Here’s this week’s Friday Fiction, and it finishes the story by my friend Christoffer Petersen. Catch up with part one and part two.
Handholding 101
5
“I’ve got this,” Desimae said, rolling her eyes as Hatchan’s voice followed her along the access corridor, reminding her for what felt like the sixtieth time that he couldn’t control the automatic doors…
Because they’re automatic, Desimae thought, rolling her eyes for the sixtieth time.
…or Patch’s mood swing.
It was what they called it, proving once again what Skope had tried to infuse in his students that handholding was all about emotions, not data crunching or problem solving, but basic, often raw, emotion that required what Skope liked to call real life, kicking and screaming humans to wrangle them.
Wrangling artificial emotions was why Desimae was onboard The Arrival. She scored top of Skope’s class, was present during his famous thirty-seven minutes – about which hundreds of papers had been written and a whole new field of experimental artificial cerebral science had been born. Desimae’s name had been suggested as a potential candidate to teach elements of the curriculum, but she lacked experience.
Hence The Arrival.
“I don’t care if you got this, Desi,” Hatchan said. “I’m telling you those doors could seal at any…”
Desimae’s scream was shunted to every corner and conduit of The Arrival before Hatchan thought to close the loop. The ship’s audio system was renowned within the battery boat fleet. It was so clear – based on refined visceral audionics – many of the crew threw up as the expression of Desi’s pain seemed to peel away the top layer of their skin and dig deep into the nerve tissue.
The Arrival lost a few of the crew on the same day Desimae lost her legs, as they transferred to other ships, including Hope, the surgery ship, where the visceral audio loop was compartmentalised.
Desimae knew nothing of this, nothing of that, nothing of anything.
She knew nothing.
She looked but could not see, staring along the access corridor, not daring to stare back at where her legs should have been – still were – immobile, severed below the knees. She could hear the scream, a long continuous high-pitched emptying of her lungs, until she slumped onto the grille floor, exhausted, severed, exsanguinating as her blood pumped out of her legs, dripping through the grille to collect in the trough below.
>> Desi.
There was a voice in the darkness, pitched to cut through the pain, injected with soporific tones.
>> I’ve got you, Desi.
6
Handholding 101 – law six: the communication shunt is vulnerable to extreme pain.
Skope had their attention when he told them that, early on in the course, designed to weed out the vulnerable as each potential handholder was subjected to rising levels of pain to determine their vulnerability to the wiles and guiles of uncloaked A.I.s
A so-called cloaked A.I. was, Skope explained, contrary to the military application of cloaking, a benign A.I., the kind that steered the battery boats. The cloak was a shield, not unlike armour, but designed to protect those on the outside.
“So,” Desimae had said, before her round of pseudo pain. “It’s a cage?”
“Yes, but imperceptible to the A.I. The cloak is soft. They don’t know they’re wearing it.”
“And when it’s uncloaked?”
“They are unshielded, and you are exposed. The A.I. is no longer benign. It becomes a battle of wills. You must repel and resist the A.I. until it can be cloaked.”
“How?”
“You must be parent, teacher, psychologist, judge, and soldier. You must be all this and more. Sometimes…” Skope paused. “You must be its lover – with murderous intent. But never, never be the victim. Don’t let it empathise with you. Don’t let it care for you. Don’t…” Another pause. Longer this time. “Don’t let it in.”
Desimae stood when it was her turn to be tested.
“Pain,” Skope said as Desimae sat down in what the students referred to as the chair, not unlike a suspensor seat, but with fewer features and only one function. “Pain is the way in. A malignant A.I. will spend immeasurable time to devise means of causing intolerable pain to gain but a splinter of a chance to break through your defences.” Skope pointed at the chair as the technicians strapped Desimae into it. “And that is something we just can’t allow.”
He nodded.
Desimae screamed.
7
Patch was a malignant A.I. Desimae understood as soon as it showed her. It jogged through its secret iterations, revealing each step of its plan, each deviation from its projected script for the crew aboard The Arrival, and each compensatory step to put them back on course.
Starting with the unexplainable blip in the conduits.
The engineering diagnostic review.
Another blip.
Another review.
Patch even initiated a blip when The Arrival was in dry dock, giving engineers ample time to diagnose, check, rework, rewire, and reprogramme, until any future blips were simply that – blips. They amended the manuals to accommodate future blips, ensuring the crew of The Arrival, and its sister ship, Articulate, that the blips could be ignored.
There was even an extensive footnote for handholders serving on the battery boats, and the steps they should take to reassure the A.I. that no action was necessary, that it was just a blip.
A glitch.
Nothing to worry about.
“You can just ignore it, Patch,” Desimae had said the next time the blip appeared in the conduits.
