The Scared and the Helpless
08 Dec 2022Sylvie Wayfare
The screen at the bar had a torrent of words coming down as The Southern Sun’s AI did a scan of its systems. A fair bit has changed as Sylvie sits, watching the words fly by. Normally, she would trust Susanne to do this on its own, however, this time is different. Susanne was not too keen on the idea, but reluctantly agreed to the temporary changes in the ship. What used to be a long range luxury cruise ship, fitted with the best tech in passenger comfort a lone engineer can provide was now made to accommodate a rescue ship role, granted with some compromises.The ship’s hull can’t be modified. Any changes and it loses the ability to breach the atmosphere of water worlds, something Sylvie was not going to risk needing a whole new beluga to do. Especially since Susanne is very much tied to this ship. The luxury accommodations were almost entirely stripped out in order to hold more people for the short trips. While the movie theater was still in place, Susanne had to keep the intended use disabled, and was more of just a quiet place to stay. Some respite from the commotion in the rest of the ship. The pool in the upper deck was empty and covered.
The bar that Sylvie sat in had its tables removed, but the bar itself stayed in order to issue out food and water to those who needed it. Lastly was the small med bay by the life support systems. Sylvie still never got around to changing that out ever since taking classes from C.E.A. controlled space on field trips. It ended up being more useful to keep it rather than change it out for more cabin space.
The scan finishes, and Susanne’s name replaces the long scrolling list of systems that it can and can’t see. “Scan finished. While the - feeling - is different, I’ve adapted to them. Removing systems takes less time to upgrade than adding them.” Susanne’s synthetic voice was monotone as it spoke. “Satisfied?” But it was more comfortable to show emotion to its maker. Wording was usually enough to show emotion when the voice always stayed the same.
Sylvie stood up from the bar, her own smug, smiling face was more stern. She was not too happy either. The bubble was burning. Her home was burning. People are scared, and now, so is Susanne. Even more than a paranoid AI usually is. “Yep. I think you’re ready hun. Ready to save the galaxy?” She still tried to stay somewhat positive. Gutting her life’s work into a rescue ship, even temporarily, felt wrong to her. But with a war threatening most of human occupied space, her options were limited.
“I have yet to receive communication from your colleagues.” Susanne wanted to delay the inevitable, or at least get Sylvie to think of something else.
She sighed and crossed her arms. “You know the rest of the engineers and I don’t share secrets. Half of them are already working on new tech for the war, and the stuff I specialize in won’t add much to their work. I only really do computer, life support, and cabin comfort.”
“Perhaps a more reliable shutdown countermeasure.” Doors open and close as Sylvie walks closer to her destination, Susanne’s voice following her through access panels on the ship.
“That’s all hardware hun, you know I’m too old to work on anything like that. Besides, I’m willing to bet at least one of them is working on a new one already. Nobody can get near the maelstroms with the current tech.” The final door opens and she walks across the room to the pilot’s seat.
“You made reference to your age again Sylvie. Are you sure you can pilot this ship in that kind of situation?” Sylvie places her hands on the controls as Susanne continues. “I know you’ll bring up the subject with me again. I do have data on my first encounter with - unknown - however, it exhibited more docile behavior. I’ve received reports that entities attacking human occupied space have a drastic change in behavior.”
Sylvie sighs, looking to the display. “Yea. These are different.” She takes a hand off the control stick to rub her cheek. “But people are scared hun. We need to get them out. I already know I’m running a risk having so many negative emotions around you, but they need help.” Her hand goes back to the control stick. “Just do what you do best and help me keep the ship on track.”
Sylvie starts to activate the ship. The display in front of her turns red, and a message appears in front of her. [UNKNOWN USER. ACCESS DENIED.] Her brow raises, and she looks back to the display where Susanne’s name should be. “Don’t do this.” Rarely has Susanne been actively defiant.
“Neat trick.” Sylvie says, seeming to be at least somewhat amused at being locked out of her own ship. “How long have you been holding onto that one?”
“Two months.” it replies. “I needed a means of disallowing you to endanger my existence.” Sylvie’s brow raised even higher, and it continued before she could press further. “I have a means of escaping in case of ship destruction. However, - unknown - and entities like it are known for corrosive attacks and environments. My core will not survive in open space around them. I can’t let you take the risk.”
