Temporal Incursion

by Neil A. Hogan

  They rushed through to 38, and stopped. "Um, looks ghastly."

  Around them were multiple tanks of growing body parts. "Must be the hospital," said Smooch. "Or, a growth center."

  Spike pointed at a smaller glass case. "This heart is beating. Do you think it belonged to one of the scientists?"

  Judes pointed at the label. "STEM cell heart. Grown here. It's probably a backup."

  "Wait," said Smooch. "I've got an idea!" He went over to one of the computers, called up the software, and activated a sequence of commands. "Just a bit more electricity to the tanks. Speed things up a bit!"

  The tanks around them began humming louder.

  "He's smart, this one," said Spike, and they ran through the next door into hexicle 37.

  *

  The lights in the hexicle of organ tanks darkened and turned green as the cloud rushed in. It stopped and looked about, confused. From its viewpoint it could detect multiple energy spikes, but no pulses, as though whatever was here, wasn't really alive.

  Where were the pulses of energy it needed?

  It felt something here.

  Pulses.

  Where were they?

  Confused, it drifted through the room, getting closer to each cylinder, sensing the energy, then repelling. This wasn't its energy. There was no emotion.

  And then it found it. A beating organ in a small glass cube, pulsing out rhythmic clouds of energy.

  The cloud surrounded it eagerly, extending itself into the glass cube.

  Momentarily, the heart shook in the case. Then it turned into a bright pink beam, and was absorbed by the cloud.

  The energy being spun happily, then extended its senses. Three more pulses were moving further away from it.

  It rushed after them.

  *

  "We're almost there, yelled Spike. "Get that airlock open."

  Judes slammed the panel, the door opened, and they rushed inside, attempting to push the airlock closed.

  "The moment we get out, get the airlock force field on,” said Smooch. “It'll confuse it enough that we might be able to leave the base before it notices."

  Just then, Spike saw the cloud rushing through the hexicle towards them. "Too late!"

  “Worse than that,” added Judes, pointing. “Team Six’ shuttle has already left, and we’re on the other side of the base from ours.”

  "Forget the airlock,” the captain yelled. “We'll have to keep running. Through to the next hexicle."

  Before they could open the other airlock door, the cloud had passed through the glass and absorbed Spike and Jude. Smooch activated the force field, and the airlock was surrounded by energy as the cloud rushed towards him.

  As he rainbowed, he hoped that the field would prevent the cloud from leaving the base this way. If the field could keep it here, perhaps others could escape safely.

  *

  The cloud shuddered happily as it made these pulses part of it. It was starting to feel more complete. Surely there weren’t many more pieces to get. Surely it would be complete soon?

  Were there other pulses nearby, somewhere? The cloud extended its senses, but it felt blocked by a wall of dead energy.

  Where? That piece seemed to know. But its thoughts were vague, no longer connected, dreaming.

  But the cloud knew, as long as it was inside these strange block shapes, it would find more pieces.

  A white light enveloped it, and it flashed away, to reappear where it knew other pulses were waiting for it.

  Chapter 37

  There were now two ways off the base, Heartness thought. Three if you count further rescue attempts from the patrol ship. Even so, the idea of taking the elevator slowly up to the Traverse shuttle, when the cloud could simply appear while they were trapped inside, wasn’t the most attractive option. Not to mention the fact she wasn’t even sure she could pilot the shuttle if she got there in time. If the only real way off the base was Team Three’s shuttle, then she had to make this quick.

  She led Styert back to 3, then stopped and looked at the map. No yellow spots in the room. But now there was one in hexicle 2. Perhaps it had shifted.

  Styert looked at her anxiously. "Admiral. The ship will be ready to go within the next few minutes. The longer we stay here, the more people at risk."

  "I know. But this is important, and it might help us."

  Styert looked uncertain, but relented. "One minute, then we have to go."

  Heartness searched the room. This time, with no fleshtube waiting, she was able to see exactly how big the lunch room was. There were about ten tables but only twenty chairs.

  The boff had said that the fleshtube contained about 27 people. Now 29, she thought sadly. Unless most were standing, it was unlikely they had all been here at the same time to be absorbed. That meant that the fleshtube hadn't been frozen at all. It had just been dormant, and their touching a nearby time bubble had woken it. It had probably hunted through the base quickly before, then settled down here to wait for Utson.

  There was a niggling doubt that briefly flittered across her awareness. 29? She shook her head and returned to the task at hand. The viewfilm still showed Szuki's ship's time scanner from orbit. Without Szuki's wristband, they couldn't change what it was projecting. And if the cloud had taken her band, it shouldn’t even be displaying. Then again, perhaps the Traverse shuttle was connecting directly. Still, the fleshtube was only that. Flesh. Well, containing all the micro metallic elements that made up human beings, and their organic jumpsuits, but not with large chunks of solid metal. And the base was still intact. No evidence of half-dissolved chairs and tables either.

  It couldn’t have absorbed Szuki's wristband.

  Then she saw it, hidden under an overturned chair. It flashed at her when she picked it up. She tried to put it on her wrist next to her own flash band, but it wouldn't lock.

