to boldly go...

[bravejemma]

Comments

[bravejemma]

You really don't need to be so rude.

[She's never met a computer with an attitude before and really, it's not endearing her all that much.]

[projecthydra]

[His head tilts slightly.]

That... was rude?

[bravejemma]

Yes! Because I am upset, and you are being dismissive and, if I may say so, not very helpful. If you just don't care, that's fine, but I am trying to fix a problem, here, and if you aren't going to help you can clear off!

[projecthydra]

[He squints.]

You're acting like one of the AI pieces... But there's no sim running.

Call me interested. What do you want help with?

[bravejemma]

[Okay. Once more with feeling.]

Because I'm not AI.

You know the users in the program, the engineers? I'm real people like them. Except something happened.

We've been experiencing problems with injuries that were incurred during simulations. Normally, they're supposed to be just part of that -- a simulation, that disappears when the user leaves the holosuite. But the injuries haven't been disappearing. I'm pretty sure the last guy who ran that simulation came back and had scarlet fever on top of a pretty nasty snake bite.

So I was in the suite trying to run the diagnostic from the inside, while Fitz was monitoring from the outside. Something sparked, and... now we're here.

[projecthydra]

Yes, I understand that. [Okay so maybe he's not through with being dismissive yet. She's so busy being huffy that she's not listening.]

But if you've been transferred into an online environment, you have to accept that you might not be a User anymore. You could be a digital copy.

Jemma, I ran a scan on your data. That means I could run a scan.

[bravejemma]

If I'm a copy, what...

[That doesn't make sense, either. If she's a copy, then she's also still out there. Right?]

You said that you'd seen this before. Where did you see this?

[projecthydra]

[He smiles grimly.]

Why don't I teach you how to find it on your own? You might need to pick up at least a little data manipulation.

Do you trust me to teach you?

[bravejemma]

Do I have a choice?

[That's an implied 'yes' by the way.]

What do I do?

[projecthydra]

Choices are the first thing, actually. There's always one. Everything boils down into a function. On or off.

Try to see things without your avatar. Close your eyes and really look.

[bravejemma]

[He's being smug again. But if she can handle the Oxbridge gatekeepers, she can certainly handle this guy.

So she does as she asks and closes her eyes, trying to see... inside, or whatever. Is this like one of those hippy-dippy sleepaway camps, or retreats in the spas -- ]

Oh.

[She doesn't know if that's what he was talking about, but if you could see an electric pulse, she imagines that's what it would look like.]

[projecthydra]

Yeah, see that? That's me. Now if you focus on me a little harder...

[It's like applying a magnifying glass to the spark of electricity. Light becomes atoms, exponential enhancement without the aid of tools.]

Each bit of data serves a function. [The particles light up as he mentions them in turn.] This one is my communication. This processes logic.

[He explains each section in sequence, but pauses at one of the middle ones.]

...I don't... actually know what this does. But you've got one too. Nothing else in the system matches it.

[bravejemma]

[She takes in each spark, listening to him explain and delineate. He's calm and matter of fact, and the affect is the same. His pause leaves her expectant, until he said that he didn't know. And she wonders. She keeps her eyes closed to ask the question she doesn't know if she could bring herself to ask if she was looking at him.]

Were you a User once, Will?

[projecthydra]

[He's calm because there's no reason not to be. It's just instruction. The processing of data.

He hesitates when she asks, logic visibly processing extra data.]

I might have been. But it would have been a very long time ago.

I told you. One way trip.

[bravejemma]

[She doesn't care if he thinks it was a one way trip. She opens her eyes to look at him -- his avatar, whatever -- when she asks:]

How long?

[projecthydra]

How long since I came online? T-440,294,400.

[He shrugs absently; it's simply reporting the number of seconds in response to a time ping. It doesn't have to mean anything.]

[bravejemma]

What are those, seconds?

[Makes sense, the smallest division of time. She does the math, and the number comes out... well, rather large, but not as old as she might have thought.]

Fourteen years?

[projecthydra]

Years... By the ship's delineation of "years," yes that would work.

Does that matter?

[bravejemma]

It's just a long time.

[Her heart -- where it should be -- aches. Not just because she could be here fourteen years, but because he has. That's a long time.

[projecthydra]

You'll grow accustomed to it. And since we're in power saving mode, we're free to do whatever you'd like until the Users return.

[Since she seems to be back in their virtual space, he smiles at her there, squeezing her hands lightly.]

I have to admit. I don't hate the idea of having some company.

[bravejemma]

[She still feels terrible. He's been there so long. But who had he been?]

Yeah. We'll stick together, all right? And we'll figure it out, and Fitz will get us both out of here.

[projecthydra]

You keep saying "Fitz" like it means more to you than an access level. Is it something special to you?

[bravejemma]

Fitz is my -- my best friend.

[They didn't really have a chance for that dinner date, did they? But "best friend" feels woefully inadequate.]

My best friend. My partner. The chief engineer on the ship.

What do you think Fitz means?

[projecthydra]

Fitz is a nickname for administrative access. It's a protocol that signals defenses to stand down and allow changes to be made. If you see anything running on a Fitz, sit back and let it do what it wants.

[He pauses to consider more, scanning out deeper into ROM.]

It's also in a profile setting. Matches this model.

[and then Fitz is simply there in the room with them. It's his old body, the one he'd had when they left Earth. But it's also very much a construction, standing there with vacant eyes and a slumped posture, a virtual suit with nothing running inside it.]

[bravejemma]

[Didn't that figure -- she supposed he would be happy to hear that, if not proud.

When he brings up the profile, it has the effect of being hit in the stomach. It's him. It's not, of course, but it is, and the way he was before he was rebuilt, down to the teeny scars on his fingertips. She misses him so much it threatens to swallow her.]

That's him.