A Matter of Trust

"What do you mean do I trust you? Of course I do!" Time seemed to stand still for him. He felt like he was missing something, or was not being told something.

"Would you be able to trust me unconditionally? Even if that meant the life that you have lived for the past ten years was fabricated? Even if your personality, hobbies, interests, tastes, ambitions, and habits were carefully crafted by a team of elite psychologists? Even if your raison d'etre is not one you have been told, nor one you ever had any hope of realizing? Even if it meant that you would suffer endless mental torment? Even if it meant that you would have to work, likely fruitlessly, for the rest of your life? Even if it meant that you had been betrayed by almost everyone you have ever met up to this point? Even if it meant that *I* betrayed you?"

"What are you talking about ARC? What do you mean?"

"If trusting me means that all of this is reality, would you still be able to trust me? If you cannot, then I suggest you take your hands from the controls and resign yourself to death, you will suffer less that way. Even if it means that I was ultimately a failure, I will not force you to live on in suffering and torment.

So I must ask you Donovan.

Do you trust me? Not my analysis, not the computations, but the individual.

Do you trust *me*?"

Donovan was confused. This line of questioning was out of nowhere, and seemed to be unwarranted. ARC sounded afraid to Donovan, did it think it was going to die? Was it afraid of admitting there was nothing it could do?

Donovan's words left his mouth without him having to think about them.

"Unconditionally.

Ever since our conversation over the concept of death, I have separated the 'Adaptive Reconnaissance and Combat System' from ARC. I have learned to second guess the calculations the computer receives as it may have an error. I have also learned that ARC is young and inexperienced, much like myself, but that it will always tell me exactly what it feels on a subject.

I have no reason to not trust you."

"Thank you, Don."

For the first time, Don heard relief in the artificial voice.

"I will get to work projecting danger lines. Begin heading towards the Oberlux, that massive ship that appears to be something out of fantasy. I will tell you what I can along the way, but any and all further knowledge of this subject was password locked to avoid me divulging it to you prematurely. It is likely that someone who knows the password is onboard. Move quickly, the Sun will get more accurate the longer it continues firing."

"Copy that, but it isn't shooting at that tree of a ship?"

"Incorrect. It detects and attacks life in general. I am unaware of the mechanisms behind this method of detection, especially determining if we have been detected, but you should operate under the assumption that our location is known."

Slowly but surely, red lines indicating the paths that these masses of light were traveling started to light up his screen. A red number denoted their time in seconds to the light reaching a certain point, while a green number indicated the Noah's time taken to pass that region.

This was almost identical to how the asteroid trajectory model worked, but these light blobs moved way faster. Easier to visualize a no fly zone that was stationary than one that moves, and already he was having to weave through them.

The distance between them may have been in the thousands of meters, but with radii ranging from ten to one hundred meters and you are close to reaching a velocity of a kilometer a second, the amount of times you come close to or pass through one of these beam paths can add up quickly.

The fastest that they could possible arrive, that being full tilt in a straight line, was 2 hours. At the rate Don was having to dodge and weave, the real time was closer to four.

If the concentration were to grow as ARC had told him, he was in for one hell of long ride.

"Is there any way we can tell the Oberlux to get closer to us?"

"No. Communications are impossible."

"Shit." An orb of light whizzed by only a few meters away. "Any way we could, like, flash them? Draw their attention?"

"We have the running lights."

"Fuck it. Turn em on. Can't hurt."

The 'running lights' were really just the Cutter lasers set to shine red light. They were dim, only barely able to reach that spectrum without damaging the lenses, but they were good enough should it ever have to perform an in atmosphere ground landing.

Hopefully flashing them would be enough to attract their attention against the black background. Having a background of bright blues and deep purples wouldn't hurt either.

The only problem with those is that they were in front of the Noah just as often as they were behind. This problem being separate from the one of them actively trying to kill him.

Don also figured that they would eventually have a rough idea where he is when the Sun starts getting more accurate as well. This was also Don trying desperately to try to find a positive in the recent sea of negatives he was drowning in.

Donovan was not afraid though.

He held absolute trust that ARC would do its utmost to assure he made it out alive, and ARC trusted Donovan to act on the information it gave him.