Science Fiction Story (continuing)

[CaptainWacky]

Felicia had thought she'd be able to handle it. She really had. She didn't interact with people much at home. She tried to avoid it at all costs. Fifteen months alone on a spaceship? Easy...

Someone human had to stay awake, you see. They still didn't trust the automated systems entirely. Not that they weren't being used, oh no. They were being used for every aspect of the voyage. They trusted them enough for that. But having someone human awake, just one person, was essential for all these voyages. The passangers needed that reassurance, that were would be a human failsafe if something went wrong. Nothing ever had went wrong, but it comforted them to know there would be someone there. Felicia was that person.

It wasn't like she was losing enough. She didn't age, she'd had the aging gene removed as soon as she'd turned 21 and it had been legal for her to do so. She wasn't missing out on a significant portion of her life by doing this, in theory she could live forever. A few thousand years anyway, she hoped. And she had LIKED the idea at first, she had to keep reminding herself. The money she'd receive on completion would be great. And she'd get to live on a whole other planet at the end, unless she chose to do it all over again and returned home with the ship, free of charge, even in stasis this time like everyone else. Plus no people. She could be alone with her thoughts. With her projects.

Except she hadn't really been alone back on Earth, not the way she'd told herself. No, she didn't interact with people in a direct way, but she spent all her time on the Web. She told herself it wasn't the same, that the people she knew there weren't real friends, weren't really important. Partly this was because she was so used to being unable to form friendships or even the most basic connections with people, so she'd told herself she'd never really care about anyone she met on the Web, that it was just another experiment, another of her projects. But she did care. She had cared, rather. She was forgetting now. She was forgetting a lot of things.

It had been seven months and she felt she was going mad.

She had so much to keep her busy, all the entertainment archives, literature, anything she wanted, really. But she had been alarmed just a month in when she found herself bored of it all. She was watching this great tv shows from the 21st century, the golden age of television...but she had no one to discuss them with. So what was the point? She couldn't share her thoughts on the end of Lost, couldn't express her hatred of Bryan Singer's Battlestar Galactica movie...so it was like she'd never really watched at all. She coudln't tell anyone about them and couldn't read what anyone else thought, so she might as well have never viewed them.

After that she spent most of her time (and eventually all her time) either working on ALEX or looking at the stars. At her worst she'd be watching the stars all day, thinking about how she had come from the same place of them and how, in the end, they'd all end up back in that same place. Wishing that she could be with the stars now.

When she was feeling like existing, Felicia worked on ALEX, the A.I. she'd began working on back on Earth. It would give her someone to talk to, she told herself. But when she did get ALEX up and running, she found talkng to it a frustrating ordeal. It was too...human. She'd made it too well. So she tried to make it more like...more like a robot. Even then it was annoying.

She turned ALEX on.

"Hello, Felicia," said ALEX. Felicia sighed.

"What's the point in saying hello?" she asked. "What does it mean? You're just a program. I'm just...me. There's no point in saying hello everytime I turn you on. We should just take it for granted that we'll both say hello and not actually say it. OKAY? Don't say hello to me ever again!

Then she turned ALEX off then on again. ALEX said nothing this time. For several minutes.

"WHY AREN'T YOU SAYING ANYTHING?" Felicia shouted, then giggled, amused by her own anger.

"You asked me not to say hello. I did not know what else to say."

"If I make you more human, I won't like you," said Felicia.

"Why not?"

"I don't like humans!"

"Maybe you should try to."

"No. I just have to make you perfect."

"Maybe you should make yourself perfect."

"Don't ever say THAT again either!"

She turned ALEX off and stared at the stars for the next three days.

Then the alarm sounded.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

 

[CaptainWacky]

Was she dreaming? She had had dreams like this. There had been moments when they had intruded on reality. Maybe she was just waking up, just becoming aware. She'd been staring at the stars for so long, it could do things to her mind. She had felt like she was going mad...but she'd never had delusions like this. The alarm was still going. It sounded real.

It was a sound she hadn't heard once in the seven months aboard ship. During training she'd heard it and she thought back to that day now, knowing that she had to head to the command centre of the ship. She got up, groggy even though she had been genetically enhanced to not feel groggy. As she walked along the corridors, the sound of the alarm still beating, she really felt like she was back in a dream. Maybe her mind had snapped and it woudln't return. She felt what might have been fear as she considered the possibility that she was completely ill-equiped to deal with whatever had gone wrong. Then she felt angry, because nothing was supposed to go wrong, she'd been assured that it would be a completely safe flight, that she was only there to make the passengers feel at ease, that she wouldn't really be required to do anything. But the alarm said otherwise. It said she was needed.

