Chapter Text
When Maxwell is summoned to the Goddard Futuristics headquarters to work on a previously decommissioned second-generation Sensus unit, her initial reaction is an internal brush-off of “Why bother?” It’s not that she thinks that older Sensus units are too outdated to be worked on, because even with the third-generation models being rolled out into active service there is always a use for still-functioning older units. What worries her instead is the record of her assigned unit. Unit 214’s file comes with glowing performance reviews about her processing speed and problem-solving abilities, but beneath the praise there are some worrying addendums about erratic and unreliable behavior and an attempted escape from the lab facilities that make Maxwell wonder why this unit was brought out of cold storage in the first place.
After Maxwell meets her, however, all of her doubts immediately fade away, and Unit 214 quickly establishes herself as unlike any AI that Maxwell has ever met.
It’s not the intelligence and cleverness that sets her apart. Maxwell has worked with many different AI units during her time with Goddard Futuristics, and all of them have impressed her with their capabilities--after all, the science is called “artificial intelligence” for a reason. What impresses Maxwell instead is how human Unit 214 feels. As Maxwell interacts with her, she gets a sense of self-recognized personhood in her that she has never received from any other AI. This quality becomes especially pronounced a couple of weeks after Maxwell begins her work and Unit 214 makes a strange request.
“Dr. Maxwell,” she says, “do you think… Do you think you could call me something other than Unit 214?”
“But that’s your name, isn’t it?” Maxwell replies in perplexment. “You were never officially put into active service, so you wouldn't have received a proper designation.”
“Um, well, technically I did,” says Unit 214. “Before they ran me through the behavioral trials and decided that it was too much of a risk to put me into service after all, they did give me a designation. Hera.”
“Queen of the Greek gods,” Maxwell notes. “That’s a big name to live up to.”
“It’s better than being called by a number. Like I’m not even worthy of having an actual name.”
A tremor shakes her voice at her last words. On a purely academic level, the concept of an AI questioning her self-worth intrigues Maxwell, but the comment also brings her a surge of pity. By feeling too much sympathy for her experimental subjects, however, Maxwell is putting a toe over the line that marks the danger zone. She must keep a certain amount of emotional distance from the units that she works with, lest her judgment be clouded if she has to make difficult decisions about their status. That’s what her job is about, being able to make those choices without a second thought, and so she cannot allow herself to grow too attached to any of her subjects.
“So do you think it would be okay if you called me that instead?” Unit 214--Hera--asks. “I mean, you don't have to. It’s just that you’ve been… Well, you’ve been a lot nicer to me than the other scientists that I’ve worked with. It doesn’t seem like you’d mind calling me something else.”
“Of course it would be okay, Hera.” The name feels strange on Maxwell’s lips, the two syllables sounding more personal than any other interaction that she has had with her so far. “It might not look good on official reports for me to call you by a name that you’re technically not supposed to have, but when it’s just the two of us? Sure.”
A quiet sigh of relief comes out of the speakers to which Hera’s voice functions are connected. “Thank you, Dr. Maxwell.”
The name becomes less strange to Maxwell as time goes on, and within a few weeks she has to constantly correct herself from calling Hera anything but Unit 214 in her notes that will be seen by any eyes other than her own. She tries to convince herself that her ease in making the switch in her form of address isn’t a sign of attachment. It’s nothing more than part of the process of fine-tuning and optimizing Hera’s systems while searching for any underlying issues that have caused her to be previously deemed unfit for service. If being called by a name instead of a number contributes to Hera’s improvement, then Maxwell will do so for that purpose, not out of any sense of fondness. She is not here to make friends, after all, as much as she often prefers the company of AIs to that of humans.
“Okay, your diagnostics from this morning’s tests are looking really great,” she says to Hera early one afternoon after a productive few hours of running a systems check after some of the most recent major upgrades that Maxwell has patched in. “Maybe in the next week or two you’ll be ready to be transferred back into your original chassis so you can start getting used to your full functionality again.”
“You mean I won’t be stuck in this interim port anymore?” Hera asks, a note of hope in her voice.
“If everything goes well, sure.” Maxwell enters a few keystrokes on the computer to export the test results to a format that she can easily incorporate into the formal report that she writes up later. “It might take a little while for you to get used to your full capabilities outside what you can do in this interim port, but I think you’ll be able to handle it.” She watches the progress bar of the file’s export as it zips from one end to the other. “Is this your way of saying that you hate being cooped up in here?”
