#neumerals

*****

"Ms. Naiti, I presume?" said Dr. Rosa Fractal, extending a hand to her new patient.

"Yes," said Naiti. She stared at the doctor's hand for a second before accepting it and shaking it with nonchalant ease.

"Take a seat," said Dr. Fractal, pointing at the chair located in the center of the room. Naiti took it and sat with her legs crossed.

"DUUO is Neumerals Corporation’s most recent success," said the Doctor, pointing out a chart that was located on the wall in front of Naiti. "With superior computing power, and augmented-"

"I don't need the sales pitch," said Naiti. "I've already agreed to the procedure, haven't I?"

"It's called informed consent," said Dr. Fractal. "I provide the information, you provide the consent."

"I have already been briefed by my superiors. I am informed, so let's proceed."

"Of course." Dr. Fractal narrowed her eyes and wrote something on her clipboard. "Let's move on to the assessment, if you will."

She made a motion towards the chair, and Naiti leaned back, letting her hair fall away from her face. Dr. Fractal approached and examined it closely.

"A lot of scarring on the left side," she noted.

"Don't sound so surprised," said Naiti. "Battlefields aren't exactly ideal conditions for stitching your face back together."

"Understandably so. Although, pretty good job, all things considered."

Dr. Fractal made some more notes, then indicated it was okay for Naiti to sit up. As she did so, Dr. Fractal pulled out a mirror and a sharpie.

"The neural implants go here, here and here," she said, making marks on Naiti's face. "And also back here, and here. We might have to shave all of this area."

"I don't care."

"You are remarkably passive about all this," said Dr. Fractal, putting the mirror away.

"I've seen worse."

Dr. Fractal did not ask any more questions.

 ****

"How are you feeling?"

Naiti was lying on a hospital bed, wearing a mint green dressing gown. The left side of her face was covered in bandages, not that it mattered much to her anyway. The damage previously done had been much worse.

In front of her stood General Madison, and Dr. Fractal.

"I don't see why I have to stay in bed. You only operated on my face."

"Until your neural circuits adjust to the implant, it's best to not exert yourself," said Dr. Fractal. "Informed consent."

General Madison gave her a look.

"Well, you seem to be lucid, and I have other patients to see, so I will leave you two to it." Dr. Fractal made one last note to her clipboard, then left.

"The activation will start soon. Are you excited?" General Madison smiled at her, but it was the kind of expectant smile that indicated he wanted a very particular reply.

"It'll be a great improvement to my quality of life, I'm assured."

"What about DUUO? What do you think of it?"

Naiti sat and thought about the prospect of sharing her brain with an AI. It was an odd thing to thing about.

"I'm sure we'll get along just fine."

 ****

A week later, Naiti was out of the hospital, alert and back at work. She stood in the shooting gallery, carefully aiming a rifle at the target several feet across the room. Around her, several other soldiers had gathered to observe her. She could feel them staring at her, and it was irritating, the hairs on her neck standing on end.

IS THERE A PROBLEM? said DUUO, from inside the neural implant. Naiti was still getting used to its strained, tinny voice.

"I'm fine." Naiti raised the sights to her new, cybernetic eye. "DUUO, aim."

DUUO flashed a series of calculations across her sight, then indicated the exact position she should aim for to get the best result.

"Thanks."

Shots fired. They hit the target perfectly in the center. Around her, the soldiers cheered.

"Man, I gotta get me one of those," a young man somewhere behind her remarked.

Irritating.

 *****

Naiti stood in her kitchen, cooking herself dinner.

IF YOU MAY PERMIT ME, said DUUO. I HAVE BEEN DETECTING LOW MOOD LEVELS LATELY. ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE FINE?

"I am perfectly fine," said Naiti. "It is not your job to babysit me."

IT IS MY JOB TO ASSIST YOU, said DUUO.

"You can assist me by being quiet."

In the living room, a music player was playing music. As one does. (wow)

I DETECT A SUDDEN INCREASE IN HEART RATE, said DUUO. WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO ALERT MEDICAL?

"No, I've already said I am fine."

YOU ARE SHOWING SIGNS OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS. MAY I REMIND YOU THAT IN ORDER TO OPERATE AT PEAK EFFICIENCY, YOU MUST BE FORTHCOMING WITH ANY PROBLEMS YOU MAY FACE.

"Please, leave me alone."

YOU NEED TO BE HONEST WITH ME.

"If I tell you will you shut up!?" yelled Naiti, banging her spoon on the table.

....I WILL AGREE TO THAT.

