Sleepers

Posted on Apr 08, 2016 @ 6:51pm by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Apr 08, 2016 @ 6:52pm

Mission: Fortress: Earth

= Sleepers =

(cont’d from “Shipboard Sunset”)

LOCATION:USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Main Engineering

STARDATE: [2.16] 0408.1442

Jake Crichton took a few swallows of coffee, then set his cup down as he looked at Cindy Rochemonte.

“He was asking for me?” Jake asked.

“Not specifically,” Rochemonte said. “It just asked for help. But I don’t think anyone else would feel comfortable poking around inside Mr. Byte’s brain.”

“*I* don’t feel comfortable doing it,” Jake said, leaning against the Master Systems Display console and taking another sip of his coffee.

“It seemed… rattled,” Cindy said, remembering her conversation with Byte the evening before.

“He’s a machine,” Jake said. “He doesn’t get rattled.”

“Of course I know that,” Cindy said. “But it’s the only way I can to describe it. If Byte was concerned enough to come all the way down here…”

“Then someone should look into it,” Jake finished for her. He sighed. “Okay, Specs, pencil him in, I’ll see what I can see.”

“Not your secretary,” Cindy yawned. “In fact, as of 30 seconds ago, I’m officially off duty. The android is now your problem. Sir.”

Cindy Rochemonte gave Jake a polite smile, and Jake dismissed her with a nod. As Cindy stepped out into the corridor, she nodded a hello to John Maynell, who was just coming on duty himself. Maynell smiled at Jake as he approached.

“Commander,” Maynell said. “Good morning.”

“Ensign,” Jake said.

“I’m glad I caught you,” Maynell said, holding a PADD out for Jake to inspect. “I’ve been thinking about ways to increase our long range sensors, so we can get a better idea of what we’ll be warping into once we reach Sol.”

Jake took the PADD and examined its contents. He nodded approvingly.

“An upgrade to the interferometry scanner,” Jake said, looking back at Maynell. “Not bad.”

“Thank you,” Maynell said, barely holding back a relieved smile. “It won’t give us detailed information about fleet composition, but it should at least give us an idea of how many starships are currently surrounding Earth. I thought maybe we could pull records of fleet movements from the last year and compare it with these readings, and then we could at least make some educated guesses about what they have waiting for us-”

“John,” Jake cut in. “It’s a good plan. You’ve got my approval, make it happen.”

“That’s the thing, sir,” Maynell said, taking the PADD back from Jake. “These upgrades are going to give us a lot more information, but sorting through that information to make sense of it will take time… probably more time than we have. If we want this upgrade to be useful, we need to find a way to organize the sensor data so we can start extrapolating from it.”

Jake considered this. “Well… you can ask the geeks in the science labs. I think Ensign Trimble was looking for something to do.”

“Actually, I was thinking I might ask Varn.”

Jake turned and fixed Maynell with a cold look. Maynell noticed, his cheeks noticeably flushing, and his eyes dropped immediately to the floor. Jake didn’t know why the mention of Varn had raised his hackles so much, and he felt guilty for staring daggers at Maynell.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Jake said, looking away.

“Sir, Thomas Varn is the finest scientific mind on the ship,” Maynell said. “Nobody is going to do this better, or faster, than he would.”

“I don’t…” Jake started, but when he realized the rest of the sentence was ‘...trust him’, he trailed off. The truth was, he *didn’t* trust Varn, but something about Maynell’s request was making him feel guilty about that. Whatever this Varn was, surely they’d be fools to turn down his - or its - help.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Maynell asked. Jake nodded.

“Go ahead, Ensign.”

“Why don’t you trust him, sir?” Maynell asked.

Jake frowned. “He attacked us while we were escaping the planet,” he said. “He’s unstable. And he’s… dammit, he’s *not* Thomas Varn. Thomas Varn is dead.”

“He thinks he’s Thomas Varn,” Maynell said. “Didn’t Dr. Conniston tell you the Promethean Device worked on a similar principle to transporter technology?”

“Transporters don’t have to melt someone else before they work,” Jake said. He remembered staring into Ensign Sam Perry’s eyes as the Promethean Device slowly dissolved her. Everything that had once been her - her eyes, her hair, her smile - reduced to a slurry and poured into a new mold, out of which had stepped… Thomas Varn. The thought made Jake feel sick to his stomach.

“I know there’s still some doubts about him,” Maynell said. “But he’s flying into the same mess the rest of us are, isn’t he? I think he deserves a chance to help… and we need him.”

Jake sighed. “Fine,” he said after a moment. “Clear it with Kane, and with Barton. And with Dalziel too, now that I think about it. And I don’t want you in there with him alone, do you understand?”

“Aye sir,” Maynell nodded. “Thank you sir.”

“It’s a good plan, Ensign,” Jake said. “Just… be careful.”

=[/\]=

Byte came in about an hour later.

Jake led the android into his office, where he had set up a diagnostic station and a chair. He gestured for Byte to have a seat, and opened up his toolkit.

“So, just a little off the top this morning?” Jake asked, as he laid out his tools.

{{I do not understand,}} Byte said.

“Figure of speech,” Jake said, turning to look at the android. Byte stared passively back at him, his cornflower blue eyes devoid of any recognizable emotion.

{{Did Lt. Rochemonte explain the nature of my concern?}} Byte asked.

“She did,” Jake nodded. “A memory bank you can’t access.”

