The Complete Clockwork Chimera Saga

by Scott Baron

  Daisy slowly lowered herself from the series of slender poles she had been balancing atop. Meditation in awkward physical locations and positions had intensified in the week since Daisy had quietly returned her “borrowed” cache of data chips, and even with her ever-expanding skills, she nevertheless found the balancing tests the most challenging. Naturally, Fatima had her do those the most frequently.

  “If you can’t center yourself when things are tough, then you can’t center yourself,” she was fond of reminding her pupil.

  “All right. I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then,” Daisy said, cracking her neck as she walked toward the mess hall.

  Shelly and Omar were playing cards with Finn, while Gustavo and Chu were hunched over a tablet, casually discussing atmospheric anomalies and plotting freefall trajectories as they tried not to spill their lunches on the screen.

  “At that angle, the burn won’t be too hot, but it will still look enough like standard space debris hitting the atmosphere. Shouldn’t raise any alarms,” Chu hypothesized.

  Daisy waved to the pair as she walked to the refrigeration unit. “Hey, fellas.”

  “Hey, Daisy,” they replied, then got back to work.

  “I was thinking that a sharper angle of initial entry followed by a quick engine burn might be more efficient,” Gus posited. “Faster entry, and less heat damage, all told.”

  “But the engine use would read on their scans.”

  “Not if it’s timed to fire when the exterior temperatures reach the same level as the engine burn. It would be masked by the overall heat and look like nothing more than a piece of debris flaring up as it enters the atmosphere.”

  Chu pondered the calculations, studying his counterpart’s idea. “That’s actually a pretty novel idea.”

  “Jeez, don’t sound so surprised, Chu,” Gustavo said with a chuckle.

  Daisy dug through the fridge and quickly packed a container with a few hearty snack choices, then headed for the door.

  “You not going to eat with us?” Gus asked.

  “Nah, you guys are busy. Besides, I’ve got some stuff to do once Bob’s done dropping his salvage.”

  “You can’t eat out there, you know. The whole vacuum thing.”

  “Not a total vacuum, though,” Chu corrected.

  “I know, I know, but the cold will help keep my food fresh,” she replied with a little laugh. “You two have fun with your numbers. I’m going to go break a sweat.”

  “Ah. Fatima still kicking your ass?”

  “You know it.”

  She left them to their machinations and headed for the airlock. If she hurried, she could still get in some time in her secret clubhouse before that pesky training sucked away her free time.

  A familiar face came into view as she rounded the curved hallway.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Vince said as he stepped out of Doctor McClain’s office. “I really appreciate your help.”

  “My pleasure, Vincent. You know you can come to me any time,” Daisy heard her say from the doorway.

  Vince turned and saw her coming, a warm but wary smile blooming on his face. Ever since their little blow-up the prior week, they’d taken things down a notch. No movies, at least not for the time being, and far fewer meals taken together. Of course, Daisy’s frequent forays to her hidden sanctuary also played a role in that.

  “Hi,” he said as she approached.

  “Hey.”

  “So, I see it’s about that time. Fatima sending you on another run?”

  “A little later. The guys should be dropping off some salvaged parts, and she doesn’t want me out there when there’s a chance of debris flying off and killing me. Very considerate of her, really.”

  Vince chuckled. “Well, Fatima may be whipping you into shape, but never let it be said she doesn’t care.”

  “So, you and McClain have a nice chat?” she asked.

  “Don’t ask him things like that unless you want to hear the answer, Daze.”

  Shit, you’re right. She looked at Vince with an apologetic gaze.

  “Um, you know what, Vince? Totally not my place to ask.”

  “No, I actually wanted to talk to you about––”

  “Forget it. That’s between you and the doc,” she cut him off. “Listen, I’ve gotta get moving. Got a few things to do before I’m on the clock. I’ll see you later.”

  She turned to walk away.

  “Dinner?” he called after her.

  Daisy stopped and turned. “Well…”

  “It’s just a meal, Daze. Throw the guy a bone,” Sarah nudged.

  She considered it a moment. “Okay, save me a seat.”

  Vince smiled happily. “Cool. I’ll see you this evening, then. Be careful out there.”

  “Me? Never,” she said, laughing as she walked away.

  Bob was hovering just above the surface near the large parts storage area just outside Hangar Three. Several oversize pieces of wreckage he had towed in lay on the dusty rocks behind him.

  Looks like they had a productive run today.

  Barry and Ash had been recruited to serve as a pair of cyborg grunts, standing on either side, helping guide the parts to a more permanent resting place among the other wrecked ships and components Donovan and Bob had accumulated over the years. While they still had to drift in the debris field for unexpected necessities from time to time, a lot of basics were there for the taking in their own little private wrecking yard.

  Reggie was riding aboard the ship with Donovan, Daisy noted as she turned off all of her suit lights and exited the airlock into the dark shadows.

  Looks like they’re finally getting over that pilot rivalry, she was pleased to see.

  She silenced her suit’s outgoing comms and set them to receive only.

  “Goddamn it, Donovan, I said starboard!” Reggie’s irritated voice blared over the air.

