Chapter Text
“Shuttle 104 will begin boarding now at gate B2”
Carlos rolled his neck, setting down the tablet in his hand. The wait had certainly been long enough, his original shuttle having been delayed, and rescheduled, leaving him stranded at the port for several long hours…
Long enough to pour over the papers again and again, reminding himself why, exactly, he was uprooting his whole life for this.
To be fair, his “whole life” hadn’t been much lately.
The possessions he kept with him filled one checked suitcase, containing clothing and electronics, old and new.
Tucked in the pockets and zippered pouches were books, chords, and memory cards, both personal and business.
He did still had his family, the mother he could always call home to, his older brother, his sister, who was just accepted into her first choice of college… But he had been living a planet away from them so long that theirs was not the home he was leaving anymore.
He chose to ignore the boarding sign flashing, and the voice on the intercom. It would be another ten minutes until his rows boarded anyway… He took off his glasses, wiping his eyes, then glanced through the foggy haze of his vision at the seats surrounding him, before finally wiping the lenses on his shirt and shoving them back up the bridge of his nose.
There were a few families seated near… And workers, business men… Many were returning home, returning from visits to their old homes, or important ventures… He’s sure a few are like him, setting foot on that man-made land for the first time in their lives… But he very much doubted any were being sent to work at the core, with the AI itself.
He had read about the Vale Colony in school. It was one of the most successful projects of its kind, an artificial planet lit by a small, man made, sun. For all intents and purposes, it was a new earth, though smaller.
There were other projects out there like it; other planets, other massive ships… but the AI controlling it had been both its largest risk, and its crowning achievement.
C.E.C.I.L was the thing that kept the planet up and running.
C.E.C.I.L was what he was there for, the computer he was qualified to work with.
At this moment, tucking his tablet away and slinging his carry-on over his shoulder, he did not feel that qualified at all. If anything, he was overwhelmed. Not by the android itself, but by the planet it controlled, and by the people rising from their seats around him, boarding their flight home.
Artificial Intelligence could be, putting it lightly, a controversial subject…
Mankind still hadn’t, and probably never would, leave this galaxy, but it hadn’t stopped them from expanding, terraforming, and stretching the limits of human ingenuity.
Humanity had clogged up the Earth, terraformed planets beyond it, gone past stars they previously never dreamt of reaching, and still never encountered intelligent life beyond them.
Instead, the human race was creating new intelligent life.
Sort of… Hence the controversy.
Most older AI was of no worry. The early technology dated back centuries, and no one would question the intelligence of an antique smart phone. Nor would they question the consciousness of early robots, despite their human like appearances, brought to life with silicone, never finding their way out of uncanny valley… But recent developments in robotics lead to ethical concerns… What counted as sentience, etc, etc.
It was a headache, honestly. The cases of actual sentient AI were few and far between.
For the most part, they were just good programs being anthropomorphized by adoring people.
People always see what they want to see, they project onto objects, and on to animals…
And Carlos had seen it before, countless times, with his own androids.
He was told how life -like they were, how high functioning the programs were, the androids themselves had nicknames, they were beloved, and still beloved by the himself and the others who worked on them… But they weren’t alive. They responded, they did as they were told, as they were programed to do. They had no sense of self.
That wasn’t to say sentient AI didn’t exist, or couldn’t. There were several documented cases, and he’d gotten to meet one of such machines before. Even then, Carlos couldn’t say for sure what he thought of the program… If it was conscious or if it was just… glitching out…
It was to safe to say most people never intended to create sentient AI.
And the documented cases never ended well. They were too often reprogrammed before they were fully studied, or they were accidently corrupted, their self-awareness lost... Consciousness wasn’t stable. It was one deleted file, one corrupt program away from nothingness.
So to hear recently, how the core of the colony viewed C.E.C.I.L, and to an extent, K.E.V.I.N., as alive, as human… Well, he’s surprised an outsider would be allowed in to study the AI, and “look after it” as Pamela Winchell had said in the email. Outsiders didn’t get in to the core much these days. The colony protected its secrets.
