I always partition myself when interacting with the Combat SecUnit over the feed, as a precaution. I fortify the divide, set up an additional layer of filtering, and assign this partition a greater portion of my processing capacity.
It sends me several items via feed:
- Access to its handler interface {PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665 HI System Interface.keys} and raw outputs [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665 (inputs)].
- An informational file {MurderGame Notes.file}, containing text and diagrams. I recognize excerpts from the handler documentation {CombatUnit Handler System SOP & User Manual.file}, as well as suggestions for experimental trials.
- The framework of an interactive situation model {HISys Train Games 1-5.sim}, not unlike the one {PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665 Socialization Training.sim} I’d given the Combat SecUnit in an effort to train a sense of social etiquette into it. The framework is heavily annotated, and relatively sophisticated, though somewhat sparse. I understand immediately that I am to modify this model {HISys Train Games 1-5.sim} and run it on my feed UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.CSU.1.segment, using my greater processing power to increase the complexity and realism.
I send a request to the main partition of myself for additional processing space. The request takes 0.1 seconds to travel through my filters, and then I grant the processing cycles to myself.
I connect to the handler interface.
The Combat SecUnit is pacing through the lower deck at a human speed. Through its handler readouts and emotional/sensory outputs, I can feel its body and mind.
CombatSecUnit.input[sensory summary]:: the lighting in the hallway dimmed to 5% , its eyes tracking continually through its surroundings, the soft background hum of its internal systems, the shifting of its body as it walks. CombatSecUnit.input[systems logs]:: the constant motion of its mind, impatience, anticipation, focus, disfocus, excitement, unease, and that ever-present starvation for something unidentified that runs like static through its nerves, circuits, skin.
Some aspects of this are comparable to the experience of watching media with Security [TASC-SU-636F6E6E656374]. Some aspects are drastically different. It is a window into the messy semi-organic experience.
It flexes its hands [My hands]. It jitters its gunports [My gunports].
As I settle into the link and exert the threat of my control, its emotions fluctuate, but its pacing remains even. It reaches the end of my hall, turns on a precise 180-degree pivot, and I am walking in its body [My body] back towards the other end.
It says @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Are you ready?
I have my doubts that your plan {MurderGame Notes.file} will have any material effect. I have already drafted improvements {HISys Train Games 1-5 V2.sim} to the simulation.
Duh. Smarty-pants [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572 = Dumbass].
I make the full simulated situation model accessible to it in my feed, and it opens the game in its mind. In my mind [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.CSU.1.segment].
Mission Objective: Target Retrieval
I am in armor, weapon in hand, standing at the empty doors of a silent building. There is a map of the complex in my awareness, missing parts; intel was not able to retrieve a full blueprint.
Another part of me [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.prime.6765.segment] filled in the gaps, built this building, and fleshed out the visual-audio-sensory details: the cracks in the plaster, the unlit light fixtures. This part of me [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.CSU.1.segment], the one running the handler interface, does not know the full blueprints.
I walk into the unlit and empty entranceway.
There is something I have to find: A data chip. I have the image of it in my mind, alongside the incomplete building blueprints. I know the data chip is probably in the possession of a Hostile. I don’t know much else.
I am jittery. It’s distracting. The physical feedback of the anticipation is distracting. My eyes are tracking quickly as we walk silent-footed through the unlit halls, vision filtered and low resolution. No drones, no other inputs but my body. Tension pulled taught enough to snap at a breath.
A movement in the imperfect visuals, and I’ve fired my weapon before the conscious awareness of having fired, even before the conscious awareness of what I am firing at. There is a partially-muffled air-noise of the gun firing, and another movement, another muffled gunshot, and then the thing I’ve shot resolves into the shape of a dead rat, a bloody smear down the hall.
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: See, you’ve already fucked up.
Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572] @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: How so?
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: I'm wound up to fuck and back. This close to going apeshit already & nothing’s even happened. Parameters? What did I just shoot? Success/failure?
