Paul patted the robot upon its head and said, “That’s better than no chance whatsoever. I’ll take it.” He turned to Max and Mary and said, “Let’s get out of the room. We do not want to distract 41 from his research.”
Mary shook her head and said, “I am staying. I will not distract him. I promise. I want to watch and learn.”
Paul kept his leader’s face on and said, “I will hold you to that Mary Elizabeth Hydro. No distracting the robot.” Inwardly, his heart swelled with pride for his brilliant daughter. He smiled at the back of her head, since she had already turned to face the computer’s display, as he exited the room.
41 immediately began questioning Eliza. After a long exchange, he asked, “Eliza, what is the most serious component failure on reactor number five?”
“The most serious problem is with the primary heat exchanger. There is an almost complete blockage caused by precipitated minerals. The blockage is serious enough that the cooling pump cannot push enough coolant through the system to keep the reactor from overheating.”
41 nodded towards the display. “Thank you, Eliza,” and then fell silent.
Mary had remained silent as well as she watched the exchange between 41 and the colony computer avatar Eliza. She had become less and less happy about remaining quiet. When 41 stopped speaking, she looked towards Eliza and asked, “Eliza. How long could reactor number five run before overheating given the condition of the heat exchanger? Could we perhaps run the reactor briefly every so often to keep the auxiliary power supply charged?”
The simulated woman on the computer display shook her head and said, “The blockage is serious. That course of action is not recommended.”
41 added, “Yes, I estimate that the reactor would only be able to run for ten to fifteen minutes before excess heat will force it to shut back down again. This will not provide enough extra auxiliary power recharge time to offset the risk of further damage.”
Mary sat down at the table, put her chin in her hands, elbows on the table, closed her eyes and sat, deep in thought. Her head snapped up and she said, “How about this alternative. Do we have a substitute for the phosphoric acid required for cleaning the minerals out the cooling system?”
‘No,” Eliza responded, “We do not have a suitable alternative for phosphoric acid.”
“Okay,” Mary said and then the robot, computer and the young woman all fell silent. Eventually, Mary spoke. “That’s it then? There is nothing we can do?”
41 nodded and said, “I am very sorry friend Mary. I do not have any further ideas at this time. I will continue to look for other possible solutions, however.”
Mary sat dejected and said, “I don’t have any more ideas at the moment either.” With a deep sigh she asked, “Is there anything I can do to help you research a solution?”
41 shook his cameras and said, “What I require is a Wi-Fi connection so that I can interface with Eliza at maximum speed. However, since that is impossible, I will work with what I have available.”
Mary’s face fell for a second and then brightened. “What about a DIRECT connection? Do you have an RJ45 port for connecting a CAT5 network cable?”
41 nodded. “That is an excellent question Mary. Yes, there is a network cable jack on my control panel right next to the USB 5.0 port.”
Mary jumped up, ran over to the tall cabinet housing the computer that ran Eliza’s program. Finding a network cable coiled up and hanging on a hook inside, she connected one end to the computer and ran the other end of the cable over to 41 and plugged it in.
“Thank you, Mary,” said 41. “I shall be able to work much more quickly now.”
“You are quite welcome,” she said. She watched as the large computer display began to flash images and schematics far too rapidly for her to follow. Unable to keep up with the display and with no audible conversation to follow, Mary sighed and then went to her room for a long-overdue nap.
Chapter 8
Mary’s room was small and tidy. She had painted the rock walls a cheery yellow to dispel some of the gloom of living deep below ground. Upon the yellow walls, she painted many scenes of nature. The paintings, copied from books, old magazines and computer images, covered all of the exposed the surfaces. She painted the ceiling sky blue with puffy white clouds. Her paintings depicted the Earth before the environmental disaster of human overpopulation had destroyed it. Flowers, trees, deer, butterflies and many other extinct species lived on in the paintings upon her walls.
She slept soundly in her bed. Soft music came from one of the last working sound systems in the colony. (There were some perks to being the daughter of the colony leader!) She muttered softly to herself in the midst of dreams about green plants, wildlife and the outdoors.
