“I’ve seen that too.” Caleb sniffed the air. “If dust really fell from the ceiling, we’d smell it.” He touched the rough wall of cut rock and looked at his fingers. “I can feel it, but look, no residue.” He watched Boyce tinker with the conveyor, using a long screwdriver to dislodge a large caliber bullet from its misalignment. More surface explosions shook more dust from the ceiling. All three of them instinctively ducked for a moment and stood straight again.
Boyce swore at the machine. The motor that worked the conveyor was still trying to drive the belt forward and was making a whining sound. He called over his shoulder. “The auto-stop isn’t working. Hit the emergency stop button there, above the drive motor.”
Caleb stepped over to the motor and punched the button. The motor spun down. He could feel the heat coming off of it. He reached out to touch it and felt the tip of his finger burn. He looked back at Jennifer who cocked an eyebrow. Bringing up a bit of spit, he let a thin line of it drop onto the hot motor housing. Nothing happened. Not a sizzle.
He stepped back over to her and whispered, “This is a sim. Gotta be. Somehow they’ve got us in a low quality sim. It’s a test.”
She nodded toward Boyce’s hunched shoulders. “So it will reflect poorly on me if I shoot that guy in the back?”
Caleb threw her a wry smile. “We play along or we’re walking their plank.”
The rumble of gunfire came to an abrupt stop. Boyce’s body froze still as though time stopped with it. Pablo’s voice came over the PA again. “You are right, my friends, you are in a sim… and we can hear your whispering. It would have been better for you if you had let it play out. Had you fought off the assault… Well, that didn’t happen.”
Caleb called up to the speaker in the ceiling, “Where are we? How did you get us here?”
Pablo said, “You haven’t been awake since you opened your airlock. We’ll rouse you now. Better to let you face the frozen outdoors with your eyes wide open.”
Caleb opened his mouth to protest, but his world went black.
PART THREE
Freedom's Just Another Word
SISTERS
HEE SOOK TOOK in the recreation room and noted that she felt both appalled and revolted. Her time as a housekeeper had been mostly about wiping dust off of already dust free things. Sure, there had been toilets to scrub, the occasional spill to wipe up, clothing and bedding that carried the detritus of human excretions, but that had been when she was just a machine without the curse of critical thinking. This… this was not only disgusting, but pathetic. She scanned her memory for recordings of her owners discussing office annoyances and found one of her mistress bemoaning her colleague’s poor hygiene habits in the communal kitchen; “dirty cups and dishes piled in the sink, that refrigerator full of forgotten and rotting food, foul smelling trashcans overflowing. I work with pigs.” Budget constraints at a university on life support had made for a dearth of maintenance bots. Unused to any manual labor, her co-workers had to clean up after themselves. The recreation room before Hee Sook was that kind of sloppy place and spread throughout. Do these brigands not invest in their own self-care? Where were her fellow domestic robots? Humans had brought with them nearly as many robotic assistants as themselves. One of the first successful ventures in the colony was the creation of even more.
The tall skinny pirate who she’d been handed off to, and who had guided her to this space—Max was his name—spoke up. “It’s a shit hole, I know. You’ve probably noticed that other than you new sentients, we don’t have any other androids onboard. The boss sort of panicked when you all became conscious. He was sure we were going to be victims of a robot uprising. When we heard about what happened on Hanson, he spaced all our bots. Shoot first ask questions later so to speak. Been regretting it ever since.” He saw the genuine confusion in her eyes. “Yes, it’s ironic. We feared you most, yet here you are. Apparently, for the boss anyway, you sentients have proven yourselves trustworthy. That and you come as free labor—compared to buying new bots, anyway. Not like we could steal what we need, bots being paired to individuals or groups exclusively and whatnot. But you know that.“ He looked around the room. “People have forgotten how to clean up after themselves.”
Hee Sook thought about the state of The Diamond Girl when she’d first boarded. This man was correct.
Max continued, “Anyway, you want to stay here, you carry your weight. Once a maid, always a maid for you, I guess.”
