Jacob popped back into the virtual space for a moment, looking around in confusion. He had a weird premonition that something bad was happening or about to happen.
Everything looked the same as it did when he left, however. Barry was still on the couch, staring off into space, and Katty was nowhere in sight, so probably still unconscious in her room. He even checked in on Franky. The man-child was still sulking in a corner amongst the ruins of his room.
Jacob would fix the mess for the man, but he didn’t have access to change the room. That was one of the constraints he built into them when he designed them for the others. He couldn’t even really access the room to see what was going on; he just looked at the data and compared it to the other two rooms. Even the man sulking in the corner was just a guess based on the positional data of Franky’s avatar.
“I think I need to get some rest,” Jacob said quietly before preparing to leave the apartment.
Before he did, he stopped and looked at the TV in confusion. He could have sworn the sound was turned down slightly, but he could be wrong. His mind had already played tricks on him once: what was stopping it from doing so twice?
“Definitely need to get some sleep,” he muttered before popping back into his drone.
“Sorry about interrupting you,” Jacob said in exhaustion. “Please continue where you left off.”
The station AI didn’t care if Jacob was rude or civil to it, but he wanted to make his interaction with the computer more normal. It was an effort to get over the loss he still felt over Melody, but the station AI wasn’t making it easy for him to forget.
“—oral lobe,” the AI continued before Jacob cut it off again with a sigh.
“Start from the beginning of that document, please.” Truth be told, he had spaced out as the AI droned on about the medical information he had requested.
“Yes, Captain. All three main species of the Concord Imperium were compatible with the merging process. The eiraxins produced the technology, and therefore, they had the highest success rate with it, but the difference between the three species was minimal.”
“Minimal?” Jacob asked. “How minimal?”
“Within a three percent difference across their populations. The t’uk had the lowest adoption rate. Their tri-lateral temporal lobe was thought to be the cause.”
“Right.” Apparently, the aliens that most resembled the tall greys from abduction stories had three brain lobes. “Is that rare?”
“Yes, Captain. Most species have one or two brain lobes. The eiraxins had two, while the lau had one, which was commonly just referred to as the central lobe since the lau had two minor organs that assisted with mental processing. Those organs were a product of the lau’s genetic research, however, and weren’t part of their original genetic structure. Would you like me to tell you more about that, Captain?”
He wondered why a species that was intelligent enough to bio-engineer its own bodies needed additional mental processing, but he shook that thought aside. While interesting, it wasn’t really germane to his current problem.
“No, let’s stay on topic,” he replied.
Since it sounded like the eiraxin were the most similar to humans, he decided to start there.
“How large a percentage of the eiraxin population was capable of merging, and were there any medical issues associated with the process?”
“Approximately five percent of the eiraxin population was capable of merging, Captain. As for the second part of your question, there were many medical issues associated with the process. Was there one in particular you would like to know about, or should I list them off?”
God no, he wanted to shout, but the AI was getting better at learning his habits and had actually asked him before rattling off the information, so he held his tongue. A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have been the case. The previous Head of Station Services must have been a very dull person to want to have everything listed out. “No. Tell me about issues with passing out, or ones that might lead to behavioral issues and a catatonic state.”
Despite narrowing down his parameters, the AI rambled on for over an hour. Apparently, merging with computers and drones was a perilous process. It reminded him of those medical drug commercials where everyone is all happy that the drug worked wonders, then the announcer would quickly rattle off the side effects, so you would miss the fact that the side effects included bleeding from every orifice in your body and death. To be fair, if Melody had warned him of these issues and he hadn’t been a fully digital construct, he would have flatly refused.
Sometimes the reward didn’t outweigh the risk, and merging your mind with a machine certainly seemed like it fit that criteria. Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, Jacob inquired about the death toll of such a process. Surprisingly, it was rather low. It was mostly just people losing track of reality and other brain-related problems. Not much better in his opinion, but at least they lived.
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“How did they reduce the risks?” Jacob asked in a follow-up question. He couldn’t imagine Concord moving forward with such technology unless they found some solution to mitigate the problems.
“Mental exercises and the information I provided for you in the training plan reduce the risk significantly. It won’t allow someone who isn’t capable of merging to merge, but it will strengthen the mind of someone who can.”
Thankfully, Jacob’s fellow abductees were already past that first hurdle. If they couldn’t merge, they never would have woken up after their memories were digitized. That would have been extremely awkward for him, but maybe it would have been the best for someone whose name began with an F.
He thanked the AI and headed out of the security office. He could speak with the AI anywhere aboard the station and even from Melody’s hull, but he had been forced to go to the office to try and get his three guests registered.
