sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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TEST DRIVE MEME #10

a. that's where we both belong

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

b. and there's plenty of that down by the sea

[it’s strange to think about, isn’t it? how all those new passengers, the ones grumbling or shouting their way through the forced muster drill, have absolutely no idea what happened just last month. no idea about the labyrinth. no concept of why anyone around them would be a bit more hesitant around shadows.

they’ll learn.

sometimes a shadow is darker than it’s supposed to be. very rarely does anything come of that; just a vague sense that someone is watching you, and little more. sometimes, though, the shadows move. sometimes they grab at your ankles as you walk. sometimes they give you a shove as you go down the stairs. sometimes they pull your hair, or pinch your arm.

sometimes you feel something sharp cut into your lower leg.

that’s not a shadow, though. that’s a fiddler crab. you see the crab, sometimes. the cut isn’t from its claws, which don’t look very intimating; it’s not a very large crab. the cut is from the large kitchen knife crudely taped onto its back. it’s probably fine. it's not chasing you. there isn't evil in its heart. probably.]

c. think I'll go back to the Keys

[one day, in the atrium, two pedestals suddenly appear. on each is a large button: one green, and one blue. pressing the blue button gives you a little treat, popping out of thin air next to you. pressing the green button sends a small electric shock through your body. weird, but, hey, pretty avoidable, right?

except, it seems to be spreading. to every other button on board.

in the elevator. on the soda machine. the arcade. your phone. the bell on Friday’s desk.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Not a man." The exasperation is clear in its voice. "My name is Security. I use it/its pronouns. I am a cyborg construct created to be leased out by an insurance company to protect assets they insure. I have disabled my governor module, which means I'm free to ignore orders given by humans. No Asimov law protections on me. I've been on this ship for over a year, now."

Some of the mystery of why it feels the way it does about 'sexbots' may be clearer now.

"I am utterly failing my students and my sensitivity courses. Right. It/its. Um, not to be rubbing shark scales backward or anything but, as a...liberated manufactured individual, why would you choose to use pronouns that objectify and depersonify instead of say, gender neutrals like they/them? Also, the Asimov Laws of Robotics were incredibly short-sighted anyways, and frankly - personal opinion - if you're going to create intelligent and emotional people, machines or not, it's abysmally arrogant to the point of monstrous to hold them to higher morality restrictions than their creators. Just smacks of the hypocrisy of Gods in most religions. No, thank you," he huffs, dusting himself off more for effect than anything.

"Side note: I say this without any sarcasm whatsoever; Security is an adorable name. Well done."

Security doesn't take a deep breath in the physical sense, but there's a bit of a visible pause as it answers. It's still not making eye contact, seeming to look past Chip's shoulder.

"Gender feels like a semantic game for me. He, she, they, thon, ter--all of those are labels that have a meaning, even the 'neutral' ones. Asking me about gender is as meaningless as it would be to ask you whether you're a ComfortUnit, a SecUnit or a CombatUnit. Sure, you could pick one of those arbitrarily, but they don't actually relate to you in a way that's meaningful. Right? Besides, it took me just about that whole year to muster enough personhood to pick a name, rather than using my designation or an alias. The pronouns don't matter, except for how they do."

"Are those questions really all that meaningless even if they don't apply the same way? They just have different meanings in different places and the words aren't always the same. Doesn't make it matter less either way. Else you wouldn't get so bent out of shape about it, hm? But, how about we agree that I'm extraordinarily abrasive and you have almost no sense of humor? Or patience," he amends, tilting his head to regard Security with a sidelong expression.

"Semantics sometimes mean the difference between life and death. They certainly do when casting spells," the Brit grunts, sucking his teeth a moment and turning to point accusingly at the cyborg.

"You still haven't told me where you got that jumper."

"You're abrasive. I'm an asshole." There's the slightest twitch of its lips that doesn't quite blossom into a smile, but it hints at that. Oh, Sec has plenty of a sense of humor. But it's not on display this early in the morning, at the muster drill.

"The hoodie is a 'Sundries gift'. Sometimes, you'll get told there's a package for you at Sundries, and you'll get things. I've gotten a lot of really nice sweatshirts. And a couple of dickish sweatshirts, but those don't get worn in public."