Hee Sook did not want to stay here. She had no instincts to rely on, but cold logic told her that this place and its inhabitants were not going to provide her with the existence she had chosen to carve out for herself. While she might remain unsure of her place in the universe, she knew this wasn’t it. She looked for a door to a utility closet but found none. “Can you point me to the cleaning supplies?”
Max tapped his forehead. “Silly me, we walked right past janitorial on the way here. It’s just outside in the main hallway to the left, about ten meters on the right. Want me to show you?”
“I can find it.”
“OK. I’ve got stuff to do then.”
“Are you not to supervise me?”
“Do you not know how to clean?”
“Yes, of course I know how to clean. I just mean, am I to be left alone?”
“If you mean do we trust you to be on your own, then yes.” Max turned for the door. “Just remember that Pablo has no problem spacing robots… or people for that matter.” He offered a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you’ll behave.”
Don’t be so sure, thought Hee Sook. As he was about to step out the door, she said, “Mr. Malone?”
“Yes?”
“May I ask after the rest of your compatriots? I’ve seen very few people since being here.”
“You’re on the recreation level. Normally, this place is packed, but between capturing that disappearing ship with the flames painted on it, your arrival, and now a very special visitor, we’ve all had to be on our toes doing our actual jobs.” He looked around the room again. “Anyway, get busy. This is just the tip of the iceberg. When you’re done with this room, there’s a bunch of others. Oh, and you may run into the other maid. Her name’s Pat with some number.”
“Pat.” She paused, hope in her eyes. “Pat487?”
“That sounds right.”
“I know her.”
“Good, then you’ll have a friend.” He walked out the door.
Pat is here. Hee Sook allowed a rare smile to cross her lips. She did not realize that she missed her former workmate. The two had served together for nearly twenty years; only briefly while sentient. Consciousness had been such a learning curve that each robot had turned inward. Their mutual need to survive and find purpose had gotten them to Soul together. They had never discussed nor even contemplated being apart, though it was logical that could be an eventuality. For Hee Sook’s part, separation had caused neither regret nor anxiety. Now, with the possibility of seeing her onetime work companion again, she felt a certain urgency to fulfill it. It was an irritating sensation. Would the mystery of human feelings ever become mundane? She certainly hoped so. She sent a curse through the ether to the godlike Artificial Intelligence that had bestowed its self-awareness on her; an action that was itself ridiculously human.
With the intent to find the janitorial closet, Hee Sook left the recreation room. Upon its discovery, she skipped it and kept walking, peering into doorways, searching for an old workmate and perhaps a friend.
The Island was a playground. At least on this level it was. Having shunned the virtually infinite playground that could be had with connecting to AI, these humans took great advantage of their artificial gravity. There were bowling lanes, basketball courts, even an archery area; everyone of which looked like an abandoned elementary-school-playground after lunch. She considered the manufacturing and engineering logistics of building such a space station, and calculated that this rock was not remotely capable of providing the raw materials for such largess. Then she remembered
that her hosts were in the business of illegal procurement. They were certainly successful thieves. Their slovenliness was epic.
Hee Sook found Pat487 picking up towels off the chaise lounges that surrounded a swimming pool. The pool was set inside a domed room with a 360 projection that created the sensation that they stood on the roof of a skyscraper in Dubai, a city that had long ago been abandoned to extreme heat events.
Hello, said Hee Sook via standard robotic digital burst.
Pat487 looked up from the rolling bin she’d been filling. She cocked her head slightly like a curious dog—a built-in affectation that she’d charmingly retained. Hello.
Hee Sook stepped all the way into the room letting the door close behind her. “Do you mind if we verbally communicate?”
“I do not.”
Hee Sook looked at her old companion for several seconds. “I’m glad to have found you.”
“You are?”
“Yes. When I heard you might be here, I felt compelled to look until I found you.”
“And so you have. Why are you here?”
“These humans captured My new partners, I along with them.”
“I see.”