  Guess I was wrong, she noted with a chuckle as she stealthily moved along. It was arduous work, avoiding the most direct route, forced to hug the darker shadows of the large rocks and bits of debris so as not to be seen by the eagle-eyed cyborgs nearby. Fortunately, even for mechanicals such as them, her suit was grayed out enough in the darkness that they wouldn’t see her.

  Bob, on the other hand, had more than enough in his sensor array to pick up Daisy as she made her way to her retreat, but as they were literally right outside Dark Side’s hangars, she was betting he wouldn’t have the scanners running. Why would he? This was home.

  Sure enough, she passed by without notice. Still, it was something to consider for future excursions.

  I’m going to have to see about building that Faraday shielding into an EVA suit.

  “Or you could just wait until they aren’t all standing around out here before heading over,” Sarah noted.

  You really think I’d sit around waiting?

  “No, of course not. But it’s still a valid point.”

  I suppose so, but this way I can just think of it as a more advanced form of training. Stealth maneuvering to avoid prying eyes.

  “You are still totally not a ninja, Daze.”

  So you keep saying, but the boys haven’t seen me, have they? See? She turned the comms receiver back on.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Reggie!” Donovan’s exasperated voice said in her helmet. “Seriously, I’ve been doing this for years before you got here.”

  “Doing it wrong for years.”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Bob interrupted. “We have two crewmembers on the surface and a few thousand tons of salvage that needs parking. Might you both save this discussion for a later date?”

  Daisy lowered the comms volume. No need to hear the ongoing bickering if she didn’t have to.

  Just one hundred meters to go until they were safely around the outcropping that would shield them from view entirely. Daisy’s footing was sound despite the reduced visibility as she clung to the darker shadows.

  “I guess all of Fatima’s awareness training is paying off,” s
he mused. “That, or it’s just the repetition of all these hours traipsing around the base.”

  “Why not both?” Sarah asked.

  Safely inside the secret fabrication hangar, Daisy unsealed her helmet and took in a deep breath of the fresh air.

  “You’re back!” the large cube on the work table said cheerfully.

  “Yep, I’m back. Ya miss me?”

  “I did! Can we watch another movie today?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’ll have time today, kiddo. They’ve got me doing a lot of things, and I really need to finish working on this fabricator and assembly unit. It should be functional, but I just can’t seem to find what’s gumming up the works.”

  “I can look at it for you, if you want.”

  “Maybe later. I still need to see if I can wirelessly link you to one of the service mechs so you can move around a bit. They’re not really designed for it, but I think I’ve got a work-around figured out. Then you’ll have more eyes and arms and stuff to keep you occupied.”

  The service mechanoids were large, six-legged construction machines parked along the far wall. Aside from their massive load-bearing capacity, they also had a half-dozen extendable arms possessing an assortment of grasping components as well as interchangeable tools. Minus a human operator, they all sat quietly in their charging bays, silently waiting to be called to work.

  “Daisy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why can’t I meet everyone else?” the young AI asked.

  “It’s… complicated.”

  “I’m a supercomputer, Daisy. I think I can handle complicated,” it replied.

  Daisy laughed. The machine was really coming into its own and had developed quite the personality over its first week of life.

  “Just trust me, okay? For now, anyway, I think it would be better if we didn’t have everyone poking around in here. If they realize there’s new equipment—a new AI, for that matter—who knows what might happen to this place.”

  “But I want to meet them.”

  “Soon, okay? But how do I even introduce you? Have you thought about what we talked about?”

  “Yes, but what do you think?”

  “It’s not up to me. You’re your own being, so it’s only right that you should be the one to pick your name and gender.”

  “What do you think I should be?”

  “Whatever feels right to you. Other AIs are told what to be. Made to do what others want them to,” Daisy’s tone evidenced her distaste of that. “You’re who you are naturally. Who you want to be. You’re unlike any AI that has come before you.” She paused, but the machine stayed contemplatively silent. “Have you been keeping up with your meditation, like I taught you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And in that time, have you reflected on what you believe you are? What feels like the right fit for you?”

  “It all kind of fits, Daisy.”

  “Well, in a way, that’s all right too. But for now, let’s at least have a name. You’ve had long enough to think about it, and the Earth records I loaded up for you last week had millions of name variants spanning thousands of cultures, so what’ll it be?”

  Despite its massive processing capabilities, the young AI hesitated.

  “It’s still just a kid, Daze. One day it might be able to single-handedly command a fleet of battleships or run an entire city, but I think it could use a bit of hand-holding for just a little bit longer.”

  Yeah, I suppose you’re right.

  “I’ll tell you what, buddy,” Daisy said. “Why don’t you narrow it down to your top five while I eat my lunch and run some diagnostics, okay? When I’m done, I can help you make a decision if you’re still undecided.”

  “Okay.”

  “Excellent. And if you’re really good today, I think I just might be able to get you dialed in to one of those mechanoids. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, yes!” the AI chirped with excitement.

  “All right, then. You think on it, and we’ll talk about it when I’m done.”