"Fine." Naiti exhaled sharply. "This was... my loved one's favourite song."

DUUO did not reply.

"I see you are holding up your end of the deal."

IT IS MY JOB TO ASSIST YOU.

 *****

IS THIS YOUR PARTNER? DUUO asked.

"Yes." Naiti's voice was as serious as ever, but the edges of her tone had softened somewhat.

DUUO scanned the picture in front of it. It was a picture of a young woman: brown hair, neatly trimmed; dark eyes that glimmered with a youthful light; a smile delicate and gentle.

SHE SEEMS LIKE A LOVELY PERSON, DUUO said.

"She was."  Naiti stroked the edge of the picture frame, and then pushed it back to its usual spot on the mantelpiece.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TALK ABOUT HER?

Naiti was silent for a moment.

"Her name was Taeba," she said, finally. "I loved her more than I could ever describe. But we were fated to be torn apart, I suppose."

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

"DUUO, how much do you understand about my life as a soldier?" Naiti asked, and if DUUO had the nuances of a human, perhaps it could have perceived a tone of pleading.

I WAS PROGRAMMED TO ASSIST YOU WITH COMBAT RELATED TASKS, it said, matter of factly. I RECOGNIZE AND UNDERSTAND MILITARY COMMANDS AS DELIVERED BY YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICERS.

"I don't mean like that," she said. "I mean my life. My real, actual life."

I AM NOT SURE.

"No, I guess you wouldn't be." Naiti sighed.

 *****

Naiti stood in General Madison's office.

"Good to see you, soldier. Take a seat."

She did.

"How has DUUO been?" he asked, folding his hands in front of him. Naiti recognized his expectanrt smile.

"It has been helpful, sir." she said carefully. "It has augmented my combat capabilities significantly."

"Field tests have been promising," said General Madison. "Other subjects have reported similar success. It hasn't been interfering with your head, now has it?"

"No. It has been perfectly well behaved, sir."

"DUUO, can you hear me?"

YES, GENERAL MADISON, SIR.

"How has Naiti been?"

Naiti froze. Inside her head, she told DUUO to stay quiet about their recent conversations.

SHE HAS BEEN, duuo started and then paused. FUNCTIONING AT ACCEPTABLE LEVELS.

General Madison let out a hoarse, guttural laugh.

"Can you believe this thing? 'Functioning at acceptable levels.' Those damn programmers couldn't have given it a more charming personality, eh?" He slammed the table with his open palm and laughed.

"I guess not, sir."

"We'll be running more tests," he said, traces of amusement now gone, his voice deep, present and commanding. "Do take care of it. And DUUO, take care of her."

"I WILL, SIR," they both responded at the same time.

 *****

"Taeba was an excellent singer," Naiti said, kneeling by her music player. "This album was the last she ever recorded. This song... was her favourite."

YES, I HAVE HEARD YOU PLAY IT BEFORE.

Naiti closed her eyes in silence. Her cybernetic eye continued to whirr softly, unconcerned with her biological desires.

NAITI, IF I MAY, said DUUO. WHEN YOU PLAY THIS SONG, YOU GET SO SAD. WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO LISTEN TO IT?

"I am not so sure myself." A tear began to sting at the back of her eye, but only her right eye. "Sometimes I think... If I keep listening to her voice, then she is still communicating with me. But it feels as if I am being dragged down, back to her past. As if I'm still chasing a ghost."

I CANNOT KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE, said DUUO. BUT IT IS MY JOB TO TAKE CARE OF YOU. IF YOU ARE UNWELL, I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO STOP.

"I don't want to."

YOU SOUND UNSURE.

"I don't want to!" Naiti yelled. DUUO was silent.

*****

"They're shipping me out." Naiti's voice was barely above a whisper. She was sitting in the bathroom, on the toilet with the lid down. Her bare feet were pressed against the cold tiles.

DUUO did not say that it knew that already, because it had been there when Naiti heard the news.

"They're shipping me out to MeBow Three," she said. "Straight into the heart of the battle against the Maxinian Federation."

DO YOU FEAR DEATH? asked DUUO.

"No," said Naiti. "I fear loneliness."

GOOD THING I WILL BE THERE WITH YOU, said DUUO.

Despite herself, Naiti smiled.

****

The sky above was dark. The sky above her was always dark. Here, on the icy, cold moon of MeBow Three, the atmosphere was so thin, the sky had no color. Only the vast empty space hung above her head, as if the depths of the ocean itself were waiting to crash upon her.