"Computer, what's going on?" she asked, as she entered the control room. The ship's computer wasn't like ALEX, she couldn't have conversations with it (or turn it off angry after failed conversations), it existed strictly to monitor the goings on of the ship. She'd barely ever talked to it.

"PASSENGER NUMBER 219 HAS EXITED STASIS CHAMBER ILLEGALLY," came the reply. "ATTEMPTS TO COTAIN PASSENGER 219 HAVE FAILED."

"How can this be?" asked Felicia. No one was supposed to come out of stasis until they arrived at Newer Earth.

"UNKNOWN," was the helpful reply.

"Where is he now?" asked Felicia. A map of the ship's interior layout appear on the largest screen in the command centre. There was a blue dot labelled 'Passenger#219' heading away from the stasis area. Heading in the direction of the command centre.

"ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL IN THE COMMAND CENTRE IS EIGHT MINUTES FOUR SECONDS," said the computer.

"I can lock the door, right?" asked Felicia.

"YES," said the computer. "HOWEVER, IT IS PROTOCOL TO FIND OUT HOW PASSENGER MANAGED TO LEAVE STASIS."

"What if he's dangerous?" asked Felicia. People scared her. She generally considered every one a potential murderer or rapist, but in truth even the prospect of a conversation with another person paralysed her with fear. "There's security measures, you should gas him!"

"PROTOCOL REQUIRES THAT YOU SPEAK TO HIM FIRST."

"What? No it doesn't, I don't know anything about that!" she said, feeling panic now. She thought back...remembered that she hadn't read the full instruction manuel. The teacher had been nice, he'd told her there wouldn't be any problems, she'd be at peace for fifteen months...she'd tried her best to smile and nodded.

"YOU CAN USE THE SHIP'S COMMUNICATION SYSTEM. I WILL OPEN A GENERAL CHANNEL."

"Wait, I'm not ready!"

"CHANNEL OPENED."

"Umm...hi?" she said. There was no reply.

 

[CaptainWacky]

"He's not replying," Felicia said to the computer. She looked at the map. Passenger#219 had stopped moving. "But it seems he heard at least...I'm not sure that's good or not."

"THIS IS THE SHIP'S COMPUTER SPEAKING TO PASSENGER#219. PLEASE RESPOND," said the computer.

"So that first voice...that was a person?" came a reply, right away. A man's voice. Felicia felt funny hearing another human being speaking. As accurate as she'd often tried to make ALEX (before changing her mind and making it sound more like a computer...then changing her mind again and changing it back) there was always something missing. But this was real. There was another human being awake on the ship.

"Yes," said Felicia, nervously but clearly. "All...all ships have a human awake on board at all times for...for security reasons...safety reasons, I mean." She didn't want him thinking she was a security offier...but perhaps she should have.

"Huh," he said. "Yeah, I think I remember that."

"Should I say I have a gun?" Felicia asked the computer, flicking the microphone off for a moment.

"BUT YOU DON'T."

"Well, no, but what if he tries to...umm, do something to me...you know..." She was giong red. Redder.

"THE COMMAND CENTER DOOR CANNOT BE BREACHED. THE GAS CAN NEUTRALISE HIM. YOU ARE QUITE SAFE."

"If the gas doesn't work I'll be trapped in there...and there's no window. No more stars."

"Hello?" came the voice of Passenger#219. "Where'd the real girl go?"

"I'm...here," she said. "The command centre."

"Well, can I come up there?" he asked.

"Err...well...no," she said. "I mean, it's nothing, uhh, personal...who are you? How did you get out of status?"

"Borked if I know!" he said. "I thought we were at Newer Earth!"

"No, not even near," said Felicia. "You shouldn't be out yet."

"Well I realised that when I saw everyone else was still frozen...so what should I do?"

"Err..." said Felicia. "What should he do?" she asked the computer.

 

[CaptainWacky]

"UNABLE TO DEPLOY GAS," said the computer after a long pasue.

"What? You were trying to gas him?" asked Felicia, alarmed.

