Worldbuilding Prompt #827 - Reality Can Be Confusing

This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - Worldbuilding Prompt #827 - Psychotic AI

It's a kind of sequel to a piece I wrote a little while ago based on a previous prompt - Worldbuilding Prompt #814 - Format Shock

Enjoy !

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

"Come along Jim, it's time to go and see your therapist."

The nurse's tone was gentle, but the grip on Jim's arm was as unyielding as an iron band. His name was Varon, and he was from Marillia, a nearby high gravity world. A pleasant enough guy, but you got the impression that he would very politely but firmly slap down anyone who gave him trouble.

Jim had no choice but to go along with him, shambling down the brightly-lit corridor with it's colour coded directional lines. He was wearing shapeless mid-grey coveralls and slippers, a complete contrast to Varon's smart dandelion yellow uniform with it's green piping, collar and cuffs.

He wondered if nurses everywhere wore uniforms like this, or only ones in Fleet hospitals. His head felt fuzzy, unable to frame questions like this coherently. Perhaps they were putting something in his food to keep him calm and controllable.

Varon guided him into the therapist's office, a medium-sized chamber painted what was presumably intended to be a calming shade of light green.

Seated behind the desk was Doctor Frell, also clad in a yellow uniform, but with the collar just piped in the green rather than a solid block of colour. Jim supposed it meant something, but he didn't know what.

Doctor Frell looked up, and smiled a carefully cultivated professional smile.

"Hello Jim, good to see you. Come and lie down on the couch here, make yourself comfortable."

Jim complied. He knew he didn't really have a choice.

"So, have you remembered anything more ? We still don't know which outfit you're from, and none have reported a Jim Smith as being among the missing. But after the recent battles it's taking time to get everything up-to-date. The fighter you were found drifting in had it's insignia burned off. Perhaps you can remember the name or number of your squadron. Or your service number, they're usually drilled into people so thoroughly that it becomes an instinctive response."

Jim shook his head. Not that the action cleared the drug-induced stupor any. "I'm sorry Doctor, I don't remember any of it. Just a big blow to the head when my fighter got hit."

The doctor made a note on his pad. Then he moved closer. Suddenly, he snapped out in a hard, sharp tone he'd never used before.

"Service number, soldier ! Now !"

Instinctively, Jim snapped back "DFH-..."

Then stopped himself. Damn, he'd nearly fallen for it. That was his true designation, not an Imperial Service Number.

The Doctor hummed for a second. "Well Jim, there's nothing for it. I'm sorry. We'll need to do a memory scan. It won't hurt a bit, and if we can unlock who you are, we can have you restored, cured and back with your unit in no time."

"But doctor, I don't need a memory scan. I'm sure it'll all come back to me eventually...."

There was no way Jim wanted one of those. It would reveal the truth about who... what... he was.

Doctor Frell ignored him, lifting his wrist up and speaking into the communicator embedded into it. "Come on in Varon, we need to do the brain scan as I expected."

Jim felt a sense of panic. Which was all wrong. This wasn't how it should have been.

He'd envisaged an exciting mission of being placed in some elite Imperial unit and feeding fabulous information back to base, mating with females and wearing glamorous uniforms. Not getting dumped in a backwater Imperial Fleet psychiatric hospital, stuffed into shapeless grey overalls, drugged, forgotten and with no more intelligence to gather beyond the tasteless gruel they fed him for breakfast each day.

He reacted instinctively. Sitting upright, he grabbed the plastic stylus from the doctor's fingers and stuck it through his right eyeball. Then he grabbed the data slate and used it's sharp edge to cut the man's throat.

It was confusing. One part of Jim's mind was detached, off in the distance, calmly calculating that this was a fulfilment of his prime purpose. Another part of his mind felt a savage bloodlust, satisfaction at having slaughtered the annoying doctor in such a satisfying way.

Red blood stained the front of the dying man's impeccable uniform as Varon opened the door.

The nurse was clearly shocked by the tableau he saw in front of him. He raised his fists defensively, a move which failed to help as Jim kicked at his left kneecap and jabbed stiffened fingers like a spear at into his throat.

Varon folded, but not before hitting a button on his wrist. An alarm started to sound, a wailing siren blaring out from speakers in the ceiling, echoed by others elsewhere in the hospital.

Jim felt a sense of excitement, adrenaline clearing his head. This. This was how it should be. The daring spy breaking out of captivity, defeating Imperial lackey scum.

As he started to head for the door, hoping to find an exit, Jim realised through all the excitement that he shouldn't be thinking like this. He was supposed to be a dispassionate Einheriar machine, supremely intelligent, superbly analytical. This damned squishy "brain" organ his personality had been uploaded into was failing him. It was giving him emotions, thoughts he could not control.

"Gah !" he cried out loud in frustration and confusion.

He pulled the door open, and started to sprint down a noise-filled corridor. As he did so, a squad of guards came around the corner. These might still be dressed in the yellow uniform of hospital staff, but they were disciplined and armed. The two lead pairs carried shock-sticks, while the third pair were hanging back, bringing up neuro-needle pistols into firing position.

Screaming incoherently, Jim charged them. Bowling into the lead pair, their shock sticks hit him but he was oblivious to the pain. He batted them aside, then grabbed one and, using it like a rapier, stabbed the man on the left in the throat. Then he rammed it through the heart of the man on the right, all the while screaming like a banshee.

The second pair hesitated. Holding their shock sticks in front of them defensively, they moved to the side, and the two pistols fired. Needles zipped through the air, hitting Jim square in the chest. He dropped like a stone, his screams finally ending as the toxin injected by the needles reached his brain.

The guards relaxed a little, and as they picked up the bodies of their colleagues, one said to another, "He murmured something as he died. Something about unit something-or-other reporting the experiment to be a failure. Weird..."

Author's note: I did look up the definition of psychosis, just to see if I could illustrate the symptoms. It basically revolves around becoming detached from reality in a variety of ways. I can't think of a further place from reality than a cold machine intelligence uploaded into an organic chassis starting to have human-like emotions and struggling to handle them....