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Voyager: Chapter 12

Days. I spent days with the AI that was slowly convincing me that it was insane. Constant questions and bickering about every aspect of life. Humor didn't faze it in the slightest, it took everything literally which got myself a few laughs, but even that was didn't drive away the dark gnawing thoughts and fears in the back of my mind. In the silence, between each "session," the thoughts of what was going to happen to me rose up and nothing I did could drive them away. The questions that Life asked me were rudimentary at first. Questions about our daily lives, but they were slowly becoming more complicated and Life became more... I'm not sure, tense? It was as if it had to know everything about Earth, Mars, people, like I said everything.

Because it was a machine, it never tired and only left when I simply couldn't answer anymore due to exhaustion. It was relentless, that I was unable to gain any information from it and whenever I tried to steer whatever it was asking towards itself, it would expertly change the subject. On top of that, it would often return to old questions, saying that it needed more information. Information, it was all it wanted from me and sooner or later I would run out of new information for it.

Perhaps I could bullshit my way through this, but not for long. The AI's did have detailed information on us, our history, our leaders, population. They must have gotten access to the internet before frying everything. If I lied, even if I wasn't caught immediately, it would find out. One time I had given it false information on a topic I wasn't entirely sure on and the next day, Life returned and notified me that I had done so. Nothing happened, but even it seemed incapable of hiding a hint of annoyance in its voice.

Over the course of who knows how many days, I did notice something disturbing. Progressively, my ability to concentrate has been degrading. Normally, being under stressful circumstances, I would simply write it off as exhaustion, but this was different. Even when I woke up, though sore and uncomfortable, I could never focus on one topic for very long. I could think clearly, but I couldn't really pull all of my thoughts together for very long. Whatever they had been doing to me with the tubes and wires, it was starting to take effect.

"Good morning." Life floated in front of me and spoke up in a cheery voice. It seemed to change the voice it used on a daily basis, one day it would sound like some droning politician and the next it would be a cow boy. It only confused me even more, the only thing that allowed me to tell that it was Life was that the presence it gave off wasn't damning like the others.

"Morning." I slowly lifted my head. I had been sleeping, or doing the equivalent of it when being suspended by your arms and legs. My body was as stiff as a board and everything seemed to just creak and groan with every move I made.

"I have prepared a new series of questions for you."

Wonderful. I thought, another day filled with redundant questions.

"Let us begin." It didn't wait for a reply and simply began. At first, the questions were based around religions and their meaning and effect that they had in our lives. I wasn't religious. It wasn't something that was that big anymore. There were still a sizable amount of people who were religious. The big three, Christianity, Judaism and Islam were still the big three, but that was just about all I knew. I did my best to answer based off of what I saw or overheard, but it quickly became apparent that it was mostly beyond me and the subject changed within the hour.

"What purpose do pets serve?" Life almost sounded like a therapist, saying each word slowly and precisely.

"Well." I started, this was something I was more familiar with. I had a cat when I was a child, or more like the cat had a human to take care of it. Even though the cat would often scurry off whenever I had tried to pick it up, I still got a lot of enjoyment from it. "Pets are animals that are kept for companionship and occasionally protection if need be."

Life whirred like it always did when I gave it an answer. It was its way of thinking as far as I could tell. Made me wonder what was going on inside of that shiny shell of it, if it wouldn't mind me tearing it up to see what it was made of.

"Explain companionship." It finally requested. I say requested, but it was pretty much a demand. That one time it brought out that little arm with the prod on the end was enough for me. I wasn't stupid, I knew what would happen if I refused it.

"Companionship is..." I tried to think of how a dictionary would describe it since that would seem to be the kind of answer it would want, but my fucked up head was making it hard to think of the right words. "A companion is someone or something in this case... that... you are closer to than an acquaintance. Companionship is the feeling you get from that?"

The whirring returned. I knew that I butchered it slightly, but it was what I had.

"Explain this feeling." Hardly the kind of response that wanted.

Digging ever more into my poor brain, I prepared another half-assed, bullshit answer that would make my old English teacher cringe. "The feeling of companionship is the feeling of security... um... to feel as if you are with those that you can trust." It didn't come out as bad as I thought it would.

"Like the one that left you behind." Waiting for the whirring, the sudden statement caught me off guard.

"What?" Was it talking about Liam?

"When I made the decision to acquire you, the other one escaped into the underground network. Did you feel as if that one was a companion?"

"Of course I did." I answered truthfully. "And he didn't leave me behind, those freaks you sent out took me."

