Falling Ark

by Leigh Snelson

  “Oh, Hi Sam.” I said. “Who are these people?”

  “These aren’t the people you need to worry about.” He replied. “Keep watching.”

  The camera continued to spin around and when it returned to Lara she was no longer alone at the podium.

  “Bill!” I yelled, nearly knocking Ava off the table as she jumped in surprise.

  He cleared his throat, preparing to give his own little speech.

  “As you all know, these terrorists have hit me hard. They blew up my home and tried to destroy my reputation. I believe that VisionTech has the power to stop them. Together we must make a stand!” Bill cried out and again the room cheered.

  The feed went black and cut out at this point. Sam’s face replaced the news broadcast.

  “Do you think people will support her?” Ava asked.

  “I don’t think people will have much choice. She is too powerful already.” Sam replied.

  “Yes, but people won’t let a dictator rise up and take power.” I said, trying to comfort Ava and myself. “They are smarter than that!”

  “History wouldn’t be on your side with that argument.” Sam reminded me.

  I thought about it. In the past many situations had given rise to dictators who never gave back control.

  Seeing Lara standing there, yelling at the crowd gave me comparisons with Nazis, Stalin and Pol Pot. Some of the worst people in the world gained power in the same way.

  “What do you think we should do?” I asked Sam.

  “We need to get that replicator working quickly.” Sam replied. “It won’t take her long to figure out how your gravity drive is better than hers and then she will come for us. We need to be ready.” Sam replied in his usual calm and calculated tone.

  “I think your right.” I started. “At least we have the replicator. It took her years to build this one so at least she can’t make new drives.”

  “That wasn’t the only replicator.” Sam informed us.

  “What!” Ava shouted. “We did all that and it wasn’t the only one!”

  “It was a deal I helped with many years ago. There is another, in the USA, for a certain billionaire.” Sam continued.

  “Bill.” Ava and I said in unison.

  “You can be sure that their new partnership means that Bills replicator is no longer churning out TV’s and microwaves.” Sam pointed out.

  “Lara will be using Bills replicator to make gravity drives! That’s why they are in partnership. Lara gets her drives built and Bill learns the secret to making them.” Ava scowled at the man on the screen, her so called father.

  I felt a knot in my stomach.

  “We need to prepare! Any ideas?” I asked.

  The light flashed and the first gravity drive popped out of the machine on the conveyor belt, that was a quick twelve minutes.

  Watching the conveyor belt roll out the gravity drive I got flash backs of the night it all started, when that first drive appeared, and Lara rushed over to see it. That was in this room, just on a different planet.

  This time it was Ava who bounded across the room and picked it up from the tray, pressing the buttons and making sure that it worked just like the all the rest.

  “I don’t know what we should do next, but I think we are going to need a lot of these!” She said, holding up the first of many gravity drives.

  Chapter 32

  The whole base was working like a well-oiled machine now that we had a goal to reach.

  The planes were bringing small asteroids down to the lunar surface. Robots would then cut out the important elements and feed the replicator. Occasionally we would have to send a search party into the asteroid belt to retrieve specific materials, but we had the sensors and equipment to do it. It was a minor inconvenience that never slowed production.

  The replicator was spitting out gravity drives so fast that we didn’t know what to do with them. After a day we had an extra one hundred and fifty metal beach balls floating around the hull of the ship.

  That was more than we had ever owned, and the numbers kept increasing. These were our most powerful tools and it was a hard decision to halt their production but without other equipment we wouldn’t be effective.

  We needed control systems, cameras, circuit boards and motors to strap to these floating orbs, otherwise they would be useless. So, we switched production.

  “I’ve been working on a design.” Sam said, displaying a three-dimensional model on the holotable for everyone to see.

  Ava and Derek were here in the control room too. They had been working on optimising routines for the robots when Sam made his announcement.

  “If we order the robots to chop up a container into sheets of metal, around two metres square. We can fix a gravity drive to it.” He continued.

  The model showed a flat piece of metal and a gravity drive slowly lowed into the middle.

  “Then we can attach cameras, communication equipment and batteries to the rear.” Sam went on explaining as small boxes of the equipment landed on the model demonstrating their position in the craft.

  “Finally, we mount a machine gun and laser gun on the front, with the appropriate motors and gimbles to allow them to rotate. It should be an easy build for the robots.” He concluded.

  “It looks basic, but I guess that’s exactly what we need to bolster our numbers.” Derek replied, spinning the model around in his hand.

  “Can I make one change?” I asked.

  As I watched the object spin, I noticed the components seemed a bit exposed sitting on a piece of metal with no walls. If it were to enter the atmosphere at speed, the components would smash into the atmosphere and burn up.

  Therefore, I took flat metal sheet and curved the front so that it protected the components. Now, from the front all that could be seen was a machine gun and laser stick, sitting above the curved front wall.

  “That looks like a snow sled.” Ava remarked.

  “I like it!” Sam added.

  “It should offer a bit more protection at the front while still allowing the weapons to move around.” I explained.

  “How many do you think we could make?” Derek asked.

