MBryO: The Escape

by Townsend, Dodie

  “No!” silently Sasha screamed fiercely, staring the wild eyed creature down.

  Surprised the big cat paused in mid-spring. Curiosity raced through its purring brain. Sasha intercepted the animal’s sentient question “Why?”

  “You don’t really want to hurt us! I can feel it!” she assured the mewing creature. Sasha felt more than heard the smirking “Think so?”

  The curious feline crouched down on the flat surface of the Rol-plo and simply watched the odd looking humanoids that could communicate with them so easily. The rest of the pack of cat-like creatures did likewise; seemingly content to allow the female to make the decision to attack or retreat.

  “Keep talking,” William said, as Pax and Melara swung into position overhead, their weapons poised to pick off the big cats one by one, if need be.

  “Melara help Ian get Joshua on the ATV while I refuel,” he added. “Pax?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep your blaster trained on that pack of felines.”

  “Don’t worry! I’m ready if they choose to attack. But I’d appreciate it if you’d get a move on,” Pax added.

  “She’s not going to attack,” Sasha crooned, closing the distance between her and the waiting feline hesitantly. “Are you girl?”

  Carefully kneeling beside the spotted creature, Sasha ever so slowly reached out one pale hand to pet the wild green-eyed feline. To her surprise the creature stretched beneath the stroke of her hand. Tiny jolts of pleasure passed between her fingertips and the creature. As one the entire pack made a chuffing sound to show their appreciation of the gentle caress.

  Several of the big felines moved up onto the Rol-plo and nudged Sasha, encouraging her to pet them as well. The current arching through the creatures brought a smile to Sasha’s face.

  “So much for being fierce,” Melara laughed lowering her laser canon. “They’re nothing but big telepathic tabby cats.”

  “How’s Joshua?” Pax asked from above. He kept a wary eye on the pack of felines jockeying for a stroke from Sasha’s hand.

  “He’s still out,” Ian said. “We need to get him to the medi-doc.”

  “The thrusters are up and ready,” William assured them as he put the lid on the metal petrol can.

  As if to verify his claim the Rol-plo roared to life and immediately resumed its hover capacity by lifting off the ground. “Let’s get to the bunker! I’ve have enough excitement to last me for a lifetime.”

  The female leader of the felines jumped nimbly to the forest floor. The pack silently watched the retreating convoy. Each of the telepaths felt a small niggling at the corner of their thought processes as the big felines began to make their strange chuffing sound.

  “Do you want to come with us?” Sasha asked the female.

  The chuffing accelerated as the gentle creatures roared their answer. As if by mutual consent the pack began to follow from a distance.

  Lifting Joshua’s unconscious body to the deck of the Rol-plo, Melara and Ian went to work. He had a purple goose egg forming on his forehead. He was out, cold.

  Using every bit of his telepathic ability, Ian couldn’t breach the blackness encasing Joshua’s mind. To all intents and purposes Joshua’s mind had simply shut down. The rest of the distance to the bunker was made in grim silence.

  The lowest docking bay became a sudden hive of activity upon their arrival. Reactivated service ‘bots and mechanical drones met the Rol-plo at the bay doors. Robotic arms manned the hydraulic lifts and pulleys that brought the convoy inside the bunker.

  Jumping down from the deck of the vehicle Ian used his palm pilot to send for a gurney to unload Joshua’s inert body. Two serious faced ‘bots, dressed in scrubs arrived a short time later. Ian and Melara hurried along the corridor behind them as they wheeled him to the same medi-doc where Melara had wakened only a few days before.

  William and Pax stayed behind to help the screeching ‘bots secure the Rol-plo.

  Sasha stood in the open bay doors communicating with the female feline. They milled around her legs, enjoying the gentle strokes from her hands. Trills of sentient enjoyment ran through the strange animals. Their chuffing sounds echoed a chorus of pure pleasure.

  “First, Pax! Now the felines! I wonder if there is something about this planet that encourages psy-talent?” she mused, communing gently with the telepathic felines.