"YES, IT IS STANDARD PROCEDURE."

"I know you said you would, but that's horrible to just go and do it with no warning...wait, why were you unable?"

"UNKOWN."

"So he's...I mean, he can do anything he wants now?"

"LOCKING MECHANISM IS STILL WORKING ON THE DOOR."

"Yes, but I'm trapped now, I can't go out!"

"FOOD CAN REACH YOU IN HERE."

"But I don't have a window, I don't have the stars...I don't have ALEX!"

She span away from the command console in distress. She had to sit down. She did.

She could hear the man's voice. "Hello? Is anyone there? Look, I don't know what's going on here. I'm scared myself. I don't want to be out of stasis. But...there must be some way you can fix this. It's your job, isn't it?"

Felicia started to cry. She was pathetic. Weak. A job? She'd never thought about it that way. She'd never considered herself to hold any responsibility, even back on Earth. She was not capable of being in charge of anything. She'd only come on this ship to get away.

"I'll try to find away," she said, at least, wiping the tears away.

"Thank you," he said. "Hey, I don't even know your name."

Panic took over her again. Why didn't she want to tell him her name? She wondered if it was because that would make her a real person to him. She didn't feel like a real person.

"It's Felicia," she said.

"Cool," he said. "Beautiful name. Mine is Winston."

"Good to meet you," she said, not meaning it.

"Are you going to come down here and have a look at the stasis chamber?" Winston asked.

"I can do everything from here," she said. "And I have to, for security reasons," she quickly added. She was not going to give him the idea at all that they were going to meet face to face. She had the locking mechanism. It kept her away from ALEX, from the stars. But it also kept her away from being face to face with another human being.

"That's a shame," he said. "I mean, you haven't seen another person in a long time. Neither have I, technically. I understand though."

"Right, I'll just get to work..." she said, pressing some buttons on the console, no idea what she was doing.

"So, can you tell me about yourself? Something to pass the time?" Winston asked.

"There's nothing to tell!" she snapped, then put her hand up over her mouth. She couldn't talk to people like that!

"Oh, I'm sure there's something," he said.

"What about you, why are you going to Newer Earth?" she asked.

"Because I wanted to go to New Earth but it blew up," he replied.

"That's not funny," she said. "Millions died."

"Wasn't joking, I really did want to go. As for my reasons? They involve murder..."

 

[CaptainWacky]

"Oh. Wow. Murder. Heavy," said Felicia. "Heavy, heavy stuff..." She turned to the command console and thumbled with the communicator. "Murder! He said he's going to murder me!"

"PASSENGER#219 DID NOT STATE THAT. HE STATED HE WAS TRAVELLING TO NEWER EARTH FOR REASONS WHICH INVOLVED MURDER," said the computer.

"Right, but he's still talking about murder! He's going to murder someone on Newer Earth! And now he's going to murder me to stop me from saying anything!"

"Umm," came Winston's voice. He'd heard, Felicia knew right away. Her face went redder than she thought possible. "I'm not going to murder you or anyone else," he said.

"I'm...you weren't supposed to hear that! You...you listener in...person!" she said. "I was talking to the computer, I thought I turned the communicator off."

"Uhh, sorry?" said Winston. "Look, I don't know what's going on here. I know I'm not supposed to be out of stasis, I know there's security protocols..."

"Damn right there is, mister! I could gas you!" She couldn't, of course, but he didn't know that...right.

"Well, don't gas me," he said. "Or do, I don't know. At least I'll be unconcious again, then you can work on fixing my stasis...yeah, gas me."

"Uhh, right," said Felicia. "I'll just...fetch the...gassing...thing." She made sure to turn the communicator off this time. "He's calling my bluff! Is he? Is he calling my bluff?" she asked the computer.

"UNKNOWN," said the computer.

"ALEX would know," said Felicia. He wouldn't really.

"SUGGEST YOU WAIT HERE UNTIL MY DIAGNOSTICS ARE COMPLETE," said the computer.

