A.I. Zombie: Book 1 of the Space Station At The Edge Of The Black Hole Series

by L. A. Johnson

  Emily stood up from her game with a nod to her opponent. "No offense, Arthur, but you've been here three months, and MACRO's been here for years. And of the two of you, MACRO has never been wrong. You're right though, Lyra, the chirping sound is a little off today. A higher pitch, maybe?"

  "No offense taken, but it doesn't seem like any of you even technically know what he's saying," Arthur objected. "He could mean anything by that chirp."

  "He means there's an ambulance coming," Emily continued. "Look, when MACRO was made, I think I remember somebody bringing the robot manual up here. Maybe that's how we learned the basics of his communication. If you're so interested in it, maybe you should just find the manual."

  Find the manual, thought Arthur. Find the manual and understand the mysterious robot. That was the best idea he had heard in the three months he had spent here trying desperately to kill time.

  That was when the room alarm sounded, indicating that new patients were inbound. Emily's words bounced around in his head. MACRO was always right. And Arthur was going to figure out MACRO.

  "Alright," Vax announced. "New guy, you're with me." Vax indicated with his head that he was talking to Arthur. "The rest of you are on standby."

  Arthur stood in the Emergency Room waiting area. The familiar red flashing lights accompanied the alarms, which bothered Arthur. How are we supposed to concentrate with all of this racket? Almost on cue, the noise and lights stopped as two gurneys burst through the door and into the room.

  In this case, there were two patients being hovered into the room by the EMTs. The EMTs were hornet-like creatures. They were buzzing specifics at Vax and the nurses and pretending like Arthur wasn’t even there. Unfortunately, that was something that Arthur was starting to get used to.

  Vax and a nurse named Nancy took the first patient back toward the operating rooms. As they passed, Arthur could see that the patient looked to be in bad shape and looked barely conscious.

  There was another patient though, and Arthur was next in line. He stepped forward to draw the hornet EMTs’ attention. They seemed even more animated than usual. Their antennae gestured wildly in the air while they buzzed loudly.

  Arthur watched for a moment, trying to put his finger on exactly what was different. The buzzing was gibberish to Arthur, who cursed himself for forgetting and pushed the auto translator button on his watch.

  Everything changed as soon as the translator kicked in. That's when Arthur understood the extra concern. The second patient was one of the hornet EMTs, and her name was Mandae.

  Arthur leaped forward upon figuring this out and grabbed the gurney. His hesitancy was always because he was afraid that a patient he was expected to treat would be a Cephalopod and he had a severe phobia that was hampering his career.

  But this hornet EMT was right in his wheelhouse. Arthur had done an Insecta specialty in med school. The patient wasn't conscious and had what looked to be a crushing injury, but it was something that Arthur would be able to take care of as long as there were no extenuating conditions.

  "Hello. Mandae? It's Arthur, I'm going to take good care of you, okay?"

  Arthur looked to the hornets who were concerned about their coworker. They were staring at him.

  "I'm sorry," Arthur said, pointing at his watch. "I just got my translator turned on, could you tell me again what happened to her?"

  "She took a baseball bat or something to her thorax in the melee," one of the hornets buzzed loudly.

  "What melee?" Arthur asked.

  "We got a distress call from Serebus moon. When we got there, we found the patient and started rendering aid. He was in bad shape, barely alive. We were in the middle of getting him ready for transport when we were attacked."

  "You were attacked while rendering emergency aid?" Arthur couldn't believe it; that was terrible. "Who would do that?"

  They continued buzzing at him. "We think the attacker was there to finish off the first patient." The antenna pointed in the direction Vax and Nancy had gone.

  Arthur stopped and stared. "Who attacked you?" There were rules after all, Arthur thought, even in space. Even this far out into space and nearby a black hole. You don't attack medical professionals rendering aid. You just don't.

  "Just treat Mandae," they screamed, still overly agitated.

  Arthur stared down at the thorax wound. "I can fix her, ok?" Arthur said, hoping to calm them down, but they turned back to stare at the door they had barged into just a few moments before. Like they were waiting for something.