  “I’ve noticed my own senses are boosted here on Nyla 6,” William added walking up beside her. “Especially telekinetically.”

  “Umm!” she agreed with a nod. “Mine as well!”

  “Was the first scouting party ever aware of the reason the Terran government chose this planet for development?” William asked Pax when he too joined them.

  “Not that I know of,” he returned, keeping a wary eye on the overgrown tabbies. “Crossing the Lyiada Galaxy was a faster route to the next star system. The discovery of Myconeum in that sector of the universe increased the interest of the Geos for a while. But the cost of extraction made the claim too expensive to mine and plans for developing it gradually fizzled out.”

  “There could be more information written down in the library archives somewhere. I did not know that psy-talent was rare among humans. My parents died when I was but a child. Except for Stanley I’ve not had anyone to communicate with since.”

  “How did they expire?” Sasha asked feeling the tendrils of pain created by the memory of his parents.

  She found the love and regret curious, since she had no actual memories of a mother or father herself. She had been created in a test tube, not birthed by a maternal figure.

  “There was an explosion in one of the chem labs…toxic gas filled the room before they could escape.”

  “And how old did you say you were?” Sasha queried.

  “In Terran years…I was about ten!”

  “You are lucky you had Stanley! Otherwise you would have been here all alone.”

  “I know…but I find that conversing with a robot does not compare with that of another humanoid!”

  “I am glad we found you, Pax Vitar!” Sasha told him her gray eyes smiling.

  “What are we going to do about them?” William asked with a nod at the milling felines.

  “Let’s leave them be. There’s plenty of room in the bunker. If they want to stay we will not turn them away,” Pax said.

  Sasha spared a glance at the busy service drones anchoring the Rol-plo into the docking bay. The gold skinned robots with their permanently benign expressions seemed to have everything under control.

  Deciding there was nothing more she could do here, she turned to leave the docking bay. She called over her shoulder, “I think I will go and see about Joshua. I sense the blackness is fading. He should be waking up soon.”

  Grabbing spanners from a nearby work bench Pax and William hurried to help the mechanic ‘bots unload, sort, disassemble and log the smaller pieces of the broken space ship into the docking bay computer system.

  Soon there was organized, grease covered, piles of shuttlecraft parts lying all over the concrete floor of the docking bay.

  Sasha returned to the docking bay some time later with the welome news that Joshua was going to be okay. He had awakened with a slight concussion and a dislocated shoulder. After re-setting the shoulder the medi-doc had decided to confine him to sickbay for twenty-four hours just in case his condition worsened. Ian had volunteered to babysit the sulking Joshua who couldn’t wait to get down to the docking bay and work on the shuttlecraft.

  Looking around at the littered concrete floor Pax didn’t think there was any reason to hurry. The mechanic drones and service ‘bots had disassembled what was left of the crashed vehicle, piecemeal.

  Even with the robots working round-the-clock it could take weeks, even months, to put the metal jigsaw puzzle back together again. And that was supposing that they were in possession of every part and they were still usable after the crash.

  It was very late when Pax stretched tiredly and looked at the
timepiece on his wrist. Looking around he spied William, with one coverall clad leg dangling off the side. The youngster had cleared a spot on one of the workbenches several hours earlier to take a nap. Out like a light, after the long trek through the valley floor, he was snoring loudly. Pax decided not to wake him and after double checking the security system left the big docking area.

  A brief glance into the sickbay assured him Joshua was sleeping comfortably. The medi-bots had brought in a portable cot for Ian but he was intently studying something on his palm pilot. He looked up and nodded briefly as Pax stuck his head in the door.

  The blips and flashes of the computer monitors reassured him that Joshua was being well taken care of. With a silent ‘goodnight’ to Ian he backed out of the medi-doc and made his way upstairs.