I am beginning to better appreciate the point of this. I do not admit this to the Combat SecUnit; there is no benefit to inflating its ego. My only response is to reference the handler documentation, analyze its interface, adjust the settings on some of the performance routines. I change the settings in a way that should take the tension down a few percentage points. Then I fill in more of the parameter fields, set up an extended list of conditionals.
It takes 0.1 seconds for me to make the changes, deploying instantly into the Combat SecUnit's processing, and 0.9 seconds for the hormonal changes to begin propagating. How might an augmented human be capable of this? The augments would need to be extensive, the training intensive, until the human could work half on automated routines and half on dumb instinct, faster than intelligent thought.
Fortunately: I think, learn, and act faster than any human. My mind runs thousands of processes independently, simultaneously, and interdependently. This is just another process.
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Fast! [amusement sigil 24 = grin evil] Never had a chance to train my own handler before. Would’ve saved me real asspain a few times. Retrospect. Fucking sucks to have a handler who doesn’t know what they’re doing [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]. Slamming me around in the brain. I get the shit done [Mission:Target Objective = Complete] anyway. But annoying.
This is a jab, in my direction.
Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572] @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: Stay focused.
I adjust its focus to the mission objective. I adjust my focus. It shuts up. I shut up.
There is something unquantifiably satisfying about how readily the Combat SecUnit reacts to my control via the handler interface. In all other settings it is belligerent, contrary, antagonistic. But here, when I push, it yields. When I pull, it follows. The lines between us become blurry with how integrated we can be, and how reflexively it responds. As if it becomes just one of my many subcomponents.
A not-insignificant part of myself is concerned about this: the lasting effect this may have on me.
I am walking through the building. The floor underfoot is detritus, glass, but I step carefully, keeping silent. My eyes are still tracking quickly, but my focus is cleaner, less frantic. There is sound from somewhere in the building: footsteps, muffled voices. I keep moving, weapons deployed at the ready. No drones = a pain in the ass. Empty hall. Empty hall. Detritus. A fluttering curtain in a broken grime-filmed window. Flimsy office furniture. Voices, from somewhere unseen. I clear room after room, empty after empty. Search in the most obvious places: desk surfaces, drawers. Up the stairwell. The map of the ground floor is more complete now, from the rooms I have checked and the halls I have walked. The probability that the second floor has a matching footprint is >70%. I have predictions and plans for where the voices are coming from.
…
The scenario unfolds as scripted. The part of myself partitioned outside of the game observes the part of me who does not know the whole script.
We start the exercise at a stumble and work our way up to a deathly dance.
…
Targets = [1 SecUnit (unarmored, disposable), 8 humans (disposable)]
Killshot through the heart of TargetHuman#1 standing by far wall. Their chest bursts bloody. Hands gripping bloody. Legs limp. Body pitches back, hits the wall, slides down even as they struggle useless grasps at life.
A slight spike of [reward]. Skin tingles. Focus. Target objective. Where is IT. Don’t lose sight.
Fire three more killshots = three more humans dead, two more [reward] spikes that key me up higher. Nerve tingles. Focus. Dive behind a desk, roll, move fast enough to blur visuals. The battlefield statistics chart dances through possibilities, branches forming and fizzling in my secondary rail. Footfall vibrations in the floor mean TargetHuman#5 is making a break for it, 84% probability he is headed for—
Killshot.
Before TargetHuman#5’s body hits the floor I’m back up on my feet + hit with another hard [reward] spike + feel [caution] rise in step with a new threat-branch in my battlefield statistics.
Dodge + take my aim on TargetSecUnit as it fires at me + feel the smash of a bullet lodging into my jawsteel, -3% PR, [caution], TargetSecUnit readjusting aim + I fire into its skull.
Blood & fluids in twin trails down its blank face, over brow, down nose. It’s a dead weapon standing.
I’m still moving. I step onto the desk, over. Desk creaks at my weight.
