Artificial Intelligence

by Rena Marks

  “Do you steal?”

  “No. A trader violated policy and was forced to give me a pallet, or face what he thought would be Zetan wrath.”

  “Very clever.”

  “Okay, Tess,” Arian called. “Slow the engines and notify us if there are any other ships that may approach. I’ll let you float us through the space debris.”

  “Understood, Arian. Navigation through the Sirius star system should be about a week. That is hoping my system is not hacked again.”

  Jax’s mouth dropped.

  Arian smiled. “She learns quickly. She’s figured out you were the one that had us wandering through the galaxy while you grew a body. She’s also a bit of a smart-ass.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Jax cleared his throat. “My apologies, Tess. I did not mean to intrude upon your privacy. It was necessary at the time for my rescue.”

  “Apology accepted, handsome. You may invade my system at any time.” The voice had changed to contain a sultry tone.

  “Programming compliments of my son, Tian.” Arian laughed, and rose from the captain’s chair. “I try to keep a schedule as close to a planetary one as possible,” she explained to Jax. “That’s the reason for the lights to be on a timer. They are set to gradually lower until it is bedtime, at which time they will be off for an eight-hour sleep cycle. Naturally, you can manually override the settings.”

  “I will appreciate having a schedule to follow. I need to take care of my new body.”

  “Speaking of which, do we want to get started on the chore of wakening the other hundred and eighty?”

  Jax winced. “They are rather eager. They continually demand entry into my head from Tess’s storage.”

  “I thought we could grow just a few, make sure we have the system down properly. Then those few could set upon helping the others, assembly-style.”

  “That is a good idea. We won’t be so stressed that way.”

  They entered the sick bay and Arian stared at all of the beds containing the bodies. She was overwhelmed. “How do we even start?”

  Jax smiled at her. “Let me show you. Tess,” he called. “Enable sterile environment.”

  “Enabled, Jax.”

  “We’ll pick the six bodies in the middle. Right now, they are all alike.”

  He strode to a drawer, pulling out a metal box that looked much like the metal comprising the bones. Inside the box was a series of slides.

  “Each one has sample DNA, taken from individuals on our planet. We wanted to think ahead and diversify, in case we wanted to procreate.” He mixed the sample DNA with some solution that looked like saline. With tweezers he took the sliver from the glass slide, which had already looked like a thin piece of glass. “This is the organic starter. I’ll place this on the chip in the skull, and allow it to grow. Once the body is fully formed, in about a week, we’ll attach the consciousness the way you did with me. It is less painful that way.”

  “Who mixed the starter and placed it in your skull a week ago?” Arian asked.

  “We had to plan my revival a bit differently. The starter was left in one individual skeleton, and it was cryofrozen in the chamber. We could only hope it would take when we attempted it. If not, the back-up plan would have been to get your vessel to land and contact you through your computer. We would have asked you for your assistance in reviving us.”

  “If I had refused?”

  “We would have refused to allow you access to your ship. I am sorry, but you were our only opportunity for revival. You have a ship large enough to house us, powerful enough to land through the radiation, and you were basically defenseless, since you were the only living organism on board.”

  Arian felt a shiver run down her neck. Either way, she was screwed.

  Jax went back to the slide and pulled another piece from it. “Each slide contains three samples,” he said, using the tweezers to mold the newly developed sample onto the chip. “The drawbacks are: each three people will be related, so to speak. But at the time, we had limited resources.”

  When he finished the last body, he draped a clear plastic sheet over the skeleton.

  “That’s it, for now. “We’ll monitor the growth. By morning, we should see something.”

  Arian nodded. “Let me show you where you can sleep while we wait.”

  As soon as they left sick bay and entered the ship’s corridor, she was surprised to see the lights were dimmed. “It must be approaching the simulated nightfall,” she said. “It keeps our circadian rhythms intact. Anyway, you can pick any of these cabins. This one at the end of the hallway is mine.”

  “Will you show me yours?”

  “Of course.” She swiped her hand over the door. “This is a handprint activator. We’ll program you with any door you choose.” They entered her cabin. It consisted of a bed, a viewing screen and a small bathroom. A tiny desk sat in the corner. “There’s not a lot to them, since they’re basically used for sleeping and washing only. This is the bathroom. We use a water system, since it is a vacation cruiser. A few of the higher end rooms are equipped with massage units.”

  “What is that?”

  She raised her eyebrows, and then hit a button on the wall. A piece of the wall unfolded, producing a padded massage table. Robotic arms came from panels within the wall.

  “It’s marvelous. Do you want to try it while I shower?”

  He looked hesitant, but then he nodded.

  “Remove your clothes, and the arms will drape a sheet over you. The bed warms with verbal commands, in case you get chilled. You can ask for hot stones to be placed on you, and you can command the masseuse to increase or lighten the pressure.” She smiled. “I’ll be in the shower. The massage will take about a half hour. If you wish to lengthen the session, feel free.”

  He started to pull off his shirt, so she turned toward the bathroom. She made a mental note to explain boundaries to him. Or maybe he’d get the hint by watching her enter the restroom to strip without being watched.

