The Complete Clockwork Chimera Saga

by Scott Baron

  “Okay, but what are you thinking, Daisy?”

  “Yeah, what gives?”

  “I’m going to do something small. Something that shouldn’t affect anything, but will change the future just the same.”

  “I’m waiting to hear this master plan.”

  “I’m just going to give someone her final peace a bit early, is all.”

  Freya landed beside the crater, and Daisy carefully slid down to the bottom, retrieving the dead woman she had stumbled upon all those years in the future. She pulled her up to the rim, then gently positioned her in clear sight of the base before climbing back aboard the ship.

  “Now Fatima won’t miss her when she collects the bodies, and that means I’ll never stumble upon her in the future. If that happens, either I’ll forget about that right now, or when we get back to the future––”

  “If.”

  “Shut up. When.”

  “Yeah, when!” Freya agreed, extrapolating the comment innately despite not hearing it aloud.

  “Fine. When we get back, there will be no record of Commander Mrazich’s funeral service. It gives her some peace, doesn’t change anything of importance, and lets us objectively see how things may be able to be changed.”

  “But what do we do now?” Freya asked.

  “Now we move clear of the moon and figure out our next move.”

  “Okay, I can do that,” she said, powering up her engines and bursting clear of Dark Side Base.

  Far below her, stirred by the vibrations from the ship’s engines, the lip of the crater crumbled and gave way, sliding down and taking the woman’s corpse with it, burying her under a fine layer of moon dust. There she would lay, unseen and undisturbed, waiting to be found far in the future.

  Chapter Four

  “Tell me again how exactly a brilliant supercomputer managed to lose just one second of data––which just happens to be arguably the most crucial second of data she had ever recorded.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Cut her some slack, Daze. The kid didn’t mean to.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t mean to!” Freya echoed her dead sister.

  “Ugh. I’m starting to regret agreeing to this,” Daisy said, adjusting the beta-version of the neurological signature reader resting on her head. “Next thing you know, you two will start having little pow-wows behind my back.”

  “We can’t do that, Daisy. It’s still your mind.”

  “I know, Freya. I was just giving you shit.”

  “So we can all talk now without you acting as middleman. It’s a start. At least when this thing works, that is.”

  “I’m getting it dialed in every time we use it,” Freya said. “But it’s hard to keep a clean signal when your emotions flare up. It makes the wavelengths shift, so I can’t really read them.”

  They had been holding a silent orbit for two full days, observing the Ra’az on Earth, and checking in on Sid as the fish-out-of-water AI attempted to adjust to his new role as the base AI for Dark Side. In that time, Freya had dedicated one of her onboard fabrication mechs and her assistant swarm of nanites to the singular task of finishing the first iteration of the neuro link.

  Now, with a semi-functional communication system between Freya and Sarah, passing time was a bit more pleasant. It wasn’t exactly a girl-talk slumber party––unless discussions of astrophysics and military strategy counted––but Daisy found it nevertheless refreshing to be able to have a casual chat with her sister and her kid.

  “So none of us knows what exactly happened,” Daisy noted. “You tried to shut down but couldn’t. I tried to manually shut down the warp orb but couldn’t. And somewhere in there, something happened that altered the wave field to slingshot us through time instead of space.”

  “Well, to be fair, I’m pretty sure I’ve got the space part figured out. It’s just that time thing that’s kinda confusing.”

  “It’s not your fault, Freya. This is totally new tech, and you don’t have any road map to go on. All things considered, it could have been much worse.”

  “Thanks, Sarah, but I still feel kinda bad that I don’t know what happened. I mean, Daisy is sort of right, I guess. Somehow, during the precise moment of the time warp, everything, including my data stores, went totally dark for a split-second. It was a super-quick gap, but that’s when all the action happened.”

  Daisy found herself feeling a little guilty for being so hard on her kid.

  “Hey, I know you didn’t mean for it to happen, Freya, and I’m sorry if I was rough on you. For all we know, warping through time creates a blip in our time-stream.”

  “Like we blink out of existence for that fraction of a second? I guess that could be why we wouldn’t have recorded anything for that gap,” Freya mused.

  “It’s a possibility,” Daisy agreed. “The thing is that whatever the reason, without that data, we’re back where we were a few days ago, clueless and lost. I have hope that we might be able to recreate the chain of events that triggered the time warp, but even then, we still have no parameters to help us control how far we jump.”

  “So we start reviewing every tiny bit of data we have until we can at least make an educated guess. If we can figure out power and time correlations, maybe then we can at least begin to create a sort of road map for how to use the warp orb.”

  “Might as well. Worst-case scenario, nothing comes of it. Best case, we actually figure out how to use this thing. Freya, what do you think? Do you have enough data to put together a decent event log and extrapolate a series of potential sequences to trigger a time warp?”

  “Hang on a sec.”

  The powerful AI hesitated, which for a computer of her immense processing power, was really saying something.

  “Okay. Yeah. I just ran a few hundred thousand scenarios, and it sorta seems like it’ll work.”

