Starship Armstrong - Season 2

Part 34 - Ignorance Is Bliss (VIII)

Dr. Kang appeared on the main screen looking very put upon to have been hailed. Behind him was one of the computer towers from the space station, into which all kinds of gadgetry had been plugged. McAfree and Wagner could be heard shouting at each other off to one side.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Dr. Kang," asked Captain Littlecrow "How sure are you of the number of people there are inside those pods?"

"I mean, I didn't have Wagner do a personal head count to verify," said Dr. Kang "But I've been scanning this place from hyperspace with a machine I designed myself. I see everything. I can tell you how many of the pods have human shaped living matter inside them to an absolute certitude."

"How many is that?" demanded Galen.

"Exactly 970,837," said Dr. Kang.

"Actually it's 970,836," said McAfree, off-screen "Since we pulled out that one guy."

"We did didn't we?" said Dr. Kang "There you are, then."

"So where is everyone else?" asked Galen "There are at least five times that many people on Zethes, on my Zethes. Where are they all if not on the station?"

"Oh is that what you're after?" asked Dr. Kang, dismissively waving his hand "We figured that one out when we were looking at the all the user data in the system registry. Only the oldest generation are real people. Everyone born after a certain date are just part of the simulation. They have no physical analog and no real minds to speak of."

Galen turned white and his legs began to tremble.

"So while I might not have been precisely correct about Professor Myron I still foresaw that there would be fake people in the mix."

Galen's legs could no longer support his weight and he fell to the ground.

"My theories and actions always make the most sense in hindsight," continued Kang "History is my judge."

Captain Littlecrow tried to help Galen to his feet.

"End transmission!" yelled Gibson and Mitzner in virtual unison.

The screen returned to a starscape.

"Galen, are you alright?" asked Littlecrow, helping support his weight as he stood "Can you stand? Do you need anything? Water?"

Galen suddenly grabbed the front of Littlecrow's uniform and dragged her face towards his own. His eyes were so wide that Littlecrow could see whites on all four corners. He was dripping with cold sweat and his hair had become wild and matted.

"I was wrong!" he told her, with a lunatic's intensity "I was wrong! We can't tell the others. What have I done? No one else can know! Do you hear me? No one else can know! We have to- we have to-"

He let her go and collapsed onto the ground again, this time more slowly. He was openly crying. It was an unrestrained, ugly kind of crying that soaked his face with tears and snot.

"The children!" was all he could bring himself to say. He repeated it over and over again.

Unsure of how to comfort him, the other left him to his private Hell.