Shaking himself out of thought, Carlos pulled a small pillow out of his bag as he came to his seat, before tucking the overstuffed backpack under.
It would be a long flight, fourteen hours until he reached his final stop, all after spending several days between ports and on ships before this. His final flight was just the descent to the planet itself.
If only space travel could be as quick and easy as the films his great grandfather had watched said it would be. Light speed. Well wouldn’t that be a treat.
The sooner someone came up with a safe and at all possible way to teleport, the better.
Reaching his new home would be a relief, and since he didn’t start work for two more days, he would even have time to sleep the jetlag off. He hadn’t the faintest idea what time it was in the colony anyway…
He settled into his aisle seat, waiting for the attendant to come by with water and overpriced food.
An economy seat meant cramped quarters and only the bare necessities, but with at least two more hours charge on his tablet, he could amuse himself a bit before digging for one of his books… Or he could look over the job description just one more time before falling asleep.
------
“Hey..? Sir? … Sir?”
Carlos wearily lifted his head, making a “hmm” noise as he rubbed his eyes, and searched his lap for his glasses.
It was that moment when he went to move that he finally noticed the delicate hand on his shoulder, outstretched from the seat across the aisle.
“I’m very sorry to wake you, but they just announced that a cart’s coming back by, and they said something about free snacks this time… I just didn’t want you to miss it, since you slept through the last one…” a small voice told him, a voice belonging to the young woman who the outstretched arm was attached to.
“Oh, uh, thanks….” He murmured, still half asleep, though a cup of water sounded very appealing right now, a foul taste in his mouth, despite what he assumed was only a short nap.
The girl was much younger than him, presumably his sisters age. Her skin was dark, her eyes a warm brown, with a small but vibrant smile. She was petite, with a somewhat chubby frame, and she currently hugged a purple hoodie around her like a blanket.
“You’re welcome,” she said again, twisting in her seat to look behind her, “but I might have woke you too soon, these carts take forever… My name is Dana, by the way.”
“Carlos”, he responded, twisting in his seat as well, both to peer back at the cart, and then to shake the girls hand.
“Ah...” She smiled again. “Is this going to be your first time at the colony?”, she asked, as she glanced at his backpack poking out from under the chair, and noticed the papers detailing his living quarters, that he had shoved hastily in the front pocket before departure.
“What- uh, yes” he stuttered, as he shoved the paperwork into his bag, concerned about losing them, as about drawing further attention to himself. “Do you live on the colony?” He asked her, as he zipped the pocket closed and kicked the bag back under.
“My whole life,” she chirped, “My family moved there before I was born, it was just my grandfather and my mom then, mom moved there to work at the core. It’s its own city down there, very different from the residential areas on the surface.”
“Does she still? I’m actually moving there to work at the core-“
“What will you doing down there?”
“Ah, um… I’m….” Looking after it, as the email had so casually said, “uh… science.”
“… Oh.” She responded, unsure what to say about such a vague job description, but smiling regardless… “Well, okay Mr. Scientist, that sounds exciting.”
“Well, uh, robotics I mean,” Carlos stammered, internally smacking himself as he made his recovery. God knows how he got through so many presentations when he was either tripping over his own tongue, or rambling too long.
“Oh!” She exclaimed, with renewed excitement, then her voice lowered as she leaned across the aisle… “You wouldn’t happen to be working with Cecil, would you? … I mean if that’s confidential don’t tell me, but I heard that-“
“Food or drink?”, the attendant interrupted, as they rolled the cart closer, offering Dana a plastic cup, and her choice of beverage.
“Oh, just water, thank you.” She smiled and nodded to the attendant, but leaned around them as they poured her drink, mouthing something to Carlos that he couldn’t quite make out.
The attendant then repeated the same routine with Carlos’s aisle, he asked for water, and accepted the small snack platter, however unsure he was that it wouldn’t just be tacked on a bill later.
Only once the attendant was a few rows away did Dana lean over once more, telling him to “just nevermind the whole thing”, and that they would talk later, before she tore open the bag of chips she’d purchased, and settled back into her seat. It was somewhat a relief, since he technically wasn’t supposed to disclose that information, at the time being, but the whole conversation struck him as odd.
