The Spark (White Gates Adventures Book 4)

by Trevor Stubbs

  “Another reason you need me. I am not an A-grade student, I—”

  “You’re not very clever? Rubbish. We both know you’re clever even if you did finish school earlier than me.”

  “OK. I have some practical intelligence. I’ll grant you that.”

  “Right – the best kind in this scenario. The brilliant but absent-minded sort might get into more trouble.”

  “Yes,” agreed One. “Some software engineers are totally lacking when it comes to common sense. That’s why we’re in this mess in the first place. Some of them need a lot of looking after – can’t even manage to make a cup of tea.”

  “Not all software engineers, then – just most of them,” laughed Shaun. “Do I detect the prejudice of a hardware engineer?”

  “All scientists need practical people,” stated Wennai. “Seriously… And in this scenario you need an actor, and I think I’m the more gifted at acting… You geeks have to come up with a plan… and leave the rest to me. Leave me to get into the lab and get the stuff.”

  “That… that is logical. I guess… But I can’t let you do this. It’s dangerous.”

  “So we go home, then?”

  “No. I was just… I don’t know. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Look, forget about being protective. You’re a liberated male. It makes logical sense for me to go and get this because – frankly – you are still delicate inside – mending but delicate. There’s nothing wrong with that – you’re human. The last thing you want is to upset that recovery – or, to put it bluntly, freak out on the job. You work out the plan and I’ll execute it.”

  Shaun nodded. Wennai was right. He had no idea just how good an actor she could be because, right then, inside her chest, her heart was doing a double take. As Shaun walked away to join the Sponrons in planning the heist, she said to herself, Wennai, you’re an absolute fool. But I’m beginning to understand how the Smith family ticks. Shaun must have been really hurt to walk away from a white gate challenge. No wonder he can’t tell his family. I hope I’m up to this.

  She didn’t hear the whisper in the breeze as the Creator said, “You are. Well done. I am with you.”

  ***

  Over the next two hours, Shaun, One and the elders sat together to work out how Wennai could get to the chip safely. Stage two – getting a compliant robot – was put off for the moment. Wennai spent her time learning how to read Tlap’s clay tablets.

  “I need to be able to read your script. Once I begin this task, I may need to read the signs,” she explained.

  ***

  It was just before midday that Slop appeared from between the trees. Tlap was the first to spot him.

  “Slop,” she yelled, “you’re back! You escaped!”

  Slop stepped forward, breathless as much with embarrassment as with his exertions. Tlap embraced him. She had urged her brother not to go but he was not the type to believe he could live for the rest of his life as a Stone-Age being. Now he had returned with an air of defeat.

  “Slop, come here!” sang Tlap and she took him once more into her spindly Sponron arms. “I never thought I would see you again. You know, Slop,” she said over his shoulder, “freedom is important but being stuck with those you love isn’t so much of a trap. After all, we have roofs and water – and food, of sorts, for now.”

  “I learnt a lot,” he said, pulling out of the embrace and looking his sister in the eye. He was trying to put a positive slant to his failed attempt for freedom.

  Wennai and Shaun were introduced. Slop gave them a curious glance, and One reminded him of the adventures on the Tal and on Planet Joh.

  “Can you get us all out of here through your white gate?” asked Slop.

  “I doubt it. It doesn’t work that way,” answered Shaun.

  “Some people can travel the universe while others are trapped in one small wood on one small planet. Some folk have all the luck.”

  “Don’t be unkind,” said Tlap. “If it weren’t for these humans, One and the rest would still be prisoners on board a space cruiser in the hands of horrible men.”

  “What happened?” asked One, after they had sat Slop down. Someone brought him a goblet of hot forest tea, and a bowl of the juiciest berries was set before him.

