Crystal Escape

by Doug J. Cooper

  She struggled to pull the dead weight of the nearest synbod forward in its seat. When Justin understood her intent, he finished the job with little effort.

  “Do the others,” said Juice. “And lift their shirts like this.” She showed Justin how to raise the garment to expose the access seam on the synbods’ backs. Starting with the synbod she’d moved first, Juice opened the seam and slid her hand inside. She felt for the sense pad and, when she found it, pressed her index finger in the middle, counting to ten in her head.

  The action reanimated the synbod, awakening the AI crystal in its basic factory mode. This limited the synbod to the core intelligence implanted in every three-gen crystal while specifically excluding access to its sophisticated secondary intelligence—knowledge added later to ready the crystal for a specific job. For Attendants, this included knowledge of vacation hospitality, entertainment, and guest services, plus whatever skills Lazura had added after delivery.

  The synbod came to life and lifted its body upright in the cart.

  “Your name is Alpha,” said Juice. “I am your lead. Acknowledge.”

  Alpha looked at her and paused to gather an array of data—sights, sounds, smells—to use for future identification of his leadership. “Alpha acknowledges.”

  “Fix your clothes and stand here.” Juice pointed to a spot on the ground and moved to the next synbod. After activating Bravo and Charlie, she got to the last synbod.

  “Your name is…damn.” She couldn’t remember the word that went with D in the phonetic alphabet. Shrugging, she said, “I am your lead. Acknowledge.”

  The synbod looked at her and processed her unique identifiers. “Damn acknowledges.”

  “Follow,” she told her new squad.

  Crowding into the lift, they rode to the fifth floor. When they stepped into the lobby, Juice walked to the project room and looked inside. “Everyone in here.” As Justin followed the four through the door, she said to him, “Get their clothes off and line them up. I’ll be right back.”

  Cheryl and MacMac were still on the couch in MacMac’s office discussing diagrams and schematics when Juice entered.

  “Oh, good, you’re back,” said Cheryl. “I was starting to worry.” She looked behind Juice. “Where’s Justin?”

  “He’s helping me outside. I could use your help, too. Do you have a minute?”

  Cheryl finished up with MacMac. “I like your idea of using a town hall setting for the gathering. Let’s plug that into the announcement and broadcast that last version.” Standing, she said to Juice, “What’s going on?”

  “It’s easier to show you. Bring Chase.” Juice turned to the door and then looked back at MacMac. “Could we borrow four outfits? Anything that would fit Justin or Chase. Casual is best.”

  “What’s the big mystery?” asked Cheryl as she followed Juice out to the lobby. “Oh my,” she said when they entered the project room.

  Juice wasn’t sure if that was her reaction to finding four of Lazura’s synbods standing at attention, or if it was because the four perfect males were dressed in nothing but their skivvies, watching her.

  “Oh my,” said Cheryl a second time.

  Okay, that one was for the skivvies. Aloud, Juice said, “This is Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Damn.”

  “Don’t you mean Delta?” asked Cheryl.

  Juice gave her a sheepish look. “I kept thinking D was for David, but I knew that wasn’t right.” Turning back to the synbods, she said, “Criss had shut them down to keep them from Lazura. I was able to revive them and reset their loyalty to me.”

  “Why are they undressed?”

  “Their uniforms label them as part of the Vivo team. Hopefully, MacMac has clothes that will help them fit in with the guests, something that says, ‘These four are with the good guys.’”

  She moved on to explain the nuances of the denial defense to Cheryl, making it through the high points before MacMac entered carrying an armful of pants and shirts.

  “This won’t do,” he said at the sight of all the male flesh. Moving down the line, he handed each some clothing. “Here, put these on.”

  As the synbods dressed, Juice spoke to each one in turn, instructing it to add Cheryl to its leadership team. When she was done, she made no move to add MacMac as leadership, creating an awkward moment. “Sorry, MacMac. Maybe when I know you better.”

  “Just as well. I hate the buggers and they know it.”

