They valued him, of course. That’s why they gave him this house, with it’s bright May morning English countryside vista shining onto white-washed walls; a security monitoring system to warn of any approaching threat. The B’tari were Roidon’s new benefactors.
But he was still a prisoner, his status ensured that. And what were the benefits to being human? It should have been his freedom. At least as an artificial sentient intelligence there were distinct advantages: the utility of logic – decisions made that were unquestionably right, borne from a multitude of processing units, a network of connected intelligences. As a human his logic was so much further from that near state of perfection it made him wonder how other corporeals coped. Then there was the way the past would impinge itself onto his psyche, that same uncertainty of his actions pressing in, causing him to question what were perfectly reasonable choices in retrospect. But there were also the pleasant experiences, such few they were; he remembered the drunken night with a woman who turned out to be curiously special. He wanted that again, it was his definitive human moment. And yet they made him human because...? Perhaps they didn’t trust him as an artificial entity. It was their compromise. But he needed more.
Roidon left the house. He ran the grounds of the estate, all five acres; felt the desire to leave, go into the wild woods beyond. This was still a remote enough part of Exmoor that he would struggle to find anything resembling civilisation on foot. Human inadequacies combined with the lack of any transport made it quite clear: I am their prisoner.
After an hour and five minutes of fast jogging Roidon returned, his incipient frustration put into abeyance. Lunch, and then ... work.
The knowledge was still there, right from that last moment when temporal disruption became eradication. And the world was reset. But even he had no power to stop it. Yet here he sat, in his empty garage, surrounded by an array of technology at least two centuries beyond anything he had encountered in his previous life. Their curious doctrine of minimal interference meant they could not do the practical work themselves. His only guide was research data provided by a physicist, who’d been working on a theory for an isolation field that could work safely in a terrestrial environment.
They made one concession. ‘Harvo, give me IF2,’ he said to the black cube. ‘An inverse gravimetric phase burst; a thirty second sustain.’
Its fascia wave patterns flickered. ‘Yes, Roidon. However, I must warn you of the non-zero possibility of this planet being destroyed.’
‘We can take that risk.’
On the stone floor a pyramidal device strewn with cones on each side began to vibrate at an almost imperceptibly fast rate. The device powered up, until reaching its critical phase. The space around him distorted and then formed a vortex. It powered down without any problem. But that hadn’t been the real test. Next to the device was a narrow dome covered with similar style cones.
‘Time for the real test. Activate the T-E-D in sync with the I-F2 config; just twenty seconds at full phase.’
‘Roidon, I must warn you of the risks – partial phase tests were not conclusive; there may be conflicts---’
‘Harvo, I appreciate your concern. But really, time is of the essence. We have to move on.’
‘Time; indeed. However---’
‘It’s my call. Now please. Initiate.’ In truth not even his AI could provide any reliable odds for success or catastrophic failure. Essentially, they were both working blind.
In simultaneity both devices powered up, their levels displayed on the projected screen in front of him. Soon that would become too distorted to view so he instructed Harvo to give a constant update.
The vortex around him formed as Harvo announced the imminent maximum phase. Then... The field collapsed after – according to his crystal-atomic timer – twelve seconds.
‘Harvo, display time.’ No change, except the tachyon count had increased by an amount that suggested he had in fact gone back in time – his clock out of sync by twenty-three minutes – over two thousand times! There was just the merest fraction of a second after the protection field had given way before automatic shutdown.
‘Roidon, there appears to be an anomaly,’ Harvo told him.
‘Oh, there certainly is!’
*
Scott entered the vast verdant grounds of the institute. Before him the mock-Roman pillars, grandiose and slightly forbidding. Of course, there would be a level of security; and perhaps this façade was telling visitors: this is a serious academic institution, based on millennia of teachings, a scholarly place. Still, it all seemed a bit imposing to the first-time visitor. But it was the kind of place you’d get referred to after the various levels of analysis and treatment. Scott felt privileged.
It was set to remain sunny, and he felt a child-like temptation to just simply turn around, return home and then go out on his bike into the hills. After all, he had nothing actually wrong with himself, he didn’t think; this visit was only for the purpose of a debriefing. Standard requirement.
He forced himself to make the final approach. Up the steps to the huge blast-proof door, then put his hand on the print reader and simultaneously looking into the iris scanner. No doubt these were superficial checks, and every molecule would be scanned before he could pass through that door. Forbidding indeed.