  Stanley met him at his apartment door with a finger placed over his lips in an uncharacteristically humanoid signal to be quiet. Inclining his gold head he indicated the sleeping females stretched out on the twin couches in the sitting area. Both Melara and Sasha had decided to camp out in his living quarters instead of using their own next door.

  Stanley had covered them with both in another uncharacteristic gesture of human kindness.

  Pax wondered if ‘bots had the capacity to evolve emotionally. They were created to serve their humans and sometimes mimic the human actions. They were not programmed with virtues such as kindness or compassion.

  At least he didn’t think they had that capacity. He would talk to Ian about it. The kid was a genius when it came to robots. They were his passion! The workers on the MBryO project had manipulated his psy-talent in that area.

  Maybe he had made some adjustments to the ‘bots’ mainframes or something without telling anyone.

  Deciding not to think about it anymore that night, Pax found his sleeping bay and still clad in greasy boots and coveralls stretched out on top of the coverlet.

  It was the ever vigilant Stanley that removed the heavy boots from his master’s feet. Throwing a blanket over him, he adjusted the dimmer switch for the recessed lighting then turned and glided from the room.

  With one more assessing look at the sleeping females he assumed his position beside the kitchen doorway and accessed his own sleep mode. With the hum of shut down mode his golden head slumped down onto his chest in what passed as sleep for a robot.

  Four million light years and three galaxies away an elderly maintenance man working the nightshift in the Terran DOD building, opened a closet door.

  A passerby had reported strange whirs and beeps coming from within. Inside the room he found an abandoned computer lab. The equipment was probably sixty years old and obsolete, but something or someone had reactivated them.

  The monitor indicated the activity was issuing from a planet in a small out of the way interplanetary system known as the Lyiada Galaxy. A beeping red light indicated a transmission coming from a remote computer dwarf planet of Nyla 6.

  His gnarled fingers picked up an old data sheet lying on dust shrouded desk. It was a bill of lading labeled with the words Project: Nyla 6. With a thoughtful look around at the dimly lit lab he dropped the invoice back down on the desk. Backing out of the room he secured the door once again.

  Little did the old man know that what he had discovered inside that room would threaten mankind’s existence?

  Chapter Four

  Elias Abrams stepped out of the elevator on the top floor of the corporate offices of MBryO UNIX.

  This was his sixth year as head of security for the company which was an unofficial subsidiary of the Terran DOD. Secretly government funded, MBryO developed genetically enhanced chemical weapons. The DOD was quite pleased with the MBryO project’s success to say the least, and it looked like they were about to quadruple their investment in the company’s research and development department.

  Four stories tall the building was an architectural masterpiece constructed of glass solar panels and eco-friendly ‘green’ materials. The company was currently in the middle of a massive expansion project that would more than triple the building’s size.

  On the outside, to all intents and purposes, the company looked legit. It employed hundreds of white collar and blue collar workers. MBryO offered many opportunities for advancement up the corporate ladder. There were even stock options for those interested in investing in the future. Everything seemed to be on the up and up.

  It was the laboratories hidden three levels below ground that turned Elias’ stomach.

  Elias paused outside the corporate suite of offices belonging to Maxim Bryant and looked down at the report in his hands. The DOD had sent the plain brown package over by messenger that very morning. Elias had signed for the package himself. The report gave the coordinates of an abandoned bunker in the Lyiada galaxy.

  Decades earlier the DOD had socked a small fortune in the development of the star base before abandoning it. They had just left the poor devils there without telling them. Everyone assumed the poor fools had died out long ago, but recently the mainframe that controlled the computers had somehow briefly reactivated.

  The report of that reactivation had been intercepted by an MBryO mole in the head office. None of the higher ups in the DOD had ever seen it.

  The mole had made the connection between the Lyiada galaxy and a classified search for a disabled shuttlecraft in that general vicinity. MBryO himself was overseeing the hunt for the space craft and its occupants. Only two people knew how important those occupants were to Maxim Bryant. The man himself…and MBryO’s head of security Elias Abrams.

