Rise of the Machines: Book 1: Once Awakened

by Briana Ervin

  “Yeeees...” My voice sounded weird...er..... The abrasion and pride Cyrii's voice had was replaced by some kind of mix between, soft, endearing, and mature. It also had an unsettling undertone. For a lack of a better description, it made me think of a hatchling plotting to do something evil.

  I kind of liked it!

  “You hear, you see, yes? How function? You think well?” the alien asked.

  “Think...” I tried to think. Everything seemed to function normally. At the same time, things felt different, so they couldn't be functioning normally, right? My mind felt almost like it was... wider?

  I looked at the little blue person. Hm... I wonder what happens if I...

  “You function better!” he said cheerfully, cutting off my thought. “I fix! I fix all.” He then left to go to the other side of the room, and the room seemed to be some sort of engineering place, complete with crates of supplies stacked in one corner and blueprints plastered along the other wall. Tools lay about in disarray; clearly this guy wasn't focused on being organized. The room had the same architectural style as the pod room, so we must be in roughly the same place. I didn't recognize much else, although I spotted a black satin cloak hanging in the corner. So this must be the same alien from before.

  The alien went over to something golden standing in the corner, picking up a flat bar of some kind.

  “Oh... you,” I said in disappointment, recognizing the latter.

  “He good, yes? You melt him, but he good,” the blue alien assured. “No importance though. No mind.” He sat down on a nearby crate and began prying off a misshapen glob.

  Serves him right, I thought malevolently. While I tried to organize my chaotic thoughts, I decided to move around a little. Luckily the alien trusted me enough to not hold me in place, so I was neither immobilized nor attached to anything like I was before. I gladly moved out into the center of the room where there was more space, and tested everything out. Well... not everything. I wasn't about to fire rounds around the guy who repaired me. I might as well show a little respect, even if he was most likely the Enemy... was it wrong to show bias? I wasn't sure.

  Once I was satisfied that everything was running smoothly, I decided to stand behind the alien and watch him reshape the gold mech. I'm not going to lie, it was hard to do. It was effort, terminating all of those angry threads that kept popping up. Half of them weren't there before. I couldn't pinpoint if it was something Cyrii unveiled, something that the blue alien did, or both. All I knew is that they were completely redirecting my thought processes.

  It was annoying.

  “Hey, you burn up lots, you know?” the alien suddenly spoke up. “Don't fight it. You better. You good. Lost effort.”

  I looked at him in bewilderment, and saw several slits along his neck flaring. Gills? Or perhaps he had an acute sense of smell... I was burning up a lot of fuel, trying to control my thoughts. The idea that I was stinky from doing that was... embarrassing, suffice to say. I was concerned about losing my temper if I simply stopped fighting, as he said, but at the same time... it was so tempting. What would happen? What would the threads do?

  I hesitated. Held everything for a moment... Then simply let the threads go.

  Off they went, into the distance, never to... hey... now that's not a bad idea!... Or that. Ooo, that sounds like fun. Hey... not restraining myself gave me all sorts of ideas! It's like I'm especially crafty now!

  “You do better, yes?”

  “Yes,” I answered, brightening up a bit.

  “Try tone test?” The alien suddenly looked back up at me.

  “Tone test?”

  “Say 'hello',” he instructed.

  “Hell-o,” I said. “ Hellll-o? Heeeell-o. Hello.”

  “Hell Os,” the alien laughed. “Yes, tone test good! You good now!”

  “Why do I sound different?” I asked in confusion.

  “Speaker fried. No fix. But replace, yes! I replace!” The alien patted my hull. I winced at the touch, not expecting it.

  “Replace? How?”

  He hesitated. “Old speaker. Old speaker brain too. No importance.” He dismissed it with a wave, going back to the golden mech.

  Ohhhh, I realized, so that must be why some things feel a little... different. Although...

  “What is this place?”

  “No can say. Ship. Good ship, but no can say.” He shook his head. I guess he meant he couldn't tell me more than that. A ship, though... I must have waken up in the alien version of a brig. That meant I was on a spacecraft!

