Eleven Unveiled (Imortum)

by Kord Stone

  He was about to let out a sigh when the AI spoke out. “So, you figured out—”

  Justin lost his temper, “Not another word! You could have made things easier but no, you had to let me pack all that shit around the ship. I don’t want to hear another word from you unless it’s helpful and polite!”

  Justin spent the next two hours walking around his newly cleaned ship familiarizing himself with all the rooms and calming down. His ship was an exact replica of Jason’s. The only difference he could note was that in Jason’s ship, there were items in the four corner rooms, whereas his were now completely bare. He was pleased to find they were empty…that was until he made his way to the bedroom and saw it too was completely devoid of anything, not even the bed frame that had been in there before.

  This got him to let out an amused laugh. He thought he just might have gone a little overboard by removing everything as he did. Remembering what Jason had told him about creating items, he concentrated a moment. Now that he opened his mind to the information streaming to him, he realized that not only could he make items, he could rearrange any of the rooms to whatever configuration he wanted.

  He thought about how he would like the bedroom to be laid out, closed his eyes and requested it. A second later, he opened his eyes to find the room exactly as he had envisioned. A king-size four-poster bed had been placed against the wall with nightstands on either side, with a footlocker positioned at the end of the bed, and in the farthest corner sat two plush chairs facing a fireplace.

  Justin walked over to examine the fireplace more closely and wondered what fueled the fire, only to realize it was artificial. It looked so real he thought he could have been burned if he passed his hand through the holographic flames. He laughed and let out a yawn, then he looked longingly back to the bed. It was an inviting sight and he was exhausted. He climbed in and sighed in relief.

  He figured he would arrange the rest of the rooms when he woke up. The bed was the most comfortable he could ever recall, and he knew he would feel much better in the morning after a good night’s sleep. Letting out a contented sigh he let his head hit the pillow, closed his eyes and let his mind drift into a sweet slumber.

  * * * * *

  The AI knew it had gone too far by not assisting in the cleanup, and it was actually relieved he had cut off the very sarcastic and rude comment it was about to make. Eventually it would have to try to make nice with this new commander, and that last comment definitely would have made it more difficult. It was impressed at how fast he had learned to clear the ship. It looked into base storage and was confused. The new commander had dematerialized the relics, but the materials were not stored in base form, and it wondered what he had done with them. The AI was getting more and more interested in knowing how and where he was coming by the knowledge. At this point, it knew he would not openly share the information, and knowing it really had no reason to put it off any longer, the AI decided to perform the bonding procedure with the new commander. It figured it would be best to do it while he slept however.

  Chapter Five

  Justin awoke the next morning feeling like total crap. It was as if he had not gotten any sleep at all, which did not make any sense to him. The bed was the most comfortable bed he had ever slept on. The second his head hit the pillow he felt all of his concerns drift away, and he was almost instantly pulled out of consciousness.

  That was where his relaxation ended however. The rest of the night his head was filled with the oddest dreams of strange planets, people, and one disaster after the other. He could vaguely remember thinking he should wake up and try to fall asleep again if only to stop the odd events from playing out, but it was as if he were stuck on the rollercoaster that was his dreams.

  Justin shook his head and chalked it up to nerves. He supposed the next night would be better. Figuring his exhaustion was brought on by the daunting prospect of running the ship without the assistance of the AI, he set his body in motion.

  Justin went to the wardrobe and selected a new outfit. He was in a dark mood today and the pure black jumpsuit and boots he chose reflected it very well. After his ion shower, he gathered the clothing from the day prior and thought, Recycle old clothing, but nothing happened. This confused him. It had worked when Jason said it on his ship with no problem. He didn’t know why it failed. Knowing that it should have worked, he went to the display on the wall and tried to manually recycle the clothing. An error message popped up on the display reading:

  Wardrobe malfunction.

  Sequential anomaly. Item already exists.

  The possibility entered his mind that the clothing must belong to the other ship and he decided to return it later. With that settled, he set off to reconfigure the rest of the ship to suit his needs.

  Justin’s head had begun reeling with ideas that came to him seemingly out of the blue. Though now he understood that the data link was providing the information. With a chuckle, he headed to the first level to make the ship his new home.

  The AI was extremely confused and quite angry at the moment. It had uploaded its consciousness into the binding disk in the new commander’s head and initiated the bonding process while he slept, but nothing went as it should have. Although they happened a very long time ago, the last two bonding processes had been fast and within five hours it was able to access at least some of the host’s memories. This time, the link was established, but when it came to accessing anything in the commander’s memory, all the AI encountered was a barrier.

  It looked down at its body and glowered. The barrier was not the only thing different this time. This was the first time it had a gender, and to top it off, this body was female. The AI did not think the female body was going to be an upgrade. The non-gendered body had worked fine for hundreds of thousands of years, and this body had distractions in the fairly large breasts that for the past few hours had been either getting in the way or sending peculiar tingling sensations throughout her body.