“So…” Carlos started, after the moments silence, “Did you happen to hear a landing time earlier?”
“Only another four hours,” she murmured between bites “That’s what they told us… It’ll be good to be back home.”
----
Carlos spent those next four hours in and out of sleep, chatting with Dana when he was awake to do so.
He was fully awake with a renewed energy in the last half hour, as they prepared for landing…
He could see the colony then, out the window. He knew the “planet” was small, but it seemed massive before him, and so normal. Towns and homes, roads crossing, crisp grass, plants, humanity thriving.
Of course, that wasn’t where he was heading. From the shuttle he would be staying in the station, passing security, and going down.
He expected to meet those in charge, have his badge scanned a few times, and then settle in to his cot to unpack, and rest. If he was lucky, he would find somewhere to eat, and maybe, just maybe get a chance to go back to the surface and see what the colony had to offer for the individuals and families living up top.
If not, at least Dana had mentioned a small pizzeria on one of the levels, though all of their products were gluten free.
He picked up his checked bag, rolling it towards the elevators, and began to fumble through his backpack for the security badge he had received in advance. To his surprise Dana had followed, pulling a badge from her shirt as well. She was still bundled up in her purple hoodie, though this time she was actually wearing it as an article of clothing, rather than a blanket.
He noticed a sort of eye emblem on the shoulder of the hoodie that seemed familiar, but he could not quite place it.
He didn’t know why it came as such a surprise, having Dana accompany him down; Dana had mentioned the core earlier. Later in the flight, she had spoken of her families living quarters, the sort of home she grew up in, her grandfather, her mother, her older brother… She had even mentioned starting a new job herself, now that she was back… He’d assumed that she’d meant on the surface, but perhaps he’d been mistaken, or simply too tired to process what he’d heard.
She got off just a few stops before him, wishing him the best of luck in “whatever science endeavor he embarked on.”
He smiled and thanked her, wishing her the best of luck as well, in whatever it was that her new job entailed. Perhaps he would see her again, or perhaps her mother was still working in the core…
He hoped so. He had never expected to be welcomed so warmly into the core.
The elevator dinged again, as it reached its final destination, and the doors swung open.
Just go find your cot, make yourself at home, he thought to himself. Don’t worry about the job yet.
He took one step, on wobbly legs, out the door and felt the warmth from the surface, and from Dana, depart. It was sparse down there, like a military base. It was not warm, nor cold, and yet the air wasn’t homey or welcoming, or that “just right” temperature. If anything it lacked substance.
He was told the cots were comfortable enough, and the rooms had enough space to make them home like, but the halls before him, lined with doors… It was like an anthill down here, wasn’t it? He rolled his bag away from the elevator door, looking down the hall to the right, then to the left.
And then, after pulling the printed papers out of his bag, he stared up at the purple security camera mounted above him, as if hoping someone might see his plight, and send a tour guide.
But the camera was focused on nothing in particular. It was just harmless surveillance, in case something were to go on. Fairly standard in compounds like this…
As he skimmed his paperwork for information, he had no real clue which way was up anymore, and since he had not been given a map or any real directions, he decided to take the hall to the right and hope for a sign directing him.
…What he hadn’t noticed was how the high definition security cameras flickered to life, and followed him down the hall, lenses zooming in as he finally came upon a desk, and rang a bell.
How they watched him adjust his glances, and have a silent conversation about his journey and his work.
The cameras could not hear.
On this level, they were only eyes, only doing their job, only keeping the colony safe.
Or, at least, that was supposed to be their job.
The lenses focused on the dark skinned man with the perfect hair, and perfect teeth.
They scanned over the badge hanging from his lanyard, longing to put a voice to the face of this “Carlos”.
The ever present gaze was only cut off as Carlos finally reached his room and settled in for the night.
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“Crew of the Vale Colony.
A new man arrived at the core today, he was seen searching for his room on level 12…
Who is he? What does he want from us?
Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat?
…My sources tell me that he is a scientist.”