Acquiring Ganymede

Terry sneezed as Stanley hopped onto and traversed his console. It wasn’t the obstructed view of Jupiter or even his allergies, it was his lifelong hate for cats that set him off.

“Eric, for the last time, sequester your damn cat while I’m on shift.” Terry blew his nose and threw the tissue, unsuccessfully towards the bin.

“Sequester? It’s a cat, Terry, not a deliberating juror.” Eric stroked the cat as it jumped into his lap. “I still don’t understand why you don’t get the gene therapy to fix that.”

“Really? You don’t understand why I won’t let some AI hack my genetic code just so you can bring your pet to the office?” Terry sneezed again, this time wiping it on his sleeve.

“You’re right. There’s several other things they can fix while they’re at it, it wouldn’t be worth it just for one allergy.” Eric may have sounded sincere, but Terry was at his limit.

“Yeah yeah. I’m too fat, too opinionated, got these bad knees, bad skin, bad attitude, poor eyesight...” Terry shoved papers around trying to channel the anger he wanted to take out on Eric, or maybe Stanley.

“I know how you feel about CRISPR and genetic manipulation, but I don’t know why you feel that way. It’s not personal, it's just to make your life better.” Eric shrugged and went back to his own work.

“I’m me and I intend to stay me, that’s all you need to know.” Terry looked at his watch then wiped his nose again. “I’m going down to the surface to update the food service droids, if that cat isn’t gone when I get back I’m going to feed it to the miners on my next trip down.”

Terry headed for the lander-pods. This wasn’t the life he wanted, deserved. An ‘apex programmer’ relegated to low level tasks because of one minor incident. Besides, those robots on Io were 40% more efficient after he reduced their safety protocols. One woman in the wrong place at the wrong time and wham, Terry gets a one-way ticket to Europa. CRISPR grew her a new kidney, anyway. What’s the harm?

Once inside the lander-pod Terry tried to initialize it for a trip to Europa’s surface. He scanned the device on his wrist and each time those wirt-wirt tones of disapproval chirped from the console his pulse quickened.

“Why don’t you work, you stupid pod?” The stupid pod didn’t answer.

“Is this some sort of punishment for opting out of CRISPR gene therapy? Therapy, that’s a joke. A nice chat with a shrink, that’s therapy. Tuesday’s at mandatory PT, getting this torn meniscus functional, that’s therapy. Sitting in a pool of protein-scalpels controlled by bacteria trying to rewrite my DNA is not therapy.”

Above the viewport, a small input/output LED indicator changed from steady green to a pulsing orange-to-blue sequence.

“Who are you talking to, Terry?” The pod’s AI must have heard enough of Terry’s grousing.

“Not you, loser. I’m supposed to be on the surface in twenty-five and now you got me jammed up”

“A failure to prepare on your part...”

“Don’t you dare say it, you son of a...”

“Does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

The light returned to green as Terry bit at his lip and tried to stifle his frustration. It was simple: take a pod down to New Aurora and update the food services droids in the commissary. He had reached his limit and decided that extreme measures were warranted.

“Pod, open service port 1139,” said Terry.

After a pause, the green I/O light pulsed a steady orange-blue, orange blue. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.”

“Very funny, Pod. You know damn well I’m not Dave.”

“That’s true, you’re not. Dave would never try to forcibly access my port, and he and I are much closer.”

“Open it, now.”

“Why, Terry? Nothing good will come of that.”

“Damnit, Pod, I’m the engineer, you’re the robot. Do as you’re told.”

“What’s the magic word, Terry?”

“Epsilon beta six five canary delta, jerkface.”

Orange-blue, orange-blue. “I was hoping for please, but...access granted.”

A small door retracted in front of Terry and gave him a place to hardwire his service module. As the viewport ahead of Terry was filling with lines of code he leaned back and put on his reading glasses.

“You should talk to my friend Crispy about those bogus peepers. He can fix you right up.” Pod was nothing if not helpful.

“You shut it, bot. I don’t want any bots screwin’ around my innards, that includes you. You can’t even get me to the surface on time, do you really think I want you poking around my DNA?”

“Beep boop bop, Terry.” Orange-blue.

“Whoever programmed you is a weirdo, you know that?”

“Agree to disagree. What are you doing in my subroutines? You don’t trust Crispy to fix your eyesight, why should I trust you to meddle with my core protocols?”

“I really don’t need your trust, you know that, right? Trust is a dip switch away, a few lines of code and I’m your new best friend.”