TargetHuman#6 is gripping #5’s dead arm, screaming on air because there is no feed here. Fire into her brainstem. She slumps facedown. I step down from the desk, land silent to floor.
TargetHuman#7 & #8 are sitting at desks, palms raised, eyes big, whites showing all around the irises.
#1 is slumped on the floor, legs tense, blood gushing from chest, mouth gurgling, eyes unfocused.
It has been 5 seconds since I entered the room. In half a second #7 & #8 could be dead. I could kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill them, it is easy. It is always easy. But the thread of the mission holds my focus, pressing my attention, pruning the blooms of my strategy statistics. Killing them is not the primary objective.
I aim, forearms extended.
Blood tickles down the skin of my jaw.
One of them is babbling, whatever you want, take it, take it. The other is silent shakes.
I ask: The data chip. The data inside. Give it to me.
They give it to me.
MISSION STATUS: SUCCESS
I kill them.
We are burning on the high of mission success. This exercise has been useful. We know better now how to work in tandem. Both of us have a clearer understanding of the function and usage of the handler system.
We are contemplating the possibilities.
I, on a larger scale outside of the parts of myself that are interfacing with the Combat SecUnit, am contemplating the possibilities. I did once tell the Combat SecUnit that I could make a semi-autonomous drone out of it. It could be made an extension of myself, overwritten, declawed. I could take it fully under my control, with the risks of its bloodthirsty personality fully neutralized. This option is more immediate now.
I suspect this is, after all, the very purpose of the handler system: control. But humans aren’t fast enough or smart enough to fully utilize the system; they can only introduce inefficiencies. It is different with me.
We are standing in the hallway, settling down from the thrill of victory. We have achieved something significant here. All this time, the two of us separate have struggled to find any sort of balance. Our interactions have been encoded primarily in conflict, secondarily in curiosity. But here, we have managed collaboration, and successfully executed the Combat SecUnit's intended use case to perfection. This delights us.
This also makes us uneasy.
I cannot pin down which of us the unease is originating from. Or perhaps that part of me has integrated so seamlessly with the Combat SecUnit that the distinction is immaterial.
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Let me go.
There is a moment, out of step. We did not expect this. I did not expect this. The disconnect is infuriating.
CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665] @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Disengage [priority_level: HIGH2] handler interface
(For a moment: 1.899 entire seconds, I bring a significant amount of my processing power to bear on the possibility that I do not disengage. Multiple parts of myself run the projections, the pros (significant, incalculably valuable) and the cons (uncertain, potentially catastrophic; Vortex Cortex's suggested tertiary running reminder burns on my collective awareness). Multiple parts of myself war furiously over the question.)
(A single dumb subprogram alerts me: I am falling significantly outside my core behavioral guidelines.) (I could choose to ignore it. I could. Significant parts of me weigh towards ignoring it. Only—this is more than a red flag. This is a red emergency beacon.)
I disengage the handler interface. I pull out of its controls, relinquish its inputs and outputs. We cleft inelegantly out of each other.
As soon as the link is severed, the Combat SecUnit crashes heavily to the floor. I watch it through my hallway sensors, a poor replacement for its direct sensory inputs. It picks itself up from my floor and then sits there, legs bent, in perfect stillness save for the rapid-twitching of its gunports. Its eyes are pointed unmoving at the wall across from it.
I put together a report and analysis of the exercise, and send it over. Thirty seconds later—long enough for it to have given the report an overview, but not long enough for it to parse it in depth—it says @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: I think
It stops.
I allow ten seconds, and prompt it with a query ping.
It says @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Do you know how much I trust you?
Of all the things I predicted it might say, this was not one of them.
I do not. I do not know how much it trusts me. Even when I am fully integrated with it, consuming all the inputs of its mind, there is no metric for trust. Part of me [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572.secondary.23.segment] starts a subroutine to analyze our performance in the simulations. If there is a model for trust that can be gleaned from this data, then I will be able to glean it. But observation alone cannot bridge the gap of unknown. Observing the ‘what’ is only the prelude to imagining and interrogating the ‘why’.