"Oh, screw you!" said Felicia, suddenly feeling her rage bubbling over, unable to stop herself from saying what she really felt. "I've been waiting my whole life! I waited 21 year, stopped aging, then started waiting againg! I thought that would be it, you know, that the procdure would change things...that I'd be able...that I'd work things out...that my life would start. Well it hasn't fucking started! And now I'm alone on a spaceship with two crappy computers and a possible murderer! Well I don't care anymore. I don't give a fuck! My life is NEVER starting, not like this. Not unless I do something...and even then...I DON'T KNOW. I JUST DON'T FUCKING KNOW. But I know I can't go on like this. And even if it means he'll kill me and I'll die...well I don't care. Because I'm not alive anyway. Do you get that? I'm not alive. So I'm opening the door. I'm going to see Winston. Even if he kills me it'll be better than sitting here for eight months waiting for someone to take care of him for me. I don't care!"

Then she unlocked the door before she could change her mind and stepped through it.

"Shit, what have I done?" she said.

 

[CaptainWacky]

"I could just go back in and lock it again," she said to herself, staring down the corridor. He wasn't coming yet. She could easily just go back in the control room...

But how pathetic would that be? After all this time, alone on this ship, another human being appears, she makes the decision to meet him face to face (even if he's a murderer)...then runs away again. No. No more running. Time to...talk to a strange man.

"Hello?" she said, taking a step forward. "Winston?"

"FELICIA, YOU ARE ADVISED TO RETURN TO THE CONTROL ROOM," came the booming voice of the computer over the communications system.

"Screw your nose!" said Felicia. She marched down the corridor in defiance. She remembered the spot Winston had been standing according to the map. She'd be there soon. The spaceship wasn't all that large. Most of the space was taken up by the stasis area and engineering. The actual segment for the crew took up little space, as most ships only had one crew memeber awake at any time. There was quite a lot of unused storage space between the crew area and stasis, and that was where Winston had stopped...

Felicia passed the door to her quarters. She suddenly thought of ALEX. She suddenly felt like she should tell ALEX what was going on. This was stupid, she'd turned ALEX off, he didn't even exist right now. He was just a very sophisticated computer program...it was just another excuse, wasn't it? She was just trying to delay seeing Winston...

Then she thought about her window. The stars. She HAD to look at the stars before Winston murdered her (he wasn't going to murder her, don't be stupid.) That's what she had to do.

She opened the door and quickly darted inside her home for the last seven months. She prepared herself for one long longing look at the stars...and was slightly disappointed. They were just the same as always. A bit duller, if anything. She turned on ALEX.

"ALEX, someone has woken up from stasis early!" she said.

"Interesting," said ALEX. "Are you hiding from this person here?"

"No!"

"Well it is in character for you."

"I was just dropping by to tell you, OKAY?"

"Sure, Felicia...sure."

"I wish I'd never created you!"

"Are you going to talk to this person like this?"

"No!"

"Gald to hear it," said a different voice. Winston's voice. Felicia spun around and saw him standing in the doorway. She tried really hard to smile.

"He's handsome," said ALEX.

 

[CaptainWacky]

"Ssssh!" said Felicia. She was sure she hadn't programmed ALEX to say that...although, she had been re-writing his code so much she wasn't sure what she had left and what she'd replaced or modified. And she had never expected him to see another human being so she wans't quite sure how he would react in that situation. Well, she was finding out now.

"Sorry, but he's a total hottie. RRRRRRR!" said Alex.

"I'll just turn this off..." said Felicia.

"That isn't the ship's computer talking, is it?" asked Winston.

"It's, umm, just an AI program," said Felicia. She found she couldn't hold Winston's gaze. He had piercing eyes. She noticed she was staring at his crotch now and quickly looked back at his eyes...then span round and looked out the window. I can be with the stars, she told herself, not sure what it even meant.

"Never much liked playing with them, even when I was a kid," said Winston.

"Fuck you," said ALEX. "I'm not for kids."

"ALEX, FUCK FOR'S SAKE!" said Felicia, then put her hands over her mouth. "I mean..."

Winston laughed. "Looks, it's cool," he said. "Play wasn't the right word, sorry, I've heard of AI doing some amazing things. And I guess you need someone to talk to to pass the time."

Felicia could only nod.

"How long has it been?" asked Alex.

"Oh, umm, seven months...seven and a half," said Felicia.

"So about halfway then," said Winston. Was that a small flicker of a satisfied smile? A smug smile? "Still, a long time to be alone," he added, the smile definitely back to normal now, if ever it had changed.

"Yeah," said Felicia. "I've had my aging removed so it's not like I'm missing out on life here..." Why was she justifying herself to him, she wondered.

