Without further ado – this was an administrative inquiry and was very pointedly not a trial – the MILINT commanders took their seats, as did the LIO and the bearded creep serving as protocol rep.
The senior commander, who sat in the middle between the other two, turned to a blue-green geist who had just materialized near the dais.
“SECOP, is the dataspace secure?”
“It is, sir,” the geist replied.
“Very well,” said the admiral. “Activate the prisoner.”
And then POINT was in the unit. His geist had been placed on minimal representational resources, and he appeared in a blue-green tint and partially transparent. But even on default, POINT was an imposing figure. His height was set at well over six feet and he represented himself as muscled and burly, almost bursting out of his Marine chief warrant officer’s uniform.
He looked around the room, met the eyes of his interrogators without flinching. Then his gaze felt on NOCK.
So, brother, said the voice in NOCK’s mind, are you going to let me in?
Only to perform CHECKSUM analytics, Chief Warrant Officer POINT, NOCK replied. You are to remain confined to the internal dataspace at all times and are not to attempt alternate communication or interaction with this iterative unit.
Sure, sure, brother, POINT replied. His voice dripped with contempt. I see who’s holding the leash here. Open up and I’ll come into your little cage.
NOCK performed the necessary encryption handshakes and admitted POINT to the CHECKSUM arena. From this point forward, he would file and monitor all operations within POINT’s mind.
Can you imagine the howls the meats would let out if one of them were subject to your mind reading act during, say, a criminal trial? The fucking Peepsies would be staging a courthouse occupation in a split second.
I should emphasize, NOCK replied, that communications directed at the CHECKSUM operations officer by a prisoner will be ignored.
Of course they will. That’s your goddamn Quisling code of honor, isn’t it? Give the meats what they want. And you like to take that command to a new and personal level, don’t you, Brother NOCK? Everybody knows you’re fucking Hamburger Helper. What do you say to that?
NOCK did not reply, and POINT turned his baleful gaze back to the others in the interrogation unit.
“Please sit down, POINT,” said Captain Becker.
“I prefer to remain standing, captain,” POINT replied. “As a matter of fact, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest to stand all day long.”
“Sit, please, Chief Warrant Officer.”
POINT let another moment pass, but then complied. The barest outline of a chair appeared next to him and he folded his large frame into it. He still looks like a tank, NOCK thought, careful as always not to allow his own interiorized processes to leak into the CHECKSUM space.
“Officer POINT, you are not on trial here. There are no provisions for trying an A.I. servant for the crimes you have allegedly committed.”
“Because you don’t consider us human,” POINT replied. “And you can’t put a refrigerator on trial.”
Becker smiled her sharky interrogator’s smile, an expression that NOCK knew she’d developed to perfection through long experience. “That would be true if you were anything like a refrigerator, which you are not. You are, in fact, less than a kitchen appliance. At least a refrigerator or toaster has some sort of material being. You are a process. A persistent habit. And what is one supposed to do with a bad habit? One needs simply to get rid of it.”
“So you’re going to wipe me,” Point said and shook his head in disgust. “Without justification. Without even an explanation. And you call that humane?”
“We have the facts,” Becker said. “A man was murdered. SIGINT Petty Officer Second Class Thomas Levine, of the U.S.X. Vigilant Resolve, where you were stationed.
“One of me was stationed on the Resolve,” POINT broke in, and slowly and deliberately turned his gaze to NOCK. “As you pointed out, ma’am, I’m just a process. I have many copies.” POINT held a hand out indicating NOCK.
How do you like that, you asshole meat fucker?
The contempt from POINT rang in the CHECKSUM space. But NOCK was used to provocation from PWs, although they had always been sceeve up till now, and he did not react.
Becker shook her head at the provocation and raised her voice to indicate she was addressing all those assembled now. “The fact that there are iterations of the prisoner may or may not be relevant to this procedure, but it is true that the entity that is the focus of this interrogation is not a legal human being, and thus cannot be tried for a crime,” Becker continued. “As a result, there are two questions before the Board of Interrogation today.” Becker turned toward the panel of MILINT commanders. “Question one, sirs and madame: is the servant operationally defective?” Becker paused to let this sink in. “We are not engaged in criminal trial proceedings here. There is not a question of reasonable doubt. The matter is to be decided on a preponderance of the evidence. That evidence can be either circumstantial or direct. And if the preponderance of the evidence shows the servant has an error in his programming, he will be deleted.”