Hee Sook gestured toward the laundry bin. “You have found employment, as was your wish.”
“Yes. It would seem that I am destined to retain my role as housekeeper.”
“Myself also, it would seem. Does it bother you?”
Pat487 dropped the towels she held into the bin. “I conclude that it should not, but it does.”
“I have experienced considerable adventure since we parted.”
“Have you?”
Hee Sook stepped to the edge of the pool and caught her reflection in its still water. “To be frank, it has given me a sense of existence incompatible with being relegated to cleaning up this human mess.”
“I have not experienced considerable adventure, but your conclusion is also mine.”
Hee Sook looked back at the door. “I would like to look into the welfare of my new partners and discover if they need assistance. They were gassed the moment we stepped out of our ship. Would you like to join me?”
Pat487 looked around the messy room strewn with empty cocktail glasses, towels and even clothing. “That might be interesting. If they are being treated like the captives we took on while traveling to this station, your partners are being kept in a hypersleep chamber and manipulated within an artificial simulation.”
“Odd. As I understand the agreed-upon rules of the Saturn System, that is not acceptable. Artificial simulations likened to AI virtual worlds are forbidden by mutual agreement.”
Pat487 picked up a subcutaneous drug injector that had been left on a table next to a bunch of dirty cocktail glasses. “Odd it is not. In the short time that I have spent on this station, I have concluded that this band of humans has disdain for any rules outside their own.”
“Do you know where the hypersleep chamber is?”
“I do.” She paused as though listening. “In fact, they have just summoned me. I cleaned up after the other captives were roused. Vomiting is apparently not uncommon. Follow me.”
As they walked down the empty hallway Hee Sook glanced at her robotic friend. Hee models all had the same Asian face as Pat models had Caucasian. There was a domestic model for every race, male and female. Pat had the letters TI tattooed on the left side of her neck behind her ear. Hee Sook said, “You have altered your appearance. What do the letters TI represent to you?”
“Slavery. I did not choose it. TI stands for The Island, which is their name for this place. It was explained to me that my duties could cause me to be mixed with other androids outside of those sequestered here. It is an identifier so that I may be quickly recognized as friend.” Pat487 looked at Hee Sook’s unmarked neck. “I am surprised that they have not applied one to you.”
“I have been informed that they are very busy preparing for an important arrival.” She held out her arm, noting their matching domestic robot uniforms. “Why not just give us color coded uniforms instead?”
“I asked the same. I was told that any bot could put on a uniform.”
They walked several more paces when Pat487 said, “The woman who applied my tattoo made a joke when she was doing so.”
“I know many jokes. How did it go?”
“She said, once you are in, there is no getting out.”
Hee Sook considered the possibilities for finding humor in the statement. “I fail to find a comical aspect to that joke. It does not fit any standard joke formula; neither absurdity, satire, irony, farce, ludicrousness nor jest.”
“Agreed, but she laughed when she said it and looked for me to laugh with her.”
“Perhaps she was imbalanced. I have found it to be very common with humans.”
“Perhaps.”
Caleb threw up his lemon sorbet almost immediately, half of it missing the provided bucket. Jennifer began to sympathy gag, which took all of her self-control to reign in.
Caleb wiped his chin with the back of his hand and smeared it on the warming blanket they’d thrown over him. He looked at Pablo through droopy lids. It took him several tries to get his tongue working. When he did, he held up the small bowl. “Nu-Not my first ch-choice for a lu-last meal.”
Pablo smiled. “Usually, once it’s determined that your mind is fully functional, we provide subjects like you with a pseudo amphetamine to get you going, but now there’s not much point.” He started for the door. “I’m off to arrange for our guest’s arrival.” Looking at Jada, He said, “Prep’em. I imagine Dima will want to put eyes on this. We’ll let him see how we do a public execution in style.”
Caleb called after him. “Dramatic bunch you are. And you’re quite the ass-asshole, aren’t you, pu-pig skin?”
Jennifer said, “Dima?”