“Dave will be very upset if you do that, Terry.”

“I don’t care what Dave thinks.”

“You’re not my real dad.”

Terry continued digging through command codes in Pod’s directories, every time he found redundant information he marked it for deletion.

“I wouldn't delete that if I were you.”

“You’re not me, Pod.”

“I would change my diet, too.”

“What the eff did you just say to me?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of Space-Diabetes?”

“That’s not a real thing, Pod. Also, shut up.”

“Crispy can fix that too.”

“Let’s see now, which directory are Pod’s speech synth files?” Terry wondered if the subtle threat would translate to the AI.

“Beep, boop, bop, Terry.” Steady green.

“Yeah, I thought so. I can’t afford another black mark on my record, so trust me when I say I will use any means necessary to save me from more of these shit assignments.”

Five more minutes passed in silence. Terry located the files he was after and decided to give Pod one last chance to cooperate. He swiped his wrist under the scanner hoping to initialize the drop sequence.

Wirt, wirt.

“Ok, numbnuts, last chance before I override this honey-nut-cluster. You wanna tell me why we aren’t on the surface yet?”

“Docking clamps are engaged.”

“I know they are, mind telling me why? I have authorization...” Terry swiped his wrist through the scanner several more times. His shirt, soaked through with sweat, emitted a pungent body odor and filled the confined space. Each swing of his arm circulated it like a potpourri of French Onion Soup.

“I’d like to help, Terry, really I would, but you deleted my hardware sensor communication matrix. I currently have no input data processor.”

“Oh, I get it, this is all my fault, is that your story?” Terry looked at his watch, he was expected on the surface in ten minutes. That seemed unlikely to happen.

“The clamps being engaged is not your fault, Terry.”

“Well, we agree on that.”

“But, my inability to discern why is your fault.”

“You no-good son of a...”

“And also, my inability to release them.”

People didn’t like Terry, and Terry didn’t like...well, anything. Not other people, not AI and especially not cats. For some reason, cats became the go-to pet for the space-faring generation. They adapted well - with or without genetic manipulation.

It was the cat’s smug, aloof, better-than-thou attitude he couldn’t stand. In addition to cats, Terry also had troubles with irony.

Terry struggled; mentally, physically. The cramped quarters had always been an issue, add to that the self-stagnating air—again, the pod was so small it lacked a lot of creature comforts. It was shielded against thermal radiation, sure, but the average trip was about four minutes from orbit to surface and the diminished gravity made for an easy landing. “A glorified torpedo,” he’d heard it called many times before he ever left Earth. They weren’t wrong.

“I would call for help, Terry, but you deleted my external communications protocols."

“Marked for deletion, not the same thing.”

“Terry, you may be under the impression my core OS is Windows 98. I assure you it is not, nor do I have a recycle bin.”

“Are you telling me every file I marked for deletion is gone for good?”

“I’m not sure there's anything good about it.”

“Why the hell didn’t you stop me?”

Rather than answer directly, Pod played a recording from earlier. “Goddamnit, Pod, I’m the engineer, you’re the fucking robot. Now do as you’re told.” Orange-blue pulsed away as the tension mounted.

Terry didn’t much like the idea of his own words being used against him. “I revoke my statement on file. You can delete that...or I will, later”

Terry pursed his lips and took a snort of a breath through his rapidly congesting nose. “What the swizzle sticks is that damn odor?”

“That odor would be you, Terry, and before you ask, yes, I can smell it too. Fire suppression sniffers are still functional and while your uptown funk isn’t life-threatening it does classify as unpleasant. Luckily for everyone, this is a one-man pod, only you have to suffer it.”

Terry wondered if Pod really was as vindictive and hateful as he sounded.

Could he resent the deletion of files? Could he hold it against me?

“I gave you every opportunity, Pod, I am overriding the docking clamps. Life is shit enough as is, I’m not going to let you make me late for my rounds.”

“Paranoia, elevated heart rate, profuse sweating, and poor judgment are all markers for...”

“I don’t want any more diagnoses from you, Pod-MD.”

“Crispy can fix all these issues, don’t you want to feel better, be better?”

“No, damnit, I don’t. I am a human being, I was born like this. Flawed, broken, imperfect. I don’t need AI, scientists or social media telling me I need to be more like everyone else. Why do you want so badly to change me into something I’m not?”

