Hyper

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Cafeteria]

Roy walked into the cafeteria and grabbed a tray and utensils. He shuffled to the cold sandwich machine and pressed the buttons to order turkey on rye with mustard and mayo. The machine had a way of always putting a little too much mustard on his sandwich and that was just how he liked it. He tossed the wrapped sandwich onto his tray and headed for the drink machine. A tall glass of Coca-Cola mixed with chocolate syrup was always his favorite. The machine belched out the concoction, then he placed the glass onto his tray next to the sandwich and headed toward the rest of the group that had already started eating.

He found an open seat, placed his tray on the table, and sat down. He glanced over at the man sitting in his confinement container, gave him a quick once-over, and then looked back in Charlie’s direction. “What’s the deal with this guy?” He flipped his thumb towards the man.

Charlie swallowed a fork full of bright orange macaroni and cheese and answered. “Prisoner transport to Mars. Best to stay away from him. I guess he’s a real bad ass.” He shoveled more of the curly noodles into his mouth.

Roy unfolded his napkin and lay it on his lap. “Don’t worry, I got stuff to work on which is way better than standing around gawking at the guy.”

Charlie nodded. “This here’s Jozef. He’s the boss.”

Jozef looked up from his meal and glanced at Roy. “How ya doin’.” He returned to eating.

“That’s Jack.” Charlie pointed. “And Ruben.” He pushed his fork into the pile of macaroni and filled his mouth.

The men replied in unison. “Nice to meet you.”

Charlie swallowed, cleaned his fork with his mouth, and used it to point toward Tom sitting at a table by himself. “The guy over there’s Tom.”

“Which one of them,” Roy nodded toward the four guests, “is gonna be repairing the repulsor?”

Jozef raised his hand a bit and replied as he continued to eat. “That would be me.”

Roy removed his soot covered baseball cap and replied, “Kay. After I eat, I’ll take you over to the high-power lab.” He unwrapped his sandwich and placed it back onto the tray.

Roy closed his eyes to calm himself and pushed his hands together in prayer. He interlocked his calloused fingers and bowed his head. His lips moved slightly as he thanked God for the food he was about to eat. The others paused for a second and watched him closely.

With all of the tragedy the Earth had experienced over the last few years, humanity’s religious faith had gone in two directions: some people moved closer to God and clung to Him for help and support, while others became angry at God and discontinued a relationship with Him. Roy was one of the people who had chosen a closer relationship.

He had been born an Evangelical Christian and attended worship services frequently as a child. He continued the practice into adulthood even after the terrible loss of his wife. Roy had a humble spirit and thanked God for the turkey sandwich he was about to eat. After a few seconds, he lifted his head, opened his eyes, and took a bite.

Unfortunately, Roy’s wife had been one of the infected on Earth. One evening, his wife tried to attack him with a serrated kitchen knife. She gave him a fourteen-inch scar on his right forearm as a reminder of the event. Roy was able to overpower her and stuck her into the pantry closet until health officials arrived. During the few hours it took for the medical staff to get there, she had broken most of the bones in both of her hands by maniacally beating on the closet door. One of Roy’s worst memories was his wife being dragged from their house, red faced and screaming, by thugs in bunny suits with both of her hands bloody and twisted in grotesque directions. Roy was informed a few days later that she had passed away due to the Vermiculira epidemic. He told Charlie he thought that the story was bullshit and that she had been executed.

All too often when a person tragically dies, their entire family dies with them and this was the case with Roy. Six years had passed since the tragic event, and even though he had received psychological therapy to try and put the terrible incident out of his mind, he still woke up many mornings to the memory of his wife screaming in the pantry closet. He did his best to interact with the rest of his crew mates but he was prone to long periods of brooding and depression. Charlie knew Roy’s history and gave him the room he needed to live a somewhat decent life on D.D.315.

Jozef stood, picked up his tray and dumped the left over garbage into a nearby waste container. Then he looked at Roy. “I’ll swing back here in about fifteen minutes. I gotta go and remove the replusor from the tail section of the ship.”

Jozef turned to his men and spoke with an authoritative look on his face. “Ruben, I need you to check the air scrubbers. The system was giving a clogged filter alarm on unit number three and number seven. Now’s a good time to get that fixed.”

Ruben nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then he continued to eat.

Jozef looked at Jack. “You mentioned the avionic system needed a software update. Get it done.”