  “Thanks. I’m not hungry. There are berries and roots in abundance over the hill – but the hot brew is good. Thanks… After I left here, I got as far as going down to the stream that runs parallel to ours. I had just crossed it when a stupid drone flew over. I kept still but there is no way to avoid them. I’m sure they have infrared, or even something more sophisticated. It stopped and hovered. I decided to keep going. It couldn’t land in the forest and, in any case, it couldn’t have stopped me. But, of course, it summoned a party of medium bots and a few big ones, too – you know the kind that run on tracks…”

  “Like tanks?” put in Wennai.

  “Tanks?”

  “Military vehicles that can cross rough terrain,” explained Shaun.

  “They can certainly do that but they’re not that fast through the brush – certainly not as fast as I was. I dodged to the west. They followed me. I headed for the waterfall and leapt across—”

  “Slop, that was dangerous,” cringed Tlap.

  “Nah. I cleared it by a full zilk.”

  “How far’s that?” asked Shaun.

  “About this much.” One reached out his arms to indicate a short metre. “If you ask me, Slop, that is cutting it a bit too fine.”

  “One, it was plenty. OK…? Anyway, the stupid bots all lined up on the opposite bank. Intelligent? Stupid! One medium got too near the edge, slipped on the moss and fell in.”

  “What, down the falls?”

  “No, not all the way down. It jammed in among the rocks at the top. It’s still there.”

  “They will have learnt, and you can bet that none of them will do it again,” said one of the elders.

  “So, anyway, I waved them goodbye and I carried on through the woods but so did the drone. Whichever way I turned they were waiting for me. There seemed to be hundreds of them. They didn’t come into the woods, they just stopped me leaving. I spent two nights waiting to see if they would give up. No luck. The charging truck – you know the one with the generator on board – just kept trundling behind them, keeping their batteries topped up. I went back to the falls to wash and drink. The medium stuck at the top was still there, its batteries flat. It was dead to the world – if you can say a machine can ever really be alive in the first place. In the end there was nothing to do but come back. I’ll have another go after a week or so.”

  “You may not be here next week,” said One boldly. “We have a plan… and you may have just provided us with exactly what we need.”

  He explained that Wennai and Shaun were going to try to reach the lab, find the chip and bring it back. “We can pull up the bot in the stream and fit it with the new motherboard. Then we take it to the edge of the wood so they can reclaim it and charge it up.”

  “Are you sure they will fall for it?” said Slop.

  “They could well do – once,” said One. “They learn from their mistakes – but they have to make one first. They will scan the possibilities – but no bot has ever been given an additional chip. All past modifications have been done through software programming once the prototypes were formed. With a huge amount of spare capacity in its programmable ROM, there had been no need to upgrade the hardware. If our friend can get us a motherboard for a ‘medium’ containing the new ROM, we can simply replace the existing one.”

  “And then,” continued the elder, “when it wakes up it will start communicating with the rest.”

  “And the new software will enter the hive cloud and every individual bot within seconds.”

  “What will it do to them?” asked Wennai.

  “I’m not sure. All I know is that the hardware team were putting together the necessary motherboards – each for a different class of individual. I knew that the aim was tha
t the ASI would be neutralised if we managed to get just one new motherboard into any ASI machine, anywhere – always assuming they hadn’t anticipated it.”

  “You mean it will wipe them out?”

  “Disable them – all of them.”

  “That sounds a bit like… like genocide,” Wennai murmured.

  “Technically not,” said Shaun. “If they were sentient beings, that would be true. But they’re only machines – they don’t have feelings.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you say, One?”

  “I say that if we don’t fight them,” said Slop, “then it is us who are going to be wiped out… And, as far as we can tell, we could already be all that is left of the Sponron race on the planet.”

  “Unlikely,” said One, “but I agree, we do not know anything about the welfare of any other Sponrons.”

  “And,” continued an elder, “the ASI could render the planet unstable if they continue in their self-centred way.”

  “Run amok?” said Wennai.

