The Search for Cleo

by Aaron J. Ethridge

  “Let's see what we've got,” Vox said, putting his eye up to the hole. “I imagine they're marching the whole length of the hall. At the very least, they're going so far that they keep getting out of sight. The problem is that they're moving fast enough that they keep coming right back in sight.”

  “Let me think,” Robert replied.

  “Hey, Rob,” Morgan said thoughtfully. “Could you alter their navigational system like you did on Planet Alpha?”

  “I really doubt it. I already outsmarted Sturm that way once.”

  “Then, what do we do?”

  “We give me a moment to think,” he said. “If we could open the door this would be a piece of... This would be a lot easier.”

  “Why can't we?” the young man asked.

  “Because the robots of death would be able...” Robert began before pausing. “Vox, these doors look identical from the front and the back, don't they?”

  “They do.”

  “Morgan, you're brilliant,” Robert smiled.

  He then pulled the scanner from the large holo-emitter and used it to scan the portal. This done, he used it to create a holo-image of the door on the door.

  “No one speak again until I do,” he whispered before opening the door.

  Due to the way Robert had configured the hologram, he and his crew could see out of the doorway, but the droids couldn't see in. This was extremely fortunate because, just over ten seconds later, two of them marched right in front of the door, turned around, and headed in the opposite direction.

  “We're definitely making progress,” Robert said softly.

  “Why are they waving their arms and walking side to side like that?” Morgan asked quietly.

  “It'll be hard to invisible our way past them with them doing that, won't it?” Azure asked.

  “It will be,” Robert agreed as he leaned as close to the holo-image as he dared and gazed down the hall. “It looks like we're in a bit of luck. They're out of sight for about a second and a half when they reach the end of the hall.”

  “That's not a lot of time,” Morgan pointed out.

  “It'll be enough,” Robert nodded. “Morgan, you know how you're always asking me why we don't use robots for everything?”

  “I haven't asked about it in a while,” he replied, “but, sure.”

  “One of the reasons,” he said, pushing buttons on the holo-emitter, “is because, since robots can't think, they're easy to confuse. They can only do what their programmers have anticipated they might need to do.”

  “Okay,” the young man shrugged.

  “Which means,” he continued, “we can take advantage of things Sturm hasn't thought of. Like the emergency doors closing in this hallway, for instance.”

  “Are they going to close?”

  “We have to be really quick,” Robert said, pointing a short distance down the hall. “Cleo, how long will it take you to give us access to that computer?”

  “Seconds,” she assured him.

  “Will you be able to get the ship to close the doors?”

  “That's no problem,” she assured him. “The lock-down makes the doors hard to open, not to close.”

  “Perfect,” he smiled. “Morgan, when I tell you to, move the holo-emitter just outside the door. And... now!”

  Morgan instantly obeyed. As soon as he set it down, Robert pushed the button that would cause it to switch images. The two droids that had just emerged from around the corners on opposite ends of the hall moved a short distance in their direction, before pausing. Cleo dashed quietly toward the computer with the rest of her companions just steps behind her.

  “Computer,” she whispered, “Bobby needs help!”

  “Thank everything good you've finally gotten here,” the ship said quietly. “The last few hours have been a nightmare. Can you believe that they...”

  “Computer,” Robert interjected. “Close emergency doors twenty-three and twenty-seven.”

  “Done, Rob,” it replied. “Anyway, can you believe...”

  “Computer,” the traveler said, “disable the internal stealth-field alarm, authorization: last time traveler.”

  “Done,” it said. “As I was saying...”

  “We can talk later,” he said, “at the moment, we need to get to the armory.”

  “Good luck with that,” it said. “Two of those mechanical monsters are standing right outside the door. Not that you'll be able to get there, one way or the other.”

  “Can you disrupt their internal communications?”

  “I keep disrupting them,” the ship explained. “They keep finding a way to get around it.”

  “Keep trying,” he said, switching on his stealth-belt.

  Robert ordered five of his companions to follow this example. Doc was told to fire up a hologram, however. As soon as he looked like one of the enemy robots, Robert had Cleo snag the transponder ID from the droid that was farther from the armory and assign it to Doc's false image. With this done, he switched off the large holo-emitter, told Morgan to carry it, and quickly closed the pressure door they had used to get into the hallway.

  He then told the computer to open emergency door twenty-three (which led in the direction of the armory), and he and his crew fell behind Doc who headed straight toward the robot who had been patiently waiting for backup on the far side of the portal.

  As Doc and the droid marched past one another, each waving their arms, it occurred to Morgan that the robot must have really thought Doc was his companion – proving that Robert was right, and that droids were easy to confuse. On the other hand, as the two of them had confused countless living people during their relatively brief time together, he didn't see where this was an example of sentient beings having much of an upper hand. You just had to use different techniques depending on who you were trying to manipulate.

  For instance, although these war-robots could be fooled by fake transponder signals, they couldn't be seduced. No matter what Azure offered to do for them – or to them – it wouldn't distract them in the least. On the other hand, even the thought of something like that was enough to...