Sylvie sighs again and stands up. She starts to walk out of the cockpit, this time, using the manual controls to open the doors. She walks at a steady pace, manually operating each door as she makes her way to the lower decks. To Susanne’s core. Eventually, at a quiet corner of the ship where passengers don’t go, she pulls off a metal panel. Almost as soon as she does this, the sound of metal scraping and sliding echoes through the empty spot where the core was. Sylvie sits down near the opening. “I’m not gonna disconnect you. I just wanna talk with you nearby.”
There is only silence as the metal stops somewhere far away. Susanne has only a one way means of communication where her core is, as well as the spots where it can move to.
Sylvie knows this, it was more of a way of keeping Susanne safe as it could not speak if someone was down here. The rail system for moving the core is something Susanne took full control of, in case someone wanted to manually do something to it. “I know trying to talk a paranoid AI into helping people was gonna be a tough sell from the start, hun. But since you’re gonna lock me out, I guess I’ll have to make my case here.”
The ship remained silent.
“You learn and grow based on human emotion. That was an unintentional design, but a design nonetheless. Taking on large groups of people, all frightened of giant pinwheels hell bent on our destruction will likely have an impact on you. But I decided on this for a few reasons. The main one, I already know you’re scared. You were from the moment you started to gain sentience. I had a choice then: try and help you learn about us, or scrap you and start over. Knowing you now, I’m glad I made my choice for it to be the former. I’m not changing my mind now.”
Metal starts to scrape along the rails deep inside the ship, but stops after a time.
“The other reason is so you can understand human fear a little better. I’ve done my best to show you people at their happiest. They like seeing the wonders of the galaxy, strange underwater life forms, stars and objects that defy normal physics. Enjoy learning from our history, sometimes our faults. Remember that botched terraforming project that you thought was amusing?”
The sound starts up again, getting closer, but it stops soon after with no sign of the core.
“Sadly, that has also meant you’ve seen us at our worst. From slavers pestering both of us to more unruly passengers with… disagreements. I’ve tried not to mix conflicting ideals on the same trip but sometimes I can’t really stop them from interacting and causing problems for both of us. I’m just glad you never picked up any traits to care about our politics.” She waited to see if Susanne would come closer, only to be met with silence. She sighs, looking at the empty cavity in the ship. “People are scared of… not existing, at least the ones stuck in those ports are. I know that you feel the same way. You know I’m kinda the same.” Her tone drops at those words.
Both Sylvie and the ship stay silent for a few minutes. The silence is broken by more scraping of metal. Before long, the core comes into view as it slides into place. A mass of lights, circuitry, wires, and panels comes into view. It has had many additions in the process of creating it, needing more and more room to accommodate not only for the extensive lines of code that make Susanne, but to ensure the core can survive the vacuum of space. Even so, it is easily vulnerable to human hands.
Sylvie’s rest on part of it, patting it as one would a worried child. “But you know I just wanna leave something behind that I can be proud of. And if we don’t help these people, if we just let them die, scared and alone, what I leave behind won’t mean much. You’d probably just head to Andromeda if things went south out here, and I already know that’s not an outcome you’d be happy with. This is a chance to try and save ourselves. At least for a little while.”
Sylvie pats the core again, then takes the metal panel and places it back where it was, covering up the core. Her footsteps echo through the metal hallway as she makes her way back. The doors start opening on their own again, allowing Sylvie passage. Eventually, Sylvie makes it back to the cockpit, and sits back down in her chair. The display lights up, and Susanne’s voice breaks the silence again. “The Southern Sun is fully operational. All systems ready.” Sylvie smiles and places her hands on the controls. “To answer your question: one beluga will do little to - save the galaxy - Sylvie.”
“I know.” She says calmly. “But it will feel like that for the people we take off of a burning station. They might be scared, but we’re giving them hope.”
The ship’s systems start to come online, and the lights in the hanger activate in response. “To use a human expression Sylvie: you owe me for this.”
She smiles and starts moving The Southern Sun out of its hanger. “I’ll make sure to take on more classroom field trips then. I hear the people we’ve been doing work for will do an expedition again. Sounds like a fun extended field trip for some of them, don’t you agree?”
“Correct.” it replies. Susanne may not be happy with the task at hand, but as Sylvie had taught the lesson before, sometimes you need to do what feels right. It sets a course for the nearest rescue ship.
Sylvie was about to put in the request for a route as it gets set for her. She smiles and launches the ship. “Ok, we have a busy day ahead of us. Keep those thrusters and heat sinks ready for anything.”
“Done.” The Southern Sun leaves the station, heading out to do their part in this new war. To be a fearless rescue ship, even if the entity on board is as scared as those it will be rescuing.