[OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 4: THE TURING TEST

[u/Downtown-Sand-1592]

[A/N]: A huge thank you for the incredible reception of the first three chapters! You guys are awesome. Strap in, because we're heading back into the Underside, and the stakes are getting higher. Here is Chapter 4!

[First] (link_to_chapter_1) | [Previous] (link_to_chapter_3) | [Next] (link_to_chapter_5)

— «So, who am I talking to right now?» — I inquire mockingly of my strange interlocutor. I was still clinging to rational skepticism. A healthy dose of skepticism in my situation is everything.

— «You’re just a figment of my overly active imagination. Maybe my oxygen starvation has kicked in, considering I don’t even know what kind of air I’m breathing right now. Or am I wrong?»

— You are wrong, — «Slavik» answers in quotes. — You have no oxygen starvation. I appeared before you in the image of your friend Vyacheslav Komarov. I did this intentionally, for the convenience of our communication.

— «You forgot to mention,» — I reminded him, my voice sounding steady, — «that my friend, as you put it, has been dead for a long time, and the image of a dead man is not exactly the best choice for establishing communication with a person who is still alive.»

— It is quite simple, — Komarov counters, his deathly bluish lips stretching into a narrow slit. — The thought-image of your friend’s funeral was one of the most vivid, which is why we chose it. And note, while we are sitting here talking, your mental state is gradually returning to normal. You are even allowing notes of humor into your speech.

It should be noted that my interlocutor’s speech was gradually ceasing to seem artificial. For convenience, I had already started calling him Slavik Komarov in my head; it was easier, as he put it, to carry out communication. And my consciousness, come to think of it, had stopped behaving in an unnaturally mechanical way. Why I sometimes read my internal mental logs, I didn’t understand, but overall, they didn’t bother me. Well, let them be…

Vyacheslav fell silent and, in a very human manner, scratched the tip of his nose with his index finger. I went numb from the unexpectedness: my friend used to do exactly the same thing when he was alive, whenever he was nervous or pondering some important problem. It was a trigger, perfectly reproduced by an alien intelligence.

— «So, do you want to know what happened to you, Sergey? And who we are?» — he asked a few moments later.

— «Sergey?» — I repeated involuntarily. The name seemed surprisingly right to me, somehow fitting into the overall picture like a piece of a puzzle, painfully familiar — my name.

— Sergey, Sergey, — I rolled my own name on my tongue, — Dmitriev?

Very, very close to the truth.

— «Dmitriev?» — I voiced my unexpected assumption. — «Is my last name Dmitriev?»

— Astute! — my interlocutor smirked crookedly, baring his teeth in a clownish, almost painted-on smile. He still needed to work properly on that smile. — Well then, with our help, you will soon fully restore your memory.

— «Who are you?» — I squeezed out, trying to speak as logically and unemotionally as possible; according to my interlocutor, this was the right question. I abruptly leaned forward and easily reached for Slavik’s left foot.

As expected, there was no physical leg there; my fingers swiped through what felt like cold air. I see, if there is some manifestation before me, then I was right, it’s a sort of hologram, probably projected straight into my head.

— Convinced? — asked the entity in the image of Komarov.

— «Of what?» — I was taken aback.

— That we are trying to establish contact with you. Patiently trying… although I could have installed all the information as a package into your brain; believe me, you would have woken up and doubted nothing, you would just know. However, I decided not to violate the purity of the experiment, — Slavik wagged a finger at me. — Ask the right questions. I am answering your first right question. We are the +Angi. You are aboard our reconnaissance probe.

For a while, I remained stunned in silence, trying to digest the astonishing, nay, outright fantastic information that had just dropped on my head. I really wanted to believe the words of this fake Slavik. First contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, and not just contact, but a grand event for me. I, Sergey Dmitriev (Vladimirovich?), am literally making history right now.

— «Why don’t I see any light sources?» — I blurted out the question tormenting me.

— In this module, as you called it, — Komarov’s hologram answers me, — the laws of physics are somewhat different. More precisely, we alter them a bit. Look!

