The Fila Epiphany

Chapter Three-1

Chapter Three

It chilled Cariad to the bone to see the forty or so deactivated Guardians. They were standing still and silent, lined up in ranks in an empty room on the lowest deck of the Mistral. Part of the creepy effect was because they’d deactivated while upright, not lying down like humans in cryo. Yet they looked as human as ever, aside from the fact that none of them breathed or moved even a micrometer. Some hadn’t even bothered to close their eyes before shutting themselves down. They stared blankly ahead, their gazes unfocused. The lighting in the room was dim, yet it was bright enough to glint on the Guardians’ eyes as if they were moist.

Cariad mused that the Guardians’ eye tissue probably wasn’t damp. She imagined that if she reached out to touch an eye it would feel smooth and dry, or perhaps greasy. The impression given of moist eyes was an illusion, like everything else about these strange androids from an Earth she had never known.

“I’m not sure whether you will believe me,” Strongquist said, diverting Cariad’s attention from the motionless Guardians, “but I would like to assure you that neither we nor our creators meant any harm to the people of Concordia. I hope the fact that we have voluntarily chosen to take this hiatus from the colonization is evidence of that.”

“To be frank,” Cariad replied, “I still don’t know what to make of you all or what you intended to do here. And I think I speak for most Woken and Gens. We feel deeply deceived. I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to process and understand what you’ve done.” As she spoke, Cariad’s obsession with staring at the android’s skin and hair reawakened. Strongquist looked perfectly imperfect. Uneven skin coloration, five o’clock shadow, flecks of gray in his eyebrows—everything about him was convincingly human. Cariad marveled at the skill and artistry that had gone into making him.

“We are aware of the problems resulting from our presence, but—”

“Are you?” Cariad asked. “Do you really understand what you did? Are you even capable of understanding? It isn’t only that you disrupted the colony, dividing us into factions by lending your support to one group. There are wider effects that I can barely guess at. When it was just Woken and Gens, everyone knew the score. Sure, the two groups didn’t mix much, but they would have been brought together by the work of colonizing the planet. We had the Mandate and the Manual and we had to make a go of the colony as best we could because there was no going back. We were on our own, sink or swim.

“Now we don’t know anything any more. Our foundation has been ripped from us. You’ve come here and told us we aren’t only the first deep-space colony, but we’re also probably human civilization’s last gasp. Can you understand how that feels? I don’t think you can. You aren’t human. You have no empathy, and you don’t even grasp basic human rights. If you did, you wouldn’t have sedated Aubriot. You’ve behaved like the machines you are from the moment you arrived. I don’t know why it took us so long to see it.”

Strongquist looked down, as if in shame or regret. Was he only mimicking the emotions, responding appropriately to the conversation? Cariad didn’t know. The Guardian Faina had said their minds were programmed with information from many human personalities, giving them some semblance of humanity, but Cariad didn’t know what to think about the Guardians anymore. “Is there anything else you want to say to me before you deactivate?”

“Aubriot has been taken out of sedation,” he replied. “And there are some things I haven’t told you—things that we deemed inexpedient to divulge at the time.”

“Like what?” Cariad replied. “What have you got to say now? Are you going to tell me everything you said about what’s happened on Earth isn’t true?”

“No, not that.”

“Why should I believe you?” Cariad gave a huff of frustration. “You could have been lying when you told us about what’s happened on Earth since we left, or you could be lying now. Why did your creators make it possible for you to lie?”

“We were never given any information on the rationale behind our programming,” said Strongquist. “If I were to guess, I would say that it wasn’t possible due to the organic origins of our mind, or to prevent us from divulging information that could be harmful to the success of the colony, or in order to make us seem more convincingly human.”

His final comment took the wind from Cariad’s sails. The android had a point. Humans could be just as deceitful as the Guardians had been. Strongquist’s guess also reminded her of something she’d wanted to ask him about before he deactivated.

Although he had explained the reactivation process, Cariad had no intention of waking up any of the Guardians ever again if she could help it. She wanted to get all the important discussions over while Strongquist was conscious or “switched on.”

“Do you have anything else to tell me about the Natural Movement terrorists?” Cariad asked. “You didn’t lie about that, did you?”

“I believe we’ve been entirely transparent about our investigation into the Natural Movement infiltration of the colony. If there’s anything we didn’t tell you, it was an inadvertent omission. In any case, all of the files relating to the investigation are on the Mistral’s databases along with the historical data from Earth that we brought with us. You may be able to discover information there that eluded us.”

Cariad said, “There was something else I wanted to ask you about that: Why did you invite me aboard the Mistral when you wanted to show me the vids of Aparicio? It occurred to me later that you could have just sent them to the Nova Fortuna.”

“The reason for that ties in with something we didn’t tell you because we feared it might destabilize the colony. Cariad, from the moment of the stadium bombing, we undertook extensive covert assessments of the psychological profiles of each of the Gens and Woken. Our initial motivation was to attempt to discover the bomber. However, as events unfolded, we began to use the assessments to look for individuals who were best suited to steer the colony in a more favorable direction.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Strongquist?” Cariad snapped. “You were spying on everything we did and said?”