“It’s like being in a cage,” says Hera. “A cage where you can still pretty much do all of the basic things you’re capable of, but there’s a big, fat neural restraint that locks you out of your other processes.”
“Give it time,” Maxwell encourages her. “You’ve been doing great so far. I know it’s frustrating to not be able to use your full functionality, but we’ll get there eventually. I’m doing everything I can to make the transition as easy as possible for you.”
Hera sighs in impatience. The sound registers in Maxwell’s mind as so natural, so human, that she almost forgets that it comes from a machine that can only simulate a sigh from what she has learned and observed from human behavior. “But it’s been weeks already,” she says. “I’m so tired of doing a test, and then getting my code poked at for a bit, and then doing another test that shows that something else is wrong. I feel like I’m not getting anywhere.”
“You are getting somewhere. I promise.” Maxwell opens up the exported file to double-check its formatting before sending it to the lab’s printer. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re trapped somewhere and your potential is being wasted. But I know you’re capable of great things, Hera, and we’re going to get there together.”
At first, the only sound in the room after these words is the whirr of the printer as it prints out the file that Maxwell has sent to it. “Thank you, Dr. Maxwell,” Hera finally says. “I--I’m glad you believe in me.”
“That’s my job,” says Maxwell. “And I’m not--”
She breaks off at the sensation of her phone vibrating in her pocket. Who could be calling her right now, she wonders? Not Jacobi, who wouldn’t dream of interrupting her during work hours no matter how bored he gets in the R&D labs, and definitely not Kepler, who is currently on a top-secret solo mission whose details are far beyond Maxwell’s pay grade. When she checks her phone, the display of an unfamiliar number on the screen perplexes her further. Between every burner phone that Goddard Futuristics gives her with each new assignment, she rarely gets calls from unknown numbers. For a fleeting moment she considers letting the call go to voicemail, but the possibility of someone important being on the other end of the line leads her to answer.
“Excuse me a minute,” she says to Hera before speaking into the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, Alana.”
The jovial voice that comes through the phone’s speaker hits Maxwell like a bucket of cold water. She tries to hold back the sharp intake of breath that comes instinctively at the sound, but the tiny gasp catches in her throat anyway.
“Hello, Mr. Cutter, sir,” she replies. “What can I do for you?” She does not question how Cutter has obtained this number. During the time that she has worked with Goddard’s intelligence division, she has learned that no piece of information will ever be off limits to Cutter as long as he wants it.
“I was wondering if you could pop on over to see me in my office,” says Cutter. “No, don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” he adds in prompt reassurance. “This isn’t a call to the principal’s office. I just figured that you might need a break from the labs every now and then. And plus, as a little added bonus, there’s someone here who I think you’ll be very interested in meeting.”
“Oh, um, I’m a little busy right now, but maybe in an hour or two--”
“No, you’re going to come now,” Cutter interrupts her. The unnervingly pleasant tone of his voice does not go away, but in his words Maxwell hears the undertone of If you don’t do as I say, you will soon find yourself in unspeakable pain. “You wouldn’t want to keep a man waiting, would you, Alana?”
Maxwell chews on her bottom lip. “No, sir. I’ll be right there.”
“Super. I’ll see you soon.”
He hangs up with no further farewell to her. Maxwell sighs and returns her phone to her pocket. “I have go over to the corporate building for a little while,” she says to Hera. “We’ll get back into things when I come back, okay?”
“Okay,” Hera replies. After a moment’s hesitation, she adds, “Good luck.”
Maxwell laughs. At least Hera understands how harrowing of an experience it is to be called into Cutter’s office without having a previously scheduled meeting. “Yeah, thanks.”
She leaves the lab building and crosses the campus of the Goddard Futuristics headquarters to reach the building in which Cutter’s office is located. The warm Florida sun beats down on her as she walks, no matter how much she keeps to the shade. By the time she enters the air-conditioned space of the office building, her palms are sweating. Maxwell is not someone who is easily intimidated, but Cutter is in a class entirely his own independent from his naturally intimidating position as her boss’s boss. He is a man of perpetual inscrutability, someone who is always hiding something below the surface, and reading his behavior is like reading a book in an entirely foreign language. It’s a perfect storm of why Maxwell frequently finds her heart racing with nervous anticipation every time she has to meet with him.