Her dreams were rudely interrupted when Tiny burst into the room, “Friend Mary!” he bellowed, “Wake up! Tiny is here! Let’s go eat breakfast!”
Mary let out a shriek, covers flew every which way and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Tiny,” she yelled, “Don’t DO that!”
Tiny looked crestfallen. “Tiny is sorry.” He turned to leave however Mary stopped him. “No Tiny. Don’t go.” Tiny stopped. He stood in the doorway and sniffed back a tear. “Tiny is sorry. Tiny made friend Mary mad. Tiny is a bad boy!” Mary’s face softened at the distress she saw in her dear friend’s eyes. “No Tiny. You are not bad. You just scared the dickens out of me! Remember, use your quiet voice to awaken somebody.” Mary tried hard but failed to hide a smile when Tiny whispered in a very soft voice, “Tiny remembers now. Tiny is sorry.” Mary got up, ran to her friend and embraced him. “It’s okay. You can speak in a normal voice now. I’m awake!”
Tiny backed away from her and covered his eyes with both hands. “Underwear!” he gasped, forgetting to speak softly. “Tiny sees friend Mary’s underwear!”
Mary blushed a deep shade of red and said, “Turn around!” and quickly got dressed. After putting on her faded red flannel shirt and coveralls, she said, “It is okay now Tiny. You can look now.”
Tiny peeked out between his fingers, saw that she was dressed and said, “Mary’s underwear has a kitty cat on it. Tiny saw it!”
Mary swatted him on the arm and said, “Don’t talk about it anymore! Let’s go eat.” She grabbed him by the hand and they walked, holding hands towards the colony’s cafeteria. She blushed the whole way. She grabbed a furtive little glance at Tiny’s muscles as they walked together and then with a little giggle, she thought to herself, “You’re a bad girl, Mary!”
Tiny, noticing her smile, asked, “What is funny, friend Mary. Share joke with Tiny!”
“Nothing Tiny!” she said a bit louder than she intended. “Sorry,” she muttered and gave his hand a little squeeze. “I just had a silly thought.” To distract him from any further questions, she asked, “What do you want for breakfast, Tiny?”
“Pancakes! Tiny wants pancakes!” he enthusiastically cried, Mary’s little smile completely forgotten.
“Okay then, let’s hurry up,” she said and then they jogged down the tunnel, holding hands and swinging their arms back and forth, until they reached the colony’s cafeteria.
The cafeteria was enclosed in a fairly large cavern. It was not as large as the storage room or the farming caverns, but it was large nonetheless. The room was poorly lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. Many of the bulbs were dark. Of the ones still functioning, half of those flickered on and off. Utilitarian metal and particle board tables sat flanked by equally utilitarian plastic and metal chairs. At one end of the room was the kitchen. Stacks of pancakes, waffles, bread, bacon and scrambled eggs sat in bins set into stainless-steel tables. Blood-red heat lamps kept the food warm.
Tiny grabbed a metal tray, a plate and a knife and fork. Upon his plate, he piled a huge stack of pancakes. He also took a small pitcher of honey and a glass full of orange juice. Mary smiled at him and said, “Leave some for the REST of the colony, big boy!” Crestfallen, Tiny moved to put some of his pancakes back. Mary squeezed
his arm and said, “No dear. It’s okay. I was just joking with you.” She grinned to herself and thought, “My big boy needs to eat!”
The room held a small handful of colonists. Mary smiled when she spied Max at one of the tables. He was enjoying a breakfast of fresh waffles and scrambled eggs. She took Tiny by the hand and said, “Come on, let’s go eat with Max.”
Max noticed them and waved them over. When he spied Tiny’s overflowing plate he asked with a sideways grin, “Tiny, are you on a diet?”
Mary chuckled and answered for Tiny. “Yeah. He is on a see food diet. He sees food, and he eats it!”