  “They have already overcome the checks and balances the programmers attempted to impose,” said One. “The thing is, they may not have a concept of the importance of carbon-based life for the future of the planet. The weather will eventually destroy them but by the time they discover that, the planet could be on the way to being dead…”

  “I don’t think we should be morally concerned about the bots,” mused Shaun, thoughtfully. “They are machines, so they are not alive and therefore cannot die. And could, in time, I suppose, be reprogrammed and brought back online in the future… I think the time has come for Wennai and I to pretend to be beings without intelligence, and see what we can do to get the motherboard we require.”

  “OK. Tell me where and what we’re looking for,” said Wennai in her best businesslike tone.

  One described the motherboard they needed, together with the Sponron markings he thought it had.

  “As far as I can recall, it has something like that on it. I’m sure it’s marked ‘medium’ or at least ‘M’ – all the motherboards have multi-legged, integrated circuits and other components both on top and underneath. They are delicate and need to be put into a padded container for transport.” One described where the boards were stored and where to find the correct containers – assuming the bots hadn’t removed them. “The boards are kept in a secure cupboard with a five-symbol access code.” He described the symbols that needed to be entered on the keypad by drawing them in the dust with a stick.

  “Have you got that, Wennai?” asked Shaun.

  “No problem,” she said. She erased the symbols with her foot, then redrew them.

  “Perfect,” said an elder, impressed. Slop looked at her quizzically, then slid his long hand through her hair and suddenly closed his fingers and yanked.

  “Ow!” yelled Wennai, alarmed. She turned in shock and then defiance.

  But Shaun soothed her. He understood. “No,” he said reassuringly, “she is not a bot. She is just naturally good at remembering things.”

  “She learns quickly,” said Tlap. “But not like the ASI. Slop, that was unkind.”

  “Just testing,” he said, defensively.

  ***

  Wennai and Shaun moved gingerly back into the field. “We mustn’t move with purpose,” said Shaun. “We have to wander and get nearer the lane gradually.”

  Half an hour later they heard a drone approaching. They carried on working the hedgerow for berries and just ignored it. It hovered for a few moments and then vanished. After a further half-hour it flew back over the field and this time just kept going. It had clearly decided that Wennai and Shaun did not trigger the danger response that Slop had done when he left the encampment.

  They eventually came to the hedge beside the lane and approached the gate. A vehicle came along the lane and passed by without incident.

  “It looks as if we’re still OK,” stated Shaun. “So far, so good.”

  “These berries aren’t bad, either,” smiled Wennai. “But we’d better not overindulge or we could get the runs – or something.”

  “Good thinking. But keep looking when we get through the gate.” They squeezed through the bars and onto the road, and gradually, metre by metre, along the lane in the direction of the town. Another vehicle approached. They glanced up, like an animal might, then let it pass. When a posse of mediums marched by, they knew they were safe.

  They reached a junction. “Which way?” asked Shaun.

  Wennai read the signboard. “The town is at the bottom of the hill. When we get there, I have memorised the names of the streets and I think I can find my way… Look, Shaun, the berry thing won’t work beyond the hedges. I… I think it would be better if we split up. Two people are more obvious than one and I’m worried that you’re overdoing it on that leg.”

  “Wennai, an hour ago you said you were not going to be left behind, and now you’re taking over and saying you don’t need me.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said rather too crossly. She was upset; in truth she was still fighting her inner doubt. She collected herself – she mustn’t be brusque. She had been unkind. Shaun had issues about the events that surrounded his broken leg. “Sorry. That wasn’t nice. But, Shaun, don’t you see,” she said, kissing his cheek, “it could all be part of the random thing… They have registered our presence and they aren’t suspicious – yet. But they may be keeping tabs on us. As long as you are still about, they may remain happy and ignore me. You could go down that way and rest a bit, then circle back… A diversion.”

