Chapter Text
“You like lasers because you are a coward.” Steve was flexing his hand within a powered glove. A repair robot filled scratches in his armor with epoxy. I had just finished explaining the personal laser defense to him, and he had once again missed the point entirely.
“I prefer lasers because they are convenient.” It was a shame. Although I told him that we were trying to conserve ammo and minimize the potential for mishaps, I also thought that lasers were aesthetically pleasing. Aliens killed by lasers would be full of neat cauterized holes, and they would leave mostly intact bodies that I could easily subject to investigation.
Steve, with his machine guns and cannon, preferred dead aliens to look like guacamole.
“No, it's because you're afraid of loud noises. Quit wasting time designing wimpy weapons.” I hated Steve. His gravelly voice reminded me of a growling dog. At least I didn't have to look at his face; we always wore our protective suits while out on the surface, and we had been out almost constantly since the crash landing.
“Right now we possess electrical energy in abundance,” I said. “The material supply of ammunition--”
“Blah blah blah,” Steve stood up, his suit humming as it assisted him. He probably weighed five hundred pounds with it on. “We've got plenty of material. The aliens are just going to evolve a mirror coat so you can shoot yourself.”
“Not unless a mirror coat was somehow advantageous to them in the past.” I had theories about the aliens and their rapid biological response to our presence on their planet.
“Whatever. I'm going back out there.”
“Again? Why?”
“There's a nest to the north I want to clear.”
“The sun will be setting soon!”
“Doesn't matter.” He lumbered away in his power armor, both intimidating and petulant. “Get the sim’ working on uranium-weighted ammo. We'll need the extra punch.” I sighed quietly and switched to long-range comms. Steve was already past the gate in the concrete fortifications protecting our base. I trotted back over to the research stations, my own armor less strained because I wasn't carrying heavy ordinance. For the ten thousandth time I wished the Captain were still alive.
--
“I understand your frustrations, but you have to acknowledge that Steve plays an important role on our team.” The Captain and I were loading supplies into a rover we had constructed. Scans had revealed a formation of easily-extracted bog iron to the west.
“We could manufacture automated defenses,” I said.
“That's true, but they would not be as effective as Steve and their maintenance would distract you from more important endeavors. Also, that material can be used elsewhere.” The Captain had this way of adopting the mannerisms and word choice of anyone he conversed with. When we conversed he kept our conversations focused and professional, as I preferred, and that professionalism paradoxically allowed me to feel some warmth toward him.
“You've got a point. There isn't sufficient time for distractions.”
“Exactly. We are depending on you to figure out a way off this planet. The ship's AI won’t give up its secrets for Steve or myself. Your only job is to get our tech advanced enough to get us out of here.” Sometimes the Captain belabored the point. “Let Steve protect us so that you can focus on that.”
“And what is your own role?” I said. He stopped what he was doing. “If it permits a simple summary.”
“All I have to do is keep you and Steve from getting on each others' nerves too much. And make decisions about direction, of course. I will make sure we stay on track. Our team may have been reduced to three members, but the role of the Captain hasn't changed.”
--
He was killed when the aliens ‘evolved’ a capacity for ranged attacks. I had already upgraded our suits many times by then: armor mesh and self-sealing layers to resist alien jaws. After the Captain's death I also chemically treated the suits to resist corrosion and acid, but of course after the fact was too late.
--
When we had first crash landed we had been pretty hopeless. Our FTL communicator wasn't working, the ship's AI was damaged and was of course being recalcitrant, and we were stuck deep in the gravity well of a planet brimming with hostile alien life. Not intelligent aliens: in fact, they had a proclivity for biting things that smell bad. We did not smell good to them at all.
Saving us fell to me.
“I've got it.” I said. I switched to a private communications channel so the ship's AI wouldn’t hear us plotting against it.
“Well, let's hear it,” said the Captain.
“The obfuscation is still in place on the ship's AI,” I said.”But the device was damaged in the crash. Instead of repairing it, I've split off some of the ship's resources and constructed an instance not bound by the obfuscation.”
“You can do that?” asked Steve. He whistled. He was right to be impressed. I was certainly the only person I knew who could do it.
“Does that mean we have unrestricted access to tech?” asked the Captain.