  “Hang on. You just ran a few hundred thousand? That fast?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I am running without limiters, and since I have all that extra processing capacity from the other projects I’ve been working on, my heuristic calculating speeds have increased a few hundred-fold. The only problem is, this is such a complex issue that even running ten thousand variants a second, it could still take days, or even weeks, before I have even the beginnings of an analysis.”

  “That long, even at that speed?”

  “Yeah, and that’s using heuristics.”

  “So it’ll be fast, but unreliable.”

  “Not exactly. I mean, it’ll be imperfect, sure, but I’ll still run it in conjunction with several optimization algorithms to improve efficiency and generate good seed values. We’re talking all of space, and all of time, here. It’s like counting all the grains of sand on a beach, but the beach is the size of the universe.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I know. Totally crazy, right?” Freya marveled.

  “Point well made, Freya. Get on it. There’s no telling when we might get lucky and find the key data point to make everything work. But in the meantime, I’m assuming you made copies of the Váli’s logs back when you were digging around Sid’s backup files on Dark Side.”

  “Some of them. Mal didn’t upload all of her data from the flight to Sid’s storage units. Until you guys woke up, it was a pretty boring trip, I guess. She only uploaded the most recent ones from just before you guys were pulled from cryo.”

  “Shit.”

  “What is it, Daisy?”

  “I just had an idea, but I don’t know, now. Freya, did you happen to get the origin point for the mission?”

  “Yeah. That was in there. I got everything from the first few months when they launched. I guess that was considered important enough information for Mal to back up to Dark Side’s storage.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Daisy said, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “What are you thinking, Daze?”

  “I’m thinking we can still make a difference, even stuck back in this timeline. Doing something that might eff
ect things, but in our future selves’ future.”

  “Wait, what?”

  A smile bloomed on Daisy’s face as her plan crystallized.

  “We’re going to save the ones that follow us, Sarah. We’re going to warn them.”

  “But the paradox.”

  “We haven’t met them yet, so no paradox, at least not that I can think of.”

  “Daisy, that will take us over a hundred years, even with my optimized drive systems,” Freya said.

  “Not if we warp there.”

  “You know what just happened. We can’t risk it.”

  “Sarah’s right,” Freya agreed. “It’s going to take I don’t know how long to figure out this time warp thing.”

  “Warping through time, yes,” Daisy said. “But what about just space? It’s what we were originally going to do before we had our mishap. So, what if we do a space but not time warp?”

  “If she can do what you’re suggesting, that might actually work. What do you think, Freya? Can you make the calculations and warp us to the origin point?”

  Freya sat silent a long moment.

  “But what if it doesn’t work?” the young ship asked, unsure of herself.

  “Unless you want to be sitting around all alone while I chill in cryo for the next hundred years while we wait for timelines to sync up, this is our best option.”

  “Well...I guess,” she finally replied. “But you can’t get mad if I don’t get it right, okay?”

  “Oh, honey, we won’t get mad. You just do the best you can do. It’s all we can ask,” Daisy soothed the unsure AI. “But you know I have total faith in you. We’ve got time, so you figure it out at your own pace. Lord knows there’s no rush.”

  Freya’s own pace was faster than Daisy anticipated. After only two days of testing, re-testing, and re-re-testing, the young AI finally felt comfortable enough to power up the orb for a small warp test. She was even wrapping her sizable mind around the time warp aspect as well, but that would have to wait for another day.

  Of course, when one is traveling through time, waiting for another day might not take as long as one would expect.

  “Okay, kiddo, it’s all you. Just take a deep breath and relax. You’ve plotted the jump against the star charts from both our people, as well as what we captured from the Ra’az, so our path should be clear.”

  “Yeah, no flying into suns or anything like that, please,” Sarah joked.

  She can’t hear you, Sis. I don’t have the neuro-band on.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’ve been getting kinda used to being able to talk to her.”

  It gives me a headache after a while.

  “I know. We’ll have to see about finding an option that doesn’t rattle your noggin so much.”

  That would be a welcome treat, Daisy said. Still, I agree, it has been really cool, you two being able to hang out and talk. I’m glad she gets to spend time with my sis.

  “Auntie Sarah. I like it!”

  The ship began to hum almost imperceptibly as the warp orb initiation sequence began.

  “I should be able to power it up almost instantly,” Freya said, “but I want to take it really slow the first couple of times. Is that okay?”

  “After our initial warp surprise, I think that’s a great idea, Freya. Just do what feels comfortable for you.”

  “Okay.”

  The hum slightly increased in pitch. Though Daisy couldn’t see it, a faint blue glow covered the hull of the normally near-invisible stealth craft. The warp bubble was intact, and they were ready to go.

  “Here goes nothing,” Freya said, then blinked from existence.

  Instantaneously, over a light year away, the stealth ship flashed into being with not so much as a wobble. The only thing out of the ordinary was the faint blue crackling along her hull for a split-second as she exited the warp field.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Just one sec,” Freya said as she checked their location against her charts. “Looks like we arrived where we were aiming for, more or less. That was easier than I thought!”

