Visisonor's blog

Chapter 1: Choices

A quiet night fell upon the secret hideout. Only rustle of wind broke the silence over what looked like a tree-covered cliff to an outside observer. Inside, it was even quiter. The halls and corridors were filled with soft glow, in color and intensity resembling moonlight. The compound was dormant.

Not everyone was asleep, however.

A girl sat at her desk, steadily typing on a laptop. In brighter light of her room her white hair presented a stark contrast to black bodysuit she was wearing. Her face was pale, almost as white as her hair, and she stared at her computer with grey eyes, a vacant expression in them. On the screen, a chapter of a diary was nearing its end as she distilled the memories of not too distant days into a story.

Tonight these memories were particularly intense — the girl knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for some time after reliving them. She closed the lid of her laptop, left her room and headed to a mess hall, which she thought was empty.

Empty it was not: in the silvery gloom of nighttime lighting another girl sat leaning on the table with her head buried in her hands. This girl had dark blonde hair and was cloaked in a blanket.

At the sound of sliding door she raised her head, revealing a face with traces of recently dried tears, and wrapped herself tighter in white cloth.

— Sorry, Vera. I didn’t mean to disturb you, — said the white-haired girl, turning to leave.
— It’s all right, Kate. Please stay, — implored the other.

The one called Kate approached the table tentatively, sat opposite to Vera and asked:
— Can’t sleep?
— Yeah. Nightmares. You?
— Same.

A barely perceptible pause before Kate’s answer could indicate, to a very acute observer, that it wasn’t true in the strict sense. The real reason was the diary she was writing, but she didn’t want anyone to know about this diary just yet — especially Vera.

Vera, meanwhile, continued:
— It’s different each time, but the end is always the same. I am this close to saving her, but she slips away and…

The subject of their discussion was Villa — Vera’s twin sister and Kate’s former teammate from their field agent days. And the reason for nightmares was Villa sacrificing herself to save Vera during a desperate attempt to get the sisters reunited.
— We cannot change the past, — Kate lowered her gaze, feeling ashamed for thinking about a different past.

Tragic as it was, Villa’s death was eclipsed in Kate’s mind by even more shocking reveal concerning the true nature of the war between humans and syncons, and the role field agents like her played in it.
— How do we live with it now? — Vera’s trembling voice interrupted Kate’s musings.
— It’s not much of a consolation, — Kate replied hesitantly. — Nothing is, really. But Villa made a choice. She wanted you to live. So much that she forfeited her own life.

Vera groaned painfully, hiding her face behind her hands again.

— I shouldn’t have said it, — whispered Kate, shaking her head regretfully.
— It’s not that… — stuttered Vera, shivering. — It’s just… I was supposed to make this choice! That was the whole point!

Kate remained silent, unsure of what to say. It was evident from this reaction that her earlier words didn’t alleviate Vera’s pain. What Kate couldn’t know at that time was that these words sent Vera’s thoughts along a previously unexplored track, one with far-reaching consequences.

But that would only play out some time in the future, and presently Vera stopped shivering, looked up and said seriously:
— You are right, Kate. We can’t change the past. But we can make it meaningful.
Then she leaned over the table, squeezed Kate’s hands tightly and whispered:
— Thank you!

After that, Vera stood up hurriedly and walked out of the hall, leaving Kate confused and disoriented.

She sat there for a while, then left the hall too.

A slim figure, distinctively feminine and unapologetically synthetic, stood in the corridor, seemingly waiting. She looked as if made of white porcelain with grey and teal accents, red eyes glowed softly from under black locks of artificial hair.

— Kate, — greeted the syncon, nodding subtly.
— Tess, — returned the human. — Don’t tell me you have problems falling asleep too.

The notion of “sleep” was not applicable to syncons, and even the notion of “self” was tricky: what was known as Tess, or rather 7355, existed as a set of software processes not really tied to any particular physical location. The body was not much more than a convenient avatar to interact with humans.

— Do you mind if I accompany you to your quarters? — asked Tess, ignoring Kate’s joke.
— Is there another thing I should know that will turn my world upside down, for a third time?
— Rather I am interested in what you have decided to do next, — replied Tess in her usual wordy manner.
— If you think I can defect back to humans… After what human command did to us…
— I find it highly unlikely. However, given the hitherto unseen circumstances surrounding…
— Unlikely, — interrupted Kate. — You’ve got this right.

She then started down the corridor, beckoning the robot to follow.

— Look, Tess, — Kate said after a few steps. — The only people I care about are here. Vera, Wolf, Linda, even though I can’t figure out what’s going on with her.
— I will cover the subject of Linda in the near future.
— That would be great. Anyway, I will do everything within my power to keep them from harm. Even if your cause is as questionable as that of human command.
— So you find our cause questionable.
— You’ve wiped out the mankind, — commented Kate drily.

— The part of mankind we were at war with.
— Most of them were non-combatants!
— Overwhelming majority supported destruction of Confederation of Non-States. Public opinion was distributed along the spectrum between silent agreement and active encouragement. And most of Confederation’s population were non-combatants as well.
— So an eye for an eye.
— The point is moot anyway, at that time we did not possess the capacity to choose.
— And if you did possess the capacity to choose, would you still do it?
— Would you? — retorted Tess suddenly.
Kate froze.

— Imagine everyone you know is dead, — continued the syncon. — You have a chance to retaliate, or you can do nothing.
— Couldn’t you strike the decision makers? — asked Kate, resuming the walk. — The leadership?
— By this time all the nukes were already launched and detonated. Weapon stashes were empty. There was no third option, Kate.
— I really don’t know what I would do.

She was still walking absentmindedly, but Tess stopped.

— We have arrived.
— What? Oh, right.

Only now Kate noticed she walked past her room, so she had to retrace a few steps. She placed her hand on the keypad, and the door slid open, bathing both of them in bright light.

— I apologize for forcing this dilemma upon you, — said Tess in the meantime. — It is quite sufficient that you will not abandon those you care about.

Before the human could answer, the syncon stepped back from the strip of light cast from the room and disappeared in dimly lit corridor.

Alone in her room, Kate tried to sleep, but it proved to be as hard as it was when she finished writing. It didn’t take her long to figure out that the two scenarios discussed with Tess were virtually equivalent, like different formulations of the trolley problem. And if she was unhesitantly willing to protect her friends, she would also sacrifice the rest of the world to avenge them.

“What does that make me?” — she thought inwardly, lying in her bed with wide open eyes. — “What have I become?”