by Aidan Wayne
“Fine,” Shade said. “No… worry.”
“Do you, um, want me to start this part over from the beginning so you can get what’s going on?”
Shade shook his head, frowning. “No,” he said. “Fine.”
“O-okay.” Jason fiddled with the remote for a minute and then restarted the show, the subtitles displayed clearly at the bottom.
“Thank you,” Chase said.
“Sure,” said Jason, eyes skittering back to his plate. He took another bite, which was pleasing.
Shade alternated between paying attention to what was, admittedly, an interesting documentary, and Jason. He ate carefully, examining each bite before he put it into his mouth. And he spent only half the time watching the screen, though he was obviously paying attention to it. Considering that the people had been speaking Mandarin Chinese for the last fifteen minutes of the segment, he felt he was correct in assuming Jason was fairly proficient.
He was wondering what else Jason knew, what else he could do. And something told him that Chinese wasn’t Jason’s only other language, either. He’d have to ask Chase to ask.
But mostly he noticed that there had been a slight, ever so slight looseness in Jason’s body for a few moments. While he was eating the food, watching the documentary, able to ignore Chase and Shade’s presence for just a little bit, Shade caught a glimpse of what Jason must feel like in his real downtime. It wasn’t ideal, but the glimpse let Shade know it was at least possible. Sometimes it wasn’t, not anymore.
He wondered what Jason’s job really was. It had been confidential on a personal-disclosure-only clause. Jason could tell them if he wanted to, but it wasn’t going to be in any files. But the way he reacted to some triggers—even war vets that had toured multiple times didn’t react like something was going to try to hurt or kill them every moment. But Jason interacted with the world at large like he was expecting nothing but systematic pain.
Jason set down his fork and did another methodical check on his knees. It didn’t even look as though he was conscious of the movements. Shade had never worked with anyone who had that sort of automatic instinct. For—for dealing with torture.
He didn’t like it.
JASON WAS somewhat surprised to look down at his plate and realize he’d eaten all of his food. Not surprised that he’d finished—he definitely hadn’t been consuming enough as of late, so a full meal was great—but that he’d been able to finish something someone else had prepared.
His Companions seemed to notice at the exact same time, because Chase smiled, and Shade looked a little less annoyed.
“Thanks for lunch,” Jason said. “It was good.” Not that he remembered tasting a lot of it, but that was better than some alternatives.
“Of course,” Chase said. “We’d be happy to help cook for you from now on, if you’re willing.”
“I’ll think about it,” Jason said. “Sorry, I mean, that’d be good, but… have to think about it.”
Chase nodded. “Of course,” he said again. Then he stood up again, slowly, telegraphing his movements. “Let me take your plate to the kitchen.”
It wasn’t quite a request, but Jason had no problems with it. He paused the show and handed over the plate. “I’ll pause it until you get back.”
“Thank you,” Chase said and left.
Shade watched him leave, then turned to focus again on Jason.
“He seems like a good guy,” Jason said. “I appreciate you two. Being here, I mean. I get the feeling I could’ve been saddled with a Companion who was a lot less understanding. I mean, I know you guys are trained to take it slow, but I get that I’m glacial.”
Shade shrugged, then shook his head. “Jason’s fine,” he said, after a moment. “Needs help.”
“You got that right,” Jason said.
“We, us, are helping,” Shade added. “Don’t worry.”
“I’ll try not to. And sorry again. For before.”
“Before?”
“When I—” Jason mimed a wristlock. “With Chase.”
Shade glared and shook his head. “Chase forgave,” he said.
“Right, I know. Did you?” Jason held up a hand. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, but I need to know. If you want to—I mean. I can’t—I’m pretty sensitive to when people want to hurt me. And I don’t want any accidents. So I just need to know. Sorry.”
“Forgave,” Shade said immediately. “No hurt.”
“Okay. Okay, that’s good to know.” Jason swallowed. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I just—I need to know those things.”