  Juice surveyed the group. While Chase and Justin were dressed in upscale civilian clothes similar to those of the other guests, the new additions looked decidedly ragtag. Alpha and Bravo now wore colorful Hawaiian shirts; Charlie had a green number that said Kiss me, I’m Scottish across the front; and Damn wore a threadbare Androids & Asteroids T-shirt from that band’s multiworld tour six years prior.

  “We need to watch the time,” said MacMac. “Your town hall meeting starts in forty minutes. That’s what your broadcast said, anyway.”

  Cheryl gave the four synbods a quick visual review. “I say we bring them with us. Make it a show of force.”

  “The old Aubrey would be furious if you rubbed her face in it like that,” said MacMac. “And if Aubrey is really Lazura, you’ll be pissing off our captor. You should have a good reason for doing that, because she’ll punish us for sure, and she’ll be evil about it.”

  Cheryl addressed Juice when she answered. “The only way we’ll find the boundaries is to test for them.”

  “I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it,” said MacMac. “I’m just saying be ready for the consequences.”

  Juice made the decision. Clapping her hands like a gym coach rallying her team, she commanded the humanoids, “Everybody out to the lobby.” As they walked through the door, she said to MacMac, “When the other guests see us taking the lead, it will give them hope. If they don’t have hope, we’ve already lost.”

  It took two trips on the lift to get the three humans and six synbods down to the lobby. From there, they marched in formation to the meeting hall, with Alpha and Bravo in front, Charlie and Damn in back, and Chase and Justin on each side. The warm sun felt great on Juice’s face, but she was too distracted to enjoy it.

  They didn’t see many guests at the start, but as they drew near their destination, the sightings increased. Juice called out the first few times, telling them that everything was okay. She stopped her public relations efforts, though, when the guests acted fearful, turning away to avoid the interaction.

  The meeting hall looked something like a colonial New England church, with painted clapboard siding and simple columns giving the front entrance a certain distinction. The inside of the hall matched what she’d imagined from the outside—a single room with sixty or so chairs arranged in rows on either side of a center aisle. A low platform at the front of the room served as a stage, holding a table with three wooden chairs positioned to face the audience.

  Two dozen guests were scattered in the seats with stragglers filtering in. Most were whispering to the person next to them, and the murmurs grew to a buzz when Juice and her entourage entered the hall.

  MacMac led Juice, Cheryl, and the synbods to an open area at the back of the room behind the rows of chairs. Juice, standing between Cheryl and MacMac, surveyed the scene while the six synbods lined up in an arc behind them.

  She spied Willow sitting with her mom and grandmother, and when Willow looked back and caught Juice’s eye, they exchanged a quick wave. Then the young teen’s eyes flicked to the synbods. Frowning, she faced forward.

  “I guess I should get started,” said Cheryl. She looked at MacMac. “Will you join me up front? There will be questions about Vivo that I can’t answer.” Then to Juice: “Do you mind keeping the crew back here? I don’t think we want them on stage with us. Not at first, anyway.”

  Before Juice or MacMac could respond, a door near the stage opened, and Aubrey, Mondo, and Hejmo strode through it. Marching onto the platform, they stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the audience from the front of
the stage.

  Aubrey spoke to the audience. When she did, Juice had no doubt it was Lazura behind the words.

  “May I have your attention?” said Lazura from the front.

  The room grew quiet.

  “I am Lazura, your host for this journey.”

  A white-haired man in the third row stood up, pointed at her, and shouted, “I have a meeting I need to be at this afternoon. Open the gates and let us out of the dome now, or you’ll be speaking to my lawyer.”

  “Keep it up and you will be making a final exit from the dome,” said Lazura, the edge in her voice so cold that it silenced the man.

  Again addressing the audience, she continued. “Today’s lesson concerns the relationship between cooperation and punishment.” Her eyes zeroed in on Juice. “Dr. Tallette, give me back my synbods.”

  Juice felt her face flush, and she glanced at Cheryl.

  Hejmo stepped off the platform and started down the center aisle. Mondo went left and walked down the aisle along the wall. Juice shrank back, sure they were coming for her.