  Now Arthur was extra confused, so he wheeled Mandae off toward a room. Chances were, he wouldn't understand all of this until it was over anyway. That was the way that these things usually went.

  Mostly he just did what he was supposed to do until the excitement was over and then waited for somebody to explain it to him. The least he could do was help Mandae. He hovered her down the hall and toward the operating rooms, picking up a nurse along the way.

  Just before he disappeared around the corner, though, he heard shouts and saw a tall, furry creature burst into the waiting room. The hornets went crazy, buzzing at what appeared to be a werewolf who was wielding some kind of bat.

  Arthur pushed Mandae faster. If that maniac was after her too, then he wasn't going to take any chances.

  The last thing he saw was Gorb scrambling for a weapon and shouting into his com. "Security! We need security to Emergency Room Intake. Code 44. Code 44. You heard that right, Code 44. Crash, this means you!"

  7

  N ancy set up shop with Vax in Operating Room number three. It had the standard layout as the other operating rooms, but slightly enhanced technology data. That was due to a recent lawsuit that Vax had been on the receiving end of. As much as Vax annoyed her, though, that one wasn't on him.

  She started switching on some of the new technology and considered her place in the universe. She was always stuck with Vax, seeing as she was the only nurse who had been able to overcome her fear and loathing enough to be able to stay in the same room with him for more than five minutes. She shook her head, sometimes it just didn't pay to be professional. Especially if that meant getting stuck with the one guy that everybody's afraid of.

  Vax shook his head. "Wow, this guy is in bad shape, who does that to an EMT? And a baseball bat? How urban caveman is that?"

  That surprised Nancy. "Hey, you're talking? You walk around with a sword scaring all of the patients, most of the doctors and nurses, and even ancillary civilians. How is that any different?"

  "I've never bludgeoned somebody into being one of the patients?"

  "Touché."

  Nancy caught Vax just in time. "Don't cut him yet, Vax, or Floyd's going to kill us."

  Vax paused. "Cutting helps me think. Hurry up, you worthless fool."

  Nancy tapped furiously into the computer-sized scanner to get it ready. "See, that type of thing is exactly why nobody else will work with you, despite your position as Chief of Surgery."

  He frowned. "What's wrong with the way that I speak?"

  "Only your tone, words, and attitude," Nancy responded. "Hey Vax, how many appendages? Heads? Eyes? Tentacles? Help me out here."

  "Looks garden variety human to me. I don't care what this guy looks like under his clothes. Besides, it's way more accurate to just scan him than for me to guess."

  "That's what you said last time and it got us into trouble. And that's not what you say when you're all, 'I'll just cut into him and see what's what.'"

  "Hey," Vax said, "he's moaning, maybe he can talk. Hey buddy, what species are you? Any artificial bits in there that I should know about? You better start talking or I'm going to cut you wide open and take a look inside. Ok?"

  The patient passed out.

  "To fix you," Vax added. "I'm only going to cut inside to fix you." He looked at Nancy. "Why do they always do that?"

  "Maybe you should have started with that bit about saving him. And to answer your question, because you're a scary guy, Vax. Nobody beli
eves you're even a surgeon, you're from a warrior race that's got thirteen systems worried to within an inch of their lives. In fact, why are you here again?”

  "To save lives. By cutting people. I'm a cutter not a fighter, you know that."

  "Why can't you understand that doesn't make any of us feel very much better? And yes, you keep saying that, but why? Why medicine? Why do you have to be brilliant and awful at the same time?"

  "Why can't you just scan the patient so that I may cut into him without getting into trouble?”

  "Okay, it's up and running. Out of the way!" She grabbed the portable analyzer from its dock on the side of the species scanner and ran to the patient, pointing it at his abdomen and pulling the trigger. There was a weak, mechanical beep, and then she ran back to the scanner to get the readout.