  “OK,” said Shaun quietly. He had to accept that Wennai knew more about him than sometimes he cared to admit even to himself. “That… that does make sense… I agree it will only take one of us in the town – and it is you who knows the way. But…”

  Wennai put her arms around him and kissed him in return. “I know you want to be protective but if the bots get suspicious there’s really nothing you can do. You protect me best by pretending to be a dumb, country creature.” She smiled lightly. She was a good actress but inside she was trying to convince herself that she was really capable of pulling this off.

  “OK. A farm animal I shall be… But promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “Of course. I don’t want to get caught and, besides, the Sponrons are in enough trouble without me making it worse. I will probably get lost, which will only add to the impression.” Wennai attempted to laugh. It was not sufficiently convincing for Shaun to be reassured but she had won her case. Logic had prevailed.

  ***

  Wennai continued to explore the hedge towards the town, while Shaun went down the new road. When he heard the drone, he made quite sure he could be seen. He couldn’t help Wennai any other way. He was happy to hear the sound of the engines disappear in the opposite direction from the one she had taken.

  It took Wennai around ten seconds after Shaun vanished from her view to realise just how terrified she was. Her logic had been so convincing and her acting so good that Shaun had had to concur. Her theory might have been correct but this was the first time in her life that she had been anywhere on her own outside of Joh City district, let alone on a strange and distant planet! It would have been scary enough at home. For about ten minutes she rued her foolishness, all the time hoping Shaun would reappear round the corner. Then for the next ten minutes she rather hoped he wouldn’t because she hated the idea of appearing a wimp. If he followed her, she would protest. But when it was quite clear he was not going to reappear, she knew she had convinced him, if not herself, that she could do this better on her own. So, now, either she carried on or abandoned the plan and went back herself.

  No! she told herself. I can do this. In fact, it will be safer than if we are together – and this way Shaun is definitely safer. She realised that when you think about what’s best for others, you get braver. I’m going to do this, even if I die in the process. But it won’t come to that. The ASI is thinking I’m a “bear of very little brain” s
o I can’t bundle it if I act like one. Wennai had read them Winnie-the-Pooh stories one evening when she had gone to see Shaun at White Gates Cottage. Winnie-the-Pooh succeeded in all sorts of things just singing a hum, didn’t he? So can I. So, when she heard a drone, she sang to herself as she pretended to look for berries. It ignored her. As soon as it was out of sight she made for the town at a moderate pace – as fast as she dared. She wondered exactly how much lateral thinking the machine-heads, as she called them, were capable of. Whatever. One way or another I’m going to find out, she thought.

  When Wennai reached the edge of the town and the hedgerows stopped, she put on a spurt to reach the central streets in which the laboratory was situated. The gardens were replaced by townhouses that came right to the edge of the road in places; their walls echoed the sound of her footsteps even though she trod as softly as she could. It was eerie. The place spoke of crowds, bustle and the noise of people and vehicles – but it was totally deserted. She half-expected to come across a nest of machine-heads but, no, there were none to be seen. Why should they be here? she thought. They have no need of houses – sitting rooms, bedrooms, kitchens or bathrooms. The thought of the last two rooms reminded her that she had been hungry for hours, despite the berries; and she was desperate for the loo. Could she get inside one of the houses?

  Then the noise of a drone reverberated in the narrow streets with a roar like the take-off of a jet plane. She thought about ducking into a doorway but it was too late, the drone was already overhead. Ignore it, she told herself. But the drone hovered, circled and returned. It was watching her. Wennai meandered forward. Was the game up?

  Half an hour passed with Wennai making random turns through the narrowest streets she could find but the drone was still there. Wennai resolved to just carry on. What did it matter now if she was observed? It may be all that they wanted to do; the machine-heads might be satisfied just monitoring her. She couldn’t be far away from the lab because it was in the old part of the town, One had said. The sun was getting low. She tried to read the names of the streets but couldn’t recognise any of them. Then she noticed a large building on a corner that she had seen before – she had gone in a complete circle.