A Meeting with Damion and Daneel

Posted on Thu 20th Dec, 2018 @ 1:15am by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran

888 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Oblivion
Location: Intelligence Department, Damion Ildaran's Office
Timeline: MD 18, 1415

Finally, R. Daneel Olivaw was becoming used to traveling around the base on his own. At first, he and his ... friends? After a quick run through 14 language databases, he found the Terran word was the closest match for those who shared his life. He and his friends hadn't gone anywhere unless they were accompanied by one of the trusted bio-lifeforms. After some time had passed, they went as a group, and then by twos and threes, but now he felt comfortable on his own. There had never been a problem. Most people who saw any of them didn't even tweak to the fact that they weren't bio life.

If he understood historical references correctly, that had been one of the humans' greatest fears in the early stages of robotics. A great scientist had come up with the three laws of positronic brains, which had reassured the populace, and development had proceeded. Part of the acceptance of his kind ... as robots, anyway ... had come from that same scientist writing a number of books and short stories which highlighted how helpful artificial intelligence forms could be. He gave a mental nod of thanks to Isaac Asimov, wherever his spirit found rest.

All this musing had taken Daneel to his destination, the intelligence office of Lieutenant Damion Ildaran. He hesitated only a second, and then pressed the chime. An odd way of announcing one's self, he thought. Much easier to think yourself inside.

"Come in," Damion called out, his attention only half on his prospective visitor. The need to work out a strategy for interrogating one Zelda Alegari, wearer of a biologically indwelling poison ring and would-be transmitter of clandestine signals to parts unknown outside the starbase, consumed his attention. He dabbed at his lips to remove crumbs of oatmeal bannock and washed down his last bite of bannock with a swallow of tea.

His office door whished open, and Damion blinked, startled, at the sight of Daneel in his doorway. He smiled, shaking his head. "Jade said she would send you, but for some reason, I didn't expect you to be here this fast. Come on in, Daneel." He spoke in the Scottish accent he'd adopted years ago, not in his true Turkanan accent, which he used as Corin Durant.

"Is this a bad time, Sir?" he asked. "She said you needed this information as soon as I had it. It didn't take too much searching, and I compared the data from all six of my co-workers. We see the restaurant from most angles constantly during the time it's open. You know, since there are six of us." The A.I. found himself explaining in an unaccustomed way. His perception was flickering from familiar to unfamiliar with the lieutenant, but he didn't have time to analyze the reasons for that.

"It's not a bad time at all," Damion said as he got up to greet his visitor. "I wanted to talk with you, and Jade has given me the opportunity." Damion noted the look of faint confusion on Daneel's face. "I appreciate the six of you collaborating on this; that's a great help. Please, have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?"

"No thank you, Sir. I'm fine. What did you want to talk to me about? Or was it any of us? I'll be happy to answer any of your questions." Happy was a humanoid term. Daneel was programmed to answer anything a bio-form asked, but he was learning a few ways around that, as well as learning to express himself in terms comfortable to humanoids.

"First off, let's take a look at what you brought," Damion said. "Did Jade explain why my department is interested in this woman?"

"Not really. She asked me to look specifically for how the woman paid, and whether she had been into the club again." Daneel nodded at the recording he'd placed on the Lieutenant's desk. "That's an extract of all the footage we have among us, in case there is something we missed. She paid with strips of latinum, and that was the only time she was in the club. However," the AI hesitated, "well, it may be nothing, but she did focus on one particular place in the club several times. We tried to put all the angles together, but we couldn't pinpoint it exactly. She had to be looking at one of three tables, and we've put our combined footage of those tables on the recording, as well." He shrugged, "Maybe one of those people will mean something to you. I'm sorry, Sir. That's the best we could do."

Damion, who typically just went into Orchids and Jazz for a sandwich and to chat with Jade at the bar, wanted to kick himself for having forgotten that their signaler might have gone to the restaurant to report in or to otherwise make herself known to her handler. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "'The best we could do,' he says. Daneel, your observation is bloody brilliant and could well be vital. We want this woman because she was transmitting signals from 109 to a location we've not been able to pinpoint." He slid the recording into a device on his desk and activated it. "Let's find out who she was so insistent upon seeing."

 

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