by M. D. Cooper
Lyssa searched her memory, looking for any inconsistencies. There was nothing.
Lyssa nodded, frowning to herself, and the world went dark.
* * * * *
The murmur of an environmental control fan was the first sound Lyssa heard. She recognized the frequency and knew that she was back on their ship, the TSS Violent Retort. A moment later, a host of other familiar sounds rolled over her.
She was lying in her room on the narrow bed.
What is the purpose in lying down? I’m wearing a frame. I don’t get tired. I don’t need to rest. And I run the risk of damaging the frame if I don’t strap it down during off-cycles.
Lyssa stopped her racing thoughts. Something about the focus on the frame caught in her mind, and she distrusted the impulse. She often laid down or sat in a chair to avoid awkwardness with humans. There were no humans aboard the Violent Retort, but the habits remained.
Had Camaris planted something in her mind?
What if it isn’t anything as overt as a worm…. What if she simply polluted my thoughts with doubt?
She checked his location and saw that he was on the command deck.
Lyssa crossed her room to the wash station. It was another human affectation to study herself in the mirror, but she found the physicality of looking at her frame through optical sensors comforting. She was physically in the room, on the ship.
Aren’t I?
Lyssa initiated a security protocol to verify her base tokens, pinging known points on the nearby ring network and checking latency against the standards. For an SAI, the fear of being trapped in a virtual space meant that constant verification keys became a lifeline.
Emerson said, having noticed her checks.
The checks came back clean, but she couldn’t shake the doubt. She had never felt so irritated with all the human affectations surrounding her. Why did she even need to sit in a human-scale room? She could occupy the ship itself, fly through space with nothing between her mind and the surrounding data of the physical world.
Lyssa blinked into the mirror, then looked down at her hands, opening and closing them. Every motion and response was a numerical sequence in the back of her mind. The layers of abstraction could fall away, and she would be nothing but a collection of digits, standing in a representation of the world created by input data.
All of that could be falsified.
The doubt continued to push her to test herself.
How do I know I’m not trapped in a simulation? How do I know I survived at all?
Lyssa froze, trapped in her looping thoughts. She calmed herself, focusing on the sensations around her as she pushed her awareness out through the ship. Reaching the communications array, she followed a reporting frequency back to the Mars 1 Port Authority.
A million options presented themselves in the Ring; she chose to hop through a series of comm beacons to High Terra. She opened her awareness on a general Link channel, and data poured through her. Much of it she pattern-matched with existing material: entertainment, forums, learning databases. She focused on live conversations in the open forums, where the data was messy, human, different.
This was the key that no simulation could replicate. Lyssa let millions of conversation threads float through her, sampling from myriad lives. The data was intoxicating. The flow demonstrated certain patterns on the aggregate, but became endlessly strange and random as she drilled down to the point of individual speakers.
In these voices, she knew she was truly in the world. She jumped from a student worrying about a date, to a bureaucrat debating a work decision, to a therapist sitting with a patient in a dim room.
Lyssa paused on that conversation, listening to a woman describe the pain of losing her father. There was something timeless about the conversation. The emotions she described were the same as Lyssa’s over Andy…the same loneliness, the same looping thoughts that refused to leave.
“I know I should have let him go by now,” the woman said. “But sometimes I think the feeling of missing him, of being sad, of being alone—I think I’ll miss those things if they left me.”
‘If they left me.’
Lyssa left the thread, feeling slightly embarrassed for eavesdropping on the woman’s private conversation. She found herself in a sensor overlooking a small living room where a family was watching a vid together. In just a few seconds of dialogue, she recognized the show as Stars the Hard Way.
The actress playing Cara fought a pirate captain on a narrow steel bridge over a chasm. The details of the scene beyond the two combatants were unclear; the show wasn’t about details.
The Bloody Pirate Sykes, as Cara’s character was known, grunted and launched a high kick at her opponent’s head. Her heel landed with a satisfying crunch in the man’s jaw, and he fell backward on the bridge.
Cara straightened, adjusting her shipsuit as the beaten man lay half off the edge of the bridge. He moaned and slid into the chasm.
“No!” Cara shouted. The actress’s voice was higher than Cara’s, and she moved with exaggerated drama.
Lyssa couldn’t help smiling as she watched. During every episode, Cara would demonstrate both violence and her kind heart, two states that usually contradicted each other.
A crewmate appeared behind her to offer a consoling hand on her shoulder.
“If only he’d made the right decision,” Cara said ruefully. “We could have avoided all this bloodshed.”
Back on her ship’s command deck, settled in the captain’s chair, Cara received updates from her crew that could have been easily checked via Link. But that wasn’t the point of the show. Viewers wanted to see Cara back in control, and the crew returned to a state of safety as their ship left for another adventure in the Scattered Disk.