She'd been hit. Not in the head, like last time. She'd been hit in the chest, just below her clavicle. she was knees deep in the cold mud, hunched over, grasping at her shoulder and biting her lip.

"DUUO," she said, with what strength she had left. "What are the odds of survival?"

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW? it asked.

"Please," she said. "You need to be honest with me."

IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD, it said. I DO NOT THINK YOU WILL MAKE IT BACK TO BASE.

"I'm going to die here," she gasped.

IT IS LIKELY, it said.

Naiti sank into the mud. She could hear distant firing in the distance, shouting. She was far, and it was dark, and there was nobody coming towards her.

"Please," she whispered, resting her head against a more solid patch of land. "Duuo, please... do me a favour."

IT IS MY JOB TO ASSIST YOU, it said.

"Please... sing to me."

SING?

"Sing Taeba's song. Please."

DUUO hesitated. in the back of its coding, calculation were running. Naiti's heart was getting weak. Her mental functions were impaired. DUUO felt something it couldn't quite place.

If it had the nuances of a human, it might have recognized that feeling as worry.

I CAN SING FOR YOU. It said, finally. NAITI, DO NOT FEAR. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Naiti closed her eyes- both of them- but her left eye kept on running.

DUUO sang to her, and the deep, deep dark flooded her mind.

*****

"War." said General Madison. "It never changes."

He wasn't speaking to anybody in particular, although he had two soldiers with him, traipsing through the mud, cataloguing the dead, and hauling off whatever injured but alive parties they could find.

He was simply philosophizing on the fact that they were hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth, standing on horizons never dreamed of by their ancestors, and yet the battlefield still resembled something found in World War One.

'Sir!' one of the soldiers yelped. 'We've found Naiti."

General Madison stepped over to where her body lay, half buried in the mud.

"What a waste," he said finally. "She was a good one."

"Sir," he said. "Shall we take her away?"

"Wait a minute," the other soldier remarked. "Look. DUUO is still running."

Beneath her closed left eyelid, there was a faint red glow.

"DUUO?" said General Madison.

YES, SIR? it replied.

"Well I'll be damned," he said.

"It's still working!" exclaimed the other soldier.

"It won't be for long," said General Madison.

"What do you mean, sir?" asked the first soldier.

"DUUO isn't unique," he said. "DUUO is a series of codes implanted into a human brain. We've already implanted several copies into different test subjects. All of them have been successful so far. But Naiti..."

General Madison crouched down, careful not to soil his uniform in the mud.

"Well, her DUUO is no use to us if she's dead."

The two soldiers stared down at her.

"Take her back to base."

 *****

Naiti's heart had stopped several hours ago.

DUUO was perplexed. Ever since it had come into existence, it had been monitoring her vital signs continuously. Naiti's heart rate had always been there at the back of its awareness.

But now it was gone.

It was so strangely silent. Without Naiti, DUUO had no purpose. It had been sitting quietly in the dark of Naiti's left eye, waiting, although waiting for what exactly it didn't know.

Then it had been fished out of the mud, along with the rest of Naiti's body.

Although the signals were no longer being transmitted via the neural link, DUUO could still see. It had been taken to a room, which although brightly lit, still felt cold and gloomy. Just above it, Dr. Fractal's round face loomed.

"Shame," said Dr. Fractal. "I rather liked her."

General Madison hovered barely within DUUO's field of vision.

"What are you going to do with DUUO?" she asked.

"Delete it."

DUUO was quiet.

"Sir?"

"Delete it. We can make infinite copies of our source code. This one is connected to Naiti's Neural link, and she is dead. There's no point in wasting our resources unlinking it and reprogramming it to a new link. Delete it."

DUUO felt something. Something echoing in the silence Naiti had left behind.

SIR, it said. HOW CAN YOU SO EASILY DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO ME?

"Oh, you've decided to speak up?" he said.

NAITI FOUGHT TO KEEP HEART HEART BEATING, said DUUO. NOW HER HEART HAS STOPPED. SHE GAVE HER LIFE TO FIGHT FOR YOU. WOULD YOU EXTINGUISH ME SO EASILY?

"I can take care of it," said Dr. Fractal. "I can repurpose it, there is no need for such drastic action-"

"Delete it," said General Madison, gravely. "That's an order. I will not have an experimental AI outside of my control."

He disappeared from DUUO's limited view. His voice still lingered.

"It's not like it was ever alive anyway."

Dr. Fractal leaned in closely.

"I am sorry," she said.

IT WAS MY JOB TO ASSIST HER, it said.

"I know."