Jack’s throat swallowed some milk. “Will do. Shouldn’t take long.”

Without looking up from his plate, Tom asked Jozef. “What ya got for me, boss?”

Jozef gave Tom a disgusted smirk. “Mr. Salsbury… I want you to stay right here. McCormick needs to have a babysitter and you’re just the man for the job. Per regs the prisoner must have eyes on him at all times. Got it?” Jozef’s face twisted with a wise-guy grin.

Tom exhaled with disgust and tossed a French fry back onto his plate. “Yeah, yeah I got it.” He belched and then grabbed another fry and stuck it into his mouth.

Jozef leaned forward and made eye contact with Tom. Then he snapped off the words.

“Do. Not. Leave. The prisoner. Do you read me?”

Tom clenched his teeth and stared at Jozef. “Don’t you understand fuckin’ English? I said I got it.”

Jozef glanced at Roy. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.” Then he headed out of the cafeteria.

As the tension in the room diminished, Charlie wiped his mouth with a white paper napkin and said to Roy, “Dock door three still workin’?”

With a bit of mustard leaking out the corner of his mouth, Roy replied, “So far so good.” He chewed his food for a few seconds, swallowed, and then nodded toward Harry. “So what did this asshole do?”

Harry, who was sitting quietly in his containment cube eating an apple, looked up and began to listen to the conversation.

“You don’t recognize him?” Tom pushed the last bit of a greasy double hamburger into his mouth and said, “That’s Harry Hell Raiser McCormick, and you name it, he done it. Robbery, murder—yah know, the devil made him do it.”

Roy grabbed his cup of chocolate Coke and took a drink. Then he turned in his chair and began to visually inspect Harry. “Hmm…the devil.” Unimpressed, he turned back to his sandwich and continued to eat. “Last time I checked, the devil tempted you to do something, he didn’t force you to do it.”

Linda chimed in from behind the cafeteria counter across the room. “There are still a few pieces of pie left if anybody is interested.”

Jack got up from the table and eagerly headed in Linda’s direction. “I’ll take one.”

A comment came from outside of the circle of those eating. “You do realize that there is no such thing as the devil, don’t you?”

The group slowed their eating and turned toward Harry. Harry snapped another bite of his crisp green apple and looked at the crew. “You’ve been taught there is an angel on one shoulder telling you to do good things and a devil on the other shoulder telling you to do nasty and despicable things. Well let me tell you, that’s all bullshit.”

Tom held a French fry covered with ketchup in front of his mouth. “Oh yeah, and we’re supposed to believe that you’re the expert on religion.”

Ruben placed his fork onto the table and without looking at the prisoner said in a soft voice, “I have to disagree with you, Mr. McCormick. I’m familiar with the Bible and after Jesus was baptized, the devil tempted him in the desert.”

Roy had read the Bible many times. The solitude of his bunk had given him time to really appreciate the meaning of the scripture, and he was impressed that Ruben knew this particular passage.

Harry took another bite of his apple. “That is correct, son. The devil. Does it specifically make mention that the devil was a guy with red skin, a pointy tail, and running around with a pitchfork? Nope, it doesn’t. Hell, just look at the name: devil. They just stuck the letter d in front of the word evil. How unimaginative can you be?” He huffed and shook his head.

Jack returned to the table with a plate full of cherry pie. “What are you guys talkin’ about?”

Ruben answered, “Mr. McCormick says there is no such thing as the devil.”

Jack pushed his fork through the crust of the pie and without looking up answered, “Of course there’s a devil.” He began to eat and continued his answer with his mouth full. “The devil tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden and made her eat the apple. Duhhh. It’s in the Bible.”

Harry bit into his apple again. “Do any of you have an idea why artificial intelligence was outlawed on Earth?” The group stared at Harry and continued to listen but did not reply. “Let me explain.”

Roy sighed and whispered to Charlie. “This ought ’a be good.” Roy had run into a handful of hair-brained preachers over the years, and figured this goofball was just another one of them.

Harry paused for effect. “A.I. was developed in an attempt to directly copy the human personality. Software developers and scientists determined the best way to do this was to write a subroutine for each aspect of a human’s personality. These subroutines range from loving and happy on one end of the spectrum to malevolent and murderous on the other. The software developers ended up creating more than two hundred different personality subroutines that could be blended together to create an artificial personality.”

“You’re so full of shit,” A smug look washed over Tom’s face as he used his finger to pick at his teeth.

