Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 39

Kiki and Jaynie left to the local firing range in town to try out Jaynie’s new toy, so I presided over the new cargo getting loaded on board. I distinctly and deliberately didn’t look too closely at the crates the local mob needed taken past the blockade to Jagloth, but Raven’s scans confirmed that they were stasis pods dressed up like standard cargo crates. That confirmed my wish to definitely not go looking into whatever was going on there. Probably trying to get some people into the system to stir up trouble of some sort.

The situation in Jagloth was ‘confused’, to put it mildly. Something had alerted the Confederacy to a danger in the system, and they slammed down a blockade on the entire system, no ships in or out. Anyone that tried to run the blockade was given one warning, and then they were blown out of the sky.

There were still no reports on exactly what was the reason for the blockade, but the rumor mill was going wild. Some said there was a revolt going on, and the Confederacy was trying to crush it. Others said that it was the front line in an all-out war between several large corporations over new, rare resources found on the planet. There were also concerns about a plague, whether biological or the more frightening ‘grey goo’ nanomachine plague.

I was just locking down the crates and the shuttle for transit, while Shearah and Raven took Nyna on the tour of the ship, mainly getting her acquainted with the bridge and the engine room, since that is where she would be spending most of her time while on duty. I left them to it, since Raven wouldn’t let them do anything stupid with her main ‘body’. I really was going to have to ask her about how she came about. I hadn’t given it any thought at first, but along the way, talking with the non-nomads had shown me that fully sapient AIs were extremely rare in this world. The reactions of Nyna and Sana when they realized what Raven was just reinforced that.

I’d left Sana in cat mode, and had her wait in one of the crew quarters with orders to behave herself, until I could decide what to do with her on a more permanent basis. But I should have known better than to try and hide things from women, especially women who spent as much time around me as my crew did. As I left the cargo hold, I found Sheila and Cali waiting to ambush me.

Cali started it off, and said, “So, Master, now that you’ve enjoyed the whole Stepford experience, what’s next? I believe you said something about not liking to use those protocols if possible? Something about finding it ‘sick and wrong’? Ringing any bells?”

That struck a nerve, and the grimace on my face betrayed it. Like the social predators they were, the women didn’t hesitate when they saw that signal of weakness, and pounced. Sheila sighed, and said, “It comes from one of those Nomad beliefs, I assume? I know that it is considered normal in the Empire, while the Confederacy actively restricts the sale and use of Stepford slave collars, and it is illegal outright to buy the slave chips in the Confederacy.”

Cali jumped in then, “But cultural differences are easy to set aside when you’re immersing yourself in a culture that lets you do whatever you want to those you’ve ‘taken’, right? It is a big male power trip. But you’ve kept yourself from using those things before now. Hell, I can even understand keeping the protocols on while we were out in the desert, because that’s just asking for trouble otherwise.”

She paused, and then said, “But we’re back on the ship now, and you’ve already turned off Nyna’s protocols, so why is Sana still a sexy kitty on all fours who can’t even speak?”

As we spoke, we had been moving towards the galley, and without really thinking about it, I pulled three glasses out of the cupboard that held them secure during flight, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from behind the milk in the fridge. A couple ice cubes went in the glasses, and then I poured us each a drink.

Damn good thing alcohol worked in this game. And the liquor tasted right, too. Without a little ‘mental lubricant’ now and then, life would be a damn sight more trouble, and a lot less interesting. I honestly couldn’t believe that they had the brand I usually drank in real life available in the game. Well, it wasn’t really available here in the Confederacy, so when I finished off the supply I brought on board back in Alpha Centauri, I’d need to find a local distiller that tasted good…

But I was rambling, and on purpose. I took a long sip of my drink, and said, “Yes, I tasted ‘forbidden fruit’, if you will. Yes, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Not going to lie on that. But my views on the Stepford protocols haven’t changed. Sometimes, they’re a necessary evil. Other times, they’re just evil. But we’re in a world where these things exist, so trying to pretend they don’t is a waste of time, and actively dangerous.”

