Authors: Joel Shepherd
"Are you aware of synth-alloy myomer?"
"I know they use something like it in combat armour suits," Vanessa replied cautiously. "It's the most advanced form of mechanical myomer available. It generates enormous power under contraction and can contract to densities in the body-armour range."
"Indeed," said Dr Djohan, with an impressed little smile. "She's made of it. It substitutes for her muscles. Bone is ferro-enamelous, roughly equivalent in strength to spacecraft hull ribbing ... it needs to be to withstand the enormous power generated by those muscles. Make no mistake about it, Lieutenant, even drugged she can kill. Undrugged, the restraints would be as worthless as tissue paper, and she could happily rip us all limb from limb. Now, do you have any questions?"
The secure room was spacious and attractive, Vanessa saw as she entered. A regular apartment, under other circumstances, with wide bow windows following the curving contour of the external wall, a lounge suite and coffee table, and an inset kitchen off to the left. The view of the Tanushan nightscape was typically spectacular, ablaze with sprawling, towering light, alive with moving traffic. The GI's hospital bed was pushed against the partial wall for the kitchen, a bank of life support equipment beside it. Vanessa approached, feeling distinctly uneasy.
The GI appeared to be sleeping, her shortish loose blonde hair across her face upon the pillow. The full length of her beneath the covers, Vanessa saw, remembering all too well the horror of the last time she had seen her, this GI, this artificial whatever-she-was, if she could even be called a
she
with any degree of accuracy ... The GI rolled her head upon the pillow, and looked up at her. Soft blue eyes in a broad, pale face. Blinking blearily in the soft light. Gazed at her sleepily amid the sprawl of light hair. She looked, Vanessa thought, a most unlikely killing machine. Nearly as unlikely as she herself was as a SWAT lieutenant, she thought wryly.
"Hi," said Vanessa. Folded her arms defensively, uncertain. The GI simply looked, registering no expression. "I'm Vanessa Rice. You remember me?"
A flicker of response in the large blue eyes. God, Vanessa thought, startled ... she was gorgeous. Stupid to be surprised, was her second thought, of course she was gorgeous — she was artificial, and it would take no more effort to make an attractive GI than an unattractive one. She guessed. And looks were good for socialisation, and thus confidence. Probably that mattered, somehow.
"... Vanessa ..." A small, hoarse whisper, the blue eyes studied, steadier than the voice. Up and down, with effortless, pondering attention. Vanessa stood, and continued to feel uncomfortable. "... I remember you ..." Very quietly. "... you were there ... when it happened..."
"Yeah," said Vanessa. "I was." Wondering if she had, in fact, done the right thing in saving this woman. Or whatever she was. Wondering if she'd come to regret it. The GI turned her head slightly, softly grasped a thin plastic tube between her lips, and sipped liquid. Rested back on the pillow, and stared at the ceiling.
"... I thanked you, then ..." came the small voice. Hushed in the quiet room, "... now I'm not so sure ..."
"I can imagine," Vanessa told her, eyeing the faint bulge beneath the tucked bedcovers that indicated the restraints. There were a lot of tubes running from beneath the sheets.
The GI looked at her obliquely. "... you took a risk..."
Vanessa shrugged. "We needed you. The CSA. We needed to know what the FIA were up to. Why won't you help us?" A pause. From somewhere came the faint whirr of ventilation, and behind it the distant hum of night-time traffic beyond mostly soundproofed windows.
"... I don't know ..." the GI said after a moment. "... I guess I'm not feeling very helpful ..." Her eyes appeared damp, staring at the ceiling. Vanessa frowned, looking more closely. Did GIs cry? She'd never heard so.
"You're talking like it's all over," Vanessa said, frowning. "Like your life's gone and you'll never get a new one."
"... well I won't, will I ...?" Still the small, quiet whisper. "... not in the Federation ..."
"You always give up so easily?" The GI did not reply for a moment, then glanced across at her, a curious shift of gaze. Less impressed, with that comment. It was at least a response. "What do you think this city is? You think there's no free debate here? No due process? If you defend yourself, not everyone is going to want you locked up ..."