{{Correct,}} Byte said.

“When did this start?”

{{Within the last 72 hours,}} Byte said. {{In that time I have attempted 41 diagnostics of my internal memory. Each diagnostic runs until attempting to access one specific databank, at which point my diagnostic subroutine enters a permanent loop.}}

“And you’ve never experienced anything like this before?”

{{No, Commander,}} Byte said. {{And in my research into the histories of my siblings, I have not found similar problems affecting them either.}}

“Okay,” Jake said. “Well I’ll take a look, but I’m not an expert on positronic brains. I can’t promise anything.”

{{Understood, Commander,}} Byte said, its tone still perfectly neutral. {{I appreciate any assistance you can render.}}

Jake picked up a hyperspanner - a standard tool, but one that looked menacing now in the context of using it to dig around inside the mind of another sentient being.

“I guess it’s not going to scare you when I say I’ve never done this before,” said Jake,

{{I am not capable of fear,}} Byte remarked. {{Please proceed.}}

=[/\]=

Jake spent more than an hour inside Byte’s head. The topography of the android’s positronic brain was breathtaking - somewhere inside the blinking lights and the tangle of circuitry, electromagnetic interplay gave rise to something as ephemeral as life itself. Jake was acutely aware of the delicacy of the operation, and at first worried that a single slip might forever change - or even end - the life of his strange synthetic shipmate.

But of course, Byte was aware for the whole procedure, and proved to be capable multitasker, acting in his capacity as both patient and assistant to Jake’s operation. When Jake got lost tracing the contours of Byte’s complex internal connections, Byte helpfully provided directions on where he was and how to proceed. After a time, Jake began to see the intuitive design of the positronic brain hiding beneath all the complexity, and by the time they had finished, Jake had started to feel a little more comfortable poking around inside Byte’s head.

That seed of familiarity did not yield useful results, however. Eventually, Jake had to step back from Byte’s exposed brain. He set his tool down with a defeated sigh and shrugged.

“I’m out of ideas,” Jake said. “The databank is physically fine, and there’s no issue with your internal command routing to any other system. There’s no hardware reason I can find for why the rest of your brain can’t talk to that one databank.”

{{I see,}} Byte said. {{And what about software?}}

“That’s the tricky bit,” Jake shrugged. “You *are* software. If there’s a problem there… then the problem is with *you*.”

{{An interesting hypothesis,}} Byte said. {{I have been considering the possibility that there may be no cause, that perhaps this is simply an unexpected side-effect to the operation of my positronic brain.}}

“One that hasn’t ever manifested before?” Jake asked. “In you *or* your siblings?”

{{We are still very much on the frontier of positronic science, Commander,}} Byte said. {{The complexities of my own existence are not always clear to me, and I am the being with the most intimate knowledge of how my mind works.}}

“So what, you’re just getting forgetful in your old age?” Jake asked. “I appreciate the comparison, but you’re a machine, Byte. Things like this don’t ‘just happen’ like they do with organic beings.”

{{I think if Dr. Foster were here, he would point out that it’s unlikely things ‘just happen’ to organic beings either,}} Byte said. {{Rather, it is just that we do not yet discovered the reason why they happen.}}

“Well, Foster might be a good doctor, but I’m a damn good engineer,” Jake said. “And nothing about this flaw makes sense. There’s nothing in your schematics that indicate your mind should be partitioned like this… or even be *capable* of being partitioned like this. Whatever information is stored in that databank, somebody went to a lot of trouble making sure you can’t access it. And since they didn’t do anything physically to you to do it…”

{{You believe I was ordered to isolate myself from this section of my memory,}} Byte said.

“Yeah,” Jake nodded slowly, not sure if the implication had set in. He needn’t have worried… as usual, Byte was ten steps ahead.

{{You are suggesting I may pose an unconscious danger to the ship,}} Byte said.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “I trust you, or this version of you… but you were assigned to the DISCOVERY by Edgerton. The whole reason you’re here with us is because of him. What if he’s the one who told you to isolate that section of your memory?”

{{It is possible,}} Byte said. {{But it does not explain why I have only recently discovered this internal flaw.}}

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Maybe it’s a new development. Or maybe it’s been there all along, and the reason you’re aware of it now is that your mind is starting to ‘wake up’ again. The point is, we can’t rule that out, not with everything Edgerton’s done so far.”

{{You are correct, Commander,}} Byte said. {{If I am indeed a Neo-Essentialist sleeper agent, I would pose a considerable risk to the health and safety of every being on this ship, as well as a significant strategic threat to the rest of the loyalist fleet-}}

“Let’s not get too into detail about how you’d destroy us all if you had to,” Jake said. “We need to bring this to Kane.”

{{I agree,}} Byte said. The android reached up to seal its positronic brain away once more, then stood up. Jake called ahead to the bridge, letting Kane know he and Byte had something they needed to discuss. As they headed for the turbolift, Jake thought about Byte, and Thomas Varn, Familiar faces, faces he had grown to know and trust during their voyage, and now Jake couldn’t be sure what those faces might be hiding. Edgerton had taken too much away from them already, and now it seemed he would even take away the trust they placed in one another.

It was one more thing the mad admiral would have to answer for.

=[/\]=

NRPG: Thanks to Jerome for some guidance on how Byte’s brain works, hope I didn’t mangle his advice too badly… ;-)

Shawn Putnam

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief Engineering Officer

USS PHOENIX