by Maksim Malik
“And, ah, welcome to your friend as well,” Bordon said. “It’s very exciting to have you both here.”
Tell him I said hello, Adan said.
“Its name is Adan, and it says hello,” she said, attempting to hide her unhappiness that the lab knew about Adan. At least they didn’t know about Park.
“Let us talk on the way to the lab itself,” Bordon said, gesturing for Nadani to follow him.
Nadani obliged and walked beside him as they moved at a casual pace.
“This room is massive,” Nadani said. “What do you need so much space for?”
“Oh! That is in case we are assigned study on large objects, parts of ships, and that sort of thing,” Bordon said. “In fact, we will have some wreckage from the conflict you were involved in before arriving here. Koyanagi managed to get an entire Squito ship before leaving and we will do our best to study it.”
“That’s good,” Nadani said. “Maybe you can extract more information from it.”
“Yes, exactly,” he replied.
They were quiet the rest of the walk. It didn’t take long to get to the opposite corner of the room, for Bordon set a brisk pace. Nadani spent the time wondering what the JUS AI would be like. From her understanding this AI was a limited AI, so it wasn’t classified as strong and sentient like Park and Adan. She hoped the AI could perform well enough to decipher the Squito data on its own; she couldn’t help but to think of possibilities of what might happen to her if it couldn’t. They could keep her locked up and force Adan to decipher any new data or do anything they wanted really for the sake of both Adan’s and Nadani’s safety.
“Here we are,” Bordon said as they arrived at the lab itself.
There were all sorts of machines organized along the walls, tables with holodisplays, and desks out in the open. Two other people approached them. A man with a robotic arm and hand—which was curious since he could have had a new arm grown and attached instead—and a black-haired, ebony-skinned woman.
“We believe in an open office sort of setup,” Bordon said, indicating the desks. “These are Drs. Hamaski, and Zhukovsky. Dave and Larina respectively.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Dave said and inclined his head a little to the side.
“You’ve really merged with an AI?” Larina asked excitedly, her face alight with energy. “That is amazing!”
“Um, yes,” Nadani said. She felt a little awkward talking about it to people she didn’t know since she had been keeping the secret for so long.
“What’s it like?” Larina asked.
“In general, you mean?” Nadani asked.
Larina nodded her head.
“It’s like having a best friend with you all the time. And with what Adan can show me and do, it’s like I have new senses I didn’t have before,” Nadani answered after a long pause.
“It doesn’t get annoying having brain-space shared constantly?” Dave asked.
“No, sometimes it was awkward at first with some thoughts being openly shared, but I got over that,” Nadani said. Dr. Tysgan looked like he wanted to join the conversation, but he stayed quiet.
Bordon cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention.
“We must start the task at hand,” Bordon said. “I’m sure there’s time for chatting during the process itself.”
Yes, it might take a little while to send the instructions as they are rather complex, Adan said. Perhaps five minutes.
“Adan estimates five minutes for the transfer of instructions,” Nadani reported.
“Ah, excellent, not so long then,” Bordon said. “How do we—I mean, there are no plugs—”
I’ll connect directly to their AI, Adan said.
“Adan will connect directly to the AI wirelessly,” Nadani said.
“I suppose I should introduce you then,” Bordon said and motioned for Nadani to follow him.
Nadani followed, with the other two behind her, to a large white box along the back wall. It was a cube about chest-height to Nadani. As Bordon approached it a holodisplay became visible on one side of the front.
“Nadani, Adan, this is Franklin,” Bordon said as he put his hand on top of the white box.
“Can he hear us?” Nadani asked.
“Of course I can hear you,” a voice came from the box. “They’ve already briefed me on why you are here. Much as I would rather not work with a free-roaming AI it seems I have no choice in the matter.”
Kind of a prickly AI, Nadani thought, more than a little annoyed.
Quite—and it is rather interesting it has some distaste for us for being what we are, Adan said.
“Pleased to meet you, Franklin,” Nadani said, forcing a cheerful voice.
“I’m sure,” Franklin said. “Now shall we get on with it? I don’t have the entire sol.”
“You do have the entire sol,” Bordon said. “But this will be over sooner than that.”
“Of course, Dr. Kloch,” Franklin said in a more subservient tone.
“Curious AI, yes,” Dr. Tysgan said. “Behavioral patterns hard to keep in check?”
“Ah, well, not exactly,” Bordon said.
I will begin sending the instructions now, Adan said. This Franklin is easy enough to connect to without any help.
“Foreign device connection detected,” Franklin said. “It’s uploading—oh, this must be the AI.”
“Let’s go have a seat somewhere else,” Bordon said and lead the way to one of the desks. He sat behind the desk and indicated for her to sit on one of the plush chairs in front of it.
“Franklin certainly is interesting,” she said as she sat down.
“I apologize for his behavior,” Bordon said. “I did not realize he had such feelings about independent AIs.”
They’re projecting a gender onto it. How odd, Adan said.
Dave went to go work on something at another desk, but Larina sat in the chair next to Nadani.
“Adan thinks it’s odd Franklin has a gender assigned to it,” Nadani said after the long pause attempting to make it less awkward.
“Yes,” Bordon said. “I know it’s odd. I wouldn’t have done it except the Council is the one who named him and wanted him to be male-associated. Of course, this only goes to show my opinion on how the Council views science and technology—uninformed and nescient.”
“I, too, wondered about this, yes,” Dr. Tysgan said. “This type of AI has no gender, so why give one?”