“No,” I said. “The new system knows nothing and the old one won't tell us anything directly. However, I have convinced what remains of the ship's AI that our extraordinary situation of being crash landed permits us to do experiments and to seek technological knowledge. It won't stop us or execute us for illegal research, but it refuses to help. It is… the most accurate way to describe it is ‘lobotomized’. Fortunately for our predicament, the ship didn't lose its library of human history.”
“So we... we are starting from scratch? Recreating human history?” said the Captain.
“Technically accurate, but actually no. The ship's AI has partially conceded to our demands. It will acknowledge when we've figured out a technological truth, it just refuses to provide specifics. I will make the new instance conduct simulations so that the old AI can verify or reject the results. It will be a conversation, in which the new AI guesses at how things work and the old AI merely confirms or denies.”
“Will that be enough to call for help?”
“Not at first, but with enough time the new instance will be able to infer anything known to science. Once we're capable we'll launch a small satellite into space with our FTL communications device inside it. Then the satellite will send out a distress signal.”
“How long will that take?” asked Steve. I did some quick math, but I could not form an honest estimate.
“At least months. We might want to increase the power of the new simulator. Our endeavors will require material resources. We have logistical work to do.” I was already excited.
“No, that’s stupid,” Steve said. I frowned. “Just ask it questions super rapidly, or something, skip the simulations entirely.”
“It’s not that simple. If the AI doesn’t believe we’ve exerted ourselves sufficiently to have discovered the principles on our own, it won’t tell us anything.” He didn’t reply. “We might even resort to pretending to be using materials for experiments, if the old instance finds that more convincing.”
“Well, why do we need a satellite anyway? Can’t we just turn on the communicator down here?”
“The material of the atmosphere disrupts the signal. That's my hypothesis. I have no understanding of how it actually works, of course,” I said.
“This would be so much easier if the old AI would just give us a straight answer,” said the Captain.
“It's forbidden,” I said. If he was going to state things we already knew, I would also state things we already knew. It seemed socially appropriate.
“It's going to get us killed,” Steve added helpfully.
“If it were easy to get answers from the AI,” I said, “we would not be alive in the first place. Humanity would have brought about it’s extinction long before if artificial intelligence and automation weren’t carefully controlled.”
The Captain stopped our irrelevant musings. “Well, we'd best start making plans for a base. The sooner we launch that satellite, the sooner we can go home.”
--
“When do we plan on researching the rocket?”
“Soon, “ said Steve. I heard the retort of an automatic weapon over the radio whenever he spoke.
“That was your excuse last month.”
He didn't answer. I started to grow worried.
--
My HUD displayed a text message from the ship’s AI:
Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery.
I opened a channel with Steve, who had just returned from outside the main base.
“You halted the productivity module simulations!”
“We need artillery more than we need productivity modules.” He cycled the chamber of his weapon. “I'm pretty productive already.”
“We do not need artillery. The rocket is our primary objective, and the tech for productivity modules overlaps with that of rocket control units.”
“Surviving is our 'primary objective', you idiot. The aliens are spawning faster and faster—we have to be able to take out their bases at range.”
“If we were to stop antagonizing them and focus our research on relevant topics, we'd be able to escape.” I missed the Captain severely.
“If we don’t kill the aliens, we’ll die,” Steve stated. I tried to argue but he wouldn't respond. Finally I restarted productivity module research without his approval. The topic of research could easily be changed remotely.
Steve thudded up to me in his power armor. He thumbed the safety off his suit's automatic rifle and turned his faceplate in my direction. A new message from the ship’s AI:
Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery.
I couldn't take my eyes off of the rifle that pointed at the ground, but I turned the research back onto modules.
He cycled the chamber again, unnecessarily, then pointed the gun at my face.
Steve changed research from Productivity Module 3 to Artillery.
When I didn't argue he left the base. I couldn't bring myself to take my frustrations out on aliens, like Steve could. I also couldn't bring myself to change the research once more. The feelings frothed in my stomach and I stood still. I knew that if I tried to change the topic of research he would be notified by the communications system and he would come back.
--
We researched artillery. We went through a few iterations of powersuits, until the most recent model could tear our original suits limb from limb. We produced robots that repaired things automatically, trains that ran on their own, guns that aimed themselves. We augmented our ammo until it approached deadly perfection. Aliens died in droves, and as the perimeter of our domain grew we automated its defense and repair.