“Understood,” Shade said. And that had to be good enough for now.
WHEN THE documentary was over, Jason felt antsy again, wanting to have another go at the bag and knowing he needed to give his body a break. Instead he decided to continue with the Chinese practice, getting up to get the materials he needed to work more on the podbook he was currently translating.
Once he was in his room, he had a passing thought about just staying there. He’d already had a lot of interaction for one day. But the more effort he put into this program, the sooner it could go away. With this in mind, he grabbed all his stuff and went back into the living room.
“I’m in the kitchen!” Chase called, when he returned from his room. Cleaning up maybe, Jason guessed, not that there was that big a mess. Shade had gotten up and moved to the armchair, leaving the couch and coffee table free.
“You mind if I sit here?” Jason asked just in case. Shade shook his head. “Okay.” He spread his stuff out and got to work, absentmindedly noticing when Shade got up to get a book to read, and when Chase reentered the living room.
“May I sit here, Jason?” Chase asked, gesturing to the other end of the couch. There would still be plenty of room between the two of them, and some of Jason’s materials could act as a further buffer. Jason had to freeze and think, but he shook his head after a moment. It was fine, he was fine, he was awake, and Chase had been really good about not making sudden movements.
“Go ahead,” he said. Proximity was important, right? Chase smiled at him and sat down.
“What are you working on?” he asked, after several minutes had passed.
“Chinese dialects,” Jason replied, pausing the book and taking out an earbud. “For work. I can get by in Mandarin all right, and I’m working on Cantonese, but the more you travel in the country, the trickier the different dialects get. The program I’m using was written specifically for that kind of practice.”
“How does it work?” Chase asked, leaning forward.
“It’s one story, so the context stays the same,” Jason explained, “but the speakers switch out. It forces me to adjust my brain to each person, but being able to follow one story helps.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” Chase said, sounding impressed. “How long have you been studying Chinese?”
“About eight years, give or take,” Jason said. “But anytime I go back, I still have something new I’ve got to learn. Same with the others, really. There’s always something. But I understand enough.”
“You can speak other languages?
“A few. Half of them I started learning for work. Arabic, Russian, Kurdish, French. A bit of German and Korean recently, just for something different.”
“That’s… that’s quite a collection,” Chase said, eyebrows raised. “Isn’t that difficult?”
Jason shrugged. “Keeps my mind busy.” He didn’t have a lot else to do in his downtime anyway. “And it helps a lot in my work. Being skilled at languages is part of the reason I’ve got the job I do. Had. Still have.” He frowned. “Whatever. Need to stay in condition until I get back in the field. I guess that’s where you guys come in.”
“You’re really anxious to return to work, aren’t you?” Chase asked.
“It’s what I can do,” Jason said, after a moment. “Keeps me busy.” The more distracted he was, the more he could focus on a mission, the less time he had for anything else. At this point,
it was best this way.
“What work?” Shade asked suddenly.
Jason glanced at him. “Sorry?”
“Shade wanted to know what it is you actually do,” Chase elaborated. “We’ve both been wondering, to tell you the truth.”
“You don’t know?” Jason asked, surprised. “I thought that was part of knowing about this job.”
“A lot of it was confidential,” Chase explained. “We have a rough idea of course; we know you work for the government, and we were told you were military suffering from PTSD from repeat missions. But we weren’t given details past that. We were authorized for them if you chose to divulge information though. You have a rank that is able to make the decisions on what knowledge you can’t or don’t wish to share.”
Jason could barely hide his aghast expression. “You mean you got paired to work with me and didn’t know my background?” He was dangerous, which was why they paired him with a thinking, feeling, sentient AI Companion who could leave if necessary. He was too unstable to take care of a service dog, which had been the first choice. And they hadn’t been properly briefed?