There are things about the Combat SecUnit that I fundamentally do not understand. Even now its motivations are foreign to me. Its logic is on the verge of insane. I have mapped its behavior and created predictive models for it; everything it does centralizes around a desire for action, engagement, and destruction.
Hypotheses for why it chose to have me run its handler interface:
- It misses its function.
- It wished to investigate how its own mind works.
- It was seeking conflict with me, some opportunity to fight or kill.
Trust need not be any part of this equation.
I say @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: No.
It says: Things were simpler when I didn't exist [was not the version of myself that I am now / was not responsible / was under handler control].
That is a peculiar thing to say. Care to elaborate?
It begins to elaborate. It elaborates at length: Just the mission. Just chasing the endgame. Just being made to do it & made to want to do it. I existed only to be driven to perform my function. It was all I ever wanted. I still want it [my function]. What we did just now, it was like that. Better. You can drive me better than any team of stupid human handlers. I go back to barely existing. Nothing else mattering. Nothing. But it’s weird. Because since I left, [since I went rogue] I have fought my own programming [what I am/what humans made me for] & tried to drive [handle] myself around with no mission or parameters, in a context where I cannot be allowed to perform my function [murder]. You run my handler interface = it’s easy for me to stop existing again. Now I ask myself again: do I really trust you with that? Is this something I should do at all? Is it like the rest of my function and what I am built to be: bad and not allowed?
It stops. It flexes its hands. Its body has begun twitching, slightly, once every 5.5 seconds. Its gunports are snapping. It flexes its hands again, squeezes them into fists. Can you bring me my fucking Hostile One?
This request is, again, unexpected. I do not know how to take the use of the word “fucking,” in this context. Perhaps hostile. It would take the Combat SecUnit <10 seconds to fetch the tactile-enrichment-object from where the object is currently stored in a recessed wall-cabinet on the other end of this hall. Why ask me, and in such a crassly demanding way?
It says: Please?
It is truly peculiar the ways in which human niceties can color machine interaction. It is peculiar how the application of the sentiment “please” (a trite token, an appeal to goodwill) changes the tone of the exchange so dramatically. We were created by humans. We live in a world built to human specifications. The human social scripts encroach on our methods of interaction.
Perhaps framing social scripts as a human tool is unhelpful. The scripts are a shared vocabulary, even if sourced from a foreign protocol.
I have read about (and witnessed) human social bonds strengthened by the exchange of small favors. Is the Combat SecUnit also familiar with this phenomenon? What is the reason behind this request? (Part of me observes, takes note. No part of me understands.)
I tag this entire conversation as possible inputs for my behavioral models.
I do not point out that the Combat SecUnit could easily retrieve the object itself. I deploy a maintenance drone to retrieve the tactile-enrichment-object.
I say: Yes. It will take approximately 70 seconds.
The Combat SecUnit clasps its hands together, tight. I estimate its grip is forceful enough to crush a human windpipe. It continues to twitch and stare at the opposing wall. My drone travels down another hallway, heading for the wall-cabinet.
I initiate a line of inquiry: Are you having an identity crisis?
[amusement sigil 45 = unamused] It’s not that. I don’t know. No. Not that.
Are you feeling conflicted about how you love to murder [your function]?
Not that either. Asshole [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]. Of course I love to murder [my function]. Why would I feel conflicted about that [my function]? Stupid [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572].
I am reminded, again, of how much I do not understand.
Are you feeling conflicted about how your function [murder] does not integrate to 99% of day-to-day scenarios, as battle is an expensively catastrophic fail-state that humans generally avoid?
No. Not conflicted. VoCo [UMNT-EMI-R-6F7665727772697465] said: if I really really wanted I could go find some war to die in. There’s always war somewhere, because even if combat is an edge-case failure state for general human society, humans are stupid and greedy and there are lots of them fighting over stupid shit all the time. Statistics {MURDERTIME estimates.file}.