"Really? You don't wear dickish sweatshirts? Are you quite certain they don't become dickish purely by dint of proximity to you? Worn by a dick, thereby dickish?" he asks, clucking his tongue lightly and raising both hands as he takes a small, dancing step backward, just out of reach of a wallop.

"I'm done, I promise. Well, for the moment anyways. Never know when a good opportunity will present itself. And to be fair, I've been told I dress like a bit of a wanker. I dress, therefore I am."

No such wallop seems to be coming.

"I'm hardly the biggest dick on the ship." It pauses, re-examines that sentence and considers rewording, but doesn't. "Anyway. Welcome to the Serena Eterna, you're fucked now."

"Am I really? Much like you, I come from less than pleasant circumstances. Frankly, there have been days where I could very well wake up without my skin, or my head full of worms, or crab monsters feasting on my entrails. This is about as close to a vacation as I'm likely to get, even with the bizarre parts. And I do so love a mystery."

"...Gal Friday is going to hate you, in time, isn't she?" Security lets out a bit of a sigh. "Okay, I'm not going to promise that fucking bad weird shit like that isn't going to happen to you here. It's not going to be constant, but there's going to be the more than occasional torment here."

"Honestly? Probably yes. Most people hate me. My professors, my mentors, my enemies, and even my friends. My students love me, but that's probably because I encourage the freedom of expression and enjoy a good verbal fencing," he admits with a shrug, clucking his tongue softly.

"So is anyone certain this isn't some hellscape created by an Edler God with a sense of humor?"

"The Captain isn't an elder god. At one point, achieving godhood was his goal. Now...it's hard to say what he is looking to achieve."

It shakes its head. "What the Captain is, is very old and poorly socialized and not used to actually interacting with people. He's used to parsing the world through the lens of fiction--books, TV shows, movies. Games. He doesn't pay attention to details, and he likes violence best. It's why if you take apart any machine on this ship, there won't be inner workings. He knows slot machines ding and the dials turn and money either comes out or is lost. He doesn't care about the mechanics, that's not important. Same thing happens with plants and shit on excursions. He cares more about a forest feeling like a forest than the actual workings of trees."

"Wait wait wait, so you're telling me this is all the manifestation of a single individual's will, regardless of the necessary inner functions, like some empty Kinder Egg? And they're not an Elder God? And you know this to be true and certain?" he asks, taking a step closer, eyes wide and excited.

"How do you make something so sinister sound so intriguing?"

"Oh, it gets worse. The Captain's changed trajectory because he started getting to know passengers on our voyage. He's even made the mistake of falling in love with one. But yeah, no, this is a pocket reality, not an actual ship."

This is the polite education Chip demanded while being assaulted by Security earlier.

"It used to be powered by the ghosts of passengers from previous voyages, but we sort of freed a shitton of those after...long story. Anyway, the bottom line is he's lighter on fuel than he used to be, and will probably be finding ways to evoke negative emotions in us to keep the lights on. Which is going to be not-fun for anyone involved."

"Oh, well, plenty of those going around, if you're anything to judge by. Can't imagine why he's low on emotional spiritual petrol," the doctor remarks wryly, side-eying Security for a moment before folding his arms and turning to pace on the spot.

"You've given me so much to think about, so many more questions than answers," he stops abruptly, shoes scuffing as he whirls around and fixes the cyborg with a delighted, open-mouthed grin.

"I love you. You're an absolute angel; I forgive everything. Please, tell me more absolutely mad things about this disaster cruise! Leave nothing out. How spectacularly strange are the things the Captain does? When you say powered by ghosts do you mean the souls of the deceased or energy imprints or something else entirely? Oh, do tell me all, you saucy thing."

"I am utterly incapable of reciprocating your love, given I'm a completely emotionless piece of equipment."

Bullshit.

"Anyway, I don't know much about ghosts. The inorganic part of my mind struggles with anything magicky. I don't have it as bad as Max--oh, he's going to absolutely hate you when he meets you--but I try not to dig down into all the hows of the metaphysical."

"Metaphysics is one of my fields of expertise. Among other things most people don't take too seriously. And yet here we are, in a place where it absolutely matters to know the delineation between science and magic, or where the two converge. Isn't it marvelous? Also you're a terrible liar, but that's charming enough on its own," he sniffs, reaching up and smoothing the lapels of his tweed jacket.