The subtle support of the Anderson Collective wasn’t always recognizable in every episode. Often the bad guys were SAI of one kind or another, demonstrating the dangers of non-organics gone awry. If an SAI showed human emotion, they were a tragic character.
Though these statements had been written into the show, they didn’t change its popularity. Bars held nightly drinking games celebrating the Andersonian propaganda.
In the days since the real Cara’s escape from prison and subsequent launch off Earth, Stars the Hard Way had equally exploded in popularity, and the trend gave no signs of lessening. New audiences loved the campy dialog, thin plots and especially the Andersonian theatrics.
Lyssa noted all this as she sank into the rhythm of the show. She was disappointed when the installment ended and the family didn’t immediately watch another episode.
The doubt faded, and Lyssa felt like herself again. She brought her frame to life and stood in her room for a few more minutes as she re-checked vital systems, then shifted her awareness to the command deck and took control of the ship.
Lyssa said.
A FEW GOOD PEOPLE
STELLAR DATE: 3.22.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Tranquility Sector, Triple Q Manufacturing Campus (Abandoned)
REGION: Luna, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The studio where Stars the Hard Way was recorded was essentially an office suite of interconnected rooms, sparsely filled with furniture, and a cargo bay that had been sealed off from the surface. Stacks of ancient crates and a large shipping container served as props for the actors. Set details and backdrops were added around the actors by an NSAI—a fact Cara was amused to learn, since most of the plots were anti-AI. Camera drones floated near the ceiling, ready to drop and record whenever the action began.
After a short tour for Senator Harrin, they were given seats on the edge of a long conference room, with pairs of chairs facing the end of the room where they were about to record a scene in the Action Objective’s command deck. Cara didn’t bother mentioning that their placement was all wrong. Based on the dialog alone, none of that mattered.
The actress playing Cara was named Llana. After offering her name and a cold handshake, she had ignored Cara completely. The other actors playing Dar, Sam, and Chab were friendly but didn’t offer their real names.
“This is wonderful,” Osla said, slapping his knee.
A new bottle of liquor sat on a small table between the two leaders. Harrin’s face was glossy, and Cara was certain he was only raising his shot glass to his lips for show now.
A round man in a shiny green worksuit entered the room, and all eyes were immediately on him, even Osla’s. Cara deduced that this man was the director.
“Kroska!” the chancellor said. “What do you have for me today?”
“Chancellor.” The director made a show of stopping to bow at the waist. “Senator. It’s my greatest pleasure to have you in our studio today.”
Harrin nodded tightly. He looked like was about to slide to one side, then righted himself.
Kroska’s gaze moved to Cara, and his eyes widened. He clapped his hands together. “Is it true that we’re blessed with the actual Cara Sykes?”
“That’s me,” Cara said.
The director stepped very close to her, inspecting her face from all sides. Cara pulled her head back but didn’t let him push her further. Kroska smelled of sugar.
Stepping back, Kroska nodded with a technician’s approval. “You are excellent. Truly excellent. Glowing skin, good posture, bright eyes. You exude attitude. I love it. I have to film you.”
The ancient word for holo production suggested ownership in a way Cara didn’t like.
“That won’t be possible,” she said, resting her hand on her pistol. “I’m here doing a job.”
“Of course you are,” Kroska said brightly. “You work for the chancellor, yes?”
Cara suppressed a groan. She wasn’t going to get out of this.
“We’re perfectly safe here, Captain Sykes,” Osla said. “Besides, this won’t take long. Will it, Kroska?”
The director rubbed his hands together, looking Cara up and down again. “I’ll take all the time you give me, Chancellor. She’s such a statue. She isn’t tall, but the presence! I see her mother’s anger, her father’s stoicism, even the power of our legendary Harl Nines, all with the ghost of the evil Weapon Born hanging over her, a cure she must always outrun. She combines the genius of Fugia Wong, the ingenuity of Fran Urtal, and the mercenary cunning of Petral Dulan. The distillation of all create our Bloody Pirate Sykes.”
Cara flexed her hands, aching to choke the man.
“You look like you want to kill him,” Harrin observed, grinning with pleasure. “Must mean he’s right.”
“It can’t be enjoyable to have your life turned into entertainment,” Osla said, taking another drink. “But that door opened when it was your face that urged my people to finally escape Insi. We were going to die there until May Walton had the inspiration to recreate Jee-Quera. The people wanted more.”
“We have ninety-five percent viewership among the Collective,” Kroska said. “And we’re growing in all other markets. Whether you approve or not, Captain Sykes, your story now belongs to the people. So, can you imagine how pleased they’ll be to have the actual Captain Sykes appear on our program?”
Cara fumed internally. Had Jentry known this was what Osla meant to do?