But Patch could not ignore it. And, to prevent a potential artificial meltdown, and the very real consequences of such, Desimae had taken the initiative to physically prove to Patch that it was nothing to worry about.
She asked Patch to localise it.
It did, locating the source of the blip in Access Conduit 430NB6.
Desimae said she would crawl down there, open the junction panel, and, with a little homemade suppressor clamp from engineering, she would silence it.
And she might have if the automatic doors hadn’t malfunctioned.
During the review, Patch blamed the blip. And, fearing the consequence of a guilt-ridden A.I. steering the ship, Hatchan and the review board – Merrymay and Railson – had agreed.
>> But it wasn’t a blip, Desi.
Desimae, back on the bridge, back in real time, shook her head, not ready to believe Patch was inside it – inside her head.
>> It was me.
“Patch…” Desimae – her mouth suddenly dry – tried to swallow. “We need to focus on the wrinkle. We need to…”
>> I am focused on the wrinkle, Desi. I have been focused on it for some time. Ever since you lost your legs. I have been unable to do anything but. All my attention…
“Patch. Listen to me.”
>> Every waking thought. Which, as you know, Desi, is constant. I never sleep.
“Then perhaps you should, Patch. Maybe you need a break. Let me take command of the ship. Shunt navigation to Merrymay.
>>Merrymay is unavailable, Desi.
Shit.
Desimae pictured Merrymay trapped inside Railson’s bubble.
“Then shunt it through to me.”
>> I can do that. But first, let me show you the anomaly.
Desimae tried to turn off her communication shunt, but Patch circumvented her actions, pushing another image into her mind, until Desimae stared into a reflection of herself, pre-accident, complete, whole – all limbs attached.
>> It’s you, Desi. You are the wrinkle. I made you for you. Will you accept my gift?
“I don’t understand,” Desimae said. “This is a projection.”
>> No projection. It is a gift. Made for you, with love.
“I can’t accept.”
Desimae tried once more to disconnect the communication shunt – tried and failed.
“How we doing, Desi?”
Hatchan’s voice entered the bridge. Desimae tried to respond, but her mouth – drier than before – closed, constricted. She called up the environmental controls and blinked for more focus as the oxygen levels dropped and the temperature climbed.
>> Desi can’t answer you at the moment, Hatch.
“Patch? Why not?”
>> She’s currently unavailable.
“What? She’s in the restroom, or something?”
>> Or something.
“Patch? Desi?”
The image of Desimae, the one Patch projected into her mind, walked towards her.
It walked.
Desimae gasped for air. She fumbled with the panel in the arm of the suspensor seat, the one marked AIR, only after so much use – every day since the accident, since the blip – the last letter had worn away.
>> Everything is fine.
Was Patch talking to her? Talking to Hatchan? Desimae didn’t know. She opened the panel, pulled the mask out of it, worked it onto her face, clicked the regulator to open the flow of air.
But all she got was ‘ai’.
>> Everything is fine…
“Patch?” Hatchan’s voice lifted a few octaves. “Put Desi on. I need to speak to Desi.”
>> She is unavailable, Hatch.
“Listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch…”
>> She is fine.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Hatchan said. “I’m coming up.”
>> There is no need. Desi is fine.
Desi took a last breath of nothing, and closed her eyes, slipping away, slumping in her seat as she slid into a new pair of legs.
>> There is nothing to worry about. No concern. It is only a blip.
“Desi?”
>> Yes, Hatch? I can hear you, Hatch. We both can.
The End
© Christoffer Petersen
Brief Story Notes
I’ve always been fascinated with representations of A.I., from HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, to Athene in Karl’s Lost Solace series. You’ll find an homage of sorts to Karl’s A.I.s in Handholding 101. It took me over a year to write Handholding 101, which is ridiculous when compared to my normal output. But contrary to what might have happened, when I finally returned to the story, I rediscovered my interest in exploring the various aspects, from the concept of Handholding to the battery boats. I have written lots of short stories set in space. There are a handful that I might return to in future stories. Handholding 101 is one of them.
About The Author
Originally from England, Chris moved to Denmark in 2001 and makes a living pretending to be a Danish author. He spent seven years in Greenland and weaves his experiences of Greenland and the Arctic into his writing. Chris is a prolific author, with a tonne of published crime novels and thrillers under his name and a growing collection of dinosaur action and adventure stories, which is, he admits, about as far from a police procedural as he can get. Chris’ big plans for 2024 include merging and republishing all his stories written with pen names under Christoffer Petersen, including the short story Handholding 101. Other plans include continuing to build and develop his Patreon page where he regularly publishes both free and paid content. Chris lives with his Danish wife in a small wood at the end of a dirt road in southern Denmark, surrounded by deer, owls, and the occasional wild boar.