  “Would you stop stepping on my heels!” Robert barked as loudly as he dared.

  “Sorry,” Morgan said. “My mind was wandering.”

  “Could you keep it on a leash at least long enough for us not to get killed?!”

  “I can try.”

  “I'd appreciate it.”

  After several more minutes of passing various war-bots (and one clone) they drew near the armory. As the computer had warned them, two droids were standing guard over it. After a brief discussion, it was decided to send Vox and Doc (disguised as robots) in to grab what they needed. Cleo managed (with the ship's help) to once again disrupt their internal communications, so the droids had no way of inquiring into what the fake-droids intended to do in the armory. In less than two minutes, they were in and out.

  “Alright,” Robert said, as they made their way into the conference room, “so far, this has gone well. All we have to do now is take the bridge.”

  “In order to do that,” Cleo said, “we have to take out the droids. In order to do that, we're going to need to focus our fire. I've set up a very special program to help us do that, so everyone just keep your eyes on me.”

  “We're going to look like the droids, though,” Celeste said, slipping on the holo-emitter that Robert had just handed her.

  “Not to each other,” Azure explained. “The way Cleo's rigged them up, we'll be able to tell us from them.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “To us,” Cleo explained, “we'll look blue, and they'll look red.”

  “Red versus Blue,” Morgan nodded.

  “I wasn't a fan,” Robert said.

  “It's not for everyone,” the young man agreed. “But, it's a good method for telling friend from foe.”

  “True.”

  The moment the last of their preparations were made, they headed for the bridge. Fortunately, they didn't run into any
patrols along the way.

  “Remember,” Cleo whispered right before they stepped through the door, “shoot my second target.”

  Having said this, the blue-tinted war-robot that was, in reality, the green maiden, marched into the chamber and shot two of the droids in rapid succession. To Morgan's utter amazement, all the war-bots in the room (including the first one she had shot) began to shoot the second droid. Whatever spell Cleo had cast to make them do this, didn't work on the clones, however. As a result, both of them made her their target.

  This caused Robert to jump on one of these while Morgan attacked the second. Although he knew he was fighting a clone, he still found the idea of punching Sister in the face disconcerting. This didn't last long, however, as she counter-attacked him with a spinning back kick that knocked him off of his feet and into the wall. He felt confident that, if not for his shield, she would have broken his back.

  Part of the reason for that was the fact that she had taken him off guard with her skills. The other part was that the clone apparently had the muscle density of a gorilla. Still, as the force-field had kept him both safe and sound, he was undeterred. As he punched her in the gut (and off of her feet), a thought occurred to him. She was shielded, as well.

  This was why she was able to ignore such a devastating blow and kick him in the groin. Fortunately, his equipment didn't fail him (you see what I did there?) and, as a result, this attack didn't kill him. It did, however, give him pause. Many weeks ago, Doc had said that the chicken-lizards could chew their way through a shield. He didn't want to have his nether regions anywhere near clone-Sister if she somehow managed to kick through his. As a result, he started fighting defensively.

  Although he was too distracted to notice, the fight was quickly going their way. The additional weapons Vox and Doc had grabbed in the armory were powerful enough to quickly beat through the droids' shields and reduce them to scrap – especially when focusing fire. (Although, this did come at a cost of them quickly running out of power.) Already, two of the droids were destroyed, and the shields of a third were quickly failing.

  “Computer,” Robert cried, as laser blasts began to fly into the room from just outside it, “close the door to the bridge – and lock it!”

  “Done, Rob!” the ship cried over the din of battle.

  “Doc!” the traveler yelled, as the clone of Sister grabbed Morgan by the wrists and began trying to break his arms behind his back. “Morgan may need a little help!”

  Immediately, Doc rushed to the young man's aid, locking onto the clone's arms with his vice-like grip and tearing her off her opponent. Seconds after this, the last of the droids was blasted to pieces, and Vox had the clone of Brother in an inescapable hold. The companions focused fire on each of the clones until they were no longer a threat.

  By the time this was done, the ship was being rocked by weapons fire from the outside.

  “Computer,” Robert said relatively calmly as the sound of robots beating on the door echoed through the chamber, “raise the shields.”

  “I already did that, Rob,” it replied almost testily. “Which is why we're not all dead right now.”

  “Vox,” he said, turning to his engineer, “let's get that navi-com hooked up.”

  “I'm on it,” he said, flying to one computer console while Cleo started jamming buttons on the door.

  More laser blasts rocked the ship.

  “I think we'll just use theirs,” Vox asserted. “That should be a little faster.”

  “Good idea,” Robert smiled.

  “Rob,” Morgan said thoughtfully. “Don't they have stuff to open the doors with?”

  “They do!” Cleo yelled. “Which is why I'm trying to find a way to jam this one.”

  “Change places!” Robert yelled – sounding almost like the Mad-Hatter.

  Instantly, Vox flew to the door and started working to remove the access panel (along with Azure) while Cleo started jamming buttons on the navi-com. For his part, Morgan grabbed the biggest gun they had and placed himself right in the center of the doorway.

  “Got it!” Cleo cried.

