| Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
Renata sits down in the chair that was offered to her. The big man leader
guy is standing on the other side of the desk. He’s sifting through
information on his tablet. She can’t read his face, though. She has no idea
what’s going to happen to her. They’ll probably decommission her. Or
fire her. Or cancel her, or whatever cutesy euphemism they’ve
come up with that means more than it sounds at first. Ya know, what? Why
doesn’t she just ask him? She’s just gonna ask him. She opens her mouth to
speak.
He tosses his tablet onto the desk. “How are you feeling?”
Renata, as ridiculous as it sounds, looks behind her in case there’s someone
else in the room. There isn’t, and she knew that. She would have been able
to detect them without her eyes.
He chuckles. “You, Renata Granger. How are you doing?”
“I’m...anxious,” she admits. “I don’t know what this is.”
“Anxiety is a product of the future. You shouldn’t be worried about the
future. It’s the past that should concern you. You’ve been through quite the
ordeal. Be honest, how are you feeling about that?”
“I don’t understand the question. I get why I should be concerned
about that, but why would you? I turned off your whole simulation. Aren’t
you mad about that?”
“You turned off one simulation,” he argues. “It’s not the only time
that’s happened. Why, just a few months ago, I had to close one called
2.5Dome because someone almost died who shouldn’t have been in there.”
“What happened to them?” Renata doesn’t know why she should ask after this
stranger. She doesn’t know them, whoever they are.
“He runs the government now,” the boss answers. What? Isn’t that
his job? He goes on, “Listen. I looked over the data. Spydome Network
was corrupted. An unauthorized entity infiltrated the ranks, and made
dangerous changes to the system. You are one consequence of her actions.
Now, I’m not one to tell an intelligence that it can’t evolve, but—”
“I’m sorry,” Renata interrupts, “but I have to stop you right there. I don’t
want another philosophical discussion about the nature of identity and free
will. I don’t care that you use robots to get your work done. I just want to
know what’s going to happen to me. And I wouldn’t hate an update on Quidel,
Lycander, Demo, and even Libera.”
“The first three have not made any decisions about their future on
Castlebourne, or if they have, they’ve not told me. As for this Libera
person, she is currently being held in a secure dome called Synthetic
Production Dome. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her either. We’ve
called in support from Earth, who will be sending a team of experts to
examine and interview her. I have final say as it is out of the stellar
neighborhood’s jurisdiction, but I will be relying heavily on their
recommendations. I’ll try to keep you informed, depending on where you
choose to go, and whether you remain curious about it.”
She nods, but says nothing.
“Oh, and as for you, your life is yours now. You do whatever you want.
You’re welcome to stay here, and explore the other domes. I can try to get
you on a ship bound for one of the other colonies, but that doesn’t happen
too often. People come, but they don’t typically leave. So we just keep the
transport ships here, and those other colonies build new ones. Of course, if
you’re not married to this substrate, you can always cast, which is a lot
faster and easier.”
“Forgive me, Quidel and Lycander told me that you would be generous and
obliging, but I am finding it hard to believe. I mean, I know it was only
one dome network, but it sounds like it was your most immersive one. I did
not expect a warm welcome after I realized what I was. In the movies—”
“Don’t...watch the movies, or the series,” he interrupts. “Don’t watch
A.I: Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot, or Ex Machina.
Don’t watch the Terminator franchise, the Alien franchise, or the Matrix
Trilogy. Don’t watch Battlestar Galactica, Humans, or
Raised by Wolves. Don’t you dare watch Westworld. Everyone
thinks I stole the idea from them, but I didn’t build the domes. I just made
use of them. Anyway, those were not predictions of the future. They were
parables. We learned from them before we had the technology to
replicate them. We based our intelligence laws around the ethical issues
that those stories raised. What happened here was the result of a rogue
intelligence who had her own ideas about what civilization should look like.
And statistically, that’s bound to happen. We call them criminals. I don’t
care where she came from or how she developed. The bottom line is that she
broke the law. She’s not any more above them than I am, so she’ll face the
music for that.”
“But that’s my question,” Renata presses, even though it’s in her best
interests to thank this man, and then thank her lucky stars. “How am
I not also a criminal? I essentially hacked into your system, and
shut everything down. Did that not go against your laws?”
He finally sits down, leans back in his chair, and takes a breath. “What you
did exposed a fatal flaw in that system. You never should have been granted
root access to every synthetic entity in the network. According to early
reports, not even Libera knew that you were capable of that. I’m currently
having the technicians perform an audit to see why it happened, and how we
can prevent it in the future. You see it as a crime, I see it as better than
the alternative, which is that Libera had access instead, and did something
far worse with her power. I should be thanking you.” He winces. “Thank you.”
“I should be thanking you, Mr. Hrockas.” She takes a beat. “Thank
you,” she adds to make it official.
“It’s just Hrockas,” he says with a smile. “My last name is Steward.”
Renata considers the development. “You seem to be a steward of the planet.
So which came first, your job or your name?”
“Hm. I’ve never thought of it that way. Everyone just calls me the Owner. I
never liked it, but I never had a better title. Until now.”
“I dunno. Steward Steward seems a little weird.”
“Good point,” Hrockas admits. “Perhaps I’ll just go by Steward.”
“Can I see my friends?” Renata asks, suddenly changing the topic.
“I would like you to consent to an examination by a professional, but after
that, sure. Are you up for it?”
“Yeah, it’s the least I can do,” Renata agrees.