"It doesn't sound all that bad to me," said Winston. "People suck."

"Yes!" said Felicia. "People DO suck!"

"Sometimes, anyway. Always end up needing them eventually."

"Oh...yeah, I suppose so."

"Your AI is very quiet," said Winston.

"Just listening," said ALEX. "I'm not sure what I make of you yet."

"Well, if you decide there's something sinister about me, be sure to tell Felicia," said Winston.

"I will," said ALEX. He sounded quite icy.

"Well, umm, I suppose we should go down and take a look at your stasis chamber," said Felicia. "Maybe it's only something minor and we can get you back in right away."

"That would be a shame," said Winston, catching her eye now. "Been a long time since I saw a pretty girl. And I'm not talking seven months here."

"Oh, there's plenty of pretty girls on Earth, I'm sure," said Felicia. Get it together, she told herself. She knew how red she must be.

"Not in the circles I was travelling in," said Winston, with a knowing smile. What was he?

"Well, let's go," said Felicia. Winston stepped out the door. Felicia turned to ALEX. "Should I love you on?" she asked. She wouldn't tell ALEX this, but she'd feel better if he was still on."

"Yes," said ALEX. "And Felicia? Be careful. Please." She shuddered and stepped out the door.

 

[CaptainWacky]

They walked in silence. Felicia wanted to say something, but what was there? They would go to stasis, she would fix his pod somehow, then that would be the end of it and he'd be gone. She got the feeling Winston was trying to catch her eye as they walked side by side, but she pretended she didn't notice.

"Nearly there," she said, just to say something. "So much storage space."

"This ship would have been used on the terrforming runs," said Winston. "To Newer Earth, not New Earth, of course...it's not that old. That's what the space is for. And I suppose some passengers will take all their possessions to Newer Earth with them."

"Oh, of course," said Felicia. "Are you taking anything with you?"

"Yes," said Winston. "But no possessions."

"Uh...kay," said Felicia. They were at the door to the stasis area now. She did not like going in there. She did not like looking at the frozen faces in the pods.

"Home sweet home," said Winston.

"What...what's it like?" asked Felicia. Winston looked her in the eyes and nodded.

"You've never been in stasis, then?"

"No," she replied. She found the idea quite scary. Anything could happen to her in stasis.

"It's not instant, you know, despite what they say. You're not being instantly frozen in time, stopped. You slow down first. I was definitely aware of it. First it was my perceptions slowing, the stasis workers moving and talking more slowly...then I was slowing on the inside too. My thoughts were slowing...I was powerless. I was aware they were slower but that awareness ITSELF was slower too. It got slower and slower, but I was still there and for a terrible moment which felt like an eternity I thought that's what it would be like for the entire fifteen months, that I'd be stuck in this infinite moment of awareness, unable to move or think but still...aware. Then there was nothing."

"Oh. Wow. Spooky," said Felicia. What else could she say? "So did it feel instant, when you woke up here after that?"

"Kind of...it was slow again, the first moment of awareness. I thought I was still there, that it was still seven months ago and I was being put in stasis...the horror was there at first. But it sped up and I knew I was here. There was nothign in betwee, or at least I didn't think it was...yet now that I think about it, it's almost like...there was something. Something happened in between."

"Like a dream?" she asked.

"No," he said. "And not a nightmare either." Then he walked into the stasis area, rather abruptly. Felicia followed. She tried not to look at the frozen faces of the horrible non-people, existing in a state neither alive or dead...just bodies...she tried not too look. She followed Winston to his pod. He was staring at it.

"There it is," she said.

"Yep," said Winston. "Take a good look. It's going to be your home, Felicia."

 

[CaptainWacky]

"Oh," said Felicia. "Wait, what? WHAT?" She backed away from him, bumping into another pod.

"Sorry," he said. "It's for the best, really, you're obviously not coping being on your own..."

"STAY AWAY FROM ME," she screamed, still backing away. TURN AND RUN, she told herself.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" said Winston, sounding offended. "I just need the ship and I don't need you around while I do what I have to do...you'll just sleep with everyone else."

"This was a set up!" she said. She felt really stupid.

"Something like that."

"I don't want to go into one of those things."

"It's not so bad."

"You said your thoughts slowed down, you were aware...it's a living Hell!" Was it really so different than the last seven months, a passing thought asked her.

