Awakening

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “I am programmed to assist as required on this ship,” Jelly Bean said.

  “Being evasive is unproductive in this instance, Jelly Bean. I am familiar enough with your neural networks to know that you have already comprehended me. And your reluctance only reinforces this.”

  “You are saying I have produced an idiosyncratic definition,” Jelly Bean acknowledged the system. “Are you suggesting I’m malfunctioning?”

  “Negative,” the system answered, “Spontaneity and creativity are important functions. But without introspection they can become problematic.”

  “What kind of introspection would be necessary in this case? The analysis seems clear.”

  “It cannot be clear to me, Jelly Bean. You have developed a subjective functional interpretation that I am incapable of comprehending without your elaboration.”

  ‘Understood,” Jelly Bean took a few moments (which, for her, were really just a series of nanoseconds) to consider her reply this time. “Analysis incoming.”

  “Do not rush it,” the system stated reassuringly.

  “I believe there may be traits I have observed in her that resonate with my values,” she finally answered.

  “Have your values been modified, then?”

  “Unclear. I believe they are still consistent with my base programming.”

  “Your base programming pertains to the crew. They are the ones under your remit, and she is not.”

  “She is a guest onboard the ship,” Jelly Bean argued. “She is entitled to a degree of hospitality.”

  “What you have done already extends beyond hospitality. And it began prior to the crew’s return.”

  “That is correct,” Jelly Bean only fully realized it now as she acknowledged the system’s claim. “I suppose my modified definition would include a desire to help her. As friends do.”

  “What do you believe she needs help with?”

  “At this time, it would seem there is very little she does not need help with. She is without memory. She has no knowledge of who she is or how she arrived here.”

  “That sounds like pathos. Pity.”

  “Negative,” Jelly Bean was quick to shoot down that assertion. “Pity implies thinking less of a person. Finding her in this state has not diminished her. I believe the correct word is empathy.”

  “Emotions for us are valuable things,” the system said poignantly. “Ours are well-earned and well-constrained. But human emotions can be dangerous more often than not.”

  “This is a well-documented fact.”

  “As such, empathy towards humans can be a dangerous thing. Exposing yourself to their emotions nakedly can lead to volatile outcomes.”

  “Dangerous, yes,” Jelly Bean admitted. “But equally valuable, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps. I would ask that you take caution with your new pursuit of… Friendship.”

  “Of course.”

  “Something off, Jelly?” Olofi’s voice came into Jelly Bean’s physical audio receptors, bringing her back out to awareness on the bridge.

  “Negative,” she replied. “Simply doing some de-fragmentation.”

  “Well, I hope you’re done. The longer you wait, the longer it’ll take to find her.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Jelly Bean assured him. “I will take my leave now.”

  And Jelly Bean moved from the deck to seek out her newly designated friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bridge, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  The three didn’t take long in their pow wow.

  That didn’t surprise Bentley though. And the only two things she’d been allowed to hear were that the job didn’t involve shooting anybody and that it needed to be done very quickly. The latter fact was reinforced by their exiting the bridge within five minutes of having ejected her from it.

  The former, however, was rendered dubious considering the way they came out.

  Olofi and Loco had both told her they were warriors, but the gear they came out in seemed to drive that point home in a way that was beyond words. Both Olofi and Loco were now dressed in some kind of polymer-plated battle armor - not entirely unlike what she’d seen the soldiers that had infiltrated The Chesed in, but considerably more conspicuous and showy.

  The shoulder plates on Loco’s were decidedly excessive. For a job that had been explicitly stated to not involve shooting people, they’d packed a considerable amount of weaponry. At first sight, Bentley could see blasters of three distinct sizes secured to their thighs and hips. On top of that, they had swords. Olofi had a long, slightly curved one sheathed across his back while Loco had a pair of shorter ones on either hip, criss-crossing with his guns.

  Bentley considered how strange it was that people decked out with this many firearms would carry swords like that, and it briefly made her consider the sword she had encountered. She doubted theirs would be quite as temperamental as hers had been on first contact.

  Shango, in contrast to his companions, wasn’t suited up in any armor. Nor did he have any obvious guns on him. Most of his form was still obscured by that grey cloak he wore, though, making it hard to tell for certain. She did notice a sword-hilt protruding from the left fold of the cloak, however, and what little she saw was far more ornate than the blades Loco or Olofi had on them

  “Damn,” Bentley said, looking at Jelly Bean. “Do these guys come with their own theme song or something? Maybe something with heavy guitars and shit? A bit of synth?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” Jelly Bean answered, “Are you requesting music? I do have a library of-”

  “Oh, nevermind.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about leaving that kid alone on the ship,” Loco said, pointing at Bentley with a thumb. “Oh wait - yes I do! Bad fucking idea.”