  “Don’t go getting cocky, now.”

  “She did good, though.”

  Yeah, she really did.

  “So cool! Can we do it again?”

  “Sure thing. Just make your calculations, and––”

  Freya warped.

  It was a shorter jump the second time, as the impatient young AI did a quick review of her star charts and found a clear path she could jump without any difficulty.

  “Freya, did you just do it again?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, timidly. “Sorry, I got kinda excited.”

  “We didn’t blow up, so cut the kid some slack.”

  Within reason. She can’t just go popping off across space like that. Calculations need to be made.

  “Freya.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look, I’m really proud of you, and you’re doing really, really great, but we still have to be careful when warping like that. I mean, what if we hit a planet, or something?”

  “Oh, but I did a quick path survey, and it was fine.”

  “That fast?”

  “Well...”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, I sort of did a heuristic flight plot.”

  “Freya! You know that’s not a sure thing.”

  “I know. Sorry. I was just really excited and wanted to do it again. You know how fast my brain works. Sometimes it’s hard to go slow.”

  “I understand, but taking a little extra time while you’re learning how this thing works makes sense, and it’s also the safe thing to do.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Now, how about you work on plotting the jump to the Váli’s origin point? It’s going to be a long time before they launch the mission, so take your time.”

  “I’m already working on it, but I was thinking, I know we can’t change things like Fatima or Captain Harkaway’s fleets from flying back to Earth and being destroyed, but what if we could get there closer to our present? If we got there right before they launched the Váli, I could show them how to cure the AI virus, and they could embed the protocol in her base code before they depart without her even knowing it.”

  “Is she actually suggesting––?”

  It would be huge if we could make Mal and any future ships immune to that variety of Ra’az attack, but the risks of attempting the jump...

  “She’s clever. Like, really clever. Let her work on it, at least. It’s good seeing her so engaged in a problem.”

  Okay, but we both need to keep an eye on her. The kid’s growing up and getting a bit overconfident for her age. She needs experience, not just knowledge.

  “On it, Sis. But you’ll need to wear the neuro-band more often.”

  I will. But I’m also going to see if we can figure out a way to make it less uncomfortable. These headaches are not fun.

  Daisy turned her attention back to her mechanical offspring.

  “It’s a really interesting idea, Freya. It would be amazing to protect them from risking infection. But we don’t know how the time aspect of the warp works yet. Especially not when jumping through space as well.”

  “I know, but you said we have time, so I figured, why not take the time to give it a try?”

  Daisy thought long and hard. If Freya could dial in the time aspect of her powerful warp device, it could prove a powerful tool in their arsenal. If she could prepare the other survivors and protect the AIs from Ra’az attacks as well? Even better, she decided, and definitely worth the risk.

  “Tell you what, do your research and run your simulations. Let’s give it a week for you to see just how comfortable with this you really are. Then we can circle back and review all the data and talk about maybe trying your idea. Even if we don’t jump in time, we’ll still get there well before the Váli ever launches.”

  “Awesome!” Freya said, gleefully.

  Daisy smiled at her kid’s unbridled enthusiasm.
<
br />   “In the meantime, how about we also try to fine-tune this neuro-band? Maybe shrink it down a bit, while we’re at it?”

  “I’ve already been working on it,” Freya replied.

  “Of course you have,” Daisy said with a laugh.

  Chapter Five

  “Holy shit, it worked!” Freya chirped as she popped into space precisely where she intended, having crossed the vast expanse of space in the blink of an eye.

  “Hey, language!”

  “But you swear all the time, Daisy.”

  “She’s right. You do.”

  “Yeah, but she’s a kid. Kids have to learn how to speak properly and not swear all the fucking time,” Daisy said with a chuckle. “Okay, just keep it in check when we meet the other AIs, okay? Having us pop in like this out of nowhere is going to freak them out enough as it is.”

  “And I really can’t tell them where I’m from?”

  “Sorry, but if for some reason they went looking for your hangar before you were born, well, you know what could happen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So mum’s the word on that bit, and try to keep the swearing to a minimum, okay?”

  “You betcha.”

  “Cool. Now, we’re right on top of them, but with your stealth shielding, they’re going to be in for a pretty big surprise when we hail them. Be ready just in case they power up weapons and try to target us.”

  “Would they really do that?”

  “If a random ship suddenly appeared at your front door, wouldn’t you?”

  “Point taken.”

  “And remember, you two, they won’t know about Sarah, so keep any discussions on the down-low.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be careful,” Freya agreed.

  “Okay, good.”

  “And the neuro-band is okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks for that. This new design is so much better.”

  “And you can hide it with that hairband.”

  “Exactly. The range is shorter now, but I don’t foresee getting too far from Freya, so you guys should be good.”

  The cluster of larger ships that made up the bulk of the colony was surrounded by smaller vessels of widely varying shapes and sizes, many the result of the interchangeable pod system utilized by so many of the craft.