Removing the Mask
Posted on Fri 31st Jan, 2020 @ 12:23am by Lieutenant Damion Ildaran
1,083 words; about a 5 minute read
(Privacy encryptions activated.)
I about came undone this afternoon when I met with Elizabeth to explore Brown Sector. Elizabeth took the time to find out what jewelry designs are known from Turkana IV and had two brooch pins made with the Tobin family crest.
I don't think I've ever been so humbled or felt so touched in my life.
When I saw that she had done that, I made a decision in that moment: I will never again use the Edinburgh accent when the two of us are alone.
I should have dropped it around her long before now, and there's really no excuse for why I haven't, except force of habit. I rely on the force of habit heavily; it allows me to live my undercover roles effortlessly, which is how I have to live them. I have to ingrain them so deeply into myself that I can act in those ways without having to think about it.
I think I became so good at it during my Academy days because I really didn't want to be who I was back then--an intimidating punk kid from a backwater world who'd only just learned to read and write and had a lot of social catching up to do, to seem even halfway civilized in the place he'd run away to. I immersed myself into my roles because I didn't want to be me--even though being me was what my instructors thought would make me good at field ops--and it did.
There's an Earth philosopher named Seneca the Younger, who said, "No one can long hide behind a mask; the pretense soon lapses into the true character."
That is partly why you can spend years doing deep cover. Unless you pretty much become the person you're portraying, you'll forget at some critical point, miss some detail, and there's your cover, blown. It really does require a lot of thought-rewiring and careful planning. It requires a lot of thought, period.
Regardless, I'm stripping away this layer that separates the real me from Elizabeth. I'll keep the Edinburgh accent when I'm in uniform and when I'm in public as myself; people are used to it and would perhaps think it odd if I suddenly dropped it. But when I'm with her, I choose to be only the man I really am, from now on. She more than deserves that.
And I do, too.
* * *
During our conversation on the tram ride down to Brown Sector today, Elizabeth told me that being welcome is one thing; feeling welcome is another, and that there were places on the base where she felt unwelcome--or would feel unwelcome, she believed, if people knew that she's actually a holographic being.
I'd like to know where these places are--not so I can go to them like some growling guard dog, but just so I could be aware of them. I'm not sure if I should ask Elizabeth their whereabouts. I don't want her to think I'm trying to be overprotective--though there's a fair element of that. I don't want her to think that I would fight her battles for her. I would--but alongside her, never instead of. I'm still mulling over how to bring up the subject. It pains me that she could be made to feel unwelcome anywhere.
Back to anti-AI prejudice. That Yorick Fuller jerk notwithstanding, I haven't seen a lot of prejudice against independent holographic beings around here, but that's probably because they're so rare. On a personal level, it probably would take some getting used to, if someone discovered Elizabeth's true nature after becoming acquainted with her while believing her human. I can imagine there are people for whom it would be an unwelcome surprise and might even seem like deceit or a betrayal. I sometimes wrestle with that about my cover identities and the assets I develop through them. I deal with it by maintaining a strong sense of mission. And how strong a sense of mission does Elizabeth have? I get the feeling that she isn't fond of the experiment--likely for the same reasons I'm not. I get the feeling her sense of mission comes from the fact that she wants to be independent of Starfleet, and she's willing to take the thread they're offering her. I can feel that strongly from her, and I am entirely with her on that.
But I wonder--would it seem like a betrayal to me if I had never known Elizabeth's secret and somehow, today, found out the truth?
I'm thankful that that's a moot point. And I'm thankful that she has someone who knows who she really is. When the only people you associate with are people who just know your cover identity, that can be the most lonely aspect of undercover work, even as it's also what protects you.
* * *
All that aside, there's an aspect of Starfleet's experiment with Elizabeth that is taking me some time to get used to, and that is how human she is becoming. Pretty recently, I worried that there was some flaw in her programming. She wasn't functioning as efficiently as I expected an EMH to function. As recently as today, she remarked how she "always forgets" how deeply I go into my cover identities once I assume them. Me showing up at her door looking and acting like Corin Durant startled her.
That's what made me realize what was going on. She really is changing on a deep and profound level. All the behaviors that a few weeks ago I thought were alarming logic malfunctions are actually signs of how human she is becoming.
Which begs the question: What is Starfleet's motivation for this experiment? Assuredly, they aren't going to tell Elizabeth, their research subject; that would ruin the research.
And I have to wonder, what are they going to do with her, once they decide they've gathered all the data they need? It would be nice to think that Starfleet had run their test parameters past the Institutional Review Board and the Office of Research Integrity, which oversee the ethical treatment of sapient biological research subjects. But Elizabeth isn't biological. She could literally be considered the property of Starfleet--and that makes my blood boil.
It's enough to make me sincerely want to turn into that snarling guard dog. Problem is, I have to be a lot smarter than that--and more subtle than that--if I'm to have a hope of protecting her--or of just standing beside her.
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