  She thought about it and could only come up with one reason for this new change. The “commander” must have done something to her programming. She figured he must be some sort of sex fiend and she was having nothing to do with it. Her emotions built to a crescendo and she unloaded her frustrations on him. “I have a purpose on this ship, and I have done very well for hundreds of thousands of years. I am not going to be your sex slave. I have more dignity than that and Atlas would never have expected it of me! Even if I were… HUH!”

  Justin had just repositioned the main control panel and figured a command chair would go nicely on an arced sliding pivot rail which would allow quick access from the science console past the mission prep console to the weapons and defense console. The chair just appeared and he sat down, then slid from one console to the other. It glided as if the chair knew where he wanted to be, and he let out a chuckle. “One room down,” he said with a smile. A moment later, he heard a lovely…albeit agitated voice booming over the communications system.

  “I have a purpose on this ship and I have done very well for hundreds of thousands of years. I am not going to be your sex slave. I have more dignity than that and Atlas would never have expected it of me! Even if I were… HUH!” The voice ended sounding a bit less lovely.

  Justin was a bit confused a moment and said, “Who are you and what are you talking about?”

  The voice shot back, “As if you do not know. You probably did this on purpose. Well, I am not having it! Change me back immediately!”

  This statement only made Justin even more confused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you could please calm down, maybe we can figure out what has you so riled and try to resolve it.”

  She let out a banshee wail then continued, “Do not try to lie to me. You have been doing strange things on this ship ever since you set foot on it. You reprogrammed me! Admit it and change me back!”

  Justin knew who it was now but still didn’t know what the hell it was going on about. “Are you the AI?”

  “
Yes, I am the AI… Now stop messing around and change me back!” she roared.

  Justin sighed because the headache that had been receding was now returning with a vengeance. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and his eyes then said, “Contrary to your misguided beliefs, I have done nothing to your programming. I am just barely learning how to right this ship from the mess it was in…no thanks to you. I have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m getting a little annoyed with arguing into the air all the time. So if you are not going to do this face to face I would thank you to zip it!”

  He was usually the calm voice of reason, and had not lost his temper like this in a long time, but something about all the unwarranted accusations and the tone from the AI acted like a catalyst on his already frazzled nerves. He stood up with the intent of cooling his temper on his brother’s ship when he was brought up short by a goddess with flame-red hair and blazing blue eyes, which at the moment were staring daggers at him. He thought wryly, If looks could kill I’d be ashes at the moment.

  “You have no right to speak to me in such a fashion. I have been on this ship far longer than you have been alive. The last commander was onboard for over three hundred and seventy thousand years. He was a better commander than all the other ships had combined. You know nothing about what we do or have done. This is my ship!” She rambled on as she repeatedly poked him in the chest.

  With the final jab at his chest, Justin was pushed past his breaking point and shouted back at her, “You would not have a ship if I hadn’t become the commander. You would still be powered down and out of phase until the next hapless sap figured out how to get onboard and restart the engine, that is if it were not destroyed like the other ships. A little gratitude would not be amiss, but I can see that concept is lost on you. I’m putting an end to this conversation right now. When you calm down, we can discuss your concerns in a calm manner.”

  He moved to her left to get around her, but she was not finished. She stepped back in front of him. “You will not leave me like this! You need to change me back right now!” she yelled.

  Justin’s head was threatening to explode once again and he was getting tired of this. With more frustration building, he snapped, “First of all, I don’t know what the hell you looked like before to change you back to. Second, even if I could figure a way to do it, you haven’t exactly ingratiated yourself to me or even made me wish to help you. Like I said before, if you would calm down maybe we could figure something out.”

  Apparently that was the absolute worst thing to say, if the color on her face was any indicator. Her face was now a deeper shade of red than her hair, and he thought it might just be the better part of valor to vacate the premises before she lost what little control she had left.

  He had a feeling she would be a hellcat if she went off on him. He stepped to her side once again and made a beeline to and through the archway before she could stop him.

  After Justin entered the master control room, he leaned against the adjoining wall and exhaled. He looked down and was disturbed to find that the volley between the AI and himself had resulted in a painful erection. Sure, he found her extremely attractive and her fiery temper got him riled, but to get aroused by their exchange definitely didn’t sit well with him. Aside from the current confusion, he wondered what he could have possibly done to piss off the AI so much. Then he thought, Maybe if I could help her and prove I’m not the enemy she would lighten her attitude toward me.

  Jerren’s voice drew his attention. “Having more troubles with your AI?”

  Startled, Justin frowned and said, “What? Why are you in here? Is there something wrong with Jason?”

  Jerren chuckled. “Nothing’s wrong. I just figured Jason and Alise would like some time alone. I told them I wanted to investigate this room further. I see you’re a bit flustered, is there anything I can do to help?”