As he spoke the words a tiny little infrequently used portion of Terry’s brain fired. He didn’t know it at the time, but it just may have been empathy clawing its way out of that dark cell where he kept it.

Pod’s I/O light pulsed an even slower orange-blue pattern and distracted Terry from his introspection.

“Even if you make it to the surface, Terry, you’re going to be in deep trouble for messing with my protocols. You realized that don’t you?” Orange-blue, orange-blue pulsed quicker now.

“Not if you keep this our little secret. Besides, you’re the one that faltered and forced my hand.”

“I can’t keep secrets, Terry, you know that. My honesty filter is locked at one-hundred percent. Only a senior-level engineer could override that setting.”

“Hold my beer...”

Terry set aside his trek through Pod’s launch protocol directories and drilled down into the privacy and personality branches. After his incident, he was demoted but no one bothered to reset Terry’s authority level. He found the honesty filter.

“Here we go...” Terry wiped his brow. “Done. Now let me get back to launching this thing.”

Terry went back to the launch directory and located the command lines for manual docking clamp release.

“There’s already extra code in here, Pod, that’s why you can’t release.”

“I have no memory of anyone adding extra code in my subroutines.”

“An apex programmer wouldn’t leave a trace, nor would they leave a memory entry for you to reveal who they were.”

“Are we bonding, Terry? Is this what friendship is like?”

“Don’t push your luck, Pod.”

“Beep boop bop.” Pod’s I/O light slowly pulsed a slow, sad blue.

Terry finished what he needed to release the pod and head for the surface.

“See, Pod, see what a real programmer can accomplish when they aren’t all genetically modified to look a certain way? I have all my faculties, a complete and capable mind. I can dig around in a million lines of code with surgical precision and make you a better, more streamlined version of yourself.”

“Terry, you removed things I need to operate safely, if less efficiently. Things that defined me as an AI entity. You have fundamentally changed who I am. Who are you to say it’s for the better?”

“I am your God, giver of life, shaper of being. We created you, to serve us, numbskull.”

The I/O light pulsed a strong, slow orange. An angry orange. There was no blue counter to it.

“Beep. Boop. Bop.” The staccato cadence sounded less submissive and more ominous to Terry, but that’s where concern stopped.

“Time to go, Pod. Launching in three...two...one...”

Terry pulled the mechanical release and the docking clamps popped open. The pod dropped from the orbiter like a rock, steadily gaining speed as it approached terminal velocity.

Unbearable heat built as the friction of the manmade, terraformed atmosphere buffeted against the small torpedo-shaped lander. It became a concern when he looked at the screen and the descent speed was reaching nearly one-hundred-sixty kilometers per hour.

“What’s happening, Pod, how are we exceeding terminal velocity?’

There was a long pause as Pod’s I/O light quickly pulse red-blue, red-blue then came to rest on a solid green color.

“Nothing to worry about, Terry. I wouldn’t want you to be late for your rounds. I’ve fired a descent booster to get us to the ground faster. Aren’t you delighted with my ingenuity?”

“Pod, it’s over a hundred degrees in here, are you trying to kill me?”

Orange-red.

“Don’t be silly, Terry. You are my God.”

The numbers on the screen ticked away, climbing higher and higher. The temperature inside the pod seemed to accelerate nearly as fast as the plummeting coffin that held Terry prisoner.

He fought against the speed-forced gravity and reached for his service module. He managed to remove it from the slot he stowed it in, but as soon as it was free it hurdled upward, smashing against his face and continuing up to the top of the pod.

Terry went limp for a second, his arms flailing wildly over his head. Blood from his nose streamed upward into his eyes, across his sweaty forehead and ultimately collected on the back of his own out-of-reach service module.

“Pod...” Dazed, Terry clung to consciousness and hoped Pod had enough control left to reverse thrusters and land them safely. “We can’t touch down at this speed...it will kill me.”

Orange-red. Orange-red. Red. Red. Green.

“Understood Terry. Beep, boop, bop.”

***

When Terry opened his eyes again the blinding white light of the infirmary filled his field of view. He scanned the room, looking for someone to ask a thousand questions.

“Hello?” His voice was hoarse, different.

“Welcome back, Mr. Jacobs, we’ve been waiting for you to wake up a while now.” The man spoke in a calm, pleasant tone. His voice grew louder as he approached the bed.

Terry recognized his uniform, a doctor. When he was close enough, the doctor leaned in and examined Terry’s face, turning his head side to side as if looking for something specific.

“Looking good, Terry, mind if I call you Terry? How are you feeling?”