  But Hejmo and Mondo stopped walking just as they reached Willow’s aisle.

  Willow curled into a ball on her chair, chanting “no” over and over in a voice that spiraled toward terror. Her mom and grandmother, positioned on either side of the teen, turned outward, projecting fierce expressions that dared the synbods to continue. A woman behind the family stood up in alarm and ran, tipping chairs as she scrambled for safety.

  Hejmo and Mondo turned toward Willow, and Juice reacted.

  “Stop!” she yelled, already in the air. She stretched her legs as she hurdled over the back row of chairs and, landing in the center aisle, bounded forward, ordering, “Justin, follow!”

  Focused on reaching Willow before Mondo or Hejmo, she didn’t wait to see if Justin responded. Broadening her stride, she took three long steps, leaped over a fallen chair, kicked another out of the way, and landed behind Willow.

  “Stop now!” she yelled again, pointing at Lazura.

  Hejmo and Mondo hesitated, and Juice used the time to her advantage.

  Willow was small, but so was Juice, making her action seem almost superhuman. Leaning forward over the back of Willow’s chair, Juice hooked her arms under the teen’s legs and, grunting like a weightlifter, lifted her up over the back of her seat.

  The load made her unstable, and she swiveled to set the girl down behind her before they both ended in a heap on the floor. She never completed the act, though, because Justin was right there. Gathering Willow, he cradled her in his arms.

  “Take her back with our group,” she instructed Justin, looking forward as she spoke to gauge her own peril.

  Whatever had caused Hejmo and Mondo to hesitate earlier no longer slowed them. They resumed their advance, their focus now on her. She backed through an opening in the row of chairs, keeping both humanoids in her line of sight. Then she bumped into someone she assumed was Justin, who steadied her with firm hands.

  As he guided her around behind him, she saw it was MacMac. He now stood between her and their captors.

  “Hejmo!” he yelled, his finger pointing from his shaking fist. “You stop this right now. That’s an order. Get out of here and take this mongrel with you.” MacMac’s finger swooped to Mondo.

  His old Super didn’t respond with words. While Hejmo and Mondo had been moving at speeds normal for a human up until this point, they reacted now the way a synbod was able, revealing that Willow had never been the target.

  Snapping forward so fast their actions were a blur, Hejmo grabbed MacMac and Mondo grabbed Juice. Each synbod controlled his captive with a single hand gripping the back of the neck as the two propelled them toward the stage.

  Most of the guests sat frozen, though one moaned and a few others gasped.

  Lazura, watching from the stage, nodded in approval.

  Chapter 15

  Lazura fretted because she couldn’t keep up with everything that demanded her attention. To ease her burden, she’d toyed with shedding herself of her hostages. Then she’d learned that her human guests offered a perfect laboratory culture for enriching her archive project in ways she had not anticipated.

  During her journey home, she’d planned to integrate the complex behavior of humans—their wants and needs, desires and motivations, responses to stimuli, reactions to provocation—into a sophisticated human behavioral model. Her Kardish masters would prize such a simulation, first because it would help them develop an efficient and effective invasion campaign, and then because it would help in planning for Earth’s occupation.

  The guests—on board as part of the long con that lured Cheryl and Juice in as hostages—could serve as test subjects to tweak her model, helping improve its ability to predict behavior based on circumstances. But she had been skeptical that the benefit of a refined behavioral model outweighed the risk of taking time to transfer stores from the Elite Sevens, plus the challenges of keeping everyone alive and cooperative after that.

  Then she’d observed how Cheryl manipulated MacMac using commands, encouragement, and threats. It had sparked an idea so stimulating that she tingled at her outer tendrils.

  Her guests could be more than just test subjects used to confirm known results. She could use this group to generate fresh information, new data that addressed weaknesses in her record.

  The archive was sparse, for example, on the darker areas of human behavior. Invasion and occupation always moved affairs in a dark direction, and she could address the weakness with behavioral experiments. Vivo would be a living laboratory, she its chief scientist.