“Considering the recent statement you made with the ancient rocket,” Harrin said, “your fight with the Weapon Born Lyssa in the open for all to see, and your arrival on Luna and heroic rescue of their chancellor, this seems to match perfectly with your current personal brand.”
“What personal brand is that?” Cara asked.
“Humanity First, obviously.”
Cara gave the senator a level gaze. “Lyssa and I have our disagreements, but I am not anti-AI.”
“Words and actions,” Harrin said. He burped.
Kroska clapped his hands. “Places!” he called.
The actors took seats in the middle of the room, while anyone not involved in the recording stayed against the walls. Cara stood beside Osla with her arms crossed. The chancellor poured himself another drink.
A production assistant stood before the chancellor and senator, and explained in an anxious voice, “In this scene, the Action Objective has just discovered a ship of SAI slavers on the edge of Psion-controlled space outside Ceres. Heroic Captain Sykes will risk everything to save the Andersonian refugees fleeing the destruction of the Insi Ring.
Cara frowned. The chronology didn’t match, but she supposed that didn’t matter.
“In the midst of the rescue mission, however,” the assistant continued, “none other than Camaris appears, ready to wipe all humans off the Solar plane.”
Harrin nodded, then looked around the room. “Who’s going to play Camaris?” he asked. “I want to get a look at her. She has to look menacing, really evil.”
“That’s our surprise,” Kroska said. “The part of Camaris will be played by our special guest star, Cara Sykes.”
Cara’s jaw dropped in surprise. “That’s not happening,” she said.
Kroska gave her a disappointed look, then grinned. “Only a joke. Of course, it wouldn’t be appropriate for our savior to play the part of ultimate evil.”
Osla guffawed. “You should have seen your face, Captain Sykes.”
“You expected me to think that was funny, Chancellor?”
“You’re more Humanity First than you think,” Harrin said.
Kroska kept the conversation moving. “No, the part of Camaris will be played by one of our loyal local soldiers by the name of Ami Kirienes. Ami!”
A slim soldier in the standard grey uniform ran up to the politicians and bowed stiffly.
“It is my honor to serve, Chancellor,” she said, gaze rapt on the floor.
“You honor me,” Osla replied automatically. “Now let’s see a good fight.”
The soldier straightened and jogged to a position near the wall, ready for her time onstage.
“Your honors,” Kroska said, “We are also joined today by soldiers of the 100th, 151st, 175th, and 201st Freedom Brigades. If you switch to the local visualization assistant via your Link, we’ll quickly inspect the troops and then start our show.”
A connection request pinged in Cara’s link, and when she accepted, the room around her became the command deck of the Action Objective. She swooned for a second at the sudden déjà vu, before the sight of Llana adjusted her memory. The set was off in several places, but mostly realistic as the upgraded cruiser-class she had commanded for nearly ten years.
Once everyone had joined the visualization channel, the scene shifted to a massive parade field, where the four military units were arrayed in standing formations. By a quick count of squads and columns, Cara estimated five hundred soldiers in each unit, standing in massive chambers populated by training equipment, their walls and deck scarred by weapons fir
e.
The soldiers must have received word the chancellor and senator had arrived—they snapped to attention, each with a projectile rifle held at port-arms across their chest. Leaders in front of each unit turned to face out with their troops, and the view swept past each formation.
The soldiers all looked well-fed and equipped, wearing combat armor and harnesses hung with grenades and breaching tools. While they all looked too young to be soldiers—in Cara’s estimation, anyway—most looked if not eager, at least serious.
At the edges of the formations, crew-served weapons like machine guns and short-range portable artillery sat on display.
Once the view had swept the entire four units, a command went through the leaders, which then transferred to the lower ranks.
The formations broke into smaller groups of ten or less, bounding in the low gravity, until the orderly display had dissolved into hundreds of small unit actions. Squads practiced force-on-force, using the training areas for cover, until another command filtered through leadership, and soldiers turned on each other.
Cara watched in fascination. They were really fighting each other. She stared in disbelief as a soldier near their viewing position broke his opponent’s arm, then calmly flipped them around and broke their neck. When he was done with that comrade, he hunted around for someone else to attack.
“What do you think, Randall?” Osla asked, voice disconnected from the scene they were viewing.
“Impressive, Chancellor,” the senator said.
The leaders barked a third set of commands, and the soldiers immediately fell into squads, and then marched back to their original formations. In a minute, the parade display was as orderly as when their visitors had arrived, except for the bodies scattered around the chamber.
“Well done!” Osla shouted, his voice projecting over the formations. “You make the Collective proud today and every day. Your efforts will soon find action, for the good of every Andersonian. Our homeland will be restored!”
Cheers went up in the formations, shaking the chamber.
The view transitioned back to the command deck, and Osla complained.