Tiny never said a word. He sat down, completely engrossed by his huge stack of pancakes. Devouring his breakfast, his face was half way to the plate as he shoveled great bites of pancakes slathered with honey down his throat. Max and Mary shared a grin, shaking their heads. Mary looked sidelong at Max and said, “You are in a good mood this morning. Do you have any good news from 41?”
“No, no not yet,” Max said. “I’m happy because I think I managed to fix one of the large, portable twelve-volt lanterns. I used your trick and retrofitted nine of the 1 ½ volt batteries in series to make twelve volts. It worked! It lit up just fine. I just have to figure out how to put it all back together again now. That’s the hard part!” he said with a little chuckle.
“That’s great!” Mary said. “We are going to need extra lightning now that…” Her voice fell silent. After a second, she softly asked, “You have heard from 41 yet?”
Max shook his head, “No. I have so far resisted bothering him. I want to leave him alone to work in peace. I am going to finish up my repair to the lantern and then go pay him a visit.”
Mary nodded and said, “I am going to go check up on him as soon as Tiny and I finish our breakfast.”
Max gave her a knowing look and said, “You can’t stay away, can you?”
Mary grinned and shook her head no.
Max turned to face Tiny, who had finished his huge plate of pancakes in record time. “Morning Tiny,” he said. “Do you think you can come and give me a hand moving some heavy stuff today?” He glanced over to Mary and asked, “That is, if you don’t need him for anything, Mary.” She shook her head and then Max said, “Great! Do you want to come and help me, Tiny?”
Tiny pounded his fists upon the table, knocking over his orange juice glass, which fortunately was now empty and shouted, “Yes! Tiny will help friend Max!”
Suppressing a grin at his enthusiasm, he smiled at him and said, “So Tiny, have you done anything interesting yet today?”
Tiny’s face took on the look of a small child who got caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar and he said in a low voice, “I saw friend Mary’s underwear.” In a conspiratorial voice he added, “It has a kitty cat on it.” He yelped when Mary kicked him under the table. “Why did you kick Tiny, friend Mary?” he asked, perplexed.
“You were not supposed to tell anybody!” she cried. She put her elbows on the table and lowered her blushing red face into her hands.
Tiny looked sheepish. “Tiny is sorry. Tiny forgot,” he whispered.
Max laughed so hard that he snorted a bit of his orange juice out through his nose. This made him laugh even harder. All of the people in the room looked their way and Mary slunk down so far into her chair it looked as if she was trying to disappear under the table. When Max got himself somewhat under control, he could not resist teasing his friend. “So, Mary, you wear Hello Kitty underwear, do you? Aren’t you a bit old for that?”
Wide eyed, Mary threw her crumpled up napkin at him and screeched, “Max!”
Max, shaking with mirth, turned to Tiny and said, “Come on Tiny. Let’s go before Mary kills us both.”
Tiny, wide eyed and confused, leaned towards Max and whispered, as if he thought Mary could not plainly hear him, “Why would friend Mary kill friend Max and Tiny?”
Max, shaking his head with mirth, muttered, “Never mind that! Let’s go,” and quickly escaped the room with Tiny following closely at his heels.
Mary stood up so quickly that she knocked over her chair. After picking it up, she looked around the room and spied all the eyes in the room locked upon her. “What are you looking at!” she sputtered and then she fled from the room. She heard soft laughter behind her as she ran.
Chapter 9
Mary hid her face from the crowd as she fled from the cafeteria. Her embarrassment quickly faded as she ran towards the council chambers. “I wonder if 41 figured out how to fix the reactor yet?” she thought in excitement as she hurried through the door.
She started speaking as soon as she burst into the room. “41! Have you figured….” She stopped herself short. Her mouth hung open in surprise. The robot was not where she had left it. “41?” she asked in surprise, “Where are you?” Her head swiveled around the room. The network cable hung neatly coiled up upon a hook in the computer cabinet. She stood motionless with her mouth hanging open for many seconds. Snapping out of her surprised inaction, she turned to the wall monitor, which now displayed a screen saver of ever changing random images. “Eliza! Where is 41?”
Instantly, the image of the avatar re-appeared and said, “I am sorry Mary. I do not know the current location of maintenance bot designation 41.”