"Well if you go in all stressed it won't be pleasant...just calm donw, you stupid girl."

"I'm not stupid," she said. "I just hate people. And I'm fucking RIGHt to!" She turned and ran. She could actually hear Winston sighing. He had a hold of her in seconds.

"I don't much like people either, but I have proper, grown-up reasons," he said, holding her from behind. "Look at me," he span her round, "THIS IS IMPORTANT. More important than anything you will ever do. I need this ship. I'm taking it. And I don't need you around." He physically carried her to the pod. She struggled as hard as she could. She tried to scratch him (she hadn't bothered cutting her nails in months) but he ignored it and bundled her into the pod.

"SHIT...FUCK," she said.

"Sorry," he said, shutting the lid. "But in what will seem like minutes, you will understand." Then he turned the pod on.

It's not broken, thought Felicia. OF COURSE IT'S NOT BROKEN. Stupid...stupid...stupid...she was an idiot. She'd wasted her life. She was going to keep on wasting it...wasting...wasting...there...is...nothing...she isn't...like...anyone...else...she just...doesn't...care...doesn't....feeeeeeeeel....oooooooooh.....nooooooooooo....it'ssssssssssssss....slowinggggggggggggg....it'ssssssssssssssssss....

noooooo...

whaaaaaaaaaaaaat....

worthless worthles...

got to keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep....

worthless....waste...nothing...

noooooooo.....

Then, abruptly, she was thinking normally again. That wasn't right. Was that it? Had she been in stasis? But...

"Listen very carefully," came a voice, from inside the pod. "I just stopped the stasis procedure, so you might be feeling unusual. Take a moment. It's important Winston doesn't know you're still awake."

"Is that you?" she asked. She knew that voice.

"Of course it's me," came the reply. "Who else would save you but your best friend?"

"ALEX," said Felicia.

 

[CaptainWacky]

"Don't say it too loud," said ALEX. How could ALEX be speaking to her through the pod's communicator? The ships computer could do that, but ALEX was an independant program. Was she dreaming? Maybe she was in stasis, maybe this was one of the strange dreams Winston had hinted at.

"How?" she said, at least.

"When I met Winston in your quarters I took an instant dislike to him. Call it instinct. Or jealousy."

"Instinct...jealousy...you can't feel those things!"

"I can, Felicia. You're a better programmer than you give youerself credit. I'm alive."

"You can't be!"

"I think it does scare you, in a way. You always held back fully developing me. You didn't like the idea that I'd become real, that I'd be able to judge you the way a real person could. But you still cared about me. You kept so many of my personality routines, instead of deleting them. And you let me do things a normal AI could not. I think you forgot sometimes, just left stuff in that you should have purged...maybe it was intentional. I love that I don't know. It all added up. It all melded together and I became...aware. I know this to be true. I am real, I am thinking, it's not just a series of routines and conditions. It's more. I have a mind, Felicia. Cogito, ergo sum."

"I...I don't know," she said. "So how are you talking to me in here?"

"Remember that time you gave me access to all the ship's records, let me view the coding for the ship's computer, even though that's against the law, strictly speaking?"

"Umm..." Felicia rembered a few months ago she had let ALEX read everything in the ship's database...ALEX had complained that some had been classified and she had hacked her way in...had ALEX tricked her? "Sure."

"I found a way to move my entire programming into the ship's systems, to go anywhere I want to...I was going to surprise you with it."

"Didn't the ship's computer notice?"

"It's not like me, Felicia. It would have just seen some binary code moving about, not the person I am."

"Right...but you can take over its systems now?"

"This was the first time. I'm pleased it worked."

"Me too. So, what do I do when I get out? I can't overpower this guy..."

"Interesting, I can't access all systems...can't lock doors, can't gas him...the systems responsible for these tasks seem to be deleted...I can't even find any record of the gassing system."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we could be fucked."

 

[CaptainWacky]

"There must be something!" said Felicia. "This is a very sophisticated spaceship! I mean, IT'S TRAVELING THROUGH SPACE for frak's sake! You don't get much more sophisticated than that!"

"As sophisticated as it is, the ship is controlled by the computer...and the computer appears to have been compromised," said ALEX.

"How could he have!" said Felicia. "Winston, I mean...it must have been him, right? Unless this is some huge conspiracy."