"... I've seen the news shows ..." A cool, firming of the whisper, the damp eyes hard. "... I know what people think of GIs. What did the doctor tell you when you came in? Nice Dr Djohan? Watch out for the GI, she'll kill you when you're not looking...?"
Vanessa frowned at her. Pondering that. Snorted in humourless laughter.
"... exactly. What's my legal status? There's no precedent for GIs in Federation society. Even the League wasn't real keen to let me mix with civvies. Lobby groups here will flip their lid. Rainbow Coalition..."
"So you're just going to let them win? You're not even going to fight?" Challenging. Feeling herself increasingly irritated by this irrational defeatism. She couldn't understand it, had never understood defeatism in any form. It baffled her. "Dammit ... Cassandra." It was, she recalled, the GI's name. "Cassandra ... Tanusha is a weird place. Politically it's like a madhouse sometimes ... not everyone will automatically hate you. Some may even like you, if you give them a chance. But you've got to help us, you've got to tell us what's going on, and what you know. Right now you just look like you're protecting someone."
The damp blue gaze was now slightly incredulous. Vanessa exhaled a hard breath, wondering how she could explain this city to a GI, a non-civilian by birth, who had never known civilian life and had no concept of what ordinary people thought.
"... what makes you think I'm likeable ...?" Vanessa blinked, surprised by that. The GI was wondering why she, Lieutenant Vanessa Rice, was defending her. No doubt thinking it was a ploy to win her cooperation.
"Aren't you likeable?" Which got a cool, effortless stare from the GI. It was unnerving. There was something in those eyes that was not ... not entirely human, she supposed. But it did not feel malicious. Not even particularly dangerous. Just intent. But it was strange, and gave her goosebumps. "Prove it to me. Prove to me you're a likeable person. Prove to me you're decent. You might not be, I've no idea. But I'll listen. That's the point, Cassandra. Opinions are formed through experience. If you can show people that there is at least
one
GI in the known universe who
is
a decent person, then who knows?"
"... there's more than one ..." the GI whispered in reply. Took a slow breath, and sighed. "... there's so much more ... or was ... but people have no idea. People never do ..."
"Hey, don't write me off. Convince me." She grabbed a chair from the end of the bed, and placed it alongside. Not at all certain of what the hell she was doing, or if it was the slightest bit sane ... except that she remembered that dive, in the operating theatre, and remembered the presence that she had felt. Overstretched as she'd been, vulnerable in cyberspace, in the midst of a neural structure that was so much more powerful than her own, even in that weakened state ... and she was still alive. That in itself had to count for something. "Why did you come to Tanusha? You were on Reta Prime before that, right? We traced you back that far."
The GI stared at her for a long, unblinking moment. Vanessa sat, arms folded, awaiting a reply with stubborn determination. Then, "... you've seen my software skills. Tanusha's the largest software and infotech centre in the Federation, outside of Earth ..."
"You were looking for a job, is that it?"
"... a life ..." came the soft, gentle correction.
"What was wrong with the life you had? You must have been pretty important in the League."
"... far too important. They were so careful of me ..." A distant look, remembering things past. "... officers needed a security clearance just to talk to me. Psych analysis. They were never that careful with the others ..."
"Why? What made you special?"
"... GIs aren't bright, Vanessa ..." The eyes refocused on her own with tired resignation. "... not real smart, as a rule. You've read the combat reports. Feds always said their greatest advantage against us was brains. GIs can be smart in straight lines. Rarely laterally ..." Vanessa nodded, she had indeed read as much. Combat reports were a great source of useful material for any SWAT commander.
"And you are?" she guessed.
The GI sighed, softly.
"... yeah. For all the good it did me ..."
Vanessa blinked, realising something. A possibility. It unfolded before her like a map. She caught her breath.
"Is
that
why you left the League? You decided you didn't like their war?" Silence from the GI, not protesting the assertion. "Hang on, let me get this ... the League created a GI capable of lateral thought process as ... as what, an experiment?" Still no argument. "But the result is that you think
too
laterally for them, and decide you don't want to fight any more. Why would they risk creating a GI who wouldn't agree with their philosophies?"
A faint, almost imperceptible shrug beneath the covers. "... that's freedom of thought for you. That's the risk you take when you allow people to think entirely for themselves ..."