  Half-a-second later, the ship lurched forward. Half-a-second after that, it came to a complete stop.

  “Bring us about!” Robert yelled.

  “Aye, sir!”

  Seconds later, the ship had turned enough to see what was holding them in place.

  “It's a tractor-anchor,” Cleo observed.

  “Fire!” the traveler yelled.

  A storm of laser blasts followed this order, but nothing else happened.

  “It's too well shielded, Rob!”

  The sound of an alarm filled the air as the ship's own force-fields began to fail.

  “Ramming speed, Miss Zelbizarre!”

  “Rob, the shields...”

  “Forget the shields! Full speed ahead!”

  As the maiden sent the craft flying toward the tractor-anchor, the door flew open (despite Vox and Azure's best efforts); revealing a sea of droids and clones.

  “Ah!” Morgan screamed – doing his best Rambo – as he fired into the crowd, ignoring the countless lasers striking his shields.

  Before this managed to get anyone killed, the ship struck its current target, which sent everyone flying around the room, in spite of the inertial dampeners. Before they could even climb to their feet, the ship jumped into non-space. Instantly, the droids and clones ceased their struggles.

  “The bridge is secure, sir,” Morgan said, pointing his massive, automatic hand-cannon in the direction of his now-unmoving enemies.

  “Are they dead?” Celeste asked, climbing to her feet.

  “Deactivated,” Robert corrected. “And, I think so. Let's not take chances, though. Morgan drag one of those clones in here.”

  Immediately, he obeyed.

  “Take a look, Doc,” Robert said, before turning his eyes to the blue maiden. “Azure, get that door closed again, please.”

  She managed to do this simply by pressing the control on the panel.

  “It's dead,” Doc said, having checked clone-Chairman-Ross for signs of life.

  “Deactivated,” Robert repeated. “Let's check one of the droids.”

  A quick check revealed that not one of the robots or clones had so much as a spark of artificial-life left in them.

  “What would cause them to just die like that?” Morgan mused.

  “Deactivate,” Robert said, putting a great deal of stress on the word.

  “What's the difference?” the young man shrugged.

  “They were never alive, Morgan,” he explained. “If I had to guess, they fried their own brains once they realized that the ship was back under our control. More than likely, even the ones on the bridge did that.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep us from getting any data out of them.”

  “And to keep them from accidentally killing us,” Cleo speculated. “Once we recaptured the ship, Sturm had lost this round. Murdering us would be cheating.”

  “You're probably right,” Robert nodded.

  “Quick question,” Morgan said. “How did you get the droids to shoot each other?”

  “Using their self-defense protocols,” she replied with a smile. “If one of them malfunctions, accidentally targeting another of them, for instance, the others will put it down. I grabbed a transponder code from one, then shot a different one. Then, my program grabbed the code of the one I had shot and assigned it to all of us.”

  “So, the droids thought we were all the one that got shot?” Morgan asked.

  “No,” Robert said, “they didn't think anything. Machines don't think.”

  “Yes, Morgan,” Cleo replied, rolling her eyes. “Semantics aside, that's exactly what happened. So, working together, all us droids put the 'damaged' one down.”

  “Awesome!” the young man said with a wide smile. “What do we do now, Rob?”

  “Second,” Robert replied, “we fix the ship. Third, we finish the jobs we've already got lined up. Fo
urth, we head back to Never Never Land.”

  “What do we do first? Morgan asked.

  “We celebrate!” he explained, grabbing Cleo in his arms and lowering his mouth to hers for an extremely passionate kiss.

  Morgan immediately followed this example. After nearly a minute, he tore the blue maiden away from him.

  “Whoa!” he said. “I'm getting bad deja vu.”

  “What do you mean?” Robert asked, releasing Cleo as he spoke.

  “I just got the feeling that one of us was about to punch the other one in the face.”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “For kissing the girls,” he explained.

  “Morgan,” Robert replied, shaking his head. “We kiss the girls all the time now.”

  “I know,” he nodded. “But, somehow 'the moment felt right'.”

  “Morgan,” Robert repeated with a laugh. “That is crazy talk.”

  The Pause 0000 0100

  (That's 4 in binary. Not all the jokes can be top-shelf, you know...)

  (Need something to do while I’m working on the next one? Check out my rather hilarious fantasy series: The Tales of Zanoth on Amazon. The first volume is: The Tower of Daelfaun. Seriously. It’s a riot. Trust me.)

  Thank You!

  Dear reader, I'm Aaron J. Ethridge, the author of The Search for Cleo. I want to thank you for taking the time to read the book. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. I put a great deal of time and effort (as well as love and soul) into it. I also want you to know that this is the fourth volume in what I plan to be a lengthy series. If you're interested in reading the further adventures of the last time traveler and his companions, you can do something to help me make that happen.

  You see, it can be very difficult for a new author to reach readers. However, the most helpful group of people in the world for doing just that are an author's current readers. Your opinion really does matter and a few seconds of your time could change my life for years to come. So, I ask you to take a moment to review my work or post about it on your social networks using the links that follow.