  “Who are you?” I asked curiously.

  “Eh, no integrated enough. Can't say.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “Ah, can say!” He grew more enthusiastic, turning back to me. “Found in wreckage! Taken for Republic. Be re-purposed. Good for you.”

  “Re-purposed,” I stated.

  “Yes, for Republic! Like scrap, but better.”

  “Where is...” I stopped myself from saying her name mid-sentence. “Were... there any bodies around me? Or in me?”

  He thought for a moment. “Think, yes. One though. In infirmary, ordered prisoner.” He shook his head. “She no good. Xinschi-uual no good.”

  Xinschi-uual! It's Cyrii! I need to get to her, I thought. “Where is the infirmary?”

  “Oh no, you ordered stay here. No see Xinschi-uual. Maybe brainwashed! Already reprogrammed, no can do,” the alien denied, going back to working on the mech.

  “I must see her,” I insisted.

  “No, Captain's orders.”

  “Is he the Captain?” I looked pointedly at the golden mech. The alien laughed.

  “He wish! He no Captain. Too drab. All rules, no character. He refurbished too.”

  If being refurbished meant being like him... I let the thought trail off. I did not want to turn into that, no matter how good this “republic” might think it would be for me.

  I scanned the room, found a door, and walked toward it. Now that the alien mentioned a large ship, the rooms did indeed look like they were built for a vessel. The question was, what kind of vessel? Should I expect strict rules and a lot of soldiers? Should I be worried about these security door panels?

  …No. No door will stand in my way.

  I opened up my retrieval panel and tried inputting a code into the keypad. The keypad looked simple enough, with a screen and some buttons. Fifteen buttons weren't bad, right?

  The alien looked up in curiosity as the first combination I put in buzzed a denial at me. I tried a second combination, but again, it failed and buzzed. By the third combination he was already up and walking over to me.

  “You trying to leave, yes? No can do,” he said.

  “I know. You said that already,” I said nicely. I genuinely meant it too! This alien was being nice to me, which was completely unexpected.

  “Then why you try?”

  I simply looked at him, letting the keypad buzz at me before inputting a new combination.

  “You do math. You stand here and be distraction, not find combo though. No good,” he chided.

  “But I just want to visit the prisoner,” I said, slipping in a note of innocence; it blended astonishingly well with my new voicepack! The alien wasn't fazed by it though.

  “Captain say no,” he said firmly. I stopped punching in numbers and watched him give me a stern look before going back to repairing the gold mech.

  So the incessant beeping of a keypad would annoy him too much... but he was right, I could do math. So if I was a machine, and the keypad was a machine, then surely hacking wasn't out of the question? Except I had no data transmitters. What about clues to the code? Except I didn't really know what I was looking for. My next option then – and the most appealing one – would be to just melt the keypad and hope it opens the door. I doubted he would appreciate that though, and it would be wise to destroy as little as possible on this ship, if the people here are foolish enough to shelter me for the time being.

  Well, where to start, then?
I wondered, staring at the simplistic, boxy device sticking off of the wall. I first punched in a bunch of the first symbol to see how long the code was. The alien sighed when he heard the beeping again, but didn't get up, probably assuming I wouldn't find the right combination in a timely manner. Taking note that I was being left alone, I kept pressing the button until the keypad spat out a rejection. Eight spaces. Fifteen keys, eight spaces, I thought. That gives me one hundred twenty combinations... the probability for each is equal, unless we favor unique combinations... and if we remove the ones with repeating numbers... I tilted my head as I thought. That's a much better chance of finding it! Let's hope it's unique.

  I held onto the scrambled combinations in my head and tried the first one. The keypad quickly rejected it. As I punched in the second code I heard a hissing sound to my side, and I glanced over to see the alien smoothing out the gold mech's welts with some kind of handheld device emitting heat. I watched for a couple of seconds before scolding myself about being distracted, and continued trying combinations.