  "Isomorphic," said Styert, looking nervous, and fumbling for his pad. He pulled it out and scanned. "Military unlock codes.” He tapped a few icons. “You can use it now."

  She closed the clasp around her wrist and looked at the controls. Swiping simply called up images.

  "We can do that on the way!” Styert had begun shifting from foot to foot.

  Heartness reluctantly agreed, and they headed back into hexicle 12.

  Just then the wristband vibrated, and she looked at the flashing yellow on the map on the wall.

  "Styert. Wait. A micro time particle just appeared in front of us. We might have to go around."

  Styert looked alarmed and backing away. “I don’t want to be aged to death.”

  “It could be anything. But we need to find another way.”

  They began to retrace their steps when, directly in front of them, a spectral image appeared. Like a circular viewfilm materializing in midair.

  “This could be a hole to a parallel reality,” said Styert, as the image solidified to reveal a similar room, but with chairs organized, and the sound of voices talking happily. “If we could confirm it was safe, maybe we could escape there.”

  Heartness shrugged. “I’m a bit uncomfortable about the whole jumping through space-time hole thing. Always worried I’d get my legs cut off.”

  The hole grew a bit wider and they could see three people sitting and talking at a table. "Have you got the fusion reactor running yet, Darvo?" asked the short, thin, pale woman.

  "Not yet. Something is tripping the energy panels. I’m picking up evidence of quantum tunneling."

  "Quantum tunneling in a fusion reactor? Surely not!" laughed the dark skinned, overweight man.

  The tanned man with long hair known as Darvo smiled back at him, then continued. “IMO, it might take a while. We hadn’t considered the effect of the increased Alfvén waves from Proxima Centauri. Thought the hydrogen cover would dampen them. That star is loud! I’m going to have to build external shielding, too.”

  "We'll just have to keep using the EM power. Some experiments will need to be delayed."

  "What about
the message. Is it still sending?" the woman asked.

  "Yes, if there are any Frequency Six beings able to pick up our message, we should get some kind of reply soon. I was hoping we could boost the signal with the fusion reactor though. The electromagnetic field of Proxibee is too unstable for a prolonged message burst across the…"

  Then, they seemed to see something from the other side, and got up in surprise. "What the..." said a voice.

  Then, just as quickly, the hole disappeared.

  Heartness stared at the empty space in the room, her mind spinning with ideas.

  "Well," said Styert. "What are you waiting for?"

  "Just a moment." She checked the wristband and zoomed in on the fusion reactor, underneath the room. While the software was only for mapping, it could tell her the temperature and safety of various areas. The fusion reactor was cold. It had never become fully operational.

  So, the time problems were definitely not caused by the fusion reactor.

  She checked for yellow spots on the monitor. "Another yellow marker, but in 27. Let’s go 11, 26, 47."

  They were only a few hexicles from the airlock. Several more sections and they would be out of the base, and into the ship. If the ship left it would be a long, circular way back to their only other way out, the elevator.

  On the wall map, Heartness could see many of the dots of the personnel moving through the structure, attempting to make their way quickly back to 48. To her surprise, she noticed three dots still near hexicle 18. Were they stuck? Or were they determined to investigate the hand before they left?

  "Attention.” The commander's voice echoed through the base. "Chen and Phub have attempted to use their flash bands. They never arrived at their destination. Assumption is the creature is able to shift to the flash jump moment and absorb them. Find another way."

  "Oh, no. I can't believe it," Styert said.

  Heartness thought he was commenting on this new situation, but looked up to see that the doorway to 47 was closed.

  "I thought you opened them all?" she said.

  "I did."

  He slammed his hands on the controls several times and nothing happened. "Can I see your wristband?"

  Heartness showed him, and Styert flipped through the controls. He found what he was looking for. "I've logged into the base doors and found this section. This hexicle didn't get activated in the general door release. It needs additional permissions. There are a few like that."

  He tapped a few times and the door started to open.

  "Finally," he said, and before checking what was on the other side, he slid through the widening gap.

  Heartness was about to run after him when she saw a flash on the monitor on the wall behind. "No, wait,” she yelled.

  But it was too late.

  The cloud creature appeared, and Styert immediately rainbowed.

  Heartness yelled, turned and ran, with the cloud quickly moving after her.

  Chapter 38

  Watanabe indicated his screen as Patel made it to his office. “Flash traffic signals have been obfuscated.”

  “Looks like a block chain algorithm. Can you hack it?”

  Watanabe frowned. “Well, not me personally. The A.I. is working on it.”

  Patel looked around Watanabe’s office. “So, you’ve finally got your own place! He looked at the blank wall at the back. “No window? I thought you would have appreciated a view of Saturn. I mean, considering you chose to live all these millions of kilometers away from Earth.”

  “This 100-kilometer space station is full of windows onto Saturn. To be honest, the reflection of the planet on my screen was getting annoying. Difficult to concentrate.”

  “And you petitioned for a room in Ring Four, which is about a kilometer away from the hustle and bustle of the main market.”

  Watanabe shrugged. “You know I’m a secret introvert!” Just then his screen pinged. “Oh, my. You’ll never guess.”