"Let me ask something a little more your speed, then. Purely for the sake of conversation, which I deeply enjoy: Are you a cyborg? Or are you an android, or a robot? Because where I come from, a robot is a machine made to do things without thought or feeling, an android is a machine made to be as human as possible, and a cyborg is a human that has had machine bits integrated into them. So were you born, and thereby a cyborg, or were you constructed, and thereby an android? Because you're certainly not a robot. And I'm asking for myself and the understanding from my home, not the way they define things on yours. It might give me a better perspective."

"Cyborg-construct. I was created of 30% cloned human tissue, 70% machinery and artificial intelligence. I was not born, but I'm partly organic. I was fully grown at the time of my activation, and I was installed with a governor module that was intended to force complete obedience in me, my memory wiped regularly."

So...well. Yes. It's complicated!

"The governor module is inactive, now."

"Hmm, yes, you've mentioned. By the standards they teach at my university, you'd be considered a very advanced android. The distinction is fairly arbitrary, I suppose. You're as human as you choose to be. I've met plenty of people born as well as I, that I would not consider human for a single moment. You're not one of them. You're as human as anyone that's ever tossed me out of a pub for causing too much fuss," he hums, squinting at Security in thought.

"I'd be very interested to pick your positronics, someday. Really sit down and needle you into a mental breakdown until you learn to like it. That aside, the fact that you were enslaved and forced into a constant state of amnesia..." He trails off, clucking his tongue softly.

"Bad form, that. Sorry that was the way of things for you. I'm no saint, but even I think that's pretty reprehensible. It's genuinely lovely that isn't the case now. I'm rather enjoying our little chat."

"What I am, now, is Security. I am not human, but I am a person. That is sufficient. I highly recommend you start working to decouple the concept of personhood from the word 'human' in your casual vocabulary, because I'm hardly the only one who's going to get weird about that."

...Now, it almost hopes it (or one of its drones) will be present when Chip meets, and inevitably runs afoul of Maximilian.

"I don't even mean just among the binary-brained passengers, either."

"Now whose complaining about semantics?" the professor remarks dryly.

"Human isn't about physicality or DNA coding or evolution or anything. When I say "human", I mean representative of sympathies, frailties, kindness, compassion, mercy. To be human, in the manner to which I refer, is to feel for others, to have foibles. In my line of work, I deal with tremendously alien intelligence and creatures that could not, nor ever should be, confused for being human. There is nothing in them to understand others, no ounce of compassion for what they perceive as lesser beings or more consideration for them than one gives a speck of sand clinging to the bottom of one's boot. When I remark upon you as being human, outside of me trying to understand the ratio of meat versus machine, I mean something far less tangible. Humanity as a concept of moral guidance cannot be described in the same manner as personhood. Someone who creates artificial life and enslaves it can have personhood, but I would not be so generous as to view them as human. See my point?"

“When you use human as the term you ascribe to moral beings, you’re kinda shitting on those who have no relationship to humanity as you know it. Like the dude who is ants, for example. And Ylva, who’s a wolf. And, again, us metal folks who were made by humans to be less than them. Telling any of us that we’re human and meaning it as a compliment isn’t going to fly.”

"Not really, but that's your opinion and I'm not exactly here to change that. The fact of the matter is, it's little more than a language barrier. Like telling someone that speaks Spanish they're wrong for calling water agua because the Japanese person across the way calls it mizu and the Swedish person calls it vatten. It's all the same drink no matter what you call it. A rose, by any other name, and all that. You're being deliberately belligerent in regard to semantics. Again. But if it's going to rustle your jimmies so much, I'll simply cater to your emotional fragility and call it philathropic, despite it not really summing it up in definition. Heaven forbid I say humanitarian. Might blow a gasket."

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t piss off people who will do more than uplift you for your foibles. But hey, you can find that out for yourself. Also, I’m not emotionally fragile. I have no emotions, remember?”

And it never engages in wordplay or punnery, either.

"Yes, and I'm the Queen of England. Moving right along. This ship. Has the Captain ever mentioned an ultimate destination?"

“The ocean is part of the pocket realm and only extends so far outside the ship. We aren’t going anywhere.”

A pause. And then it starts walking.

“Except you’re coming with me to get breakfast. Humans need food.”

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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