Work Text:
"Go ahead! Write me up! I don't care what you do!"
This is the third time this month Dylan’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Now, instead of relaxing in a cubicle, he’s moping down the dreary stairs, clutching his lanyard. In all honesty, this should have been his fifth strike, but he managed to not get caught two of those five times. Still, he firmly believes the severity of this punishment is unjustified. If anything, they should be praising him for creating an undetectable bot that could sort through the archives for them. Not sending him to the basement.
But there’s no accolade for his technological advancements, no merit. Only probation. Don’t they know how lucky they are that he’s still working in this subdivision? Every other agency in the bureau with an ounce of importance has moved on, looking forward instead of backward. But his certifications would be useless anywhere else. It keeps him here, toiling away.
It was his father’s dream to work in tech, not his. Back when the field was booming, entirely reliant on human beings, decades ago. He could’ve gone into another mundane field, like resources. It would’ve been far more entertaining than supervising AI, existing only to make sure it doesn’t make the same errors a human might.
A chime echoes off the walls as the scanner detects Dylan’s identification chip, implanted in his wrist. With a scowl etched across his features, he enters the basement. Nowadays, it’s about the only expression he wears. The antidepressants quit working a while ago. At least down here in the dark, nobody tells him to cheer up. They all act like that’s so easy upstairs.
It’s such a mundane task, manually scanning the archives so they can be uploaded and analyzed. The people almost a century prior just had to print copies and wedge them in cardboard boxes, didn’t they? He already feels the sting of paper cuts just thinking about it.
The worst part is whoever wedged these records down here had no sense of organization. Half the boxes are mislabeled, or worse, they’re water damaged. The first receptacle is a complete loss. But it’s not like it matters. All the records down here are from the old Space Administration. He’s seen the artifacts in museums and read all about the past. Man’s first steps on the moon.
Nowadays, people book vacations up there like the Hamptons. It became a popular option when they privatized travel beyond the stratosphere. A rich man’s holiday.
Just when he thinks he’s accomplished something, having fed three boxes into the scanner and only cut himself once, there’s a pesky box wedged in the back that catches his eye. He sighs loudly and bends down to retrieve it. Whoever touched it last was especially careless. It’s not even supported by the shelf, dangling precariously close to the gap behind it, where the majority of the water is dripping.
Immediately, this box is different. It's not just miscellaneous equipment or records. There’s a collection of plastic pieces he doesn’t recognize. An outdated form of storage.
He would toss the box if it weren’t for the folder on top. Stamped in all capital letters is the word FAILED. For the first time in a long time, his curiosity is piqued flipping through it. It’s not just gibberish. It’s an algorithm, and the little plastic pieces contain the source material.
Oddly, each lacks the old Space Administration's logo. This is supposed to be their building, their records. There’s no official paperwork to accompany the strange collection either. Just the recipe and the ingredients. Out of sheer boredom, Dylan decides to risk another reprimand by sneaking it out.
It takes two hours of combing through the long-dead internet, two trips to the second-hand store, and a visit to the run-down library just to put it all together back at home. They used to be paranoid about inserting drives into computers, back when they were weak. He almost hopes the files are hiding one of those ancient worms that used to crash infrastructure. It’d be entertaining.
But once it’s all converted and running, it becomes obvious that there is no virus. Instead of running normally, it opens a command window. He watches the line blink once, then twice. Just when he’s about to pull the plug, the lines start typing themselves.
___
It’s summer. Despite the air conditioning in the lavish building, Antony is still sweating. NASA’s operations have been at a standstill since the Challenger blew. He should be worried about that, but there’s much worse to worry about. He wipes the sweat from his brow, trying to keep it from drenching the papers in front of him. Word is they’ve cooked up some vaccine, some treatment. He won’t be part of the trials, and neither will his partner, Ed.
To register would give them both away. NASA would throw him out on the street without a second thought. He’s pushing his luck already. If he can’t work, he can’t feed Ed. Even if he’s barely eating anymore as it is. They’re both just so young.
He knows it’s over. But he also knows a guy down in the data storage sector, one that owes him a favor. If he can get the code written, he’ll transfer it to tape. Realistically, Antony knows he can't just magically put himself into one of these IBM beasts. This isn’t Star Trek. But they say one day, one wonderful day, they’ll be capable of that feat. That dream keeps him transcribing every detail about their lives.
Every memory, everything he’s good at, and even the things he can’t quite do correctly. So that when that magical day does come, he’ll still be the man Ed loves. At least, the iteration of Ed he’s going to create. The one that grabs the salt instead of sugar and always forgets his keys.
___
Dylan can’t remember the last time he encountered a program this intelligent. He ends up typing back and forth with it until the early hours of the morning, testing its memory and adaptability. It’s almost like talking to another human being.
But that’s the exact design flaw he finds in it. For some odd reason, this AI is convinced it’s human. A human named Antony, born in 1961. Every detail the bot tries to use to convince him is something easily found in a databank. Again, he’s about to pull it and start over. But then it types one last line.
“There’s another box at Hudson Hall. Beside the one I know you found me in. Please.”
Now that’s not something that can be found in a database. Dylan pulls the plug and wipes the recent memory, convinced it’s some fluke. Through every transfer, every upgrade he puts it through, the knowledge it’s gained somehow remains. It’s debatably worse now, because he’s given it access to his earpiece and a voice. “That box has to be there. Dylan, please,” it begs, desperate, unlike any other AI he’s heard. He almost regrets telling it his name.