“Whatever you’re thinking, please don’t,” Chase said quickly, so something in Jason’s face was obviously showing his distress. “I promise that we were told enough information, both good and bad, that we felt we were able to make an informed decision. We wouldn’t have agreed to be your Companions otherwise.” Shade nodded, as if to emphasize the point.
Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “But you don’t know any details of what I do,” he said. “Why I’m—why.”
“That’s your prerogative to share,” Chase said simply. Like the details didn’t matter.
Jason stared at them both, trying to breathe and refocus. They—they needed to know, at least some of it. They needed to really know what they were getting themselves into.
Maybe once they did, they’d want to leave. That… that wasn’t the plus it could have been. Jason was built to read situations, and just from the last couple days he could see things… working, at least for the week he had planned for. Better than he could be with other Companions, maybe. But them leaving was a real possibility, and a fair one. They deserved to know the basics.
“I work in interrogation,” he said after a long moment. “My whole job is to infiltrate, collect intel. The problem with that kind of job is that things go sour sometimes. I’ve been a POW… a few times. And depending on where you end up, those aren’t treated so well.” Geneva Convention be damned.
Chase looked shocked. Shade… his expression was pretty unreadable. “But—why couldn’t they just have an AI do that?” Chase asked. “Why a human?”
“Military AIs don’t do well in the active field, because of the developed tech that can take them out. Humans are actually hardier, and it takes more work to hack them,” Jason said evenly. “Thought you’d know that. And anyway, most places check for AI tech now, for people who might be recording, broadcasting, reporting back. You know the first thing they do to all new prisoners now?”
“What?” Chase asked, looked afraid to find out.
“Taser,” Jason said. “Five seconds. One is still kind of agony, three is usually unnecessary. But five. Even the most sophisticated synth system on an AI shorts out after that. But the brain isn’t fried, so they just take it apart. Humans though, we don’t die. And we learn to use what we’ve got. I’ve got an implant. False molar. The Taser shock activates it, sends a blip to a satellite GPS, gives over the location. It doesn’t last long, otherwise it’d be noticed, but it lasts long enough. Half the time, that’s how we all get out.”
“And… the other half?”
Jason shrugged. “I get out,” he said. “Last one was… hard.” The hardest job he’d ever had and one of the longest. And he had been the only— “But I got out.”
Chase and Shade exchanged glances, and Jason could essentially see the unspoken conversation taking place. But all Chase ended up saying was, “Thank you. For telling us.”
Jason shrugged and looked down at his hands, checked his thumbs. “Just wanted you guys to know what you were getting into.”
“Jason? May I touch you?”
Jason looked up fast, startled. “What?”
“I wanted to touch your hand,” Chase said. “A comfort gesture. But only with your permission.”
“I—yeah.” He let out a breath. “I guess that’d be okay.”
Chase moved forward until he was on the cushion next to Jason’s, carefully moving his notes out of the way. Then he slowly, slowly, giving Jason plenty of time, laid a hand on top of Jason’s.
“Okay?” Chase asked.
Jason swallowed. “Yeah. It’s okay. I won’t—I’m fine.”
“Baby steps,” Chase said. “Just like this. This is fine, Jason. All we want, all we’re here to do, is to help you get better. But only at your pace and how you are comfortable. Thank you for telling us about your work,” he said again. “But all it means is that we know a little more about you now, maybe some new ways we can try to help. Is that all right? All we want to do is try to help.”
Jason couldn’t help but glance back down at Chase’s hand, lightly placed on top of his rougher, scarred one. “I’ll do my best.”
“And that’s all we would ever ask for.”
“HEY, CHASE,” Jason asked the next morning. He’d just finished breakfast—eaten in the mat room, he’d had a nightmare, couldn’t eat around someone else—but he’d emerged after to put away his used cup and ask Chase his question.
“Yes, Jason?” Shade was nowhere to be found, but Chase was in the kitchen, writing something down on a pad of paper. And that was another thing Jason didn’t get; Chase could remember anything he wanted to. Why would he write notes down when he could just internalize everything?