  “I am just putting the plans into Lovelace.” Ava replied, putting her laptop on the holotable and tapping on the screen. “Lovelace estimates a hundred a day.”

  “A hundred a day! That’s a good number!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, that’s great, but how do we fly them?” Derek turned to Sam for answers.

  “They can be flown remotely, like the planes.” Sam answered.

  “I have been improving on that.” Ava interrupted. “Lovelace has been refining the planes intelligence, so that they can act more independently.”

  “That sounds like a better idea.” I confirmed. “Make them less dependent on a pilot.”

  “How do you want them to behave?” Ava asked as she spun the laptop around showing a few options on the screen.

  There were sliding scales of how the robots should interact. The first option on the screen, should the robots swarm or fly independently.

  “If they swarm, they can easily be taken out as a group.” Sam proposed.

  “Yes, but they also maximise their firepower.” Derek argued.

  “If they act more independently then they can work over a much larger area.” Sam hit back.

  “But we are only after a single target. A swarm would be much more effective.” Derek fought again.

  “Clearly this is going to take a while.” I replied, not really interested in the finer details of the machine’s instructions.

  Programming through an artificial intelligence was very different to programming in the traditional way and I was just getting my head around it.

  Traditional coding involved instructions such as, ‘Move Forward, Turn Right, If ‘Enemy Detected’ Then ‘Fire Machine Gun’’.

  Programming with Lovelace was much more intuitive, almost natural, but also a lot trickier to be precise.

  It was like
asking a genie for wishes. You could ask Lovelace to design a robotic killer that could fly around destroying all of Lara’s planes. That instruction could be built but it left a lot of grey areas that needed to be given explicit rules, like, what makes a plane ‘Lara’s’.

  During one simulation with an older version of the intelligence we discovered a vital flaw. The instruction was to fire on the enemy. A simple instruction and a simulated plane would lock onto a target as predicted, then it would fire all the ammunition from all the guns, even after the enemy had crashed into the ground and burnt up.

  Ava then added the clause, ‘Until the enemy is no longer mobile’. This resulted in our plane chasing burning wreckage of enemy planes as they fell to the ground.

  It was tricky to get the computer to do exactly what we needed, and I did not envy Ava going through the simulations and correcting the behaviour of these sleds.

  Deciding to go for a walk to kill some time and collect the thoughts in my head I headed down the stairs, through the ship, into the container walkway and turning left at the crossroads, back towards the replicator. I was walking slowly, gathering the thoughts in my head when footsteps came from behind me.

  “On your left.” One of the crew said as they passed me. He was carrying a few crates of food and heading to the Armillary.

  A few moments later another crew member overtook me, this time it was a kitchen sink that had once been in the crew quarters.

  This happened a few more times before I finally had to stop to allow two of the crew to pass me, carrying one of the beds from the sleeping quarters into the Armillary.

  As I approached the crossroads Hank was stood there with a clip board issuing commands to the crew, which floor to take the equipment they carried.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Just following orders.” Hank replied.

  “Why are you stocking up the Armillary?” I asked, trying to tease more information out of him.

  “Didn’t Sam tell you?” Hank asked. “Oh, he thinks that if Lara does make it into space, our best reaction would be to leave the crew behind and make our escape on the Armillary.”

  “Leave the crew?” I quizzed. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Not leaving them to die.” Hank corrected me. “They will claim they were taken prisoner, mind control, anything that ensures they are returned to Earth safely, but while Lara is dealing with the crew, we will have enough time to escape.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question, why are they moving all the stuff into the Armillary?” I asked again.

  “Would you like to be stuck on the ship, with no beds, no basic equipment, not even a proper, working kitchen.” Hank indicated as he instructed crew carrying a pool table to take it to the second floor up the spiral staircase, somehow.

  “Making our escape ship more liveable. I can agree to that.” I confirmed as a crew member passed me carrying a huge supply of toilet paper.

  “It’s a last resort, but it’s better to be safe.” Hank said.

  “I agree. Have you seen Tony or Julie come this way?” I asked.

  “They moved a bunch of plants into the Armillary earlier. Now they are in the domes.” Hank informed me.

  “That’s good. Julie might need your help later; she wants to go outside to investigate the tree and will need someone to help her carry specimens.” I explained.

  “That’s right, everyone needs my help.” Hank said, smirking.

  “Julie thinks the tree we grow up to six times bigger because of the low gravity.” I explained. “That’s a lot of pruning!”

  “Six times! How is that possible?” Hank asked.

  “I don’t know.” I replied. “If it does, we will need to keep an eye on the life support systems, that much growth over a short period could suck the nutrients out of the air!”

  “I’ll leave that to you!” Hank said, gesturing at an oversized beanbag chair that was making its way down the corridor with two little feet sticking out from the bottom.

  We stood and watched the crew member carry the huge bag all the way down the one-hundred-metre corridor to our position.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to get that up the spiral staircase to the top floor.” Hank instructed. “Just try not to snag it, otherwise you’ll be cleaning up beads for the rest of the day.”

