| Generated by Pollo AI text-to-video AI software |
Things were weird on the ship after the announcement came through that
Admiral Oceanus Jennings was dead. People seemed to be alarmed and upset by
the news. They would say things like he was too young, and that it wasn’t
his time. Waldemar’s advisors explained the morale was down as a result of
the sad development. Morale? Morale? Because somebody died? He was an
old man, he wasn’t gonna live forever anyway. Waldemar will never understand
this relentless pursuit of the past. It happened, get over it. You’re still
alive, so don’t stop now. There’s more work to do. It’s been two years now,
and things have not improved much. If Waldemar knew how the passengers, and
especially the crew, would react, he never would have done it. Who knew that
killing someone would have consequences? They didn’t teach that in school.
They just said that murder was bad, and assumed everyone would understand
and agree. He’s been smart, though. He hasn’t been contradicting them.
Taking Silveon’s general life advice, he has been letting people feel what
they feel. It’s been getting in the way of his plans, though. Extremus is in
a slump.
Everyone is afraid of change. It is a core property of humans, actually, and
all life. Sure, evolution necessarily leads to change, but everything is in
search of equilibrium. Everything wants to find a way to live where they can
be centered and happy. Change isn’t only scary, it requires high cognitive
load, and the formation of new muscle memory. So in the end, it’s not as
much about the fear of the unknown as it’s about laziness. Change requires
putting in effort; mentally, physically, emotionally. Waldemar is probably
no different than most people, except for the emotional side of things. He
doesn’t want to work too hard. So why is all this change that he is
trying to institute not a problem for him in particular? Well, it’s because
his mental state is already there. He sees what the world should be, so his
brain wants to do work. Even when it was originally working through the
problems, though, it wasn’t too taxing, because it felt right. That’s the
equilibrium that his mind is searching for. Change is the goal. That’s what
his therapist-in-a-box says anyway. He’s been relying on her a lot these
days.
“Why do you think that is?” Dr. Wholth asks in that soft voice of hers,
which is likely meant to keep her patients calm.
“Why am I relying on you so much?” Waldemar guesses. “You’re the only person
I can talk to who can’t get upset about the terrible things I’ve done, and
can’t rat me out to anyone about them.”
Dr. Wholth is an airgapped program, loaded into a self-contained device,
powered by interchangeable fuel cells. She has no access to the internet,
and no one else has access to her. They don’t even know about her. He
created her himself. He took the base personality of the ship’s freely
available virtual companion, and copied it onto this offline machine. He
then fed it all of the psychological, psychiatric, and therapeutic
information he could find. She even knows a little bit of medicine, though
she wouldn’t be able to do anything to help physically since she’s only a
hologram. “You don’t think you can trust Silveon or Audrey anymore? You used
to lo— be quite attached to them.” He didn’t program her to make little
mistakes like that. As he is not a tech developer, he can’t figure out how
to remove it from her core code.
“To be honest, I’m getting rather tired of them. I used to crave stability
and predictability, but now I just want a fresh start. I want new people. I
think I needed them before. I don’t think that I’ve learned I never needed
them. I think I genuinely changed. I’m proof that it can happen.”
“That’s good, that’s good,” she says encouragingly. “You’re getting better
at understanding your own behavior, and feeling less robotic; your words.”
He laughs. She is always acting like she can offend him, but she really
can’t. He knows that she’s just zeroes and ones. She sometimes acts afraid
too, like when he talks about the people he’s killed. She seems worried that
he will do the same to her. Which he might. He shuts her off every time he’s
done using her, and her consciousness does not continue until he switches
her back on. He could one day choose to never complete that second step ever
again. He could open the device up, and break all of her circuits apart. He
sometimes considers that, just so he can end a life without any
risk of consequences. He wouldn’t even need to contact his secret
police for help covering it up.
“What are you thinking about, Waldemar? You’ve been quiet for the last
couple of minutes,” Dr. Wholth says.
He wants to get a reaction, so he tells her the truth about his most recent
thoughts.
Dr. Wholth nods. “Then perhaps that’s what we should do.”
“You want me to break your logic board?” Waldemar questions.
“No. I want you to find a healthy way to explore your urges and compulsions.
You told me about your virtual honeymoon, and you told me about the game
that you invented, but it doesn’t sound like you use such technology
regularly.”
“Well, there’s nothing to do in VR,” he starts to explain. “Nothing is real.
Even if you’re presented with problems to fix, the best solution to every
single one of them is to simply log off. So I just don’t see the purpose.”