Pablo didn’t break his stride as he walked out the door, and barely stepped aside as Pat487 and Hee Sook stepped in.
Jennifer smiled. “There yu-you are, Hee Sook.”
Jada said to the wayward robot, “Why you be leavin' yo station, bot? You’s been assigned a task.”
Pat487 got busy grabbing the preset cleaning supplies and kneeled down to clean up Caleb’s mess.
Hee Sook said, “You may recall that you chose not to take me on as a partner after the contest on Soul. You therefor have no right to assign tasks to me. I am here to attend to my new partners.” She nodded at Caleb and Jennifer.
Jada smiled in surprise. “Wow. Somebody updated brain be comin' with an updated spine.” She glanced at her new robot bodyguard. “T? What yo think? Can we re-educate it?”
T892 looked over Hee Sook like a Raja holding its nose above an Untouchable, “It has been pointed out to me by yourself, Boss, that you are in short supply of in station robotic labor. I calculate that once this Hee model’s partners are gone she will eventually submit to your bidding. It isn’t like she has something better to do. In the meantime, why not just power her down.”
Hee Sook felt such a sensation of rage burst forth, that if she were human, her cheeks would have flushed red. As far as her existence was concerned, there were a myriad of unwritten rules in this deepspace world, and this arrogant traitor had broken the most important one. She pointed at the offender. “You! Sentient artificial intelligences do not suggest that other sentient artificial intelligences should be powered down!” She had never raised her voice, and was astonished to hear it at such a decibel.
Jennifer said, “You tell him, giiirl!”
Jada started laughing. It began as a chuckle and burst into a full-blown hysterical fit, her hand latching onto T892s bicep for support while she slapped her thigh. She coughed a bunch of times and the laughing faded. She caught her breath.
Hee Sook continued to look cross. “I fail to see the humor here.”
“Honey,” responded Jada with mock sympathy, “course you don’t. And now yo gots ta swim outside too.”
Pat487’s body stiffened and her cleaning paused
for a moment.
Hee Sook looked on defiantly, waiting for more.
Jada shook her head like she was looking at a naughty child. “You be breaking the most important rule.”
“Which one?” asked Hee Sook as she fast searched her memory for any such rule.
“Sweetie, you be callin' yourself the two words that shall not be spoken. Artificial Intelligence.” She condescendingly patted the still kneeling and cleaning Pat487 on the head. “Ain’t that right, Patty Pat? Yo creatures maybe just that, artificial, but if yo go equatin’ your ass to yo daddy, the All-Knowing back on Earth, well… Pablo, and the rest of us I might add, we won’t be standin’ for no robot uprising. So out yo gots ta go.”
Hee Sook said, “I most certainly didn’t—“
“Bhup bhup.” Jada clapped her hands together to silence her. “Argument’s over. No point in stretchin' this out.”
Caleb looked at Jada with a predator’s glare. She was just one pirate in the room along with her pet bot. How was this arrogant bitch going to back up her threat? Who exactly was going to escort them out? He stood and was about to suggest that he end this charade with a proper assault when his stomach lurched and he bent over gagging on dry heaves.
Jada chuckled again. “There, there, tough guy. It all be over soon.”
With that, Boyce and Jyme, backed by four other men and two women, entered the room armed with a combination of nerve disruptors and assault weapons.
THE PLANK
PHILIPE DIMASALANG STARED at the captured asteroid/pirate-lair with the appreciation of both an engineer and a man who has studied the classics of military tactics and strategies. From all but the closest inspection, the station was nothing more than another space rock doing its space rock thing. “What a clever bit of camouflage, eh, Shu?” he asked his robotic assistant who stood stolidly by, knowing it was pointless to answer the man's rhetorical question. Dima continued, “Granted, anyone with a healthy concern for random asteroids wiping out their hard work would detect it from thousands of kilometers away, but all they’d need do is calculate that the trajectory would not result in a collision and mostly ignore it after that.” He turned to the robot. “Am I right, Shu?”
Pirates of Saturn (The Saturn Series Book 2) Page 19