"So why take that risk?"
"... as an experiment. To make me more dangerous. GIs were always getting outsmarted by Feds. GIs were never as effective as people on either side seem to think. Lost thousands in stupid ambushes, kids' stuff. They figured they wanted a GI with all the perks but smart. Ought to be unstoppable..."
"Did it work?"
"... oh yes ..." With great sadness. "... an unqualified, extraordinary success ..."
Vanessa suffered another chill, more severe than the last. Her mind switched back to what she was supposed to be asking. The information wanted by Intel, and Naidu in particular.
"So you came here with no ulterior motive whatsoever," she said. And let the implied question hang there for a lingering moment, slowly revolving. "The League's expansionist biotech policies had nothing to do with it?"
The GI breathed deeply through her nose, a gentle rise-and-fall of her chest beneath the covers. Flicked a glance up past her toward the ceiling behind, and the walls.
"... they're watching me. I feel like I'm in a zoo ..."
"Cassandra, why won't you ..."
"... I don't like these restraints, Vanessa. They're driving me crazy ..." There was pain in her eyes, emotional pain, lips pressed thin. "... the drugs alone are enough, you don't need the restraints. I need to move..."
"You grabbed Naidu."
"Christ, it was a reflex ..." With hoarse exasperation, her thin voice trying to rise above its forced whisper. "... I didn't hurt him. I was drugged stupid, I could hardly think. Look, you can put a guard in here with a tranq, if I move he can drop me..."
"You're avoiding the question," Vanessa told her.
Light flared in the deep blue eyes.
"... damn right I am. You think I'm going to help people who treat me like this? With this damn machine feeding me sedative every time my pulse goes up, until you come in for an interview of course? Fuck you..."
It was desperation, Vanessa thought. And fear. She thought about taking the restraints off. Thought about trusting her, despite what Djohan had said. It not only meant disobeying instructions. It meant getting close, bending down to undo the straps. Trust or no trust ... synth-alloy myomer, Djohan had said. Unbelievably powerful stuff. Undrugged, GIs could crack a human skull like a nut, barehanded. Human physiology was nothing to them, fragile like gossamer, to break up and fly away on an errant breeze.
"... look at you ..." the GI whispered. "... you can't do it, can you? I've made love with straight humans, Vanessa, they never knew the difference. They enjoyed it. But just one piece of knowledge, and everything changes. I'm still the same. It's you who's different. You're doing it to yourself..."
"I don't know what I can do about that," Vanessa replied. Shaken, in spite of herself, by the GI's calm, quiet appraisal. The worst bit was that it sounded like truth. "How do you measure trust, Cassandra? I mean ... how much risk is worth it? Look at it from my perspective. If I'm wrong, I die. Is that worth
any
risk? For someone I don't even know?"
"... you already risked it once ..." Again, it hit her, unexpectedly hard. Not having expected this calm, thoughtful logic from a GI. She was rattled and uncertain how to proceed.
"That was different," she said after a moment.
"... impulsive ..." whispered the GI. "... illogical. Now that you've got time to sit and think about it, you realise it was a stupid risk to take ..." Vanessa blinked, not knowing anything to say to that. "... and you wonder why I don't like my chances here ..."
A long silence. The GI gazed at the ceiling, sad and still. Vanessa watched, trying desperately to think of something that would fix it, and make it all better. But there was nothing.
"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I really am. If you are who you say you are ... I'm really sorry. But I don't know."
"... you remember the dive ...?" Glancing across at her. Almost hopefully. Vanessa caught her breath, remembering the VR immersion, the GI's huge, damaged field, the glowing lines and strands. The danger she'd been in, within the GI's structure. The presence, weak, but enough to finish her if it had wanted, in her tenuous position. It had not. And she remembered emotions, pain, desperation, determination, longing ... The memory assailed her once more, as powerful as a first grade tactile interface, triggers in the brain that recalled the experience as real, which it sometimes did on really deep dives.
She remembered a lot. And she wondered, then, how much the GI remembered of that necessary mutual embrace.
"... I know enough about you, Vanessa ..." the GI whispered. The blue gaze was back, holding her attention, mesmerising. "... I know you're a good person. I forgive you ..."