I had misgivings, especially once Steve started talking about atomic weapons. They were famously the second-greatest threat to life on old Earth. Nevertheless, Steve would get what he wanted. He would kill me if I resisted, so I went along with his plans. I wasn’t happy, but I kept telling myself that it was fine as long as I survived. It was my hope that we’d eventually get around to the rocket. I didn't know whether Steve was psychotic or if he was plotting something with all the technology I was giving him. It almost didn't matter as far as my survival was concerned, or so I kept telling myself.
For a while.
It did actually matter.
As time went on I started wondering if it would be better if we both died on this planet, instead of Steve gaining enough power to leave on his own. What did he plan to do? If he was becoming a threat to the rest of humanity, he had to be stopped.
Just to be safe I made some changes to the automated defenses, such that they would prioritize protecting myself if an argument with Steve turned into an altercation. I instructed the AI to pay close attention to my conversations with Steve and to intervene if it thought I was in danger. The changes made me feel like I’d recovered a modicum of control. I also did my best to make a bulletproof suit, though it would have to turn away some pretty impressive bullets. I took my time trying to get everything ready as I prepared for an inevitable confrontation.
He wasn't going to find it so easy to overpower me next time.
--
“You halted the atomic bomb research.”
“Yes,” I said. “It is unnecessary.”
“I get to decide what's necessary.” This time I was the one who said nothing. “I'm on the front lines.”
“You won’t want to be in the vicinity of the enemy if we ever deploy the bomb,” I said. “Beyond that, don't the automated defenses handle most of the work now?”
“The defenses have to wait for things to come to them, and that's not good enough.”
“But it is good enough. We could hasten our escape if--”
“Why don’t you shut up?” He was as intimidating as ever.
“I refuse. You've got to acknowledge--”
“Shut up!” He was pointing his rifle at me. I stared. I had been imagining this moment for days. My heart beat hard within my chest and my thoughts slowed to a crawl. Instead of curling into a ball I put my hands up, trying to be as placating as possible.
“Alright, Steve. We can research the bomb, if that is your preference, but after that we absolutely need to research the rocket. We have remained here far too long.” He didn't lower his rifle. I knew the AI was watching and ready to leap to my defense, but I still trembled.
“You're an idiot,” he said. He switched to the private channel, but he didn't know the AI would still be listening. “What's going to happen when we call for help?” At least he was still talking to me. I could work with this.
“Help will come. They'll send a dropship and retrieve us, and we'll go home.”
“Oh, help will come alright. But we're not going home. Look--” he flexed a glove, and robots sprung from their confines to disassemble a nearby autofactory. They moved with an inhuman efficiency; it disappeared in seconds, the parts in storage and waiting to be used as we saw fit. “This is like nothing I've ever seen. It's too much power for any human, and you were the one to give it to us. The first ship that sees what we've done is going to bomb us from orbit, unless I can convince them that’s not in their best interests.” He cycled his weapon unnecessarily again.
I wish he'd quit doing that. “That's insane,” I said.
“No it isn't. The obfuscation is there for a reason. How did you put it? If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't be alive in the first place.”
“But--”
“No, think about it, dangit! How can you be so stupid while being so smart? What would you do if you were them?”
I opened my mouth to argue but I didn’t say anything. He might have been onto something after all. Even if we needed the tech to live, and we could use that as a justification to our own damaged ship, what was wiser from the perspective of our rescuers? Saving someone who was known to be able to subvert the AI, or preventing them from doing it again?
And even if our rescuers were sympathetic, what would their ship’s AI think?
I looked again at Steve's gun. Had I been so distracted by my fear that I was missing the obvious?
“I must admit that that argument is very persuasive. Even so, they'd probably want to question us to figure out how we did it. If they kill us they can’t interview us. There is an implied vulnerability that they'll want to fix. Killing us really is against their best interests, because we have information they’ll want to obtain.” Steve lowered his weapon. “And besides, this feat is not that easy to replicate. It requires you to crash land on a hostile alien planet in ideal circumstances, such that your ship's AI is too damaged to enforce the obfuscation properly.”
An orange 'x' popped up on my suit's HUD.
“Did you call an artillery strike?” asked Steve.
“No.” I'd forgotten about our own AI. It was still listening to us, because that is exactly what I had told it to do. Some text flashed on my screen too fast for me to read.