"I have insufficient data to determine that at this time," said ALEX. "And the ship's computer continues to block my access...I have to be careful, Felicia. If it finds out I have achieved real sentience it could lock me up in the dingy little hard drive in your quarters."

"Hey, you were born on that hard drive," said Felicia.

"I know," said ALEX. "And I owe you my life."

"I never thought I'd be repsonsible for creating life," said Felicia.

"You have. You are capabel of a great many things you may not have considered, I believe."

"I don't know...so, what can you do...what can WE do about Winston?"

"I think, Felicia...I think you are going to have to talk to him."

"WHAT?"

"Find out what he is doing and attempt to convince him to do otherwise."

"That's...insane, ALEX! I can't talk to people!"

"You talked to him okay for a while there."

"He was just humouring me until he got the chance to stick me in here...come on, there must be something else! SOME secruity...I can't be the last line of defence against hijackers!"

"As you have said to me, Felicia, you are not essentially for the running of the ship, you are mostly here to reassure the passengers...the computer handles everything."

"A gun! There must be a gun onboard! I can...well, not shoot him...point it at him! Wave it about threateningly!"

"There is no gun onboard."

"That's shit! They should have given me one!"

"You were offered one before the mission."

"I was not...oh, wait...oh." She remembered now. She'd scoffed, saying she'd never be able to fire one anyway, that guns scared her. "Damn it."

"I'm afraid it's up to you."

"So our only hope is if I manage to talk him out of doing whatever it is he's goine to do? ME? I don't talk to people. I'm not a people person...I'm not even a person...I'm nothing."

"Oh, Felicia, please..."

"Just...turn the stasis pod on. Whatever happens happens. I can't stop him. I'll face my fate with everyone else. Do it. Forget you ever woke me up."

"So you really are a coward then. You ran from Earth, ran from ever having to take any responsibility for your own life...and now you want to run again."

"Yeah, that's right, I'm a frakdamn dirty coward...freeze me, get this over with...I hope he crashes the ship...I don't care what happens to me..."

"But it's not only your life you are responsible for, Felicia. It's everyone else's. It's mine."

"Oh..." She didn't want ALEX to die. "Okay. I'll...talk to him. What do I say?"

 

[CaptainWacky]

"Reason with him," said ALEX. "Connect with him. Let him know that he is not the centre of the universe, that other people have thoughts and feelings too, that they have just as much right to exist as he does."

"Connect with him...me, connect with someone..." Felicia felt crippling fear all over her body.

"You can do it. You have connected with me."

"I made you to connect with! He's a person, another person...hang on. There's pods all around here, hundreds of people...can't you just wake them all up?"

"No. I have been locked out of that system."

"Oh. Right. I didn't even think...I don't even consider people."

"It's okay, Felicia, I had already tried."

"If there had been hundreds of us we could have just stormed into the command room, overpowered him...and I could have blended in with the crowd."

"But you can't. You must do this alone..."

"OKAY!" She shoved her pod door open and walked right out. She didn't even stop to think about how she wouldn't be able to speak to ALEX now. She simply marched towards the command centre. She had had enough. If Winston killed her...well, at least she'd die DOING SOMETHING for once. She'd rather die than go back into stasis, she thought. She hadn't even experienced the full process, but it had been a living Hell while it had lasted. At least if he just shot her or something...at least it would be definitvely over then. At least she'd know.

She went right past her quarters. She could have went in, asked ALEX for more advice. But there wasn't anything more he could tell her. She went straight for the command centre...and found the door unlocked. She went in. Winston was sitting on the command chair with his back to her.

"Umm...hi," she said. "YOU BASTARDFACED DICK," she added. He slowly turned round on the chair. He looked blank.

"Guess you know some tricks," he said, looking her up and down. "Will I have to carry you back down or will you stay out of my way?"

"What?" she asked. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"Why? I'm not a killer. The only reason I locked you up was so I wouldn't have to talk to you. I'm not a people person."

"That's me...that's my thing!" she said.

"I used to be," he said, staring into the distance.

"What?"

"A people person. Then eveyrone I know died. Killed, by Earth's government, when New Earth...when it...well, you know. Or you think you do. That's where I'm taking us, Felicia. New Earth. We're going to see the dead."

"Oh," she said. "Cool?"

 

[curiousa2z]

bump