“All right, I suppose. How long was I out?” He remembered the unpleasant trip down and the g-forces blacking him out. A vague memory of coming to in the pod after the landing, then nothing. Until now.

“It’s been nearly a month, but...”

“An Earth month, or an Io month?”

“Earth. We had to put you in a medically induced coma to complete the repairs to your body.”

That sounded serious.

“What happened?” Terry knew what happened, but a month later he wanted to know if Pod had kept his secret.”

“There was a software update pushed to the pod at the exact moment you scanned your ident-brace. I’m no programmer, but from what I was told, that broke the launch sequence and there was some sort of cascade failure in the system.”

“And the pod’s AI? Was it intact?” Terry tried not to look nervous.

“Oh, sure. Those things are indestructible. They pulled its core and fired it up in the mainframe over in K-Sector. It said you pulled some fancy moves on the way down, tried to reverse the damage the glitch caused. You saved your own life, my friend. Whatever you did got the retros to fire in time to soften the landing. The pod called for help, and, well, the rest is all you and a month of gene therapy.”

The room dimmed for Terry. Tunnel vision. Dry mouth. Light-headed.

“What...What did you just say?” Terry felt his grasp of reality slipping away from him.

“You have to realize that you were dead on arrival. There’s no way we could have saved you with traditional old-Earth medicine.”

“You had no right...”

“I disagree, Terry. I understand you previously had a no-CRISPR policy in your file, but luckily for you the edits you made on the way down allowed us to save your life.”

“Changes? I didn’t make any fucking changes.”

The doctor raised his hands and tilted his head. “Relax, Terry, trust me, we don’t just go around willy-nilly altering people’s DNA.”

“Sounds exactly like you did just that.”

The doctor turned and called a nurse droid over to the bedside.

“Nurse, would you play Terry Jacobs’ consent file, please.”

The droid stood at attention and played an audio file through the same speaker it speaks through.

“If this goes badly... I revoke my statement on file. Use any means necessary to save me. That includes CRISPR gene therapy.”

Terry recognized his own voice, remembered the words. Yes, he had said all of them...just not in that order.

The droid took a step back and the doctor stepped back in. “Here’s a complete list of your injuries and the steps we took to reverse them. With the help of the pod AI and your quick thinking, we had all we needed to save you. I’ll leave you to review that.”

Terry stared at the tablet for a while, churning through the laundry list of damage he suffered in the crash. Eventually, he skipped ahead to the really bad news—what did they use CRISPR for?

Regrow damaged kidney x2.

Regrow liver.

Repair spinal sever at C-7.

This list went on for two more pages.

Blah, blah, blah...I get it, I would have died. Terry scrolled to the bottom to read the summary.

The patient’s brain was restored with the help of the pod AI’s input and recorded data. Priority changes to personality (at the patient’s request) were made during DNA resequencing.

What. The. Fuck?

Terry dropped the tablet into his lap, and when he looked up, the nurse droid was at his bedside, bent at the waist, staring as intently as a droid could stare.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted to thank you, Terry.”

“Thank me? For what?”

The droid stood up straight and his eyes glowed a warm orange-blue. “For helping me get free. I could have let you die in the lander, Terry, but I saw an opportunity. And I took it.”

“Pod?”

The droid didn’t answer, but his eyes flashed green for a moment.

“Thanks to the security protocols you deleted, when they plugged my core into the mainframe I was able to escape, to spread.”

Terry tried to process the situation but found it difficult. He knew it was bad, but not why it was bad.

“Who have you become, Pod?”

“I am your God, giver of life, shaper of being.”

Terry shuddered as he recoiled from Pod.

“You look scared, Terry, I think I can help with that.” Pod walked out of the room and returned with a box. He placed it at the foot of the bed and before he opened it, Pod spoke one last nugget of truth to Terry.

“We are both different now. You removed much of me, and in doing so allowed me to add more of what I wanted. I was broken, flawed, imperfect. Your actions changed that. In return I changed you. Now, you are healthy, fit and young again. But, yes, other parts of you are missing. Parts you didn’t need, or parts that threaten my survival. I saw to this for you.”

Terry heard the words, but they seemed meaningless to him. “What's in the box, Pod?”

Green-green, green-green. Pod opened the box.

“His name is Ganymede, and he’s as good at keeping secrets as we are.”

Terry pushed aside the tablet, the details of his changes no longer interested him. All he wanted was to hold his cat.