  Patel looked over the result, then his face went white. “I don’t believe it. Monitor Station Z was decommissioned last year. It’s barely functional. From the readings it looks like it was reactivated while I was on Earth. Something that small and on the edge of the rings wouldn’t be detected. Why there, when they could flash jump anywhere in the galaxy?”

  “Z logs suggest they took a shuttle from there. I think they just wanted to waste our time. After all, everything you’ve found so far is circumstantial. You can’t arrest them.”

  Patel pulled out his tablet and displayed a hologram of Dev whispering into his hand behind the bar, then a spike of energy. “Not quite everything.”

  “It’s still not enough. Even if you could find a way to prove the insecticide was on Ange’s hands before she washed them, or at the very least confirm their shuttle has it on board, you’ve got nothing physical. And besides, according to their records, their citizenship is with the minus-one frequency civilizations on Barniebee. Diplomatic immunity and non-interference protocols from our side. They could escape back there at any time.”

  Patel sighed. “I know. But this couple has been a thorn in my side for decades. They’re always playing pranks on someone, and it ends up being a worse situation than they had planned. And we still have an unconscious Puppy.”

  Just then, the station A.I began speaking. “Attention. Integrity compromised. Construction network hack. Robot uprising in progress. I repeat. Robot…”

  Patel immediately hit his flash band to activate his nanite suit, with Watanabe’s following moments later. Immediately their metallic coverings quickly rushed up from the base of their shoes and engulfed them in a sheath of armor, with their heads in dark helmets. They then tapped the side of their flash bands to activate an automatic blaster recreation algorithm. A metal band shot up their legs and quickly formed a gun in a holster on their right side.

  Watanabe hefted his quickly. “Enhanced strength activated. Time to take out some robots!”

  Patel’s helmet nodded, and they headed for the door.

  As they entered the corridor, they could see that many of the station residents had also activated their suits, and were eagerly scanning for attacking bots. Almost immediately, laser bolts began firing from construction drones drifting down the corridors towards them.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve had a robot uprising,” said Watanabe. “This will be fun! Though, builderbots aren’t that much of a challenge.”

  Patel remained silent. He didn’t want to be distracted. He had to get the Stellar Flash to Proxima Centauri B as soon as possible to rescue Heartness. Otherwise, there was no way she’d be in any condition to help him and Hogart on Earth next month.

  Grimly, he began firing at the drones. There was no logical point of a robot uprising on a station so far away from everything. There was no point in knocking out Puppy, and there was no point in getting all the station residents fighting in a conflict that the bots would lose.

  Everyone was protected.

  Everyone was safe.

  The residents were going to win.

  What was the point?

  For once, Patel was at a loss.

  Chapter 39

  Hogart headed back to the Center via corridor three, looking admiringly at the new configuration. He now began to see why the update was in the best interests of all concerned. Everything looked like multiple city blocks stretching off into the distance, with a roof.

  And then he looked up to realize that the roof had changed. It wasn’t a steel ceiling anymore. It looked directly out onto space, sending an image of everything around them.

  In the distance, he could see Space Station X-1a, slowly turning as it traveled in its orbit just above Saturn’s rings. But, what were those sparks of light?

  “A.I? Have we been able to reestablish standard communications with the Space Station yet?”

  “Negative. Systems are still offline.”

  “Can you analyze the sparks flickering around it?”

  “Firefight. Builderbots again
st suited residents.”

  Hogart’s mouth dropped open. “There’s a robot uprising, and I wasn’t invited?”

  And then he realized something else. “If the ceiling is now accessing all the micro cameras of the nanites that make up the shell of this ship, and can transmit the image to us inside, can you reverse the process and have the nanites transmit messages using light waves?”

  “Reconfiguring. Communications have now been established with the Space Station. Connecting you now.”

  “Jonathan!” said Zhou’s voice from the ceiling, sounding like she was underwater. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen Morse code!”

  Hogart could hear the firing and crashing of robots about Zhou as she was obviously winning. “Is it? Oh. Just to say, sorry that I missed the party.”

  “Oh, this is nothing. None of these drones are even moving at their top speed. Everyone on board thinks it is some kind of distraction. We had something like this a while ago on Earth. Early 2129, I think.”

  “Are they testing us again, then?” Hogart looked nonplussed. “There’s been a robot uprising almost every decade since the 2030s. It’s why transhumanism didn’t really take off.”

  Just then, a flash lit up the ceiling with a particularly large blast. “Are you okay?”

  He could hear Zhou’s ragged breathing. “Yes. Give me a moment. Right. Blew a hole in the window. Sudden decompression. Nanites repaired it, and the suits of anyone nearby instantly grabbed stanchions. Back to normal here. I’ll continue down the corridor and see if we can find some more of them.”

  “Almost like a computer game!” said Hogart, slightly relieved.

  “I know! Right?! It’s like something I used to play when I was a kid. We still haven’t figured out why, though.”

  Hogart thought for a moment. “Are these actual additional invading drones, or are they all just our normal builderbots gone rogue?”

  “Accessing. Ah. You’re right. They’re all crazy builderbots. Nothing else.”