‘Mr Alendry,’ came a mild feminine voice through some hidden speaker, ‘please come in.’
Inside the waiting room the impression had starkly altered; calmness created by colours and textures – something Deanna could lecture on, and it made him realise just how deliberate it was: the vast deep blue of the carpet, covering the entire area up to the reception desk, plants arranged neatly and extravagantly.
He couldn’t be sure if the pretty receptionist was actually a real person. She seemed somehow just a bit too perfect with her shiny blonde hair and her flawless complexion. She may even be a holo-projection, it was difficult to tell these days.
The young woman regarded him with a warm smile, brief enough for him not to get the wrong idea before she looked back down at her console. ‘Doctor Fortenski will see you shortly.’ She peered up at him once more. ‘Please take a seat.’ She then looked towards the back of the room at a row of aqua-blue couches.
He lounged back in the vast chair, remembering something Deanna had said – how a building, in particular public and commercial establishments use their subliminal tricks to entice customers for a particular purpose: the use of subtle scents to create a conducive mood. All synthetic replication these days, but what mattered was the basic association. Now, he knew he could detect from somewhere – perhaps through the air conditioning – a faint musky aroma but softer, unique; doubtless this had to be osmone-1. They were using it for his own benefit, for him to be more relaxed – and it was working.
After ten minutes, when he was on the point of drifting off, the receptionist informed him, ‘Doctor Fortenski will see you now.’
Alertness returned with haste as he approached the large oak-wood door. Black words on modestly size gold banner: Dr. R Fortenski, consultant psychiatrist. Scott noticed his heart accelerating now. What shameful secrets would she unearth?
‘Come in.’ A gentle voice, perhaps falsely.
He entered with words of responses to predicted questions spinning in his head. The psychiatrist was sat sideways in front of her desk. She looked slightly younger than he expected, perhaps early-forties but it was so difficult to tell these days. Her dark hair, long but styled flat in a disciplined way; navy-blue outfit a more sober version of something Deanna would wear to work.
‘Mr Alendry. Do take a seat,’ she said efficiently. A recliner chair, rather than the archetypal couch he had idly visualised. This was, after all, a consultation rather than psychoanalysis.
‘Please, call me Scott.’
‘Scott it is then.’
She peered down affectedly at her desk console. ‘I see from your earlier visit our medic has given you a clean bill of health, so at least you have not suffered any physical ills from your assignment. And you have not had any medical checks since then?’
‘No I’m as fit as a ... no health problems, doctor.’
‘Good. Just had to get that out of the way.’ She turned to face him, smiled for a second. ‘So I understand it was quite a responsibility – this architecture project,’ she said brightly. ‘Do you feel it was a success?’
Scott wondered where this could be leading, but he was in one of the most respected institutions, so this had to be a standard question. ‘It was a reasonable success,’ he answered.
‘Only reasonable?’
‘Well, it didn’t go perfectly, to be honest.’
‘Do you see yourself as a perfectionist?’
‘I suppose I am.’
‘Do you remember when you last achieved perfection?’
‘I got Deanna to say yes. She is perfection.’
‘You achieved your ultimate goal in finding the love of your life. You must count yourself as a fortunate man.’
‘I do indeed.’
‘But could things be better?’
He wanted to ask where this line of questioning was leading, but somehow he trusted this woman knew exactly how this could be mutually beneficial.
‘Things are fine,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s the small stuff – sometimes I get that a little bit wrong. It’s always been the trivial unimportant stuff.’
‘Until recently.’
‘Well. Things got a little ... chaotic.’
‘Chaotic?’ The way she said it hardly sounded like a question.
‘There wasn’t time to make it right.’
‘Your designs?’
He couldn’t tell her, he just couldn’t. ‘Yeah, the designs. Not properly resolved.’
‘Would you like to go back there?’
‘Yes,’ he said more emphatically than he would have liked.
‘But can’t you resolve them in a sim immersion?’
‘No, it’s not the same.’
‘Would Joshua agree?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since the project.’
‘Disagreements are common in your line of work. I understand that nothing compares to actually being in the situation.’
‘Exactly. No sim can replicate the knowledge of the real experience of being there. Well, none that’s legally available.’
The psychiatrist looked to the wall-clock. ‘Our time is nearly up for today. You are not scheduled for a follow-up appointment. But if there is still an unresolved matter, then by all means come back and see me. No extra charge.’
‘Well, you never know,’ Scott said lightly, and got up from the chair. Matters still very much unresolved.
***