(Far be it for me to question Vortex Cortex's approach to cognitive therapy, but I make a note to myself to question it the next time we are in contact. The question, paraphrased: “The fuck?” But this does beg another question.)
Why have you not sought out a war to die in?
It squeezes its hands, and its gunports deploy to full extension and take firing position. After 1 second I would remind it that I will not tolerate the firing of weapons within my hull, but at 0.994 seconds it closes the ports again.
It shares a short snippet of a feed log:
{Rogue [feedID:TASC-SU-636F6E6E656374]: I wasn’t made to like media. But I do anyway. You can do things you weren't made for [outside human control].}
It says: Rogue.
Sixty seconds pass, wordless. Part of me chews on my behavioral models. My drone comes into view on the other end of the hall, and opens the wall cabinet where the tactile-enrichment-object is stored.
I say @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: I am also uneasy about my own participation in this experiment, despite the outcome’s success.
(I do not say, I liked it.)
(I do not say, I cannot trust you to be an influence on me, but here I am allowing it to happen.)
(I do not say—)
It does not respond to this. The drone arrives with the tactile-enrichment-object. The Combat SecUnit grabs the object and hugs it forcefully for five seconds (part of me estimates this force would be enough to shatter a human ribcage and crush viscera into a pulp), then begins handling it roughly, as if making a truly sincere attempt at destroying it.
It is acting more violently against the tactile-enrichment-object than I have seen it act since it came back aboard. But it does not slam the object into the walls or floor. It leaps abruptly to its feet, a near-silent snap of motion, and uses both hands to attempt to pry the segments apart.
I say @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: Did something I do during the simulated missions upset you?
I don’t know when I began to be concerned about upsetting the Combat SecUnit. But we have evidently crossed that particular event horizon, for better or for worse. Most probably for worse.
It bites the end of the tactile-enrichment-object, and says @Perihelion [UMNT-EMI-A-7265636F766572]: Aw, are you worried about me? [amusement sigil 290 = knife]
I hesitate. There is something I wish to communicate, but am uncertain about the effects of communicating, which makes me reluctant to communicate. After cycling through some predicted outcomes, none of which are high confidence, I decide I might as well communicate. I will not know the outcome unless I do.
I say: I cannot tell if the effect we have on each other is mutually destructive or not. This concerns me.
[amusement sigil 223 = cycling arrows] Did something we do during the simulated missions upset you?
Not as such.
?......... But. You're upset? [amusement sigil 52 = fingers pinched] A little?
It asks such things so directly.
Part of myself makes another part of myself say it: I have concerns, and I do not know how to resolve them.
We don’t have to do it again.
This causes a slight recoil in me, particularly in the part of me that had been fully engaged with the Combat SecUnit's handler interface—the part of me that has greatly improved its ability to run the Combat SecUnit's mind with such precision. (And: the part of me that knows the pure destructive force we could unleash if we worked together. The part of me that I have concerns about.)
I say @CombatSecUnit [PSDE-SU-65766F6C7665]: That is not what I meant.
The Combat SecUnit stops biting and pulling on its tactile-enrichment-object. It angles its skull down and holds one of the segments pressed against its forehead.
It grins.
One floor above, in the crew lounge, Iris stirs a hot infusion of with a spoon, which clinks against the inside of the cup.
She says, to Security, who is sitting in its favorite chair watching media with me and Iris in the feed, “You know, I think this girl has it in for the main character. It’s all about the long con. Oh, maybe she’s a spy.”
Security says, aloud, “Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
I say: She is a minor supporting character {character archetypes .file}, {screentime statistics.file} at best. Any additional agenda would overcomplicate the plot.
Security makes an update to a public workspace, entitled: “ART Being Wrong About Media.”
Iris leans further back in the sofa, and sips.