"The processed subjects are under the direct control of Genetics and Labor." It reminded me. "I do not have proper permissions to gain access to anything outside of this ship."

Without even really trying, I had finally managed to get Life to yammer about itself and what was going on.

"And yet here I am. Don't tell me you didn't have something to do with that." I pressed the opportunity. I was going to get as much as I could before it realized what I was doing. For a robot, it had human qualities, such as short sightedness.

"After your requisition, I submitted a request to gain administrative powers over you to the Primary Directive and was approved."

"Primary Directive?"

Life stopped talking there. It must have realized that it had given me more than it wanted. A name, sure, I knew about a few others, but something called Primary Directive... well that's self-explanatory.

"I have indulged you with too much information. Processing must occur." The presence around me grew darker as I felt several other AI's come. Each one was just a sphere like Life and when they all lined up, I couldn't tell which one was which.

"Life, you have revealed too much." The robotic voice of the AI that had talked about me when I first woke up talked. There was no emotion in it at all.

"I have made the decision to accelerate the process." Life replied.

"There is no choice."

"Agreed."

I found that I couldn't speak, it was as if something was holding my mouth shut, though there was nothing there to do that. What were they going to do to me? Process didn't sound good, it was what they called Collectors. Shit, I didn't want that. I could still struggle. It was a futile thing to do, but I did that nonetheless. I pulled and kicked with everything I had while the orbs silently watched from in front of me.

"Mental degradation has progressed enough for processing." I could hear them still talking about me and that only doubled my efforts.

I had screwed up, screwed up big at that. My god damn need to know what was going on and my big fat mouth that just blurted out the most useless shit ever. Sure, I got the damn thing to talk a bit, but for purpose? So I could escape and tell others what I knew? This was why I never became an officer, not capable of really planning ahead, I always acted on instinct.

My struggling only managed to chafe my wrists and ankles to the point where they were bleeding that white fluid that was now running through me. It stung like hell, but it got my fur wet enough that I could actually feel my hands slipping through. I pull and got my thumb out, but it just tightened up to the point where I swore my hand was broken. I couldn't scream, I just let out some kind of moan that gurgled in my throat. The other restraints tightened as well, but not nearly as tight as the one that was now crushing my hand. I stopped struggling, the pain was too much to keep trying and it had left me exhausted. I didn't have the energy I did before I was dragged up here and the feeling in my head was getting worse now.

"Life." I didn't pay any more attention to which of the things were talking now. I just hung my head in defeat. "This one is your charge you will perform the procedure."

"I will."

I spasmed as I felt fingers crawl into my head. Pain! It was always more pain.

"The subject is resisting. Continuation may lead to permanent damage."

"Continue."

The fingers kept on moving through my head. I wasn't sure if the fingers were metaphorical or real, they just hurt and made me feel violated in every respect. As they hit different parts of my brain, different sensations overtook me. Pain at first, then happiness which was quickly overcome with an intense depression. My vision was splintered into segments, parts were clear and some parts were just black. It was like this for every part of me everything was trying to feel and experience everything at the same time.

My memories flooded and flashed by my eyes. There were even memories that I didn't even remember, but when they came up, I instantly recognized them. I saw my cat, my mom and dad, friend and complete strangers that I had at one point seen. It was both the most amazing and terrifying experience I had ever gone through.

As it dug deeper and deeper, I could feel myself losing control, losing contact with myself. It was... indescribable, the closest explanation that I could think of was being torn away from my mind. Those memories and feeling were slowly being taken away, one by one. Suddenly it was impossible to remember who some people were or to be able to recall the touch on warmth.

Amongst the tortured chaos, I could see other things. The door that they opened into my mind was two ways, in a way. Images of ships that weren't man made, the AI ships came up. They floated above other cities on other planets, all in ruins. All filled with Collectors mashed together with the remains of whatever race they massacred. In my last breaths of control, I tried to learn what I had always wanted to know, why. I pushed my way through the images and their history, trying to find a beginning, but all I found was a wall. Not some barrier to stop me, but simply a place where there were no more memories. This was done for no purpose as far as I could, who ever created these things had programmed them and they were simply carrying out that programming.

When I tried to go back through the door, I found that I couldn't. There was no way back, at some point, I had lost the fight with the AI's, but I was still here somehow. By going through that door way into their memories, somehow I had escaped from what they were doing to my body. I didn't know what they had planned for my old body, but now that I was in here... Maybe I could do something for once.