Teleios Page #2

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operational? It would be a while.

- Carry on with that, but

our objective is to find

the cargo, so that should

be our primary focus.

-The cargo tracking system is disabled.

Scans found no sign of the

cargo nor former crew.

The only DNA still present belong

to O'Neill or the plants.

- What can you tell us about him?

- Ship's junior engineer.

Nothing particularly

extraordinary about him.

No military training, academic

record - nothing special.

-Travis O'Neill... engineer.

-He's a John Doe,

- There are some nutritional

deficiencies, looks

like he hasn't slept in a

while, but nothing major.

Hygiene has eluded him, so I had the

ART shave his hair and give him a bath.

Mentally?

You pick it. PTSD, depression,

depersonalization disorder.

Hard to say at this point.

- Hello, O'Neill. I'm Reginald

Linden, captain of the Teleios.

We were sent here on a rescue mission.

Any help you could give

us would be appreciated.

- I'm putting you in charge of

getting information from O'Neill.

-Why me?

-You have a PhD in psychology.

- Come on, that was

just something I did to

take my mind off my

Cauchy Kowalevski thesis.

- Congratulations. You're still

more qualified than anyone else.

- What about the ART? Have you

accessed her memory banks?

- Like the ship, Lulu's

memory's been wiped clean.

Since we're gonna be

here for a while can we

do something about

these f***ing weeds?

- I recommend transferring O'Neill

to the recreation room.

There is only one way in or

out of the room, but it's

a larger space so he won't

feel like he's in prison.

-That's fine.

- I hope you had a good sleep.

Have you been

able to establish contact

with the Atromitos?

"Please let us know the

status of the cargo."

After three years, that's

all he could come up with?

- Um-hum. I guess We'll

just have to figure out how

to make the most of being

stuck out here for a while.

-I guess we will.

- My father always said it was a waste

of time to get a second PhD.

In psychology, of all things.

D'you know, in none of my years of study

did we ever discuss the mental effects off

deep space isolation

following a traumatizing event.

Whatever it was that happened,

it must have been terrible.

So many people that you knew. I'm sure

you developed some good friendships.

And I can't even imagine what it must

have been like to be alone for so long,

with only Lulu as your companion.

No reaction to talking

about the ship, the crew,

or the cargo or even his

past or his family.

One thing did get a slight

reaction, though. - What?

-Lulu, go to the crew's quarter wing.

- It's not uncommon for

non-GC humans to develop

emotional attachments

to artificial humans.

The same way that they do with pets.

This bond is even stronger if the

ART has sexual characteristics.

- ARTs aboard space vessels,

wouldn't be equipped with genitalia.

- O'Neill's an engineer, he's had

three years to tinker.

-That'd be you.

-Printing complete.

-Lulu. Remove your pants.

Apparently O'Neill also likes pubic hair.

- Not necessary to

know all the details, Orson.

-How should we use her?

Allow O'Neill to be with her from time to

time. I want to see if his behavior changes

when she's near him,

versus when she's not.

Wouldn't deprivation work?

By dangling the carrot, we can...

withdraw it whenever we want.

Giving us

more psychological control.

-Oxygen level's 21%, nitrogen, 78%.

- Was that you?

- Negative.

- This is Anderson. Can anyone hear me?

- Linden here. What's going on.

-Trying to fix it.

Duncan, can you hear me?

I'm in hallway 3

heading to the rec room now.

- O'Neill's escaped.

- Orson, is the path to the Teleios secure?

- Only voice or hand-print

recognition from one of us will open it.

-The fugitive has taken my pulse rifle, though.

- I'm headed to the cargo bay.

Duncan, check the machine room.

- Machine room is secure.

I'm in the cargo bay wing now.

What do you want?

Do you want us to get off the ship?

Do you have something

you... want to tell me?

- Put it down, O'Neil.

- I have this handled.

- O'Neill, our kind treatment

is by virtue of our good disposition.

Make no mistake, though.

Our patience is not limitless.

Go on, pull the trigger.

- What are you doing?

Do it, O'Neil.

The rifles have a

fingerprint lock on them.

Nothing will happen.

- I like this lighting.

I think it's soothing.

- Unless you need to see

what the hell you're doing

It's accessing the video

entertainment files.

-What is this?

- Before aggression,

inhibitors were mandatory,

decommissioned ARTs ended

up on the black market-

and were reprogrammed as fighting bots.

Who watches this

kind of thing?

Regular humans still have a

primitive craving for violence.

- It's no wonder the crew went

mad watching stuff like this.

-They're just machines.

-Can you turn it off?

- O'Neill's more lucid

than he's been letting on.

- What were you doing in there?

- What were you doing in there?

You knew he couldn't harm you. - I was trying

to get him to talk. And he almost did.

- I feel like we're being played.

- You wanted me to handle this. Let me.

-Make him talk.

- Did the temperature gauge get reset in

here also? It's boiling in here.

-What?

- Thank God!

- No, thank Zimmer.

-One and the same thing, in Zimmer's mind.

- Glad to see we're back at

the starting line again.

-You're welcome.

Can we expect any

more disturbances?

I should have the main system

debugged by the end of the day.

Make contact with

Earth base yet?

Just data transmissions,

no video link, yet, though.

-Let's try again.

- We received your transmission.

I want to reiterate the mission objective.

To retrieve and to return the cargo.

This is a top priority.

Everything else is secondary.

I repeat:
everything else is secondary.

Thank you and good luck.

- That's it?

- Yep.

- In the cargo bay, I asked if you

wanted to tell me something.

You almost answered.

Artists do what they do

for different reasons.

But most will tell you that they create in

order to reveal something about themselves.

About the world, that

they observe, or both.

In your paintings, I see serenity

on one side, and chaos on another.

The question is not why

you made these creations-

-but for whom.

-Recreation Room, camera A.

- What's wrong, Orson?

- I forgot why I came here.

- You forgot? When's the last time

you forgot anything?

- The irony is I don't even remember

the last time I forgot something.

-You know Mandarin, right?

What do you make of this?

-Unable.

Belief. Near.

It's... it's garbled,

..where'd you get it?

O'Neill. He

whispered it to Lulu.

- He speaks Mandarin?

- Not according to his profile.

I'm sending this to you.

See what you can make out of it, okay?

What did O'Neill say to you?

- He said that while we are not able

to always be close to each other

in his mind we are together every moment.

- You've used your time

to learn some Mandarin.

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