  The second try didn't take. Neither did the third, or the fourth, or the fifth... my luck wasn't looking good, and by the time I tried seventeen different combos I was quickly running out of patience. It would be easier to just stab the thing and run for it!

  Just keep trying, I told myself, subtlety is better! You don't know what kinds of defenses they have here. Despite the thought, I still grumbled through my speaker when my next code failed. The nineteenth code... also failed... the twentieth... it failed, but I hesitated for a moment, thinking I might have input it wrong; my focus on this stupid keypad was starting to slip. So I tried it again, but halfway through typing it I realized that the first number was accidentally put in twice, and I didn't know how to go back and fix it.

  Well, let's try it anyway, I thought, finishing the number. I readied to put in the combo again, right this time... yup, there's the defiant buzz. I grudgingly returned to the sequences I had left, unenthusiastically putting in the twentieth code and going to the next one.

  Before I could start the first number though, the keypad suddenly made a different beep and I heard a heavy clunk as the door slid open.

  I looked up in surprise. The alien engineer's head popped up in alarm. It was the twentieth code!

  “W-Wait-!” the engineer stammered. I ignored him, eagerly stepping out into the hall. “No! Can't go out there!”

  I ignored his flustered objections, first looking up the hall to my right. It was quite nice and roomy, with the same architecture, brightness, and gloomy metal as the brig I was in before. I swiveled to my left, and came face-to-face with a globular, crawling creature.

  It stared at me, wide-eyed.

  I stared at it and its bizarre, translucent skin.

  “Hello!” I said cheerfully. The alien opened the orifice on its face wide and screamed shrilly.

  “Ack!” I let out a horrified beep and blocked my face, ears flaring as it whipped around and shot off down the hall! It could move fast! I peeked out after it, and I heard a loud thud as it fled into a room and shut the door behind it.

  “That enough time for you!” I felt a hand grab one of my turrets. I beeped again and pulled away from the engineer, making him shout as he lost his footing. I stepped around him to escape and he grabbed one of my feet, but I only ended up dragging him along as I picked up speed!

  “No can dooooo!” he yowled. The noise perpetuated alarm, and I caught several surprised, foreign faces with exotic colors peeking out at me from a room. They quickly retreated with a shout about “ship security” and shut the door when I came up to them. I slowed in front of it and tried to kick the engineer off, not interested in accidentally stepping on him, but he clung on like a sticky piece of grass!

  “Stop it!” I objected over his shouting, “Let go!” I backed into the wall with a snarl, still kicking, but caught an LED screen in my peripheral. I paused for a second to look at it.

  It was a screen above the door. It displayed two circles, one inside the other, with two-thirds of a triangle on top. A label...? A label!! The doors were labeled! I just needed to find the brig – no, the infirmary! – and Cyrii would be there!

  The engineer yelped again as I turned and continued my trot down the hall, dragging him with me again. I scanned each screen above each door I came across, searching for anything that might hint at an infirmary, trying to go as quickly as possible. Someone aboard must have sounded an alarm, because suddenly the lights went dim and began flashing red, and a wailing started up from a grate in the ceiling. I better pick up the pace!

  The ship wasn't as vast as I expected it be; I probably ran down its full length before a group of aliens could form behind me. It was quite the mixed-race vessel, with many bizarre creatures peeking past doors and fleeing from me as I thundered past, each letting out its own indigenous cry of alarm. I didn't care about them yet though; finding Cyrii was the priority! I had to make sure she was okay!

  Infirmary, infirmary... there! Such a lovely universal symbol: bandages! I skidded and scanned the door, and picked up traces of partially-cleaned blood. This was the place. No time to punch numbers into the keypad again, not unless it was the same combination! I glanced down the hall from where I came: armored soldiers were coming. I quickly tried the number sequence, and...! Nothing. The code was different.

  No time to try the others. I forced a bayonet into the keypad, shattering the mechanism: my favorite option! A couple of twists and the door was open, the blue alien now howling consistently in distress. I charged in, still ignoring him.