  Elias shuddered with self-revulsion. First he’d turned his head and looked the other way when he discovered the experiments in the basement, and now this. How much lower was he willing to sink?

  Elias pushed down the guilt rising up to choke him.

  He had doctored the coordinates in the report would throw the MBryO drone squads off the scent long enough for him to check out the situation for himself. He had also pulled the dossier concerning the star base on Nyla 6.

  What MBryO didn’t know couldn’t hurt anyone else!

  Stoically he made himself step into the office suite.

  “Good morning, Mr. Abrams! Mr. Bryant has been expecting you.” An expensively dressed secretary escorted him into the plush interior of Maxim Bryant’s inner sanctum.

  Elias paused just inside the door and waited for the effeminate looking man to acknowledge him.

  Maxim’s long white-blonde hair was gathered back into a queue at the nape of his neck today. He was ostensibly studying the documents in front of him, but Elias felt the subtle probe of his psy-talent teasing the edges of his mind. Effortlessly Elias increased the mental firewall around his own thought processes.

  It was a ritual the two strong-willed men played out every time Elias was face to face with Maxim. Elias was the only known humanoid mind impervious to Maxim’s psy-talent.

  It was the reason MBryO had hired him in the first place.

  Philosophically Maxim decided that if he, the greatest mind reader in the known world couldn’t read him, then no other humanoid could either. So his secrets were safe with Elias.

  Besides it was always prudent to keep your enemies close. It made it easier to kill them when the time came, he reasoned. He still searched for a weakness in the wall of Elias’ closed mind though.

  When the small ritual was over, MBryO lifted his head and looked directly at Elias for the first time. His eerie gray gaze was deceptively bland. Maxim Bryant had a genius IQ and a determination of steel.

  Elias never made the mistake of underestimating the man. Or any other man for that matter. It was specially hardwired into his own DNA.

  Maxim rose gracefully from the imposing desk and graciously extended his soft, feminine hands to clasp Elias’ calloused one. As always, his angelic appearance was theatrical; contrived to throw his visitors off guard. The material of his floor length white robe was decorated with a diamond studded fleur de lei pattern and edged with silver piping. Eli
as wondered for the zillionth time what the man had against breeches.

  Maxim graciously indicated the leather sectional grouped around a magnificent glass paneled wall overlooking his private courtyard below. A platoon of gardeners took care of the multitude of exotic flowers planted there. The floral scents wafted through the open windows, making Elias a bit sick to his stomach.

  “Good morning, Elias. I am told you have some information for me?” Maxim’s theatrically low and melodious voice had lulled more than one opponent into a false sense of security. It had no effect upon Elias, much to Maxim’s amusement.

  “This arrived by messenger mid-morning,” sitting down Elias handed him the manila folder and repeated only what Maxim already knew. He was wise enough to play his cards close to his chest when dealing with MBryO’s strong psy-talent.

  Elias remembered another report that had hit his desk just recently.

  Maxim had become suspicious of Elias’ strong psy-talent. He had sent out feelers to his contacts within the DOD and Robotic Morality Bureau, or RMB. The RMB had been established after the eradication of the Xenaclons during the ‘Clone Wars’.

  The minute he had opened the report, Elias knew his time at MBryO had run out. In the hands of Maxim Bryant, the information in that report would be extremely dangerous.

  Maxim poured over the contents of the file voraciously. “This information is useless,” referring to the report in his hands.

  “Our search crews have combed these coordinates already. They have found no evidence of the shuttlecraft or its passengers.”

  “Fools! All of them! How can one small spaceship have completely disappeared?”

  “Peterson assures me the craft was disabled during the pursuit. Perhaps it disintegrated during freefall into an unknown atmosphere,” Elias proposed.

  “Peterson is a good man, but there should have been evidence of a debris field. He has found nothing,” MBryO sneered.

  “Perhaps,” Elias drawled insinuatingly, “It is time for me to join the search in person. There is only so much we can do from Terran.”