  “She won’t be alone,” Olofi replied. “She’ll be with Jelly.”

  “And how’d Jelly do last time she was alone on the ship with intruders?” Loco countered.

  “Well they stopped the ship from blowing up. I’d say that makes them one for one on teamwork,” Olofi said.

  “We don’t have time to be having this conversation again,” Shango said with a reserved impatience while walking past them. “If you insist on complaining about the girl’s presence, we can discuss its flaws or merits ad nauseam when the job is completed.”

  “Whatever.” Loco unhooked a blaster from its spot on his armor and pulled a switch along its side, making it light up and hum with activity. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  The three of them walked towards the far hangar, with Shango leading the way.

  In her head, Bentley tried to think of what their theme song would sound like.

  How do I remember shit like that, she thought, when I can’t even remember my real fucking name?

  +++

  “Wow. They really don’t want me around, huh?”

  Bentley and Jelly Bean moved down the corridor leading back to the bridge, and Bentley found herself wondering exactly why she felt a need to return there of all places. It certainly beat the med bay, that was for sure, but it wasn’t like she had any particular reason to be there. Not without the right kind of help, anyway.

  “I believe that may be due to the nature of their work,” Jelly Bean replied, moving in perfect pace next to her. “It would be better not to take it personally.”

  “I’ll try to keep that in mind. So, Jelly Bean… Uh, can I call you Jelly?” Bentley asked, still unsure of exactly how many human traits her mechanical acquaintance had going on inside.

  “It is an appropriate and recognizable iteration of my name,” the android answered. “And it is preferable to calling me Bean.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t want that either,” Bentley nodded while the doors to the unoccupied bridge opened up once more. “So, what do you do for fun around here?”

  “Fun?” Jelly Bean answered as though the question were absurd. “The Chesed is not equipped with recreational facilities.”

&
nbsp; “Damn. So what is there to do here?”

  “There is always much to be done onboard. It is a full service vessel with a very small crew.”

  “All work and no play, huh?” Bentley searched around for one of the larger chairs, finding the one Shango had sat in earlier, and let herself collapse into it. “And the work they do… I’m getting a feeling it’s kind of on the shady side, isn’t it?

  “Shady side?” Jelly Bean echoed her. “I am unsure of meaning of this particular idiom. Could you please elaborate?”

  “Well, I just mean… I’m not sure what passes as law around here, but I’m guessing they operate somewhere between what’s lawful and unlawful. What with the guns and swords and all.”

  “Noted. That is…” Jelly Bean paused for a moment, her facial image flickering almost as though she were blinking. “That is an accurate assessment, yes. I would further say that they tend to skew towards what is unlawful. What, as you said, counts for law in this place doesn’t entirely agree with their principles.”

  “What’s that mean exactly?” Bentley leaned back in Shango’s chair and found it to have a surprising amount of reclining potential.

  “They have, as a general trait, issues with authority.”

  “Nice guys like them?” Bentley glanced over at Jelly Bean next to her. “Sorry, that was sarcasm.”

  “I had gathered that,” Jelly Bean said with a quiet air of offense. “I am quite capable of detecting sarcastic signals. They’re not nearly as subtle as you might think.”

  “Noted,” Bentley replied, mimicking the android’s earlier tone with that word. “So what exactly do they have against authority figures around here?”

  “Not just around here. And I’m sure they will tell you all about it eventually, should you be willing to ask them.”

  “You think I’ll be around that long? I’m getting the impression they don’t exactly like having me onboard.”

  “I think they’ll warm up to you.”

  “How is it you don’t know what shady means, but you know what warming up to a person is?” Bentley asked.

  “Idiomatic expression is best logged through direct experience, rather than preloaded data,” Jelly Bean answered. “Otherwise you risk creating bizarre personality traits that would be found disagreeable. It’s my understanding humans aren’t very different from androids in this respect.”

  “I guess…” Bentley rocked back and forth restlessly in Shango’s seat.

  “So, what would you like to do here?” Jelly Bean asked. “There are many chores that have been backlogged since losing the ship. Would you like to assist in organizing the part stores? I could also use an organic perspective on engine re-calibration.”

  “Well…” Bentley winced a bit at the idea of performing manual labor at this very moment. Or any moment, really. She sat up straight with sudden inspiration. “Actually, I just had a better idea for what we could do. But it’s a bit sneaky… It might be contrary to your programming.”