  It looked almost like a white, sterile dungeon, with each patient being assigned to a “cell” in the walls and an ominous digital clock above one of them. Two nurse androids looked up in shock upon my entering, and some marsupial jumped out of the way as I charged in ruthlessly. Good thing they weren't performing surgery on anyone! I scanned the cells for Cyrii.

  No... no... THERE!

  CYRII! It took too much effort to refrain from shouting out her name, resulting me emitting a stray beep. I ran over to her cell, upsetting an operating table and somehow managing to shake off the engineer at the same time. A couple of bullets flew past my hull and I whipped around, standing protectively in front of her cell with a stream of verbalized, offended trinary. She was unconscious inside, but they weren't going to come within five q of her!... Partly because I was very large, but mostly because I was very angry.

  “No harm!” the engineer begged, waving his hands. Despite our previous relationship, I pointed my turrets at him and assumed a defensive position.

  “Stay back! No one touches her!” I threatened. A group of soldiers came into the room, all armored completely to hide their identities, and surrounded me, but I didn't care. I had one job, dang it, and it was to keep Cyrii alive! ONE JOB!

  “STAY BACK!” I screeched at them. The soldiers didn't leave, but they certainly jumped and kept their distance. They kept their weapons raised, and I loaded bullets into the turrets. There were no spoken words; just a show of anger. If they were going to touch Cyrii... I was going to take them out... one... by... one...

  Suddenly, the wailing alarm was shut off, and the lights resumed their original, white brightness. I hesitated for a second, confused. The brief silence lasted long enough for me to hear something scurrying along the ground, and I glanced down.

  The unexpected visitor astonished me: A Xinschi-uual! First the mech and now this?! What's going on?!

  He ran along the floor comically like a small animal, before rearing up in front of me in a panic, his short stature making him practically invisible.

  “Don't shoot! You're a rogue AI, don't shoot!”

  “Rogue AI,” I repeated the words smoothly, with mockery in my tone. One of the soldiers tried to come closer, and I fired a warning shot past him. Everyone jumped and winced.

  “I said, don't shoot!” the Xinschi-uual hissed.

  “I recognize none of you and you want me to not shoot?” I retorted i
ncredulously.

  “You ought to recognize me! Alpha clearance! Stand down!”

  There was a moment of shock before I realized that I was talking to the pilot of the gold mech. That only lit a fire inside me.

  “You...”

  “Look, we don't want to hurt you, all right? Trust us! We're all fine here! Good people!” The Xinschi-uual gestured hastily to the assorted aliens behind him. The engineer was hiding with the other unarmed beings behind the row of soldiers, only nodding in agreement. “All right? We helped you.”

  I flashed my scanner over the rows of strangers. The data that came back... wasn't very promising. Especially not with how the soldiers twitched in response.

  “You said the mechs only act this way when they have pilots,” one of the soldiers spoke in a grating voice, making the Xinschi-uual jump.

  “W-Well, I! I wasn't sure!” he stuttered.

  “Its pilot is right behind it,” he accused.

  “A mental link, maybe?” one of the other soldiers suggested in an accented, feminine voice. The first soldier refuted this, starting an argument. I simply stood in confusion. They all spoke a different language... and yet I could understand all of them? Did the engineer upload a bunch of language files to me?

  “Nonononono! Look, this is why I had you grab this specific mech,” the Xinschi-uual interrupted.

  “For what, Scaln?” the first soldier barked. “ It almost killed us! Twice!”

  “I don't trust it,” someone else agreed.

  “No! She good! I fix, she better...” the engineer finally spoke up, only to falter again when the soldiers shot glares at him.

  “Look, I know my own daughter! This isn't what you think it is.”

  There was another shocked silence.

  “That thing, in that cell... is your daughter?” the first soldier said dubiously.

  “She's not a 'thing'!” Scaln snapped, “she can help us! She has her mother's blood. She'll understand.” He looked at me hopefully. “She even did the same things I've done.”

  What things? I couldn't help but wonder, what's going on here?!

  Scaln took a step forward. “767... please, stand down.”