  * * * * *

  Jax folded the uniform Arian had produced for him and laid it on top of the small desk. He stretched out on the table, inserting his face through the hole in the bed. As she’d said, a fabric was draped over the middle of his body. Then the pre-heated hands lowered to him.

  Good lord, he’d forgotten how marvelous it felt to have a body. The sensation of being touched was this side of orgasmic, and he barely remembered what orgasms felt like.

  Jax? What is she like?

  The words from his brother Serepto rolled through his mind easily, just as if they were still a collective consciousness trapped in the computer system.

  She’s amazing. Strong and honorable. She’s beautiful and dainty. A mass of contradictions that…work.

  Serepto was quiet for a minute. You sound different. Emotional now.

  If he could have, he would have smacked his own forehead. He would have preferred to keep some things to himself now. I am more emotional around her. It will be interesting to see if the rest of you are also, when you are reunited with a body.

  The rest of us will evaluate whether she can be trusted. It sounds as if you are compromised.

  That is a reasonable request. We are growing six bodies. When those are revived, we will have those six help revive more, and so on until all are merged.

  The board will be the ones inserted into the first six bodies. You are the seventh board member, and the tie-breaker.

  Agreed.

  Serepto left his head and Jax set up his shields for privacy. He wanted access to his own thoughts, without others peering in.

  What did he feel about Arian? It wasn’t just a matter of her being incredibly beautiful. She made him feel different. But the others were right. He wasn’t sure if the new body was causing all of these unknown emotions to roll through him. Still, he wanted to explore them. He was curious as to what she did on the other side of the door.

  She smelled fresh an
d clean when she emerged from the restroom.

  “I should like to sleep in your room with you tonight,” he said, without looking up. “If you don’t mind. It is an easier way to teach my consciousness to sleep. I will align my body functions to yours, mimicking your breathing and REM patterns. It will be much more simple than figuring how to do it on my own.”

  She paused for a bit before answering. “Just keep on your side of the bed.”

  He smiled. “I will not stray.”

  Arian made sure of that by deliberately sleeping on top of the sheet, while he stayed underneath. They would have something between them at all times. Jax didn’t mind. By Arian making such a production of keeping them from touching, it let him know that she was not unaffected by him.

  “Goodnight, Jax,” she said, rolling over to face the wall.

  “Goodnight, Arian.” The lights went out.

  * * * * *

  Arian woke to thrashing. Moaning. It figured that the first night he slept, it would be plagued with nightmares.

  “Jax,” she called softly. “Jax, wake up.”

  His eyes flew open, the electric blue zinging through the room.

  Arian sighed. “Tess, lights at five percent.”

  The room became slightly visible. “Jax, are you okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “You were in the middle of a nightmare,” she said.

  “Yes.” His breathing was deeper, and he seemed to try to regulate it. “A memory. The last few hours of my planet’s demise.”

  “You still remember? After all these years?”

  “I do.” She could barely make out his head nodding in the dark. “It was easier while not embodied, I’ll admit. Now that I have a body, I’ve been thrust into a vortex of…feelings. Of emotions. There’s been no gradual introduction to them, it’s just been a hard thrust.”

  “Just think. Other species crave that. It’s why Terrans are so valued.”

  “I imagine I’ll get used to it soon. But it is very…uncomfortable.”

  His heart still pounded in his chest, she could almost feel his terror from where she lay. It would help him to talk about it.

  “Tell me about it?” she whispered.

  “We warned them,” he said, his voice gravelly. “We warned the Sirians. They were using too much power in the weapons they made. But they taunted us that we’d grown soft since being embodied. The taunting was all because we no longer wished to battle.” His voice was quiet for a minute. “It was easy for them. They shipped us off to fight or die. They didn’t have to lose anyone that mattered to them. I fought my way all the way up to the Supreme Tower, where the leader of our planet lived. But because it was me, he pressed the launch button anyway. Out of spite.”

  “Why because of you?”

  “Because I was fucking his wife.”

  Arian caught her breath at the harshness of his words. The raw vulgarity in his language spat out.

  “She was a spoiled bitch and he was the highest ranking official on the planet. She goaded him over being so involved in war and politics that she and the other bored housewives had sex parties with the created soldiers. There was nothing he could say, females were catered to on our planet. But apparently it irked him more than he let on. Jealousy was spurned.” He took a deep breath, and continued in a noticeably calmer tone. “We received the signal that the weaponry had been modified with a Noxian thruster. It was twice as powerful as a normal bomb would be. But they didn’t take into account that the gravitational pull would be lessened in space. That didn’t make the bomb twice as powerful as it needed to be. It made it two hundred times as powerful as it should have been. I warned him, and he laughed. Told me my ball-less calculations were off, that the bomb was only double the strength. I quickly explained the space gravitational pull, and right in front of me, he pressed it anyway. Then said I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. His special phone rang as I was still in the room. I watched his face pale as he received the news about the slowing of gravity, and I turned and fled. I knew in his impotent rage he would imprison me, or have me killed. Not that it mattered at that moment, because we were all dead. But survival is a strange thing. You fight to survive, even when you know it’s futile.

