What's It All About, Alfie?

Posted on Sat 23rd Jun, 2018 @ 9:25pm by Elizabeth Anderson M.D.

864 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Brushfires
Location: Elizabeth's Apartment, Tivoli Gardens, Deck 1554
Timeline: MD 19, late evening

The night outside had settled down, the reflection of street lamps in Elizabeth's windows dimmed. She sat curled up on the one piece of living room furniture she'd acquired, something called a love seat, though she couldn't find anything in her database on the reasoning behind that. Lost in time, perhaps ... a little like her. Thrown across her body and clutched under her chin in both hands was the knitted afghan Damion had given her on their one date. She was still unsure why he had spent so much time making something for her, but she cherished it. Lying under it brought a sense of safety and comfort.

She closed her eyes to shut out the visual input, turned off her sound wave receptors and sat in the darkness, seeking calm, seeking peace, seeking ... understanding. There had been a time when she didn't think about any of those things, when their pursuit wasn't a part of her vocabulary, let alone her programming. She had been above all those things, above confusion, all-knowing, in a way.

While part of her processors continued to search for information on home decorating, another part searched for documents on intelligence gathering. Still a third section of processors was set to research more ideas on how to bring clients to her door. Other things were running, subroutines which were normal. It still left too much processing power, and she finally set some of that on maintenance mode. With the rest of her attention, she looked at some things that had been floating in the background since her talk that morning with Damion.

Unsure of whether perfect recall was an asset or a liability, she went back through their conversation, sentence by sentence, word by word, trying to define perfect meaning. His first words had been so casual, a simple hello, as if they'd just seen each other the day before, as if their parting had not been fraught with warnings about how long he'd be gone, and how he might change in that time. Then words that made her feel both warm and confused. He'd missed her. Yet, almost casually, he'd followed that with the fact that he was right there on the base with her ... in Intelligence Department offices right that minute. She'd accessed the decks and searched for exactly where that was, a matter of nano seconds to discover he was way at the top of the base. But maybe there were other, more secret locations that weren't listed in the public database.

Any way she looked at it, he was closer than she'd expected, and very strangely offhand about it. Was that due to the nature of the job, or was it something else? She didn't have enough personal experience to know, and even the Federation database didn't know - or didn't choose to divulge facts about intelligence matters. He mentioned setting up a small business, but he didn't tell her what it was or where on the base. Was that a habit of the job? He'd seemed to think, before he left, that she could be in danger of some kind if she were known to associate with him. Was that still on his mind? Was he still protecting her?

Elizabeth knew she could set a facial-recognition program to run through the entire base and find him, but if Damion wanted her to know where he was, who he was pretending to be, he would have told her. She wouldn't do that. She sat up and tucked her feet under her, still covering herself with the afghan. What she really needed were clients to take her mind off her life ... if life was even the proper term. Don't go down that road. For all you know, it ends in madness and shutdown.

Damion seemed awfully taken with these AIs of Jade's. Was that her fault? Had introducing him to who she was becoming given him a predilection for AI lifeforms? He was impressed with this bunch, and really the fact that they could be considered a 'bunch' was something unique. She'd never been part of a group, so how could she judge what they might or might not be capable of becoming? Still, they were essentially robots designed for a particular set of job skills, and given the ability to learn, weren't they? Or ... something else?

Trusting Damion's judgment was natural to her, and if he thought they were special, it could be that they were. There was another puzzle. Why would six AIs acquired by Jade for cleaning her restaurant be more than exactly what they were designed to be? Maybe this was an entirely different kind of Intelligence problem she could investigate. She settled down again, with her head against the soft arm of the love seat and snuggled into the soft blueness that surrounded her. She set her awareness to shut off, mimicking falling asleep, even as her processors and subroutines continued.

What was it Damion had said when he mentioned why he thought she could help these robots? "You are beautiful, inside and out." She'd hold on to that thought for now, and let the future take care of itself.

 

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