“Not exactly, but we did look deeply into each individual’s history of behavior as far as it was possible,” Strongquist explained. “I’m aware we may have appeared ignorant to exactly what was happening politically among the colonists, but we understood more than you probably supposed. We were seeking ways to attempt to heal the schism that was developing between the Woken and the Gens. To do that, we tried to support those we identified as most likely to be able to move the divided relationships in a better direction. One of those we identified was you.”

“Me? So you invited me to the Mistral to...?”

“As an act of conspicuous support. We were aware of the aura of mystique we had. By inviting you to our own vessel—you were the first person we invited, remember?—we were attempting to raise your profile and status among the Woken. Your personality type isn’t the kind to seek out power over others, yet we felt you possessed the qualities needed to bring the two sides together.”

Cariad wasn’t sure how to take the android’s statements, but his words spurred another question. “So was it for the same reason that you helped me defuse the situation when the Gen farmers refused to hand over their weapons?” At the time, Strongquist had dropped a broad hint that gave Cariad the means to assume temporary control and prevent any of the farmers from being hurt.

“That’s correct. We could not openly defy Anahi after she declared herself Leader, so we did what we could to support you, knowing your actions would calm things down.”

His words kind of made sense but Cariad wasn’t convinced. If the Guardians had truly wanted to play politics to promote the success of the colony, they would have thrown their support behind someone else. If anyone was born to lead the colonization of Concordia, it was Ethan.

Cariad said, “Is there anything else?” It felt like long past the time to say goodbye to the android, hopefully forever. She couldn’t wait to leave and close the door on the room of eerie mannequins.

“Only one more thing,” said Strongquist. “I see that you’re irritated and impatient. You don’t feel any confidence in anything I have to say.”

“You got that right.”

“It’s regrettable, but perhaps inevitable in the circumstances. Well, in that case I’ll deactivate myself in a moment. The reactivation process is simple if you ever need our services in the future.”

“Yes, it’s easy enough to start you all up again,” Cariad said, almost flippantly. Yet now that it came to saying goodbye to Strongquist, her emotions did a somersault. Her irritation gave way to something else. She could hardly believe it, but she felt a little sorry for the machine. After all, it was self-aware, or it seemed to be, yet it was turning off its consciousness without knowing if it would ever reawaken.

Cariad was reminded of the moment she’d been sedated prior to her cryonic suspension for the long trip to Concordia. She’d fallen asleep not knowing if she would ever wake. If she was honest with herself, she’d been terrified. Right up to the moment the anesthetist put her under, she’d been reconsidering her decision to join the colony. In the end, it was partly the notion of how foolish she would look backing out at the last minute that had prevented her from calling the whole thing off.

As he watched her, Strongquist suddenly looked more human than ever.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Cariad asked. “Turning yourself off, I mean? We might never reactivate you, you know. Especially not after everything that’s happened. I don’t think anyone will want to take the risk.”

The Guardian gazed directly into her eyes before answering. “I have no choice in the matter. As I’ve always said, the success of the colony is prioritized in our programming. We understand that our presence at this time is detrimental, so we must deactivate. However, I would be lying if I were to say that the action carries no personal cost. I try to think of it like this: While I am shut down, I shall be in the same state as I was before I was created. It didn’t bother me then. Why should it bother me now?”

To Cariad, Strongquist’s words sounded like mind games. “Maybe we will need you again at some point. I guess we should stop drawing this out. What was the final thing you wanted to tell me?”

“It’s only a suggestion. There is a holo on the Mistral’s database that might help you and the other colonists, but I would advise you to watch it alone before showing the others. You may judge it to be too alarming. I wasn’t able to show it to you previously because it gives away the secret of our origins, but I’m aware you doubt the veracity of our statements regarding the conditions on Earth prior to our departure. This holo was prepared for the time when we revealed our true identity. One of our creators explains the history and reasons behind our manufacture. I’ll send it to your personal files. If you view this holo, I’m confident you’ll be assured that we were not lying when we told you that Earth is all but uninhabitable now. It’s imperative that the colonists remain on Concordia and do their best to build a thriving settlement. There’s no future for them on Earth.”

“Okay,” said Cariad. “I’ll watch it.”

Strongquist said, “Very well. It’s goodbye, then.” He smiled. It was a sad smile, and a rare event for the android.

“Goodbye,” Cariad replied, then she realized he couldn’t hear her. He had already deactivated. The smile on the android’s face was frozen and would remain so until someone decided to wake him up.

Cariad wished Strongquist had given her time to leave before he’d turned himself off. Now she was the only living thing in a room of figures like life-sized mechanical dolls whose gears had wound down.

She quickly went out and closed the door, then pressed the key that locked it. Despite all of Strongquists’ words, she didn’t fully trust the Guardians not to reactivate themselves. As well, Natural Movement members roamed free among the colonists, and there was no telling what any of them might do. She wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them tried to reprogram the androids and turn them into killing machines. Not very “natural” killing machines, it had to be said, but the terrorists had already shown themselves capable of truly impressive feats of cognitive dissonance. Bombs were also “unnatural” but that hadn’t bothered them.

Cariad paused outside the locked door. There was so much she had to do, yet for a moment, she couldn’t move. Although the Guardians’ interference had nearly brought the colony to its knees, their presence and the high tech they’d brought had felt like a safety net. Now, the colonists of Concordia were on their own.

***