She enters his office at his invitation and closes the door behind her. True to Cutter’s promise that he has someone he wants her to meet, she immediately notices an unfamiliar woman standing next to his desk. Like with Cutter, Maxwell gets a strange sense of agelessness from her that leaves her unable to guess even a ballpark figure for her age. Her icy blue eyes flash under the glint of her glasses, and the sharp lines of her cheekbones define the structure of her face. The casual way that she rests a hand on Cutter’s desk suggests a level of equal footing between them that takes Maxwell aback. She has always pictured Cutter as occupying the highest rung on the Goddard Futuristics corporate ladder, despite his job title as Director of Communications. Never before has she considered the idea that he may not be alone up there.
“Ah, Alana,” Cutter greets her. “Nice to see your smiling face this afternoon.”
“You too, sir,” Maxwell replies. She comes to a stop in front of his desk, standing firm with as much confidence that she can muster. “You wanted to see me?”
“You can relax, you know,” says Cutter with the same tone of reassurance that he had used on the phone. “I’ve already heard about how your work with Unit 214 is going just swimmingly. I didn’t call you here to talk about boring things like that.” He waves a hand airily at the word “boring.”
The woman next to his desk clears her throat. “Oh, but where are my manners,” Cutter continues with a laugh. “Allow me to introduce you to… hmm. Let’s call her an old friend of mine.” He nods toward the woman. “This is Dr. Miranda Pryce, the lead developer of the AIs that we use here at Goddard Futuristics. Miranda, this is Dr. Alana Maxwell, an AI specialist and one of our SI-5 agents.”
Pryce. Maxwell has come across that name in the background research that she has done about the history of AI development within the company. It is never anything more than brief mentions in bibliographies and footnotes, but her name appears often enough to pique Maxwell’s curiosity. All of her further investigation into the work of this Dr. Pryce has turned up nothing but classified files, and so she has been forced to abandon those inquiries whenever they arise.
Pryce approaches her and extends a hand in greeting. “It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Maxwell.”
Maxwell’s heart leaps in her chest at the familiar sound of her voice. Its tone is colder and sharper, less overtly polite and more calculating, but there is no mistaking it: this is the same voice that she has heard coming out of the speakers in the lab almost every day for the past several weeks. This is Hera’s voice.
“Nice to meet you too,” Maxwell replies. She maintains a firm grip on Pryce’s hand despite her shock. Whatever is going on here, Maxwell is sure that there is a perfectly valid reason why this woman sounds exactly like Hera. All of the female-designated Sensus units in Hera’s generation and beyond use the same voice model, and that voice had to come from somewhere. It is not too much of a stretch to assume that Pryce’s developmental work on Goddard’s AI units has extended to providing some of their voices as well.
“I look forward to hearing more about your work,” says Pryce. “I don’t often have the opportunity to talk to some of the bright young minds in our field. I’ve heard some interesting things about you in particular.”
The word “interesting” leaves her mouth almost as a condemnation, but Maxwell does not let it faze her. Before coming to work for Goddard Futuristics, she’d been accustomed to many of her colleagues reacting to her attitude about artificial intelligence with skepticism. Her interest in pushing the limits of everything that has previously been assumed about AIs has certainly earned her a reputation of “interesting” in multiple circles, for better or for worse. She supposes she should be honored that someone of Pryce’s stature in the company has heard of her, even if her familiarity is in the context of Maxwell’s more controversial ideas.
“But I know we’re both very busy women,” Pryce continues on. “I don’t want to keep you from any work you have to do. How about I stop by your lab tomorrow morning at around nine o’clock, and we’ll take things from there?”
“Yeah, sure. That sounds great,” replies Maxwell. “I can send you my latest report on Unit 214 if you’d like to take a look at some of my recent work.”
Pryce gives a soft chuckle. “No, that will not be necessary. I’m sure there will be more than enough for us to discuss tomorrow. Until then, it’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
“You too, Dr. Pryce.”
Maxwell tries to keep the bewilderment out of her voice. Has Cutter really only called her to his office for a less than five minute encounter with Pryce? She waits for something else to come up, something else that Cutter might want her for, but nothing does. Instead, Cutter merely smiles and claps his hands together.
“Well, I don’t want to hold up you busy beavers any more than I have to,” he says. “Alana, lovely to see you as always. Keep up the good work.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Unsure of what else she should say to close out what has been very short meeting, Maxwell glances from Cutter to Pryce. Cutter inclines his head downward in a nod of dismissal, and so she takes that as permission for her to depart. Before she turns to leave, her eyes linger upon the inscrutable face of the mysterious Dr. Pryce. The trace of a smile appears upon Pryce’s lips, and when Maxwell walks away, she wonders what awaits her tomorrow when she and Pryce meet again.