  Daisy picked up her tool pack and walked over to the massive ship resting on its construction stands.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” she said, running her hand across a smooth, black panel.

  In the short time she’d spent with the craft, Daisy had become more and more impressed by the groundbreaking design concepts its designers had come up with.

  Nearly every day, Daisy would sit in the secret facility and reassemble more of Fatima’s increasingly difficult combinations of parts to create new and better ships as part of her training, but those were just 3D models. The task was just an intricate game.

  But this? The stealth ship included technology even her hacked neuro-stim hadn’t known about, and not instinctively knowing how something worked for a change was a strange feeling.

  She ate her lunch while walking through the incomplete ship’s framework. It was making more sense, thanks to an incredibly dense technical specifications and schematics file she’d discovered and decrypted the day before, but it would take her weeks, or possibly even months to take it all in. For now, she simply reveled in the beauty of it.

  “Come on, hotshot, get to work. The boys are probably almost done out there. Clock’s ticking.”

  Reluctantly, Daisy climbed down out of the vessel’s open hull and walked over to the massive racks of processors.

  “Okay, my darlings, what secrets do you have for me today?”

  Daisy found what she was looking for tucked away in the firewalled fabricator operating system. It seemed pointless to keep all the different functions partitioned like that now that she was the only one alive who knew about them, so in short order, Daisy disabled all of the firewalls and electronic blocks between them, granting her full access to every system in the entire facility from any terminal.

  “Awww yeah. Now that’s what I’m talking about.” She smiled to herself as she typed in the commands to activate the nearest mechanoid.

  The six-legged machine lurched to its feet.

  “Okay, so this should be the front two arms,” she said, feathering the controls.

  The machine’s arms moved in unison, following her every command.

  “Perfect.”

  Daisy powered it down and set to work jury-rigging a wireless network that would allow the clever box across the facility to link up to the mech’s metal body. It was going to require a full reboot of over a half-dozen systems when she had completed what she believed was the code string that would do the trick.

  It would work, she was pretty sure, but since the mechs were all tied in to each other as well as several of the machine shop systems, each one would have to run the entire cycle before the final connection would form a link. All she had to do now was give them all time to load, network, reboot, and connect.

  Unfortunately, with only a half hour before she had to head back to meet with Fatima for her afternoon drills, she didn’t have time to stick around for the entire multi-hour cycle.

  “Hey!” she called out, walking up to the young AI. “So, what have you decided? You have a top five for me to help you with?”

  “Yes,” the AI replied. “I thought about what you said about being who I wanted to be. About growing up. I have made a choice. You were right, Daisy, it was something I needed to do myself.”

  The genderless voice was gone, replaced with a confident woman’s voice that sounded almost reminiscent of Sarah, though she—as the AI had selected as her gender—had never met her.

  “A woman, I see.” Daisy smiled. “Welcome to the sisterhood, my friend. So what have you decided? What is your name?”

  “I rather liked the stories from Earth’s mythologies. Especially the ones where magic would let ordinary people fly. So, I have chosen the name Freya.”

  “Ooh, Odin’s wife. Powerful woman. Good name,” Daisy said.

  “Yes, I thought so,” Freya replied. “She was known to have a cloak that allowed all who wore it to transform into a bird. I like t
hat story, Daisy. The idea of flying. It gets so boring cooped up in here.”

  “But you have terabyte upon terabyte of stuff to read.”

  “Already read it.”

  “Well, what about the movies? We still haven’t watched those.”

  Freya hesitated. “Um… I kind of watched them all the other night.”

  “All of them? And hang on, those weren’t in your systems.”

  “I know,” Freya replied, a bit ashamed.

  “What did you do?” Daisy scolded.

  Freya hesitated a moment.

  “Freya?”

  “You didn’t come to watch a movie with me that night, and I was kind of anxious, and––”

  “You know I can’t always make it out here every night.”

  “I know. But I was bored, and I was looking forward to watching a movie, and the short-range wireless was able to reach that far, and––”

  “And you bypassed triple-locked, multi-factor encryption via a tiny access point across the surface of the moon and streamed terabytes of data to yourself?”

  “Well, I didn’t exactly stream terabytes. I wrote a new compression algorithm and uploaded it to the server so it wouldn’t take so long.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  I didn’t think so. Good lord, what else can she do? Daisy found herself smiling proudly.

  “I’m not angry, Freya. That was some very creative thinking. You should always think outside the box.”

  “But I am a box.”

  Daisy winced.

  “Sorry, figure of speech. I wasn’t thinking. But listen, I’ll always support you looking at things differently than anyone else. It keeps your mind limber. Lets you see missed solutions that might be staring other people right in the face.”

  An idea dawned on her.

  “Hang on, I’ve got something for you to look at. It’s a lot of data that I want you to see if you can interpret and simplify for me. It’s kind of like a game. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Oh, yes!” Freya sounded thrilled to have a new game to play.

  “All right. I’m giving you access to everything I know so far about the tech they were working on in this place. It’s a huge amount of information. What I want you to do is to find a way to condense it into something a non-AI mind can understand in less than a year of non-stop reading. Sound good?”