REPOST:Ghost in the Machine-VOY/TOS NC-17 m/m 2/6
Killashdra
SEE DISCLAIMER IN PART1.
I can't seem to stop thinking about the thing.
I should've destroyed it when Harry found it a week ago.
Instead I keep carrying it around with me, transferring it from
pocket to pocket, like some illicit secret. Thinking about it
makes me feel like a little kid who's broken a lamp and swept the
pieces under the rug.
We had a staff meeting today, and when I looked at the
captain, I caught myself thinking, 'What would she say if she
knew?'
I knew then I was in trouble.
The first hologram I ever wrote was this sweet thing named
Lisa. She was a collaboration with my roommate, sophomore
year. Before that I had done some set design, and nonspeaking
characters, but that was the first time I ever wrote my own AI.
After Lisa, I was hooked.
I think I would have gone into sims full time, but Daddy
wanted his boy to be a pilot. How many times I wished I could
just mess up, just prove I wasn't any good at it. Problem was, I
*was* good at it--and like I said, I'm a terrible liar. So, a pilot I
became. And in the end I piloted myself right into a dishonorable
discharge, and eventually into a jail cell.
Well, that's irony for you. Stay tuned, folks. I've got a million
of 'em.
At the Academy I would hang out down at the sim lab and work
on any project they'd let me, even though it often meant I didn't
sleep. In my senior year I won a Lansing award for character
design. I never did tell my father about that one.
Sandrine's has become a vital part of life on Voyager--but I
know that if it were gone tomorrow, no one would shed a tear.
Except me, of course. In a way, those 'people' are my children.
There's something about writing a real AI that's highly
addictive, and highly personal. When you've written a really good
hologram, it breathes, it feels, it *lives.* You put your soul into
it and when it's done, it's a part of you. The first time you run
that sim, and interact with it, it's like seeing your newborn child.
I've been known to get teary-eyed.
See, the problem is, I never ran this one.
It was probably the most intricate and difficult programming
job I ever did, and I never got to see the results. That was part of
the deal. I got paid a lot of money to write it, and in return I put
everything I had into it, and kept my promises. I never breathed a
word to anyone. I coded the final runtime so only one person
would ever be able to view it; the man who had hired me to write
the thing. The temptation to keep a copy for myself was almost
overwhelming--but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
Maybe it was because I couldn't bear to intrude on the man's pain.
It was that Lansing I'd won that brought him to my door. He
needed the best, he said. At the time, that was me--though I was
still a cadet, and not yet twenty. We sat in my tiny living room
and talked for three hours, while he sized me up. At last, when I
had passed some test of his, he told me what he wanted.
Right away I knew I had to take a shot at it. Maybe it was the
way he sounded when he described the sim he wanted me to write.
He wouldn't look directly at me, but I could hear the pain in his
voice in spite of his control, could see how hard it was for him. I
think coming to me was maybe the most difficult thing he'd ever
done. I didn't want to let him down.
He named a figure, and I said I'd do it. Even at that age my
vices tended to be expensive ones; I was forever spending my
living allowance on better computers, newer extrapolation
modules. But I'd have done it for less--heck, I probably would've
done it for nothing. It was the challenge of a lifetime.
After that first time he didn't come in person any more. I sent
him progress reports, and he sent me the things I asked for,
usually without comment: video files, log entries, medical
records. He worked on the determination matrices himself, and
when he sent them back to me, I knew that this AI would be like
no other I had ever seen. I took everything he gave me and built it
into my newest character generator, and when I ran the betas
they were everything I'd hoped for, and more.
I'll admit I had some doubts, then, about the morality of what I
was doing. It was the only time I ever wrote a sim based on a
real person--and I knew from the betas that I had done my job
very well. In the end I decided that I would leave the
philosophical considerations to the man who had hired me, and try
to put my conscience to rest.
I certainly wouldn't have done it for anyone else.
When it was finished the man came to me, saying little, paying
me in cash. He left with the disk and for days afterward I couldn't
stop thinking about him. I wanted so badly to know that the work
I'd done had brought him some peace. But I had the most awful
feeling of premonition.
Then, about two weeks later, I got this package. It was
delivered to my box at the student union, and it had no return
address on it. As soon as I saw it, I knew what it was.
I opened the thing up, but there was no note inside, no
explanation. Just the disk. I recognized the media brand; it was
the original.
He'd sent it back to me.
For a while I wondered about it, tried to figure out what it
meant. We'd worked on the thing for half a year. He'd spend a
small fortune on it. If he'd been unhappy with my work, why
wouldn't he say that? I might have been able to fix the problem.
But the thing is, I knew that wasn't it. I *knew* that sim was
the best AI I'd ever written... maybe the best ever written, period.
I supposed it was possible that he'd decided the whole thing was
just a bad idea in the first place. But then why send it back to
me? I'd built three hardcore copy protection safeties into the
program--there was no way anyone could make a reproduction.
Why not just destroy the thing?
The only thing I could think is that he'd had a change of heart
about the whole project, but that when push came to shove, he
couldn't bear to wipe the file entirely.
I toyed with the idea of destroying it myself. Or playing it.
God, I almost went crazy with curiosity, wanting to see my
creation with my own eyes. It wouldn't hurt anyone, I told
myself. No one would ever know.
But I guess I couldn't quite face that thought either, because in
the end I just sealed the disk in a protective case and put it out
of my mind. Until Harry dug it out of that box last week, I hadn't
laid eyes on it in years.
And now I can't stop thinking about it.
It's driving me crazy. I'm distracted all the time, can't keep
my mind on work. Today, skirting a tricky little nebula, I forgot
to set the compensators, and almost flew us right into an ionized
boralium cloud. Thank god I recovered before the captain noticed;
she would have reamed me a new one for sure.
I really need to do something to get my mind off this thing,
and I guess there's only two choices. I could destroy it, like I
should have done years ago. Or... I could run it.
Is it rationalization to think that maybe that's what he wanted
me to do? Maybe he sent it to me because, in some strange way,
he needed a witness for what he'd done? Back then I didn't see
that possibility, because back then I didn't understand what guilt
can do to a man. I didn't realize how hard it is to bear one's
crimes in secrecy.
Back then I didn't know firsthand how powerful the need for
confession can be.
Two choices. But I guess there's really only one choice,
because I'm honest enough to know that there's no way I'll ever be
able to destroy the thing without running it first. No more than
he could. I guess in a way we were both possessed by the same
demon.
And now, after all these years, it's demanding to be let out.
(end part 2)
Carol Thomas
Killa,
As per usual, a brilliant story. You have an incredibly poetic voice
and your word choices are almost always exactly right. Not to mention
that, like Tom, I completely overlooked the reason why the disk wouldn't
work for its instigator... ow, ow, ow, heartbreak. This story reached
out and punched me in the gut. Way to go! And a great ending. As
always, write *more*! Faster! <g>
Regards,
Carol Thomas