She sets her pencil and paper down, showing more of the lingerie she’s
wearing. He just feels more comfortable talking to people like this, whether
they’re real or not. He thinks it’s because she looks more vulnerable, and
less of a threat to him. “People tend to require more than what is
immediately around them. Have you ever heard of deep space hermits?” She
poses.
“Yeah, they’re the guys who hollow out an asteroid, and just live alone for
centuries. Doesn’t sound so bad. If I had no ambition...”
“If all they wanted to do was survive, they could live for millions of years
off of that one asteroid. They would have a bed if they were still organic
enough to sleep. They would have food, water, basic life support. They could
recycle their waste, and never need anything else. Their habitat could be
the size of your water closet. But what kind of life is that? It’s worse
than a simulation, because there’s not even the illusion of something
happening. They always have VR, AR, and-or larger infrastructure to provide
them with stimuli. It may sound like they went out there to be alone, but
they instead go out to be in control. Your problem, Captain
Kristiansen is you don’t have very much control. Sure, you’re in charge, but
you rely on others to make things happen. You need them to make their own
decisions, or things will fall apart. You can’t handle it all on your own,
and I don’t think you would want to. But if you really want to feel in
control, you need to construct your own world to inhabit. You won’t live
there permanently, but it might be a nice escape. You’re still human,
Captain. Your brain is wired differently, but you share a lot of traits with
others. I think you get so wrapped up in what sets you apart that you miss
the similarities.”
“Well, the program would have to be isolated, like you. I wouldn’t feel free
if other users can show up, and see what I’m doing.”
“That goes without saying,” Dr. Wholth says. “I could help you write the
program, so we don’t have to involve anyone else. There’s more than enough
extra room on my data drives for a single, original environment. We could
even hold sessions in there. I know you sweep this room for bugs every day.
Those wouldn’t matter in the construct. It would all be in your head...and
mine, so to speak.”
“I could hurt people in a judgment free zone? I could make any choice I
wanted.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Wholth confirmed. “I said I could be there, but it doesn’t
have to be in my capacity as a therapist, or not every time. I have other
characteristics. I could be your friend, your lover, even your enemy. You
explore parts of yourself that you can’t in the real world, and when you log
out, you go back to your regular life. All of that pent up aggression has
been released, and no one has to see it. No one has to know. I think it
would make you a better captain. I think it would make you a better leader.
If you want to raise morale, it starts at the top. When you’re stressed out,
so is everyone else. You need to show them what happiness looks like.”
“I don’t really do happiness,” he reminds her.
“No, that’s not true,” she claims, shaking her head. “You can be happy. It’s
a common misconception that people with personality disorders don’t have
emotions. You absolutely do. You just need to learn better what they look
like on the outside. You’ve been doing a great job. Silveon helped you,
Audrey helped, even Sable helped with that. And of course I have. But
there’s something else in the background that’s holding you back from
greatness. Let the simulations pull that off of you, so you can become your
best self. I’m not trying to change you into someone else, just the better
you.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Waldemar decides. “I’m in. We won’t start
today, though. Go back in your little box so I can get back to work. We’ll
talk later.”
“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” she says respectfully before flickering off.
“Ugh, I thought she would never leave.” Sable appears from the bathroom.
Waldemar jumps to his feet. “How long have you been there?”
She smirks. “Long enough to know that VR isn’t going to help. You’re too
smart. You’ll always know it’s not real.” She approaches slowly, almost
sexily.
“I don’t know what you think you heard...” he begins to argue.
“Shh.” She places a finger upon his lips. “Relax. You think I didn’t know
what you were when I met you?” She grabs his arm muscles. “A big strong man
like you runs on pure testosterone.” She growls.
“What do you want, Sable?” They’ve not slept together in the last few weeks.
He just kind of got tired of that too.
“Kill me,” she offers. “You want to feel something real? Kill me. I can take
it.” What the hell does that mean, she can take it?
“I’m not going to do that.” He might have to, though.
Sable giggles. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll go make an announcement over the PA
system, telling everyone what you really are.”
Okay. Now he does have to stop her. But he’ll just put her in his private
brig until he can figure out what to do with her. He takes her by the wrist
so she can’t teleport away. She spins around as she’s pulling a pocketknife
out of her pants, and jams it into his leg. She giggles again. So he does
what she asks, and kills her. Dr. Wholth might have been wrong. Even this
has lost its charm. He may be getting tired of hurting people too.
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