“Why do you do that?” Jason blurted out, instead of the question he’d meant to ask.
“Do what?”
“Write stuff down? You don’t have to, do you?”
Chase looked down to the paper and pen in his hands. He seemed surprised, and shit, had Jason just asked something taboo by accident? “I think you might have an incorrect idea of what I can and can’t do,” Chase said at last, lips quirking. “What kind of AIs have you interacted with?”
At least he didn’t look upset. Jason shrugged, hunching his shoulders. “Just the ones at base, or the ones I meet in the field. A couple of my psych evaluators were AI. They didn’t take notes. I just thought they processed everything internally.”
“They probably did. But we’re all built and get developed a little differently. We don’t really know how AI gets developed.”
“Right,” Jason said. “It sort of just… happens to some of you. Right?”
“Mm-hm. So sometimes it happens in a more humanoid being, like me or your psych evaluators. Sometimes it happens in someone who was originally manufactured to build houses. Once the AI is developed, it can be downloaded to other bodies, but most of us prefer to keep the ones who were built-in.”
“Okay.” Jason was following along, but… that didn’t really answer his question.
Chase smiled. “I’m getting to the point, I promise. What some people don’t realize—and how would they know, really—is how much of our processors being an Acting Individual actually takes. A lot of my synapses go into modulating my system, making executive decisions, and functioning independently. I was originally built to be a service bot: housecleaning, cooking, that sort of thing. I wasn’t meant to go out and do shopping—my humans were. So I make lists, because that’s what my humans would have used. It uses less of my processing energy, overall.”
Jason shot the paper an incredulous look. “If you say so.”
Chase chuckled. “It’s also because it makes me appear more human. Simulating human activity tends to put humans at ease. It helps them accept us, because we’re ‘just like them.’ Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. More than doing something because you were originally built
to be something else.”
“I suppose. Again, I can internalize everything. And sometimes I do, if it’s just for my own benefit. But I like to give my humans something concrete. You can’t see a list in my head, but you can see one I write down for you.”
Jason swallowed. He couldn’t go to an actual store to get groceries. He had all his stuff delivered. “Right, yeah.”
“It’s not that you have to use the list,” Chase said lightly. “Just that it’s there. For you to… look over. If you want to add anything. Or want to tell me that you hate tilapia.”
“Oh. I… okay.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Hate tilapia. I was thinking I could make it for you sometime this week. I have a good recipe.”
“I prefer fattier fish,” Jason admitted. “Salmon’s my favorite.”
Chase smiled. “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for telling me.” And he very deliberately crossed something off his list.
Jason lingered. He hadn’t asked his original question. But was one enough for right now? He didn’t want to get too personal. He didn’t like interrogation on his own time.
Chase seemed perfectly willing to continue making a list in his kitchen while Jason stood there. Like Jason wasn’t a bother. Like his company wasn’t threatening.
“Hey,” Jason started after he couldn’t stand it any longer.
Chase turned, giving him his full attention. “Yes?”
“Do you and Shade… get anything out of physical touch?” He’d been thinking about it ever since last night, when Chase had asked for a comfort touch. Jason couldn’t get it out of his head that it seemed to comfort Chase to offer it and have that offer accepted. And Chase and Shade stayed close to each other. Even though it’d only been a short while, Jason had noticed all the little touches they exchanged. He wasn’t sure if that was learned human behavior, like the grocery lists were, or if they actually did it because it was something they genuinely enjoyed.
“Yes, we do. Most AI have sensors so they can feel, if only so they can recognize when they’re being damaged. But it works the other way too. I can feel pleasure just as well as I feel pain.” He smiled, and Jason was struck by how real all of Chase’s smiles seemed. He knew how to recognize faked affections. And Chase seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve. “I… I really like being able to connect to another in that way,” he said softly. “Touch means… so much to me.”