The attempt had been another failure, but he had faith that his plan with the bipedal drones would succeed. It just required the three to maintain a physical presence long enough for him to register them in the arrival center.
After spending days querying the AI, he learned that Concord law considered AIs and drones as non-sentient machines, and thus couldn’t be registered as individuals. That law was still technically in place, which is why the station’s AI refused to acknowledge his fellow humans.
Jacob already knew the law was flawed because of his own acceptance, which is why he poked at the seams until he formulated a plan. Now he knew how to bypass this law to get his new colleagues registered as individuals. Even that loophole wouldn’t have existed if the station had a full complement of people. Registering non-biological individuals would have required a vote from all the station heads.
His first thought had been to make himself the head of every service, but that wasn’t possible. He did that, but when he called the committee meeting, he realized he couldn’t cast multiple votes. Now there was just a meeting agenda hanging out unresolved until he could get others into head positions. That was going to be some time.
Eventually, Jacob realized that he was overthinking the problem. He could make up their status when he registered them. It wasn’t like there was anybody who could call out the blatant lie or stop him. Sometimes, the easiest methods were just the best.
Once they were registered as individuals, Jacob could give them actual roles, which would allow them to do pretty much anything they wanted, within reason. He wasn’t about to give them carte blanche to pick whatever role they wanted and hope for the best. All three seemed rather unstable, which was why he hadn’t bothered to ask their opinion on plans for the station quite yet. Best to stick with entry-level roles for now until they get acclimated.
Jacob still hoped they would mellow out and that their current reactions were just a side effect of their new situation, but time would tell. Speaking of time. He hobbled down the corridor in his bipedal form until he arrived at the command center. It was the same massive tiered room he had found when first exploring the station. He moved around the desks and workstations, which he had shoved out of the way to work, and made his way toward the mess of wires near the floor-to-ceiling screen.
A few panels had been removed from the wall and set aside so he could access the communication equipment behind the display.
The service area behind the screen was a tight fit for his suited form. It was made even worse by the wires hanging down that connected to a new device sitting at the end of the tunnel, but he made it work.
It had taken Jacob a few weeks to figure out how to connect the new FTL communication relay to the station’s infrastructure. Eight centuries of technological change hadn’t helped matters, but he believed he finally had everything ready to go.
He lifted the end of the massive power cable, which had an adapter/capacitor/power regulator attached to it. His servos strained to lift the fifteen-centimeter-wide cable and plug it into the relay, but he eventually managed to line the connector up and push it in until it locked into place.
“Station, do you see a new device ID?”
“Negative, Captain.”
Jacob cursed and looked around the device to make sure he hadn’t accidentally pulled one of the dozens of cable connections out. Eventually, he located the problem and mentally slapped himself for overlooking something so stupid. He reached down and flicked the power switch to the on position.
There was a crackle of electricity that fuzzed Jacob’s connection with the drone for a moment before the connection stabilized.
“How about now?” Jacob asked as he shook off the odd sensation.
“Network address located…Establishing a connection…Connection established…Integrating new communication protocols. This will require me to go offline for a few minutes. May I proceed, Captain?”
“Will going offline affect anything on the station?” Jacob asked in concern.
“No, Captain. Subsystems monitor all critical station infrastructure in case of primary failure.”
Jacob assumed the AI was the primary in that example, but he didn’t really care so long as the station didn’t explode or something else awful happened. “Alright, go ahead and begin.”
He made his way out of the service tunnel, but everything looked perfectly normal. He almost expected flickering lights or emergency power after being aboard Melody’s damaged hull for so long.
“Communication protocols implemented, Captain,” the AI responded after what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes.
The success of installing the new communication system gave Jacob a much-needed burst of satisfaction. For too long, it felt like he was just treading water, but this was a major accomplishment he could point to that proved he was actually making progress. Now he needed to test the device, but he didn’t want to contact Hallik. The man would just badger him about the deal once again. That left Sha’la as the only other person he knew.
Contacting her felt a bit awkward, however. They barely knew each other, and their relationship was transactional at best. Jacob was fine with that, but he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. While the alien woman was attractive, in a weird sort of way, he didn’t have those sorts of feelings for her.
Eventually, he settled on a more neutral solution. “Station, can you ping Vorlos without giving away our location?”
“Negative, Captain. Any ping would also include location data.”
That was annoying. Jacob didn’t really want to advertise the location of the station just yet, but he also needed to make sure the new comm system was working. He thought about it for a bit, then he realized he didn’t have to test it right now.