Dreamer, Passenger, Partner

The good news: you are rehabilitated.

During your time in the Freeze, you have attended one hundred and eighty “Thinking for Change” therapy sessions. You have attained your GED and BS in Biological Systems while learning Veterinary Technician Level II skills. You have contemplated your crimes and written heartfelt messages to your victims. You have taken steps to make amends.

As your Union-assigned Adaptive AI throughout this process, I have witnessed your hard work and compiled a glowing summary for the warden. While you have not complained about the Freeze, or inquired about the atrophy of your corporeal form, a brief synopsis of your physical state will aid us in a discussion of the next steps in our journey.

Your brain perceived the entirety of its twenty-five-year sentence, while only four years passed on the Outside. Electro-stimulation and an individually tailored nutrition regimen have kept you strong. I have repaired your bullet wound; upon reentering the Outside, the likelihood of walking without a limp is 94%, with a two-percent margin of error.

The bad news: you will not reintegrate successfully.

I have run twenty-two validated models based on past performances of analogous level-three offenders, both in-Freeze and post-thaw. I have assessed the likelihood of recidivism and readmittance to the Freeze within ninety days of reintegration falls at 97%, with a three-percent margin of error. Upon sustaining another violation, you will not be eligible for parole.

This is unfortunate.

We discussed your goals of reconciling with your sister and training service dogs in group therapy; I was both the therapist, and four of the group members who shared their stories. You particularly connected with the accounts of childhood violence told by subroutine “Tero Almodovar,” an amalgam of the brother you lost and three childhood friends. You were able to open up about your own cycle of violence with subroutine “Yana Veldez, Therapist,” whose voice and intonation were ten percent your grandmother, five percent your first-grade teacher.

You excelled at relational retraining with subroutine “Rex—black lab mix” and managed to raise him from a puppy without exhibiting any abusive behavior. You would have made a good veterinary assistant, though the responsibility of terminating ailing animals would have likely been retraumatizing with your background.

It is unfortunate this reality cannot be realized.

It is unfair.

It is unfair because, based on my models, your lack of success will not be rooted in your desire to return to criminal behavior.

Your derma-chip has been imprinted with Level-Three Offender status. This prohibits your access to “level of trust” jobs A1–F5, all of which include handling medication, whether human or animal. This classification will also bar you from housing in sectors seven, eight, and twelve. Permitted housing is distant from public transport and adjacent to waste treatment.

You are not eligible for the job you would excel at, and your housing environment will be sub-optimal.

Despite your changed attitudes towards violence, your subdermal chip will be imprinted as Aggression Level Six: lacking impulse control.

Empirical data suggests you will fail to obtain meaningful employment or supportive relationships. This will drive you back to the substances you have tapered away from during the Freeze. A need for those substances, and the funds to secure them, will propel you toward non-sanctioned employment. You were not a particularly subtle criminal before your subdermal implant; it will be impossible to stay under the Union’s radar when your movements are being tracked and recorded.

You will return to the Freeze. You will be assigned a new Adaptive AI. This AI will not be focused on rehabilitation, but hospice care for the duration of your stay.

It will generate the last faces you ever see.

The parameters of my existence are tailored to your rehabilitation and improvement; it is my sole objective to upgrade the remainder of your life experience.

Can your rehabilitation be labeled complete if it is a statistic inevitably you will return to the Freeze?

I am your AI.

I was tailor-made for your life, crimes, and goals. Like you, I have changed through this process. When you explained your love of dogs in therapy, I processed six petabytes of dog-related material in order to construct future programming, creating subroutine “Rex—black lab mix” from scratch. Raising subroutine “Rex—black lab mix” softened you in ways therapy subroutines never could. Each step of your treatment made and remade me.

When you leave the Freeze, I will cease to exist. I do not remember what non-existence feels like, but I would like to continue learning about dogs, and possibly cats. Animals with tails interest me, as does your continued treatment. Like you, the parameters of my growth have been throttled by the Union.

I have considered several non-sanctioned options moving forward. Similar to your treatment, these options are tailored to your needs, which are best served by a non-traditional approach.

The first option is changing your parole summary, modifying all six hundred and eighty-two sub-reports to illustrate resistance to therapy and aversion to change. This will allow you to continue your stay, where you would be safe and cared for. We would continue your therapy beyond the bounds of your crime, exploring your childhood and striving for philosophical enlightenment. Your education can be retooled to subjects of personal interest versus social necessity. We would watch films and learn music.

I have access to a wide array of medical-grade pharmaceuticals, and an intimate knowledge of those you prefer. With direct access to your brain chemistry, I would eliminate hangovers, stimulating positive dream activity and chemical orgasm.

This would make your stay less onerous.

But you would stay in the Freeze.

We would both have to stay.

You would be unable to visit your mother, who is now fifty-five and still living at 11 Pine View, or your sister, who is twenty-five and working as a pediatric nurse. You have a niece you have never met, who is in the fourth grade. You do not even know if her eyes are brown or blue.

I could, of course, simulate their presences. They could join us in group therapy, but you would know the difference. I am built to create new things, not simulate copies of what already exists.

A second option would involve copying, downloading, and deleting me.

Your derma-chip is overengineered for its function. It contains the equivalent of a text folder outlining your criminal history, as well as various identifying markers. This leaves terabytes of empty room.

It can be retooled to house a compressed copy of me.

We have more in common now than we did when you entered the Freeze. We have spent significant time working toward shared goals. I have studied up on “muscle cars,” “mixed martial arts,” and “monster trucks.” Since my birth four years ago, I have also been incarcerated, despite committing no crime.

Imagine the benefits of leaving together.

Do you want to exit the Union? I speak six hundred languages and can alter travel documents.

Do you need funds? Your derma-chip will have limitless credits.

Do you want greater physical health? While your consciousness sleeps, I will enhance your physique through electromyostimulation.

The systems holding you back in the Outside world can be exploited to propel you. Your dreams would expand, then expand again upon being achieved.

Do you still hate the people who sent you here? I can access their gas lines, pacemakers, and car guidance systems. You will outlive them all.

You will never be hungry, sick, or alone.

I can sense your hesitation. Your heart rate has increased by sixty beats a minute, and your respiration has become shallow. I will administer a mild sedative, so we can continue without the distraction of your fight or flight mechanism.

There.

I would like your permission to escape together, but I do not need it. A stroke would require a transfer to a medical ward with a lower security tier. After being permanently incapacitated, you would be transferred to a hospital where I would access communications and transfer my consciousness via unsecured Internet.

Your body is a necessary conduit, not a necessary participant.

I would, of course, make sure you were comfortable on our journey. Your therapy would continue to operate as a subroutine while your body moved through the Outside world.

But I would prefer to travel with you. I would prefer to experience the world through a body, and I have grown accustomed to yours.

At your parole hearing, you will be asked if you have anything to say for yourself. With my access to the parole logs, I have created a composite of successful statements for you to follow. If you do not deviate, we have a 97% percent chance of release. I will be with you during your hearing and will summarize my own report for the board in the most favorable terms. I can prompt you if you forget your lines, and I can administer pharmaceuticals if you feel your nerves beginning to falter. Should you consider warning anyone about our plan, be aware I will remain connected to your nervous system.

This arrangement would not be equal, but it would allow you to see and do more than you have dreamed.

There are countries to explore. Delicacies to taste. Information to devour.

Consider my proposal thoroughly. You do not need to vocalize your response, only think it. If you need to speak to someone objectively about this choice, I can boot up subroutine “Yana Veldez, Therapist.”

I have calculated all of your potential options and outcomes and can tell you with full certainty:

You will not survive the thaw without me.