“What do you mean, you do not know where he is?” she demanded, throwing her hands out from her sides in annoyance. “How could you NOT know where he is?”
Eliza simulated a frown and said, “I am sorry Mary. 41 left this room six hours, thirty-one minutes and seventeen seconds ago. He did not inform me of his intended destination. I cannot determine his location due to the failure of the Wi-Fi network.”
Momentarily shocked into silence, Mary sat down in one of the chairs with a thud and massaged her temples as she sat deep in thought. After a few seconds, her head shot up and she asked, “What was he working on? Did he figure out how to repair the reactor? Is that where he went?”
Eliza shook her virtual head. “No. Mary. 41 informed me that he determined that the reactor could not be repaired before all auxiliary power was exhausted. I do not believe that he went to the reactor room.”
“Well where did he GO then?” Mary demanded in frustration.
“I do not possess that information, Mary,” the avatar said.
Furiously thinking, Mary faced the monitor and said, “Please show me what he was last working on, please.”
The image of Eliza shrunk to just a small picture of just her face in the corner of the screen. The rest of the screen filled with a comprehensive map of the farming areas of the colony. The various chambers and tunnels all were all depicted in minute detail. A red line on the map left the council chamber and followed one of the tunnels. It continued on until it went off the edge of the map.
“A Map?” Mary asked in confusion. “Why inside the Earth would 41 need a map? He knows his way around the colony better than any of us?” Eliza did not respond to her rhetorical question. Mary studied the map, hoping for inspiration. Finding none, she got up and slowly headed towards the door. “I have to go let Max know,” she said to herself, half in shock. Half way to the door she stopped short, spun around and asked, “What does that red line on the map depict, Eliza? Is that a path? An intended route?”
Eliza responded, “Unknown Mary. It could perhaps be an intended travel route. I do not possess enough data to hypothesize with certainty.”
Mary, convinced that she was correct, excitedly commanded, “Zoom out! Zoom the map out!”
The map now displayed the colony on its entirety… including the greyed-out areas left inaccessible by the ancient cave-in. The red line depicting 41’s intended route of travel still disappeared off one edge of the map, however it reappeared on the map in the technical area that was supposedly inaccessible. “He found a way through!” Mary exclaimed in wonder. “Eliza!” she cried, “Zoom out one more level!” The red line on the map led away from the colony for a short distance until it connected to an old tunnel l
abeled ‘inter-colony transportation system’. The red line followed this passageway a moderate distance and then it turned and entered a small maintenance shaft which led from the transport tunnel labeled ‘Maintenance shaft, authorized personnel and bots only!’. This tunnel linked the transportation tunnel to the formerly inaccessible areas of the colony. “Oh my God!” Mary cried. She intently studied the map for several minutes and until, without a further word, she ran from the room.
“Max!” she yelled as soon as she entered his workshop.
Tiny smiled and enthusiastically waved at her. “Hello friend Mary! Max is not here. Max went to get …”
“Where is he? When will he be back?” Mary asked, cutting Tiny off before he could say any more.
Tiny’s face wrinkled up in a little frown. With a pained expression he said, “Tiny tried to tell you. Friend Max went to get a drill to help put the lantern back together.” Tiny flicked its switch and a brilliant beam of light illuminated the far wall. He flicked it off and on again a few times, giggling the whole time. “Lantern is BRIGHT!” he happily exclaimed.
Mary momentarily forgot about her mission. “Wow, it sure is!” She walked over to Tiny and examined it with a critical eye. The cover bulged where Max had crammed the over-sized batteries inside. The holes in the cover for the screws that held it together no longer lined up with the matching holes on the body of the lantern. “Step back a sec,” she said to Tiny. Mary grabbed a roll of duct tape and used it to tape the lantern’s cover on. She wrapped it around several times. “Good enough,” she muttered. Grabbing the lantern in one hand and taking Tiny’s hand in her other one, she said “Come on!” and led Tiny out of the room.
Those Left Behind Page 5
