Caught Somewhere In Time

Start reading from the beginning…

Cole looked around the dimly lit room, trying to find the source of the voice. Reception had shown him that he was alone in the lab complex, but he thought for a second maybe that didn’t include Chan’s office, like the Admiral had overridden any attempt to plot locations within his private spaces. It didn’t make any sense that someone would be here though, since Chan was down on Earth picking up Val right now, or at least on his way back. He won’t arrive for an hour still though.

“You are not authorized to be here,” stated the voice. It was a man’s voice, but not Chan’s. He walked through the room, silently, trying to find the source of the voice, but it seemed to issue from all around him at once. He pulled out the chair and looked under the main desk, which was apparently funny to the speaker, who chuckled lightly and said, “You will not find me under there!”

“Who are you?” Cole asked no one. “Where are you?”

The lights brightened to a normal level and Cole turned in place looking for the person he was speaking to, but even with the room fully lit, there was nobody visible. “I am Doctor Smith, and I am in the very walls of this office.”

“I don’t understand.” Cole responded. “Dr. Smith was Chan’s mentor. He died twenty years ago.”

“Yes,” the doctor lamented, “It is very tragic how the human shell provides only a temporary existence for our souls. It would be better, I think, to be able to shed our bodies and continue existing beyond our mortal years. Alas, it is not the way of things in this world.”

Cole was thoroughly confused, but in order to make sense of it he thought he’d better keep asking questions. “You are a computer then?”

The doctor’s face appeared in a hologram on a wall console. “In a way, Cole, I suppose I am. The real Doctor Elias Smith built me, and programmed me with his personality, thoughts, and emotions. I am no more or less than an electronic back-up copy of his soul.”

“I never met Dr. Smith, but you know my name. Have you been incorporated into the lab’s network?”

“To a certain extent; I am able to access information from the network, but I am trapped within this office. A simple firewall is enough to restrict me from communication to the outside. I can receive information however, which keeps me from becoming bored.”

Cole thought he didn’t sound like a computer at all. There was inflection in the doctor’s voice, and he… it had mentioned emotions, which were simply not possible with machines. “Computers don’t get bored,” Cole said.

The holographic image of the doctor’s face smiled at Cole. “The Admiral has found me to be more than a mere machine, which is why he keeps me around I believe. He considers me his mentor still, despite my death.” There was a brief pause before the doctor spoke again. “We have now established who and where I am, as well as what I am doing in this office, which unless I am mistaken has been the actual purpose of this conversation thus far. Turnabout being fair-play, I now expect that you will have a good reason for being here in the Admiral’s absence.”

He looked at the holographic display in awe of what was happening here. There was a seemingly fully formed artificial intelligence right in this very lab he had worked in for so many years, and he had never been aware of it. “I have been in this office many times. Where were you then?” Cole asked.

“I am not a mere computer database, compelled to answer every question with glaring honesty and rigid compliance! I will not answer any further inquiries until you grant me the same respect I have shown you.” The holographic display furrowed it’s electronically animated brow and then turned off.

Cole found himself apparently alone in the office now. He knew that if he spoke, the computer would hear him however, so he knew he needed to say something. Besides, how could he possibly access the message the other Cole would be sending to this office later if Chan had somehow given the doctor access to security in here? He thought it best to be honest, since the doctor was likely intelligent enough to trip him up if tried to maintain any sort of lie. He didn’t want to give too many details however, because the doctor could report back to Chan later.

Even then however, even if the doctor did report this situation to Chan, what did Cole care? He had been expelled from the lab, fired from the project entirely. Maybe he should be glaringly honest and let the A.I. tell Chan what is really going on, and how Cole really feels about this. Chan hadn’t given him a chance to talk before, and now he has a chance to talk! “I’m sorry, Doctor Smith. I am not used to machines being anything more than tools for me to use. I am here to obtain information about why Chan will fire me from this project in a couple of hours.”

There was no display, but the doctor’s voice issued a reply anyway. “So you are using subterfuge to obtain intelligence about some future event to which you are already privy to the outcome of? That sounds to me like you claim to have moved beyond the restriction of time. I was unaware that access to the time vessel had been granted yet, but then I suspect if you came from the future, access will be granted at some point.”

“Yes,” Cole admitted to only half the assumption, “I came from the future to find out what I was not told about before.”

“Insight into past events can be tricky to gain in normal time, but I daresay possibly even trickier beyond normal time. I have just heard from the reception desk that you returned from the lane carrying a beverage into the lab. You are walking outside this office door right now while I talk to you inside the office. I suspect this duplicity will be your biggest obstacle in obtaining information.”

“Has Chan said or done anything that would lead you to believe he is planning to fire me? Anything at all?”

“The Admiral does not generally involve me in staffing issues, and he specifically has not confided anything about terminating your employment.”

“My employment?” Cole started to get mad. “This is MY program! I am not employed here, I am the reason this program even exists!”

“Well, sir, you were the one who repeatedly called it firing, not I. Do not lose your temper with me over this, because I concur with your analysis of the ownership of the program. It most certainly is your work, and anybody else who has gotten involved has only done so because they felt that your research has promise.”

Cole stopped fuming and reflected on what the doctor, or the computer, or whatever, had just said. “So you don’t know what would make Chan dismiss me from the program then?”

“No, Cole, as of this moment I do not. It appears as though something will happen between now and the time of your termination to change that fact however. Having already lived through this period, what do you know about the events that will take place in the lab?”

“There is a large private message that will arrive from Mars Colony, and then two other messages pushing for a response. They all arrive before Chan and Val, the new pilot get to the lab. When they arrive, I inform Chan of the message and go to my quarters for a little while to find an old journal I kept that had some information I only half remembered. Chan fires me before I have a chance to learn anything else.”

“It sounds to me,” the doctor said, “like there are two possible scenarios. First, that he already planned to excuse you from the program, and chose not to do so in front of Valentina. Or second, that the decision to excuse you from the program will be made after the Admiral meets you in the lab, possibly after he receives the Martian message. What is your connection to Mars?”

“I don’t have a connection to Mars. I’ve been there, but I’ve been a lot of places. I didn’t like Mars that well, so I didn’t stay long.”

“Well, then coming here and listening to the message seems to be the only way to know for sure.” The doctor paused, and then said, “Unless you felt like asking the Admiral why he excused you.”

“He refused to discuss it.” Cole was sad now, but was glad that he had company. He only wished he had spent more time with the doctor’s software while he worked, and understood why Chan kept it running all the time. “What were you a doctor of anyway?”

“Psychology, especially related to the effects of long-distance space travel. That was how the Admiral and I initially met. So to review your dilemma, you believe that the message which I received just now has something to do with why you were fired?”

Cole’s face went slack. “You received the message? Just now?”

“Not just now precisely. Actually, while one of you was yelling at me, the other one of you was transferring the message into Chan’s office. Shall we watch it?”

“Doctor, that message isn’t intended for us to see. As a computer program, I don’t understand how you can choose to do something illogical like that.”

“My dear boy, I told you that I am no less than a copy of Elias Smith’s soul. I retain free will, in spite of logic.” The holographic display lit back up, but this time it didn’t show Dr. Smith’s face, it showed the face of a militia commander.

“Admiral Chan, sir. We have captured an alien vessel.”

Continued on March 13, 2010