  "Ok, we're dealing with a humanoid-adjacent species with twenty-three percent of its body mass replaced with artificial parts. He does appear to have some internal injuries, so you get your wish this time. Congratulations, you get to cut him open."

  Vax whistled. "Twenty-three percent is pretty high. I don't think I ever asked if you had any AP, Nancy?"

  "You wish. I know you didn't just ask me about my body Artificial Percentage."

  "What?" he asked. "I was simply making conversation. It's not that big of a deal, for instance, mine is just under five percent."

  Nancy crossed the room to the patient and Vax started the procedure.

  "This ought to be a piece of cake for you, Vax. I hope that poor EMT Mandae is going to be ok."

  Gorb bobbed excitedly. He was at his usual spot at the hospital waiting area check-in. The doctors had disappeared with the patients and the hornets had beat the werewolf guy back toward the ambulance bay.

  He rummaged through the bottom left drawer for weapons.

  "Hey," said a patient, "what's going on here, am I in danger?"

  "You heard what happened," Gorb said, "you were sitting right there pretending not to listen to everything when it went down. You can stay or you can go. But don't pretend you don't know what's going on."

  Gorb paused to look up at the patient and grinned. "And in case you think you can stay here, fake an injury, and file a lawsuit, then you don't know Floyd very well."

  The patient got up and ran out the door, toward the main space station.

  Gorb laughed, causing the room to shimmy for him. Well, it was he who shimmied, but it made the whole room a cooler place.

  Gorb paused his search for a weapon, knowing that if there were anything interesting in those drawers he'd have found it years ago. He waited for a few moments before deciding that it had gotten entirely too quiet.

  He floated over to the door and put his head to the side in order to listen. He held his breath.

  Without any warning, the door slammed open. Luckily, Gorb was able to float out of the way on the breeze that the door made when it opened.

  The room went from deadly quiet to screaming loud in an instant. How was that even possible?

  Gorb watched as a werewolf burst into the room with no shirt and dirty, ripped jeans. He would have liked to focus on the werewolf's hideous lack of fashion sense, except the creature was wielding a baseball bat and was making headway despite having a dozen angry red sting marks on his body and hornets currently buzzing around him.

  Gorb recovered himself, and zoomed over to the werewolf, extending his tendrils to an exposed part of the intruder's leg. Sparks flew. After all, he didn't need a weapon, he was a weapon.

  The werewolf's face distorted in pain, but he still kept going. Gorb couldn't believe it seeing the physical punishment he'd already taken. "What is this werewolf on, anyway?"

  Arthur wasn't in the room with the EMT patient for very long when Lyra burst into the room and closed the door. "What have we got?"

  Again, Arthur was used to this sort of intrusion. "An EMT who was attacked. Blunt force trauma to the thorax."

  "What?" Lyra asked. "You're kidding, right?"

  "I think the attacker just burst into the waiting room when I wheeled her in. You didn't see anything unusual in the waiting room? Like a big, crazy, werewolf guy with some sort of weapon in his hand?"

  "I came in the back way," Lyra said. "Did you call security?"

  "Gorb did, he was calling out the code 44."

  Lyra pressed her head against the door. "I don't hear anything. What do you think is going on?"

  "No idea," Arthur said. "And it's a good thing because I'm a little busy here. Maybe the hornets beat him back. Or maybe Crash showed up."

  "Maybe," she said. She watched him work. "So, you're a no-go with the squids, but you're fine with rats and insects, then, eh?"

  Arthur shook his head. "How long are you going to mess with me about that?"

  "Shhh," Lyra said.

  "You can't shush me," Arthur replied testily, "you started the whole thing."

  Lyra gave him a savage look. "Shush. I think I hear something."

  "Huh?" He paused with the scalpel and looked up. "What are you talking about? What did you hear?" He whispered it due to the shushes and the severity of the look on her face.

  He didn't have to wait very long to hear what it was she was talking about. The screaming and scraping sounds were getting closer and closer.

  "What the-" Lyra whispered. She cracked the door open and peeked out.

