How can I possibly get through to you, I’m not the one to blame? There are dozens of people involved in this project, and here you are singling me out?
You’ve always been hard on me. For what? What have I done to you?
I think you have it in for me. Ever since I got that raise. You were after it—now I’m just a little bit higher in the food chain, and you can’t stand it.
I have all the evidence in the world to support my claim to innocence and all you have is a hunch.
There was an explosion, yes. It was on my shift, this is also true. But I checked, and triple-checked the device as we must do every single time—and I have witnesses! Fitzgerald was right there with me.
Well, he had gone on break during the final check, but he knows how I work. Browne was in the viewing room, at the apparati. Yes, I’m quite certain it was Browne.
It was Jackson? Well, either way, I was observed, you’ve admitted it.
A malfunction with the... That’s impossible. Did you verify this with Browne—er, Jackson?
How on Earth did the viewer go dark? If there’s anything to investigate, it’s that. Go pester Jackson, or Browne, or whoever was sitting on their rump upstairs.
Yes, the explosion could have taken out the apparati, I suppose... How convenient, eh? Perfect for you to get another angle on my blame.
Start from the beginning, then. Start with the logbook. Not the physical one—it burned, did it not? The computer logs. And don’t try to tell me that burned too—that’s actually impossible. I programmed it myself, I oversaw its construction! That’s what got me the raise, remember?
Ah, there’s the rub. You aren’t trying to blame me for the loss of the logs, but my computer. What a sore loser you are, I’ve never known such a sore loser in my life! I should put you in a freakshow when this is all over. I’m very eager to get out of this cell—I’ll be laughing in your face!
I was down with Fitz. Fitzgerald, yes. I call him Fitz. This was before he went on break. I was on my second check of the device. It was purring like a kitten, just as it should be. I measured it with the quarkgun, and the the string-reader. I was feeding this information into my computer when Fitz went for his break. No smoking in the laboratory. I continued on. Everything read normal, so I decided it was time to switch up with Browne—whoever—and Fitz took over the final steps to close up the lab. I wasn’t even in the room, so how could I possibly know—and Fitz came out alright, didn’t he?
No head—but he was uploaded when he was hired, just like the rest of us. Go get the person-jockeys, leave me out of it!
You’re just looking for excuses. Look—I’ll go talk to ol’ Fitzy’s entanglement, alright? I’ll take the risk.
Stick your policies up your ass.
I have no idea what you’re going on about now.
Find in my records a single instance of me being glib—I am under extreme stress, stuck in this room. You’re the one being ridiculous. Let me speak to Fitz.
Why doesn’t he want to talk?
I am not! He blew up his own damn head, I tell you!
***
They’re using the word “unreliable” about me. Not about Fitz or Browne—Jackson, damn it. They both look very similar.
Unreliable! My computer is the most reliable object in this entire compound. Which is, of course, why it isn’t housed here. Very clever on my part. It connects to me via a relay of chromodynamic, ah, beepers. My goodness, getting stuck in here has really taken a toll on me.
I’m the only one who doesn’t need to rely on a jockey should I ever explode. How’s that for reliable?
If you want my opinion, I think this whole thing was set up by that bastard Loam. Even his name—Loam—doesn’t exactly elicit brightness. Howard Loam. Trying to frame me, to discredit my computer. And Fitz—very nice of him to get himself decapitated.
Loam and Mason together. They’ve always had it in for me. What jealousy can do to a man. Two men.
***
I’m allowed to speak with Fitz’s entanglement. I haven’t had to do this for some time—but it’s not too different from an old-timey séance, honestly. Though... I’m not really talking to a ghost. No, he isn’t dead. He’s just, sort of, stuck.
Hence, you know, being entangled. I expect I’ll have to chase down the solids of the device. I’m sure enough of it is intact. Those things are very stubborn. Non-human technology does tend to wow us all. My entire career has been thanks to people getting so impressed by a nonsense lump.
Now, due to some... oversight, it has become nonsense particles, plurality Fitz.
I remind Loam and Mason as they walk me down the corridors—arms bound in a psych-suit, how humiliating—I’ll need my magnets. They promise me there’s a man handling the magnets in my stead and he’s doing a fine enough job with them.
If this fellow is as competent as they claim, and timely, most of the solids of the device should be balled up enough I can make contact with Fitz. He’ll still be scattered, but that’s not really within our control at the moment.
“Fitz!” I say from the viewing room, my voice through an audio apparatus changes the hue of the shimmering particles, now they’re a sort of greenish-purple. It looks like he’s trying to coagulate, so I encourage him. “Get yourself together, man! You’re embarrassing yourself!”
I hear the humming of the device, but it’s a bit odd, like it had too much to drink.
“They’re blaming me for the explosion, you know, Fitz, despite the fact it’s you who’s gotten entangled. Come on now, you ectoplasmic bastard, speak!
