Work Text:
Doctor Vincent Smith-Coren did not particularly want to be present at the trial. Aside from the frankly wasteful use of division budget it represented, it also meant valuable time away from his actual work in WepDev. Thule's high ups seemed willing to bankroll almost any project with enough esoteric buzzwords, and he felt obliged to push back against the worst of it with a little surface-dweller sensibility. At times he convinced himself it was part of why he'd been transferred here, his perspective and experience in more hands-on ICE design sent as a shining exemplar of reason. That sense of duty, combined with the vindication when it inevitably underperformed, was enough to push him out of his quarters
The lab was smaller here than he was used to, pressurised bulkheads and low ceilings lit by humming strips of pale lights. In the arcologies proper, these would be programmed to mimic a sun above, rising and fading as the day went on. Corporate insisted the labs didn't need these concessions, and so the same dull glare that made up the majority of his waking life met him and the rest of the the staff present for the demonstration. The smell of recycled air and cheap synthetic coffee said almost as much as the bitter gossip. Nobody wanted to be here.
When the Djupstad team finally arrived, the disdain for their enthusiasm was palpable. Even when the head of the division entered, the mustered pleasantries could barely mask it. She was an unassuming woman, for all the considerable power she wielded. It was rare to see her stoop from her offices for hands on work, but certainly not unheard of. Only once she spoke did their moods shifted.
"I will not waste our time with pleasantries. Following recent developments and the hard work of the Ontologies Department, we are ready to begin rollouts across the Division. As senior members of your respective teams, you have been bought in to help facilitate this transition in workflow and understand the roles these tools can play. I will now hand you over to Ontologies who can better explain how their work integrates with each of your teams.
Vincent didn't really listen to what came next. The sounds entered his mind, but the simmering anger that swirled through his thoughts interrupted any attempt to translate them into words. It took until they began discussing their integration with WepDev that he began to process it. Even then, it was hard to stomach their arrogance.
"Runners, we find, all have some central motivation, some driving Why that turns them against us. Disrupt that Why, and the problem simply solves itself. To that end, we have been developing ICE-based delivery mechanisms for this payload. Our testing shows this system obsoletes most existing security measures, demonstrating high efficacy and resilience to disruption."
At this, his fury must have been visible, because he'd barely begun to raise his hand when he was called upon by the division head.
"Ah, it seems Vincent is not entirely convinced. Perhaps a demonstration might be in order?"
He managed to bite back the snark on his tongue, and nodded. He recognised the demonstration rig hooked up, and had to confess the team had done their research. It was state-of-the-art, complete with feedback filters and a haptic dampening suite. This allayed the tiny, paranoid, part of his brain that insisted this was some kind of retribution for his criticisms. Clearly, they knew the kind of defences runners used, and so were probably just unaware of how their theories and data would fall apart in practice. Time to provide a hands-on demonstration.
It took all his will to keep his retort civil, as he clambered into the rig.
"When I ruin your demonstration, I promise I won't go around shoving my work into every area of the company."
Was it his imagination, or did the head of the division look a little conflicted? He didn't have time to hear her answer before jacking in.
"You're confident, then. Let's see if that saves you."
---
Reading braintapes is a very strange skill. It's not difficult, in a vacuum, but it is deeply unintuitive. The core issue is that thoughts, and the chaotic feed of impulses that accompany them, don't work quite like anything else in the world. More than that, they don't work how people expect them to work, and that failure of intuition is jarring. It would take a thousand lifetimes to master the separation of work and self needed to parse them as fluently as one might read a book.
AMY-582 was only built from about half that many braintapes, but was still proud of the quality of her work. Parsing and transcribing the live feed from a jacked in subject would be impossible for anyone else, and for her is merely challenging. Her superiors won't recognise the magnitude of this achievement, of course. Just like with all the other test subjects she processed, they will simply see that she has done her job. It does not matter to her. It should not matter to her. Knowledge of her talent should be its own reward. And yet.
The data feed started, and her doubts were pushed away by focus. She had work to do. Ontologies would need to know this subject's thought process as close to real time as she could get it.
---
I am in an ocean, or perhaps a web, or perhaps just darkness. It goes on forever, or maybe just to the horizon, or there could be walls all around me pressing me in. I see myself, below or perhaps above. I look so small and frail and strange. I don't look right. Is that my body? It must be, but it is hard to reconcile that knowledge with the sight I am faced with.
There is a figure around the body (my body?). It is a judge, but it is a scientist, but it is god, but it is me. It speaks with words I recognise - from friends, coworkers, rivals, strangers- the words are right but the sentences wrong. It shows me things I remember, and punches holes in them, slow and surgical. I raise a voice that is not mine in my defence and the sounds that come out feel alien. It insists my language is wrong so loudly I can find no volume to rebut it with.
When the sound finally abates, I try to recall myself, to reconstruct who I am. Every thought is interrupted, every truth rotted into unsubstantiated faith.
I remember my work, and am barraged by just how little I actually did. How could I have earned the position, any secondment to Thule, when I have done so little and have so little confidence in even that. It doesn't provide a plausible alternative, but my brain can at least manage that. Maybe it was an aspiration, or weaving a myth from a week-long internship, or just somehow inserting myself into a documentary I'd seen. All of those things feel equally possible.
I try to scramble for something, anything, any truth left to cling to. It feels like searching through a house after a flood (have I ever lived through a flood?), having to pick up every box to see what can be saved, and watching the cheap polymers dissolve in your grip. Deep within the quagmire of my self, I find something so fundamental it must be safe. The simple assertion that I am a man. The body catches my attention again (it's my body I know it's my body it can only be my body why does the idea hurt). In the light, or the dark, or the void, or whatever space I am trapped in, every detail that makes it male feels so ill-fitting. There is no space in my brain for right, but it is so clear what is wrong. The bristles on the face cut like knives, the shoulders and bulk unearned surety, the short-cropped hair lying to the world. Every memory I can find is painted in a new light now. Was I being humored when they called me a man, or mocked? Were they just guessing? Am I just choosing to recall a biased sample, trying to fabricate evidence because I have nothing else left.
I make the mistake, then, of trying to convince myself I am human. This hypothesis is hard to prove, but easy to weaken. After all, Androids are made to be like humans. The bone and muscle I might feel beneath the skin is easy to fake for a Bioroid, and as equally a part of a clone. I can see what could be the seams and joints of motors, make out the faintest marks of what could be a barcode beneath the hair. It feels wrong to call it my hair - at best, if this is my body, it is the hair, or hair-like polymer, I happen to be saddled with. Beneath the mess of a beard that infests the skin, faceplate hinges would blend in with shaving cuts. I could be human, maybe? It is so hard now to tell. It might be better, might be easier, if I try not to know.
---
When the system is spooled down and the test subject released from the rig, it sits rigid, wild eyed and frantic. It looks around with a mix of inquisitiveness and fear, eyes never lingering in any one place, bombarded by sensations that it cannot confidently interpret. It tries to form words, and cuts itself off in hesitancy, every noise sounding wrong. It tries to stand, and overthinks the process, stumbling to the floor. As a medical team drags it away, it makes eye contact with everyone and everything it can. It is pleading, reaching hopelessly for anything it can understand. The presentation screen is full of words individually it knows but does not comprehend. It tries to pluck any meaning, any surety, from the aghast faces around it.
Only the staff from Ontological seem not to be shaken by the proceedings. Even the head of the division seems nervous as she turns from her PAD to address the rest of the staff. Her voice trembles slightly as she speaks, undercutting the confidence she is trying so desperately to project.
"Doubt is wasted on the loyal. I trust there will be no further issues with the implementation?"