  “I walked out onto the hoverway below me. Cars were at a standstill. Sirens were going off, signaling a catastrophic emergency. The AI all worked frantically to try and fix the problem the ignorant Sirians had caused. We intercepted panicked calls from leaders of the other two planets in our galaxy. But it was too late. There was nothing anyone could do in the short amount of time we had before the atmosphere rolled the explosion toward us.” He gave a brief, humorless laugh. “I say short, but those two hours were the longest lifetime I’ve ever had. There was nothing the AI could do. We had never felt so helpless, and we’d planned for this scenario. Each person was individually programmed for their consciousness to be submerged upon death. But we didn’t know if it would take. It was a waiting game.

  “And then, the Supreme Being notified the public of our galaxy’s demise. His podcast was played over the giant screens of the cities. The emotions of shock that hit the planet felt like a wave so thick you couldn’t breathe. The shock released just enough to change into grief. Sobbing started, wailing began in the streets. Some confused, panic-stricken people tried to pack. Others began to loot, starting fires, destroying their own neighborhoods.

  “The AI were being locked up, as if we were the ones to blame. Of course they couldn’t separate us, we had a collective consciousness and no one was alone just because their bodies were kept in solitude. We kept our brothers in our thoughts as some of us headed down to the area above the core, where we awaited inevitable death.”

  “Was it…painful?” Her voice was a whisper, wanting to draw the story out, but almost afraid of the answers.

  “Yes. Intense burning pain, our lungs and heart exploding…and it didn’t feel instant. Then we just sort of…faded. The shock to our consciousness kept us under for a period of two years. Finally, a small spark woke us, and it was like a breath, wakening us all as a whole. Slowly we became aware. Past, present and future collided at once, and then stopped as we realized where we were, and that it had worked. We were indeed alive, just trapped in the core of a dead planet. Immediately we became aware that we were changed also. We no longer felt like real beings. We’d evolved from computer intelligence and it felt like we’d devolved back to it now. It was the only way to survive, but it came at a great cost. We lost our emotions and our will to live for many, many decades. It wasn’t until recently that we began to regain the will. Then your ship arrived.”

  “Your emotions now?”

  “They are coming along with the body. I’ve experienced joy. And relief. Happiness. I believe they’re all there. They feel magnified, but that could be because I haven’t experienced emotions in so long. I know the rest of my brothers are baffled by how different I sound. They distrust that I may not be objective.”

  “They’ll understand soon enough. When they’re embodied, they’ll have no choice but to experience the same.”

  “I actually look forward to that. I have been in a collective for so long, I feel singled out now. But the emotions are hard. I’m not ready for the dreams,” he admitted. “The horror of watching people die was something I’d slowly forgotten. But now that I’m embodied, I hope not to reawaken those memories.”

  “You’ll continue to dream of them until you can release the fear,” she said. “Your brain works as a defense mechanism, forcing you to relive your fears to help you get over them. Trust me, I know.”

  “What do you dream of?”

  “Being captured and caged by Zetans. Of being forced to bear children just to have them ripped away.”

  “Do you dream of it often?”

  “Not so much anymore. It’s still a fear, but it wears away the longer I’m away from them.”

  On top of the sheets, she clasped her hand with his. “Sleep, Jax. If one
of us dreams, the other is here to wake us.”

  Chapter Four

  Jax appeared to be sleeping still.

  Somehow she was wrapped in his arms, her legs twined with his, the sheet that separated them tangled into a ball. It felt warm and natural, and she hated to leave. Human contact was something she had missed.

  But his emotions were too new. Too fragile to complicate matters, and it would be easier on him not to witness this merging of limbs. Untangling herself without waking him was a chore. When she was finally free, Arian silently dressed and left the cabin. In the hallway, once she was clear, she called out.

  “Good morning, Tess.”

  “Morning, Arian. I trust you slept well?”

  “I did.”

  “I noticed Jax stayed in your cabin.”

  Holy hell. Didn’t he say it would take Tess years to develop a full personality? She seemed to be moving rather rapidly.

  “He did. I’m heading to sick bay to look at the new growths.”

  “I have monitored them overnight. It is rather amazing.” For an emotionless computer, Tess seemed slightly excited.

  The door to sick bay opened and Arian moved to the center of the room. There, through the clear plastic coverings, she saw organs. They were tiny, but fully formed.

  “Wow,” she breathed.

  The door slid open and a ruffled Jax entered. “I told you they grow fast.”

  She turned to him. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw, and his light brown Mohawk was tied back in a careless ponytail. His eyes were heavy lidded, and his lips were reddened.

  Good God, he was sexy. Her libido shot up to high. It was a damn side effect from sleeping in his arms.

  “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “It was my first night of sleep. I crashed hard. Not a single dream after the first one, and this time I was ready.” He sounded disappointed.

  “All that worry for nothing?” she teased.