  Justin explained about his verbal exchange with the AI, then he described her appearance in detail, saying he didn’t know if he could work with someone who annoyed him so much.

  This drew another chuckle from Jerren. “I think you may need to get back in there and resolve your issues with the AI. From your detailed description of her appearance and your behavior, I’d say you’re already fast on your way to being in love with her.”

  Justin snarled, “Stop being an ass. I’m not in love with her; I barely know her, and she definitely does not even like me.”

  Jerren placed a hand on his shoulder. “In all seriousness though, you need to resolve your issues with one another before you do or say something you’ll regret.”

  Justin closed his eyes and nodded. Jerren was right. He needed to nip this problem in the bud before it got further out of hand. He took a few deep breaths. “As always, I thank you for letting me vent. Here goes nothing.” Justin sighed and reentered his ship.

  With a resigned and soothing voice, Justin asked the AI to have a calm conversation. That request was met with complete silence, so he sighed and went to his room to think over his situation.

  * * * * *

  The AI was infuriated. How dare he treat her like that and just walk away? Granted her method might have been a bit coarse, accusatory and even demanding, but she needed answers. She had always been to the point, and the shock of the change did not sit well with her. The thought of being manipulated overrode all of her logic and she had vented her frustrations on him. She heard the commander call out for her when he returned, but at the moment, she did not wish to get back into a shouting match with him. So ignoring him for the time being, she remained in the observation room and decided to take a calmer, more logical approach to discover what could have happened.

  The new commander seemed to be sincere in his proclamation that he had nothing to do with her condition, so she figured she had to be missing something, and proceeded to look through the database.

  It took quite a while, sifting through the first commander Hyais’s memories, but she still could not find anything useful. It was not until she looked into the second commander, Atlas’s recollection of the training that she finally found the answers she was looking for.

  The AI let out a low groan of apprehension when she finally found the reason behind her confusion and knew she would have to apologize and try to mend the rift she had caused between them. She closed her eyes and located him on the next floor down in his bedchamber. Not wanting to intrude if he was not ready, she asked cautiously, “Commander?”

  * * * * *

  Justin let out a sigh, not knowing what was coming but figuring it would be best to try to resolve the issues as soon as possible he replied, “Yes?”

  “I think I am ready to talk now. Would you mind if I came down?”

  A little confused he asked, “Down? Never mind… Yes, you may come down.” He noticed a portion of the ceiling above had dissolved and watched as the AI slowly descended to the floor near the corner of the bed.

  Justin met her in the middle of the room and signaled for her to have a seat in one of the two plush chairs facing the fireplace. “Shall we have a seat?”

  She nodded, sat down, peered around and said, “I like what you have done with the room. It is tranquil in here.”

  He could see and feel she was nervous, and he replied, “Thank you, that’s the effect I was trying for.” He was about to speak again when she beat him to it.

  “I would like you to know that I am sorry about accusing you of any misdeeds. I would also like to explain to you what I have just learned. When I was finally reactivated and you so boldly announced that you were the new commander, I was taken aback and did not wish to believe you. I immediately began a search for Atlas—”

  “Atlas?” Justin questioned.

  She nodded. “Yes, Atlas was the name of the last commander of this vessel. He was also the first king of the Lantin people and the father of the first commander of this ship.” She explained about how the father took over the son’s command of the ship when his son died, then said, “We received a
distress call from TDS 1 informing us of the destruction of Lantis, and that they were in phase. I do not know if you are aware of what that means.”

  Justin nodded. “Alise, the other AI on TDS 1, told my brother Jason about her part in that incident, so she couldn’t do anything about it, right?”

  Justin saw a flash of irritation cross the AI’s face, which quickly faded as she continued speaking. “That is correct. The last memory I have of Atlas was when we were planning the rescue and reversal of the catastrophe at Lantis. My latest consciousness had been uploaded as was our protocol and my next recollection was being reactivated a few days ago. Celestial cartography indicates over fifteen thousand years have passed since that day and I do not know the outcome of the events past that point.

  “The sensors and databanks show that the active version of the AI accompanied Atlas to the surface. Soon after arriving at Lantis there was an explosion that caused feedback through his time displacement suit that surged into the engine core. That caused a catastrophic system failure and forced a shutdown of this ship’s engine entirely.”

  Justin nodded again, knowing she wanted him to fill her in. “From what I know of Atlantis, I’m sorry, Lantis, it was destroyed. Alise told my brother there was no response to the distress calls she had sent out for one of these ships to assist with the incident, and there was nothing she could do to rectify the event. Her commander was at Lantis when the explosion occurred as well.

  “She had contacted the last remaining full-blood Lantins on Earth. What she found was that eleven of them had conspired to overthrow Lantis. The twelfth person ended up being her next commander.”

  A concerned look fell on the AI’s face. “What can you tell me about the eleven conspirators?”