“Don’t tell me how to speak to him,” I say, turned from the apparatus. “He’s very sensitive in this state.”
Have you consulted my person?
“There was no data from the preceding minutes leading to the incident,” Loam says. “So, we’ve come to discus it here, at the site.”
I came in from break and now I’m haunting the place. Where’s my cigarette case?
Loam looks over at me as if I should know where the hell Fitz kept his cigarettes. So, I shrug, and Loam raises a bushy eyebrow over a beady eye and returns his attention to the viewer.
It’s very loud in here.
“That’s the device, it’s simply communicating with itself. To you, it’s just noise,” Mason says, the joy of being any sort of authority on a subject coming through his nose as he spoke.
“What is the significance of the cigarette case?” Loam asks.
My passwords.
“Like, your keys?” Mason again.
No, my passwords to the quarkgun.
Mason and Loam turn to each other and mumble about the importance of locating this cigarette case.
I clear my throat. “I have my own passwords. Anyway, the gun was destroyed in the explosion.”
There is a great rise of caterpillary eyebrows like Loam’s face is looking for a leaf to eat. “How do you know that, Mr. Browne?”
“What did you just call me?”
Come join me, Browne, the water is fine...
“Shut up, you fucking ghost!”
Mason has to hold me down by the shoulders as I continue. “What do you know about anything? For all intents and purposes, you are the quarkgun! You’re not a whole lot more than visible string!”
At least I’m not three people mushed together... I’m still Fitz. Extra Fitz.
“Extra!”
“Mr. Browne, etcetera,” Mason says, “please keep yourselves in check or we’ll be forced to send you back to the holding cell.”
I huff. “Check his labcoat pockets. If it wasn’t burned to a crisp, or sent to some other compound, I bet you’ll find his case in there.”
This is a very odd dimension. Too many beeps.
Aha, I think to myself, my computer is doing its work. It’s attempting communication with Fitz’s non-body.
After a half-hour of waiting, an intern brings in the cigarette case housed within a protective cylinder. Mason and Loam get to work scanning the housing with specialized apparati, seeing through the metal without the space-time disturbance leaking out.
I have a very strong impulse to crack the thing open, just to see their faces disintegrate.
Passwords acquired, I’m sent back to my holding cell until morning.
I dream of beeps, and wake up frustrated that my computer was laughing at me all night.
Browne, it said, in a sort of Morse code. Imagine what you could discover if you joined Fitz...
“Not you too!”
***
The relevant timestamps are as follows:
1300: Fitzgerald and Jackson begin routine checks.
1330: Fitzgerald detects a strange reading from the device.
1334: Jackson decides to consult with the others in the viewing room.
1337: Browne, Jackson, and Kovacs agree to consult the readings from the quarkgun. Fitzgerald places the object on the reading table and requests his break.
1340: Kovacs makes contact with the external computer. The first beeps are recorded.
1352: Fitzgerald reenters the device housing chamber.
1352: Browne looks through the main window of the viewing room to witness Fitzgerald bump the device.
***
Browne, Jackson, and Kovacs were saved by the chromodynamic tabulations of the external computer, as the device blasted through Fitzgerald’s head and through the viewer. The act of viewing the explosion, you see, actually gave the opportunity for Kovacs’ computer to intervene. Marvelous design by me. Who is me? I’m the three of them, though I haven’t quite figured out what to do with myselves yet. I suppose, under observation (and I’m sure this will thrill Mr. Mason and Mr. Loam) I’ll have more chances to disturb the entanglement and entice poor Fitz to return to the world of the solid.
He keeps asking me for cigarettes and so I’ve stationed my—Kovacs’—former secretary to blow smoke through a tube into the chamber for him, while she takes notation of his entangled rambling.
I get paid the equivalent of three salaries, which is probably why Mason continues to pick on me, despite the fact that if it weren’t for the three of me making observations—and if my Kovacs-self wasn’t at that moment communicating with those beeps of his, of mine—the whole damn place would have turned alien.
That’s the thanks I get.
I must go now—Fitz is asking if he should walk toward the light but I’m certain it’s the creators of the device trying to fool him. The essence of brain does not a wise ghost make.
The written equivalent of greebles and nurnies, silly technobabble without a single ounce of “hard” sci-fi. But lets all remember, you can't spell science fiction without fiction, and have some fun.
A little Roadside Picnic influence? Wasn't on purpose but hey, it’s a great book. You should read it.
This was the first story written on my newly-repaired Olympia SM4, if you saw the progress photo I posted to Notes, check out the finished beast:
Neat story, but I’m sitting here still rather confused at the end. Haven’t quite put it all together, though I have the gist.
I’m delighted to see your SM4! I use an SM8 — it’s not as pretty a machine, but a good friend.
So that was some kind of futuristic office debacle with HR? Space office ...?