  “Dom!” A voice echoed down the steel walkway.

  I turned and found Derek running towards us.

  The gravity throughout this part of the moon base was a bit sketchy. The drives did a good job of keeping your feet locked on the floor in the main parts of the base, but these long corridors stretched the range of the drives. We could probably add more gravity drives to the whole base, but it was way down on the to-do list.

  I saw Derek’s strides become bigger and more exaggerated as he approached the middle of the corridor, more like moon gravity steps, but then return to normal as he approached Hank and me.

  “I need you to check something.” Derek said, and he gave me a set of plans that resembled the bedrooms on board the Armillary.

  Sam had originally planned ten individual rooms and they were marked out with steel beams, waiting to be finished off. Now that the finishing touches were coming together it seemed he wanted to re-configure the layout, although I don’t know why he needed my opinion.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked, trying to make sense of the rough drawing that had been sketched out.

  “Now that Ava’s supercomputer has decoded all the files, we want to move it into the Armillary.” Derek started to explain.

  “You want to move Lovelace.” I corrected. I realised I sounded just like Ava at that point, treating the computer like it was alive, maybe I was spending too much time around her.

  “Yeah, sure, Lovelace. Well the only real place for a machine that size is in the base, where the current bedrooms are.” Derek again pointed at the layout.

  I could see what he was talking about now. There were now only five bedrooms, with the rest of the floor space being taken up with the huge supercomputer.

  “Have you told Ava your turning off her computer to move it? Can I be there when you do?” I asked.

  “Hold on!” Hank interrupted. “Five bedrooms?”

  “Yes…” Derek hesitated.

  “I am not sharing with you again!” Hank mumbled.

  “Don’t worry big guy, you have a room to yourself.” Derek confirmed.

  “Well, if you and Hank and you aren’t sharing then who is?” I asked, starting to read the names over the rooms.

  Across one side there were three single rooms with the names ‘Sam’, ‘Derek’ and ‘Hank’ written on them. On the opposite side of the corridor were two slightly larger rooms with the names of ‘Tony and Julie’ on one, and ‘Dom and Ava’ on the other.

  “Very funny!” I said pretending to laugh along at the joke. “I don’t see the problem though.”

  “You don’t?” Derek asked suspiciously.

  “Nope, because when you show this to Ava she will kill you and then I can take your room.” I informed him.

  Derek started to walk back to the Armillary. “It’s the only way!” he shouted back.

  “It’s a last resort!” I replied.

  “Wouldn’t that be terrible. I shouldn’t have shown you this, now you are going to hope Lara comes after us!” With that last comment he gave me a thumbs up and turned the corner back to the Armillary.

  “I better go and warn Ava.” I told Hank and I started back down the metal walkway. The halfway point was always my favourite. You could jump up and touch the steel ceiling due to the lack of gravity.

  I quickly made my way along the corridor, back to the ship and turned the corner before bumping into Ava.

  “Watch out!” She said, pushing me aside. She had obviously heard me coming and had been waiting around the corner for me, her motions were too exaggerated.

  “Did you hear Derek?” I asked, embarrassment growing across my face.
<
br />   “Partially, something about you wanting Lara to attack us?” She asked, confused.

  “Never mind about that, just a sick joke, but more seriously, now that Lovelace has decoded the files, they want to move her into the Armillary.”

  I could see the frustration on her brow as she thought about shutting her supercomputer down. Then, as quick as the frown came, it went away again.

  “That’s fine.” She said in a chirpy voice.

  “Are you sure? It’s going to mean taking it, sorry, her, offline for a little while.” I caught myself make the mistake; Ava didn’t like it when you referred to the computer as an ‘it’.

  “I don’t mind. This way she’ll be in more comfortable surroundings. I hope they aren’t going to put her in the hanger bay though.” Ava asked.

  “No, they are moving around some of the bedrooms to make room. Some people are going to have to share.” I said calmly.

  “Julie and Tony? Makes sense, I am sure they won’t mind.” Ava smiled at me.

  “Yep, I am sure they won’t mind.” My voice trailed off.

  “And…” Ava asked, picking up on my indecisive tone.

  “And another two people.” I informed her.

  “Ha! They are sticking you with Hank aren’t they!” Ava laughed.

  “Yeah! That makes sense!” I replied, my voice more upbeat.

  “You know if his snoring gets too much.” Ava started. “You can always go and sleep near the really noisy water recycling machine, if you want some peace and quiet.”

  Ava bounced down the corridor. At the halfway point she stopped, turned around and leapt up in the air. With her outstretched arm she was able to touch the ceiling of the container, an impossible jump for her anywhere else except just at that point.

  Ava smiled and turned to go back down the corridor. “Tell Derek I like the new sleeping arrangements!” She shouted back to me.

  Hank overheard this part of the conversation, standing at the other end of the corridor. He threw a thumbs up back at me.

  Ava saw this, turned and also threw her thumbs up at me before shouting towards Hank.

  “He’s going to make a great bunkmate!” She yelled.

  “I am sure he is!” Hank yelled back.