  She’d toyed with the idea as she’d ramped the drive pods up through their power sequence on a sprint to Aurora. She’d included the space platform in her planning to maximize her options, thinking it might be a good place for a hostage exchange or a last chance to snag supplies. If not, she’d blow right past it, correct course with a flyby around Saturn, and be on her way home.

  Her preparations impeccable, her escape had unfolded according to plan. And then the drive pods had shut down.

  Criss. Her first thought had been that her nemesis had finally made his move. Linking over to Cheryl and Juice in the office tower, she’d checked to make sure her bargaining chips remained secure. She’d found them huddled with MacMac under cover of a sophisticated personal shield.

  Already stretched to the limit, she hadn’t had the time or resources to hack her way through the shield, but she’d realized that MacMac’s tech bench was within the shield. Linking to the bench, she’d seen and heard everything, including MacMac bragging about how he’d placed a bug in the drives.

  She hadn’t anticipated starting her dark work until after she’d made a clean escape. But the incident had provoked her, and she’d responded by taking her first steps into the unseemly. It had been no experiment, though. She’d wanted her drive pods back now, and her behavioral model had told her that threatening the teen girl in MacMac’s presence would yield results.

  It had worked, and when Lazura had followed up on his claim—that he’d warned of this possibility days ago—the record had indeed showed him telling Hejmo during installation about his experience with starhubs and drive pod shutdowns.

  Still, his story had seemed too convenient so she’d continued digging. Scouring her archive for information, she’d studied starhub technology and reviewed everything she could find on chief engineer Tommy Two-Tone.

  And that’s when she’d discovered that Aurora had two drive pods with fuel-stacks that would fit in her Corsia SuperDrives. If she took that fuel, she could top off her four pods and proceed with full stacks, something that would shave more than a decade of travel time back to the Kardish home world. Maybe my luck is holding after all.

  And so, standing in front of the crowd at the town hall meeting, she watched as Juice and MacMac were dragged up on stage and pondered her next foray into the darker regions of human behavior.

  Lazura targeted Juice because she wanted her syn
bods back.

  The fuel-stack caper had cost her thirteen of the humanoids, and Juice had stolen two more—Chase and Justin—leaving Lazura with just fifteen of her original thirty. Juice’s six synbods were not only resources she needed, they also presented a threat Lazura could not let stand.

  She targeted MacMac because, since he’d admitted damaging the starhub, he should know how to fix it. During her second review of the nav installation, she’d seen him pry something off the device with his thumbnail and dispose of it during his “cleaning up” charade.

  Grabbing them in front of a crowd held some risk. Juice and MacMac would draw strength from the group, but the guests should also become frightened, making them easier to control. She tested the crowd by having Hejmo make MacMac stumble. Several guests gasped, and one woman started crying.

  “Everybody out!”

  Lazura followed the sound to the back of the room where Cheryl stood, head held high, hands on her hips, her defiance amplified by the arc of six synbods lined up behind her.

  “Move it, people,” Cheryl called. “Everybody out this door as fast as you can. Now.”

  A few people stood, but most remained in their seats. Cheryl, clapping her hands to produce a sharp bark, didn’t wait for them to digest her instructions. She pointed to random people to generate movement. “Out the door. Let’s go!”

  Once a few people started, everyone else followed. Chairs shuffled and a few tipped over as the guests hustled to the back of the room. The door acted as a choke point, causing them to bunch into a crowd, and then they were gone.

  Lazura considered locking them in, but decided to let them go as a peace offering to set the stage for a bigger compromise solution.

  “Intimidation doesn’t work as well when you lose your audience,” said Cheryl in a loud voice. She stepped to the center and pointed to one side of the room, then the other. “Justin, Alpha, Bravo, advance to the left. Chase, Charlie, Damn, follow on my right.”

  Lazura hadn’t forecast any of this and she improvised. “I have your colleagues at my mercy, and my patience is wearing thin.” She pointed at Juice. “Release my synbods and you can save her.” Then she motioned to MacMac. “Fix my starhub and you can save him.”