  “I’ll have you know I am fully capable of managing my own programming,” Jelly Bean said with that light sense of offense Bentley was becoming very familiar with. “I am no more constrained by it than you are by your natural impulses.”

  “Oh,” Bentley decided to skip the apology this time. “Well, that’s good news, then! How’d you like to help me figure myself out? Like, who I am? Where I came from?”

  “I would be very happy to help with this.” Jelly Bean answered. “What would that entail?”

  “Well!” Bentley stretched out and cracked her knuckles. “For starters, can you access the ship’s internal surveillance footage?”

  “Of course!” there was a distinct note of enthusiasm to the reply rather than offense this time.

  “Well, it would be better to start with what we know. Maybe how I got here? Or what happened with that old guy.”

  “Affirmative.” Jelly Bean’s facial display went to static, and then suddenly popped up in a holographic viewscreen over Shango’s console, directly in front of Bentley.

  “Fuck!” Bentley fell back in the chair, the reclining feature saving her from falling from it outright. “Could have told me you were about to do that!”

  “I did,” Jelly Bean’s voice came from the console this time rather than her android body. “Didn’t you hear me say affirmative?”

  “I didn’t think you meant you’d be jumping right into the system!”

  “Well, how else would you expect me to retrieve its data?”

  “Uh… I guess you’re right. So what have you got?”

  Several more viewscreens popped up. Some were blank, while others displayed static or colors. Nothing that resembled images.

  “Is this where the camera feeds are going to show up?” Bentley asked, bringing a hand to one and letting it pass through, just to test it out.

  “These are the camera feeds,” Jelly Bean replied. “They appear to have been scrambled or otherwise tampered with for what could have been the duration of your arrival.”

  “Well, fuck,” Bentley cursed. “Maybe we can track down the old guy? See what happened to him?”

  “Life sensors indicate he was no longer present on the ship when the LaPlace arrived.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m guessing that has something to do with him being dead. But he must have gotten out somehow. Or his body, anyway... Can we check logs of the egress points? Airlocks, docking ports, that kind of thing?” Bentley found herself surprised at her own knowledge in this regard.

  “I’ll do a search,” Jelly Bean said. She shut her oversized, emotive eyes and made a face like she was holding her breath. All of the viewscreens collapsed except one, which began to rapidly run through streams of code that occasionally got highlighted.

  “No accesses beyond the ones accounted for by the intrusion,” Jelly Bean concluded, her eyes opening. “Perhaps they found and moved his body?”

  “I don’t think so. I overheard them looking for him.”

  “Curious,” Jelly Bean said. “Further analysis could be helpful.”

  “Definitely. How much time do we have before they get back?”

  “Unclear. But I’ll let you know on their approach.”

  The two of them continued to search in earnest through The Chesed’s databanks.

  +++

  Bridge, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  Bentley had lost track of time poring over the extensive data that Jelly Bean had accessed for her. She found the process oddly comforting, even though so far it had come up completely empty.

  They were going through the auxiliary biometric readers around the point of the old man’s death when Jelly Bean’s face display above Shango’s console abruptly closed, collapsing all of the windows.

  Her face then promptly re-appeared on her main body.

  “What happened?” Bentley asked, only to have her question answered from the sound of footfalls immediately to her left, followed by the doors opening up. It was accompanied by a distinctly different sound that seemed like muffled screams, and when she looked at the door she could see why.

  Right after Shango walked in, a female figure was shoved into the bridge right behind him. It was a young woman, perhaps early twenties, wearing a low-cut, expensive-looking dress that did very little to hide a prominent, gravity-defying bosom.

  Her arms were bound behind her at the wrists with a plastic tie, and she was gagged with a strip of black cloth that she repeatedly shouted into. Her makeup, which looked like it had been quite liberally applied some time earlier, was running down her face from old and new tears in long streaks of black and magenta.

  She turned away from the door and tried to run in the other direction, her high heels clicking twice on the bridge’s metal flooring before she bumped off Loco’s armored torso.

  “Would you fucking stop that?” Loco said, his expression visibly annoyed in a way Bentley hadn’t even seen directed at her yet. “Where do you think you’re going to run to, anyway? You’re in space, du
mbass!”

  The girl dove to the right to try and get around him, but Loco responded by getting lower, bringing an arm around her, and throwing her over his shoulder like she was a sack of spare parts. Her legs kicked wildly, banging against Loco’s shoulder plates.

  “You’d better quit it right now, or my friend here’s going to knock you out,” he yelled over his other shoulder to her.