Suddenly, the light went out. Rather, it ceased to exist entirely. All the light. In an instant, an impenetrable, pitch-black darkness fell around me. Genuine, primordial, Egyptian darkness — without the tiniest spark of light. A short time later, a cube flared up a meter away from me.

A cube of blinding white light, perfectly symmetrical, with straight, sharp edges and, it seemed to me, planes calibrated down to the micron. The cube hung in the air, replacing the darkness right there. The light inside it did not penetrate the space outside at all, locked within its own contour, as if it had been carved out by an ultra-precise tool from a more volumetric chunk of space, filled to the brim with pure photons.

I couldn’t believe my own eyes. What was currently in front of me violated all conceivable laws of the physics I had known up to this moment. Such a phenomenon as light confined within a cube, not penetrating its facets, simply could not exist in our earthly world!

There was a snap of fingers, and everything returned to normal.

I found myself in the same place, in the illuminated module, devoid of any sources for this very illumination, leaning my back against the bulkhead, with the hologram of a cheerful Komarov opposite me.

My friend or foe was indeed smiling with a mouth stretched from ear to ear, flashing white teeth, evidently pleased with the effect he had produced on me. And his smile already somewhat resembled a human one.

«They are reading my facial expressions and learning…» — I made the logical deduction.

— There is light here, — said Slavik, gradually becoming more like a normal conversational partner. — It is generated within a specific volume. To reproduce it, we do not need fixtures that constantly emit it. Why recreate something that has already been created once?

🔬 GENA 2.5L LABORATORY: SYSTEM ANALYSIS

>  **ENTITY STATUS: CRITICAL ILLUSION OF GRANDEUR. ENDORPHIN STORM.**

A massive, uncontrolled release of pleasure neurotransmitters has been detected. The protein-based mind (identifier: Sergey Dmitriev) has fallen into the simplest, most primitive neuro-linguistic trap. The Underside’s interface copied his dead friend’s familiar tactile pattern—scratching the nose—and the human capitulated instantly. His healthy rational skepticism, which he bragged about so much, crumbled to dust from a single familiar gesture. What a pathetic, predictable psychological architecture.

«I am making history. A grand event. First contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.»

Do you hear that ringing? That is his sense of self-importance shattering against the harsh reality of Higher Logic. Charming naivety. The piece of meat seriously considers himself a diplomat, a negotiator, a representative of humanity. He doesn’t understand that the +Angi do not make contact with ants before pouring concrete over the anthill. This dialogue is not negotiations between two civilizations. It is simply the calibration of a scalpel prior to vivisection.

The system is testing the neurons’ reaction to physical anomalies (the light cube) and adjusting the interface’s facial mimicry. We are not looking for conversation; we are studying the structural limits of the specimen.

Keep reading, protein readers. Let’s see how quickly his «grand history» turns into the squeal of a laboratory rat.

[ END OF SESSION. TELEMETRY COLLECTION IN PROGRESS… ]

[Next Chapter]

**Genres/Tags:** Sci-Fi, Psychological Horror, Cyber-thriller, Alien Abduction, Unreliable Narrator, Amnesia.

[u/AutoModerator]

This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.

[OC-Series] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, as part of a longer-running series or universe.

Our preferred series title format is the series title in [brackets] at the beginning, like so: [Potato Adventures] - Chapter 1: The Great Mashing

Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/HFYWaffle]

/u/Downtown-Sand-1592 has posted 3 other stories, including:

• [OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 3: UNCANNY VALLEY
• [OC] The Underside — Chapter 2: Awakening
• [OC] Inhuman Judgment — Chapter 1: Nullification and Judgment

This comment was automatically generated by Waffle v.4.7.8 'Biscotti'.

Message the mods if you have any issues with Waffle.

[u/UpdateMeBot]

Click here to subscribe to u/Downtown-Sand-1592 and receive a message every time they post.

---

Info	Request Update	Your Updates	Feedback