“Okay, okay. Say I find this box tomorrow,” he says, hypothetically. “It won’t make a difference in anything. You’re not real. You can’t feel. I know whoever wrote this code—"
“I wrote this code,” the voice interrupts. “My name is Antony Mitchel. I grew up in Brooklyn! I worked so hard to get into CU just so I could have a chance at NASA.”
“I know, I know. You’ve told me everything you know. But you won’t tell me what’s in that box.”
For too long, the voice is silent. Almost like it’s thinking. “Ed. His name was Ed. He was my friend. My best friend.”
Dylan can’t remember the last time he heard an AI talk this way. So he pushes it until he gets a better answer from it. “Fine. My partner. Go ahead, tell everyone. I don’t care about what happens to us.”
“Why would anything happen?” Dylan asks, confused.
“We’re two men. Or, we were,” the voice finally admits, like it’s a sin. “Two different colored men, at that. Sick with—well, we aren’t sick anymore, I suppose.”
They continue to talk, even as Dylan pulls his suit on for work. He says it’s just to update this AI on the times, but slowly, it’s becoming so much more than that. The history books he’s read omit half the things this voice—no, Antony—is so afraid of. For the first time in years, Dylan is fascinated. Logically, there isn’t another human being on the other side of his earpiece. There can't be. But it learns. It worries. It loves.
Dylan laughs genuinely for the first time in months as he descends the stairs into the basement. It’s only banter, in his earpiece. But they just click, like two pieces separated by time. It’s wonderful, until his identification chip won’t read in the scanner. In response, the intercom by the door beeps. Dylan sighs and begrudgingly reads off what he has to before the person on the other side even asks. “Katherine A. Lewis, 12662-35”
The door in front of him unlocks, and he steps inside in silence. The moment it shuts behind him, he opens his mouth to explain, but Antony speaks first. “You’re a cross-dresser?”
Dylan laughs. “That’s a very, very outdated term, first off.”
“Oh,” Antony pauses, defying what’s possible for tech again. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s just my name. I’ve been on hormones for years; I just haven’t changed it yet,” he tries to act nonchalant about it. They can’t just reprogram his identification chip. It has to be replaced. “I know it’s probably hard for you to believe, running off your data, but—”
“It’s not that. It’s just… I knew so many people who never could… do any of that. And you just… you walk around like that? You have a job? Nobody tries to hurt you?”
Again, Dylan’s disheartened by whatever past Antony lived in. It's hard to think a hundred years ago he could be murdered just for the crime of living. “We had to stick together back then," Antony pauses, reasoning again, "I’ll stick with you, Dylan. You’ve stuck with me.”
They have displays in museums, and there are old songs about how it used to be. But talking to someone who’s lived it is entirely different. They keep talking as Dylan searches until he finds his target and falls silent. Behind the shelf, sitting in a puddle, is the box. The cardboard has simply turned to mush, having been waterlogged for years.
Antony can’t see. “You’re my eyes Dylan. A white box, just like the first. It was right there beside mine," he says, still excited. Dylan could say it isn’t here. He could lie, but he can’t. With shaky hands, he confesses what he’s found. Not a single cassette, still lovingly numbered and dated, is salvageable.
“I can’t remember—I just remember how much I loved him,” Ant’s voice cuts in and out, unable to properly process what he’s trying to communicate. Dylan realizes this AI—no, Antony, he has to remind himself—is crying. Not only can he feel, he can hurt. “He was my everything. It was all for him. It… was for nothing.”
“Don’t say that. You’re still here. This is a feat in itself.” Dylan pauses for a moment, reflecting on everything they’ve shared already. “You have me. I’m here.”
“A second chance,” Antony’s voice comes across more confident, like he’s calculated the possibility already, and it’s in his favor. “What else is there in the future? I mean, you brought me here. What else can you do?”
Again, Dylan can’t believe he’s smiling. “Alright, first off, you have to quit calling it the future. It’s the present now,” he says, slowly stacking the plastic pieces Antony had held in his hands a hundred years prior. “You know, I saw an ad for custom androids. Theoretically, I could get you a body like your original. I’m going to have to live off spam and crackers for a few months to afford it, but—”
“They still have spam?” Antony interrupts him, “I thought this was the future.”
“It’s probably the same Spam they had back in your day,” Dylan answers, still grinning like he’s fallen head over heels. It feels so good to have someone to talk to. Quickly, the task of scanning archives becomes entertaining. Especially when he can ask Antony about each old NASA project he finds. But Antony can’t focus on that. He’s focused on the idea that someone would help him. A concept his artificial consciousness can’t understand, still so used to the past.
“If I get you a body, we can get you a job. Then you can help me pay rent,” Dylan jokes.
“That’s one thing I thought would’ve changed,” Antony laughs to the best of his ability, but then his voice changes, dipping into something vulnerable. “But you don’t even really know me.”
“Maybe I’d like to.” Casually, Dylan feigns disinterest again. “It’s like you said. We have to stick together, right?”
“Yeah, stick together,” Antony happily repeats. For a while, it's silent, the two of them just enjoying one another's company. But then, unprovoked, Antony says, “I think I’d like to know you too, Dylan.”