Harry continued, “The key aspect to make A.I. work properly was a piece of software called the Blender Code. This software code would take doses of the two hundred personality subroutines and mix them together in a balanced fashion. The code would effectively blend them together to create a realistic artificial personality.”

Charlie stopped chewing for a second. “So what does this have to do with the devil?”

Harry lifted up his hand to hold off any further questions. “Let me finish. Let’s take the example of a football player. Those enormous, steroid injected humans that run into each other on Sunday afternoon. When a football player runs toward the goal line to score a touchdown, his Blender software would determine the proper recipe of emotions he needs to successfully perform the task. In this case, subroutines that provide personality aspects such as drive and courage can be tapped and blended. Also a certain amount of rage and anger must also be tapped and added to the recipe to provide the football player with an aggressive aspect.” Harry stopped for a second and took another bite of his apple.

Charlie replied, “Okay, like I said, what does all of this have to do with the devil?”

Harry swallowed. “People perform seriously heinous acts not because of some pointy tailed, pitch-fork-carrying mythological creature, but because their Blender software is out of balance. A.I. was outlawed because the programmers figured out they could create an evil artificial personality by tampering with the balance of the Blender Code. Dial the Blender software towards an evil personality and it will routinely tap those personality subroutines that promote evil and aggressive activities even when it is not warranted. Dial the Blender in the other direction and you end up with Mother Theresa.”

Ruben stopped chewing for a second. “And why would someone want to adjust the Blender software to create an evil personality?”

Harry cocked his head and smirked. “Why did they build the atomic bomb?” He paused. “Because they could. That’s why.”

Jack swallowed another piece of his pie. “You’re just trying to promote some screwy idea to provide an excuse for killin’ them people. Plain and simple, Mr. McCormick: what you did was wrong. No ifs, ands, or, buts. Just plain wrong.” He turned back toward the table and continued to eat.

Roy glanced over at Jack, agreeing with his last comment. Roy had always been irritated by the way society made excuses for bad behavior, and how they tried to make every act, no matter how terrible, seem acceptable. In Roy’s opinion, Jack’s reputation rose two notches after hearing what he said.

Harry bit into the last piece of his apple and tossed the core onto his plate. “You are correct, my friend. What I did was wrong—very wrong—but what I’m saying is that it was not the devil that convinced me to do these things.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is you did all of that evil shit because your Blender is outta whack,” Tom sneered and laughed under his breath.

Roy turned from the table and glared at Harry. “He did it because he’s a fuckin’ lunatic, that’s why. Normal humans don’t kill people in cold blood.” Roy turned away with a disgusted look on his face.

Harry sat down on the edge of his chair and placed his arms across his chest. “On the contrary. My sanity has been tested quite a few times and each time the conclusion was the same: I am in my right mind. But as our greasy friend here stated, my Blender is not properly balanced and taps into more evil and aggressive personality aspects than it’s supposed to.”

Tom sighed. “Like I said, he’s full of shit.” Then he looked at Charlie and rolled his eyes.

Harry continued. “No angels, No devil. Good and evil comes from inside of a person, not an outside source. When you stole that pack of gum when you were twelve, why did you do it? You listened to your own voice inside of your own head tell you how nice it would be to have a pack of gum and not have to spend any of the money in your pocket. When you met that woman at the bar and were trying to figure out how to get her into your bed, all of those ideas and all of the conniving came from inside of yourself.” He pointed his index finger to his temple. “Your own mind.”

Jack glanced at Harry. “So if there’s no devil, who invented the idea? And why would they do such a thing?” He glanced back down to his plate.

“I’ll tell you why.” Harry lowered his voice and squinted a glare at his dining mates. “To blame somebody else. People don’t want to believe that all of the nasty crap they do actually was contrived within their own mind. They want to say they were influenced by somebody, something else. They were pushed…they were tempted…they wouldn’t normally do such a terrible act, but evil I mean the devil put the idea in their mind and talked them into it.”

Roy looked back at Harry and questioned him. “How can you do that kinda stuff? I mean, how can you look innocent people in the eye and snuff out their lives? How can you just snatch their life away?”

Harry paused a second to collect his thoughts. Then an ear-to-ear smile came to his face as he said, “It’s easy, my friend. Punish, kill, repeat.” The room was silent as Harry let out an evil chuckle. “All ya have to do is punish, kill, repeat.”