“What I did to Sana was a weapons test. I needed to test out the power I created as kind of a ‘nuclear option’, in case things were really going to shit. And it is good that I did, because it took a lot more time and effort to get that power through than I thought it would, and it definitely caused a more… extreme reaction than I expected.”

“Frankly, I’d be very happy never having to use that power again, just like I hope we never have to use the nuke we stole back on Primo. There is no situation where using this power is going to be a good thing. But I’d rather have my hands dirty than stand by and lose people, so I want to have something I can use to break someone I can’t just shoot, if it comes to that.”

I looked up from my drink, to see Cali staring at me. “So you found an enemy you could test a new weapon on, and found out it was both nastier and less useful than you expected. I get that part. But now tell me how this ties into having a knelfi playing kitty cat?”

I sighed again. “Because I don’t want anyone, in this world or ours, knowing what I did, or how. If they figure it out what I did, then someone else is going to figure out a way to do this, and they might not be as… restrained as I have been in using mental Psy powers to influence people. The potential damage of this power, or one like it, being out ‘in the wild’, is too sickening a thought for me to bear. And that’s just if individuals get a hold on it. If the particulars were known, then every criminal syndicate and government ‘black’ agency would be clamoring to get their hands on it, and me. And they’d likely burn through everyone around me until they got to me.”

Sheila grimaced. “That is true. I wasn’t privy to most of that, since I wasn’t the heir, but I do know that there have been people who developed new or unusual Psy powers who were… aggressively recruited by the Empire so that the military or intelligence services could have their power, or deny it to others.”

I nodded. Honestly, I would have been shocked if it was any different. “So, that is the first reason I can’t just let Sana go. She knows too much. Even if she wasn’t able to find a way to replicate the power herself, she could go to someone who would know how to do it, and then things would get very, very bad. This also means I can’t sell her, or even leave her someplace ‘rented out’ like I did that thug on Choson Ring.”

“The second reason I am keeping her protocols in place is because she is too dangerous. That ‘kitty’ is a trained Confederacy special forces operator. Without explicit commands to keep her out of trouble, she could make life hell for us. She’s probably already plotting a way to make life hell, which is why I’ve got Raven watching her, just to be sure.”

Cali looked nonplussed. “So you enslaved a special forces soldier, and messed with their head? Is she going to be a problem?”

“Well, the Stepford protocols are a second level of protection, beyond what I did to her. I have no doubts that she is a very clever girl, though, and is probably already looking for loopholes in her orders to try and find ways to get at us. She won’t be completely safe unless I break the persona under those protections, and remake her into someone who wants to serve.”

Cali nodded. “And that takes time, unless you use those nanites.”

I shuddered at that, not only at the thought of the nanites, but also the knowledge that my ‘Mindbreaker’ was actually a much tamer version of something far more damning. While working with Raven to come up with Mindbreaker, I realized that if it was possible to replicate the Stepford collars with mental Psy, then it would be possible to replicate the nanites with Psy, too. And there was no way I was going to let that kind of knowledge get out in the universe.

“Right, and I’m not about to compound my sins by covering up an evil with an even more terrible evil. So unless I just kill her outright, I am as trapped as she is, until I can either make it so that she’s not dangerous, or find some other way to keep things which should never see the light of day firmly in the dark.”

Raven appeared at that moment, in her holographic avatar. I suspected she had been listening the whole time, even as she gave Nyna the tour and kept an eye on Sana. After all, when the ship was grounded, an AI had plenty of cycles to spare. “That’s good. I won’t have those nasty nanites or anything like them in my body. You’re a better captain, with a better crew, than I’ve had in a long while, so it would have been a shame to space you all.”

The other two looked shocked, but I simply nodded. “Yeah, I got that the last time you mentioned it to me, Raven.”

“Just making sure you remembered. Anyways, I know why you picked Sana as a test for the Mindbreaker, since you couldn’t just test it on the crew, or random strangers. But since you’ve gone this far, I’d suggest your next steps be that you try and find a defense against this power, in case it does get out, or someone creates something like it independently of you and your work.”

Sheila nodded. “And until that is done, what will you do with the cat?”

I shook my head in disgust. “There’s nothing else for it. I’m going to have to break her, or kill her. And I honestly can’t decide which one is worse at the moment.”

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