To Talk of Many Things, Part 1

Posted on Tue 19th Jun, 2018 @ 6:55pm by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran
Edited on on Tue 19th Jun, 2018 @ 9:10pm

1,155 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Intelligence Department and Dr. Anderson's Office, Deck 1554
Timeline: 0900 hours, Day of the Clean-up

It was 0900, and Jade Lantz's cleaning staff had already been at work in Damion's proposed business space for an hour. They were terrifyingly prompt, and Damion was glad that he'd taken care to arrive early. He'd gotten all of the cleaning supplies ready, greeted the six, and told them to clean however they saw fit and that he would see them at lunch. Then he'd taken their pizza preferences and placed an order with Pub 10-42 to deliver at noon.

After that, he had ridden the tram 'northward' toward the part of the starbase more used by Starfleet. There were a couple of unobtrusive side entrances that he knew of to get into the Intelligence department, and he used one of them. The staff there were used to seeing people in all manner of non-regulation clothing. Damion gave his ID code to the crewman on duty, got his biometrics scanned and verified, and went into an empty conference room to place a call to Elizabeth.

Setting up her practice rooms had been more important than her apartment upstairs. After all, Elizabeth didn't have to sleep, and if she did, the floor would be fine. She strategically placed the client chair across from a soothing painting she'd had delivered that morning, when her CD* notified her of a call.

For a moment, she froze. She hadn't yet given the access code to many people ... Jade Lantz, Oto Ando, ... and Damion. It won't be him. He's off-base. It can't be him. She made herself step over to her desk and push accept.

"Dr. Anderson's office," she said in a soothing contralto voice.

The mere sound of her voice made his entire body tingle, and Damion thanked the gods he didn't believe in that he was alone in the room. "Elizabeth, it's Damion," he said. "Can you talk for a few minutes?" It was a relief, he thought, to be able to speak in his normal Edinburgh accent instead of Durant's Turkanan one, even for just a short time.

"Damion?" she breathed softly. "I ... yes, of course. I'm here alone. Are you alright?" It's him! That's definitely his voice. Is he here? I can't ask. Thoughts flew around and around in her head. If she'd been truly human, she would have missed his first words, but part of her listened while the rest of her whirled in dizzy confusion.

"I'm fine, though I miss you a great lot," Damion said. "I'm talking to you from a room in the Intel department. This current assignment has me on base. Have you been able to set up a practice yet?"

"That's what I'm just finishing. Well, arranging furniture anyway. Didn't someone once say if you're ready, patients will show up?" Elizabeth knew she was babbling, but for some reason the idea that he was there on the base ... that he was assigned on the base, while she thought he was parsecs away was unsettling.

"I'm living upstairs, over the office, and on the first floor there's a dance studio. Can we .... Are you still undercover?" she asked.

"I am still undercover," Damion said. "I had expected to be immediately sent away, but it turned out that there's an issue here on Vanguard that must be addressed before I can go elsewhere. In the process of addressing it, I've been assigned to put in place a long-term way of making it possible for my department to work undercover on Vanguard itself when things come up here that we have to deal with. To wit, I had to start a small business. You might come across it at some point. Right now I'm the only employee, but I'll be adding more staff soon."

Elizabeth's processors were working top speed, interpreting what he said, looking for implications for his safety, for their relationship, for Starfleet and its intentions, realizing that he would be on Vanguard, but she couldn't spend time with him. She ached to ask him more about where he was, what he was doing, but she reverted to her public personality when she spoke again, a little less feminine and vulnerable, a little more business-like.

"Is there something in connection with your company where you think I can provide help?" she asked briskly.

"Sort of..." Damion replied, "which is a terribly precise answer, I know. Are you aware that Jade Lantz employs AIs as cleaning staff at her restaurant? She has six of them."

"Yes, she mentioned them to me. I advised her to treat them however she felt comfortable. If you are wondering, they are both like me and not like me. They are AIs and capable of many more things than the average person would imagine. However, they are not as advanced as a Mark IV." Elizabeth spoke impersonally about herself, feeling a little frozen.

Something was off between them, and she was presuming it was because Damion was still undercover, that it was part of the person he'd become. He'd warned her about that, but she was discovering that knowledge of something and feeling it were not at all the same. For a moment, she almost wished she were still entirely ... inhuman machine.

"They aren't meant to be more than what they are programmed to do. I doubt they will ever develop self-programing, as my Mark IV has, but since we don't know why it happened, we can't rule it out. Who knows? Maybe there's an entire batch of corrupted computer chips out there." As she spoke, she realized she was, in a way, beating herself over the head, and she couldn't sort out why, not while she was talking with Damion. What was wrong with her?

"Did you want me to program them to do something for you? It's possible that I could," she told him.

"Good God, no!" Damion exclaimed, stunned that Elizabeth would even suggest such a thing. "That's like brainwashing. No. I wondered if you might befriend them. They're people, as much as you or I are. They get bored. I don't know about measurements of intelligence, but these are not average people. I listened to their conversation as they approached my shop, the first time I met them. Believe me, human cleaning staff do not carry on conversations about the merits of science fiction over other forms of literature--well, perhaps Starfleet cleaning staff might, but among civilian janitors, that would be rare. They are far more intelligent than their job requires. I felt almost embarrassed, having them clean the shop space out for me, even though I'm paying them. At some point they're going to want to do more with their lives than mop floors. Ms. Lantz mentioned she wanted them to become more socialized, and I thought of you. You are beautiful, inside and out. I don't know anyone better qualified to teach them how to be admirable people."

(to be continued)

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*CD = communications device

 

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