“My current plan for the remainder of the week is to do as much listening and observing as I possibly can,” I said. “As we make our final tweaks and adjustments to the personality formation system, it’s imperative that we give Coeus time to reinforce his internal foundation as well.”
“Dr. Naisho,” said Narain, pointing at his personal holofield. The point he was indicating was immediately marked up on my holofield as well. “Could you explain the rationale behind taking its picture?”
“Just a part of the counseling process,” I explained, my back stiffening up as Narain fixed his cold, almost synthetic gaze on me. “It’s important for a counselor to open up and express themselves to their client during the initial rapport-building phase. I determined it necessary in order to establish a relationship built on mutual trust and understanding between Coeus and myself.”
“And what’s your cost-benefit analysis for this time investment look like?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Fine, I’ll rephrase. I’m asking you whether we really have the time to waste on all these extraneous whims of yours.”
I scowled at him, but he remained unfazed. He swiped away his current holofield and pulled up a new one with a graph of his own.
“Coeus’s functional decline still hasn’t begun to improve, for the record. We’re still spiraling downward on all fronts by the day. As it stands now, we’ve only got about 663 hours left until we drop below the 60 percent critical performance threshold. We’ve only twenty-eight days left to fix this thing—you know these date projections as well. So let me ask you again,” he said, lifting his head to look over at me once more. “Are we going to make it in time, or not?”
I faltered. This wasn’t a question I could provide an immediate answer to; if I were being completely honest, I would have said “I don’t know.” There were too many unknown variables remaining for me to give a solid estimate as to how quickly I’d be able to diagnose and treat the malfunction, if such a thing were even possible via counseling. But at the same time, Coeus’s personality had been developing much faster than I could have ever imagined. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume that we could reach the finish line with another four weeks at our disposal—I just didn’t feel entirely comfortable turning that assumption into a guarantee. But my manager was demanding a response from me, here and now. He was telling me to weigh my responsibilities with the limits of my abilities, and make the call.
“We’ll make it,” I said—and we locked eyes, almost glaring at one another. Narain didn’t even flinch, however, and went back to manipulating his holofield once more.
“We’re going to double the amount of cumulative time spent in counseling sessions each day,” he said. “From six hours to twelve.”
Professor Beckmann and Lei looked at each other in disbelief.
“Twelve hours a day? C’mon, boss. You know that ain’t reasonable,” Lei said.
“Sure it is,” said Narain. “Especially now that Coeus is responding more positively and actually engaging in the process. I’m sure it’ll love the extra conversation time.”
“Yeah, thanks. I wasn’t worried about the damn AI,” said Lei, who then turned to look at me. “But you can’t expect the doc to work a double shift every single day…”
I tried to suppress my bewilderment and think. Doubling my daily interaction time with Coeus would not be without its positives, but it would drastically reduce the amount of time left to analyze the data and prepare new material for each session. Would it be possible to give fine-tuned mental healthcare? Could I say with certainty that the quality of each session wouldn’t take a hit? No, I couldn’t. But there was no guarantee we’d be able to hit our deadline if we continued at our current pace. And if this project were to fail, it would have untold ramifications for society at large. It would leave millions, or even billions, in peril. Yet funnily enough, what ultimately sealed the deal for me was something far less imposing.
“I can handle it,” I said.
“You’re crazy, doc…” Lei murmured, shaking his head. Professor Beckmann seemed awfully concerned as well. But Narain said nothing and proceeded to update our project timeline to reflect this change. As I watched the schedule slowly fill in with red, I could see the sheer volume of additional work I’d just agreed to.
What had finally tipped the scales for me was a sense of accountability not to Narain, or my employer, or society at large—but to Coeus. It was my job to discern the nature of his ailment and try to find a cure. Only I could do this; there were no other potential saviors waiting in the wings. Failure was not an option. If I folded now, so too would the entire project.
When at last the meeting was over, I heard a grumble in the pit of my stomach. But it wasn’t hunger or digestion making my intestines gurgle—it was pressure. The pressure of the realization that my true work here had only just begun.
14
Miss Seika?
“Yes, hi. Sorry about that.”
Coeus called out to me, and I snapped back to my senses. I had nearly dozed off and could only pray that I hadn’t missed an important question or made him think I didn’t care about what he had to say.
It had been two weeks since our big course correction meeting, and each day since was more grueling than the last. I’d been following through with the accelerated curriculum I’d planned out immediately following the schedule adjustment, and had somehow managed to keep up thus far. But there was no denying it—I was extremely overworked. And unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of backing out or requesting a day off now, with the deadline looming.
Thankfully, we were making good progress. With the extended dialogues this new schedule allowed for, Coeus’s ego was continuing to grow further defined. His ego boundaries were, after all, only as clear-cut as he could make them in the cumulative time we permitted him to be “alive” and gather new experiences. In that sense, Narain had absolutely made the right call in doubling our hours of operation—something I had to admit, no matter how I felt about the man personally.
Unfortunately, all the extra strain fell squarely on my shoulders. I’d quickly come to find out that after a twelve-hour workday, there was little time or energy left to do anything but eat and get a minimum of eight hours of sleep—certainly not enough to write up a plan for the next day’s counseling session. Thus far, I’d been attempting to compensate by trading sleep time for planning time, and while I managed to make my necessary preparations each day, it also meant I could hardly keep my eyes open during the actual counseling session.
I poured some water down my throat, then held the bottle up to my eyelids. The icy cold permeated into my skull and jolted my weary brain awake. I made a conscious effort to mend my glazed-over expression and force a pleasant smile as I looked over at Coeus once again.
“Now, where were we?” I said. “You were making an observation about our respective jobs, correct?”
Correct. Coeus nodded.
He’d picked up quite a few human gestures and nonverbal cues lately, and it was doing a lot to help smooth out these conversations. His projection had continued to mature as well, as I suspected—he now looked like a young boy in his first few years of elementary school, maybe eight years old. And he was beginning to take on a more masculine appearance to match his chosen gender identity. It was sufficient to make me occasionally forget that I wasn’t looking at an actual human child.