  "No," Arthur said, "don't do that, you'll draw attention to us."

  Lyra shut the door quickly and attempted to lock it, but the operating room door did not have a lock on it. There was typically not a need to lock people out of surgery and only a couple of secure rooms had doors that locked.

  "He's coming!" she whispered.

  "Who's coming? What are you talking about?" he asked, scalpel still held above the patient.

  "The werewolf, of course. I think it's him!" She cracked the door open again. Something he wished she would stop doing. "It looks like he's still got the baseball bat. Where in the helios is Crash? You said they called security, right? Oh no."

  "What is it now?" Arthur asked and then regretted it. He wasn't sure how the situation could get much worse.

  "Gorb's hanging on to him, along with the hornets. They're trying to slow him down. And they're not having much success. He's heading this way. Little guy's going to get himself killed. Luckily, he's okay right now because the werewolf appears to be distracted, but we'd better do something quick."

  "We?" Arthur swallowed.

  "You're right, sorry," she said, running around the room rifling through drawers. "You can't help, you're in the middle of surgery patching up the EMT. Hey, do you know if we have anything that could be used as a weapon in here?"

  "I don't think so. Why in stars would we keep weapons in an operating room?"

  "Well, there's got to be something here that will help," Lyra said. "Look, they're doing their best to slow him down, but they're losing ground fast. And what if he's still after her?" She indicated Madae. "What if he's come to finish the job?"

  Arthur wasn't used to this level of stress in the operating room. He started deep breathing.

  Lyra looked like she was trying to make a decision. "You said that the werewolf attacked both patients?"

  Arthur thought about it. "They said that they believed that he was after the first patient, Vax's patient, and that Mandae just got in his way."

  "That doesn't bode well for Gorb," Lyra said.

  She stood holding her breath with her back against the door like she was going to hold it shut against an onslaught. She held up a hand. Things had gotten quieter, like the storm of noise outside had passed.

  She turned her ear toward the door again to listen. Then she risked another peek outside. A nearby pounding noise startled both Arthur and Lyra. She closed the door again.

  "What's going on out there?" Arthur asked.

  Lyra's eyes were wide. "The werewolf went right past us. I guess he wasn't after the EMT after all, he was after the first patient. He's pounding on the do
or where Vax and Nancy are. He's trying to get in."

  "What do we do?" Arthur asked.

  "You save Mandae," she said.

  "What are you going to do?" Arthur asked. "Don't go out there, Lyra! Or at least call security first and make sure they're somewhere close."

  "On what planet is calling Crash again going to do any good?" she shot back. "He should already be here. And we're out of time."

  "At least Crash has weapons. I mean we're under attack here. I think." He shook his head. "I don't know what's going on."

  "You operate." She went back to one of the drawers and grabbed a scalpel. "I'll see what I can do."

  "That werewolf is dangerous, Lyra. He's already injured two people."

  "I'm aware," she said, and quietly slipped out the door and closed it.

  8

  T hings were worse in the hallway than Lyra thought. The werewolf was still going, despite looking like a character from a horror movie. From the looks of it, the hornets had done a lot of damage. Ditto for the jellyfish who had put untold volts into the werewolf in just the few seconds since Lyra had exited the operating room. She could see sparks emitting from around the werewolf's jeans.

  You've got to be kidding me, she thought. There's no way that hairy guy should still be moving. She had to duck as she heard another hornet EMT come buzzing down the hallway to help.

  Despite the stinging, holding, and insect bites, the wolf just kept coming. He dragged everybody down the hallway with him, baseball bat in his hand, toward Vax and Nancy's patient.

  Lyra looked down at the scalpel in her hand, suddenly having doubts as to whether adding stabbing to other current events was going to help anything. Was there anything she could do that wasn't already being done? Then it hit her. I have to warn Vax and Nancy.

  But if she went in there, wouldn't this guy know where to go? He'd just follow her. But he already knew where to go, because he passed the first operating room. She frowned. How did he know to go past the first operating room? Then it hit her.