“That’s why I worry CAAI will actually manage to push something through the Council that makes people like me and Adan illegal,” Nadani said.
“Nasty bunch of people,” Larina said, nodding her head.
“They are, I know that for certain,” Nadani said thinking back to the assault and shivering.
“Don’t tell anyone else here you’re transcended—merged with an AI,” Bordon said. “CAAI has a big presence on Verga and word could spread fast.”
“Yeah, your secret is safe with us though,” Larina said, giving Nadani a bright smile.
“Thanks,” Nadani said, feeling awkward, not knowing what else to say.
“Hmm, good,” Dr. Tysgan said.
“I also have this data crystal recovered from the wreck of the alien ship,” Nadani said. She removed the crystal from a pouch on her waist and handed it to Dr. Kloch. “We don’t know what it contains or how to interface with it.”
“Oh, very interesting!” Dr. Kloch said, positively beaming as he took the crystal from Nadani. “We’ll get to work on this right away.”
And I’m finished, Adan said. Franklin can follow the instructions, but he’ll be slower than Park and me.
“Adan says its finished,” Nadani said and held back a sigh, relieved Franklin could perform the task on his own. “Franklin can follow the instructions without issue.”
“Most excellent,” Bordon said, standing from the desk. Nadani and Larina followed suit. “Now to test it on the core of the probe drone.”
Wait, what probe drone? Adan asked
.
“You have a drone already?” Nadani asked.
“We have had the data core from one for about six months, yes,” Bordon said. “We have been unable to decipher it on our own. If we had, then perhaps we could have prevented some of the attacks, but we didn’t know the alien race would be hostile.”
“You have known about them?” Dr. Tysgan asked, clearly surprised.
They’ve known about the Squitoes for six months, Nadani thought, suddenly frustrated. If they turned Franklin into a strong AI, then they would have deciphered it on their own.
Franklin doesn’t have the computational acuity as he is to think of truly creative solutions, Adan said.
Yeah, and we lost two stations because of it, Nadani said. Let’s hope we don’t lose more.
To the Ship
Trisha felt a little disappointed she didn’t get to go into the lab with Nadani. Of course, she didn’t have anything to do with deciphering the data herself.
After she walked away from Nadani she felt the temptation to go and see the city to rebel against what she was told to do, but she quashed the feeling and headed in the direction of the facility’s starport. This small starport served only the JUS facilities nearby. Altogether it would take her around ten minutes to reach Astromancer.
From around a corner she saw flashing lights and heard some loud noises. She kept her pace and direction.
What is going on over there? she wondered. That’s blaster fire!
Suddenly her heart beat wildly in her chest and her breath came quickly. Blaster fire inside the facility? She crept along the left side of the wall—the side from which the noise and lights had originated—and stopped at the edge. She felt nearly paralyzed.
Trisha took several deep breaths to ready herself before she peeked around the corner, only barely letting one eye go beyond the corner of the wall before ducking back. She saw nobody except for a soldier, on the ground, dead.
The hallway was clear. Next to the soldier’s body she saw a rifle. She could grab that and either travel back to Nadani, or head to Astromancer to figure out what was happening.
Traveling backward leaves my back to the enemy, she thought. I should press forward. Nadani has been in situations like this before. She also has Adan to help her. Adan’s reaction speeds are faster than mine. I can do this, Trisha said, trying to convince herself of her own confidence.
Trisha ran down the left corridor toward the body and scooped up the rifle before doubling back. She purposely ignored the body as much as she could and especially avoided looking at the face. Then she continued her path to Astromancer, keeping the rifle in a ready position in her arms, pointed ahead of her.
There came another intersection. She needed to go to the right, so she crept up along the right-side wall—looking down the left side corridor as much as possible as she moved—and peeked around the corner. A blast from a rifle shot toward her and she withdrew her head, shocked and scared. The blaster fire kept coming for a few more seconds even though she didn’t show herself. In that moment before the blaster fire, she saw what had attacked: one of the Squitoes. This one was tall, perhaps about 2.3 meters high, slender, and a swirling mix of light blue and white covered its chitinous armor. Its giant black eyes gave no hint as to where it looked.
Trisha stepped back a few times and then moved across the hallway to the left side. She kept her arms and the gun trained on the area near the corner, ready for action. When she reached the other side, she fought down panic, gritted her teeth, and took her first step forward. Nothing. The second and third step revealed nothing as well. As soon as she stepped the fourth time, the alien came into view. The blaster rifle went off in her hands, almost startling her with her rapid reaction time. Its first shot hit the Squito in its round, void-like eye, and the second shot hit the Squito’s neck where the chitin had a large gap to allow for head movement. A second later, she saw the alien fall to the floor, its body limp—hopefully dead.
Trisha took the last couple steps to see as far into the room as possible. It seemed quiet and empty. The Squito on the ground didn’t even twitch.
She backed up and did the same to the other side of the T-intersection and, relieved, saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was time to get going. She would not run either—that could make too much noise.
Trisha turned down the right side of the T-intersection and continued on the way to Astromancer. She moved cautiously and stopped to check every corner and intersection before moving on. She was relieved when she stepped out of the building—at least until she saw the ships in the sky.
There flew a Squito armada at least twice as large as the others she had seen. Small fighters were engaged with JUS fighters.
They have troops on the ground, she thought. There must be some reason why they’ve been sent here. Could they be after the data crystal we brought?
Now that she was in the open, she kept low and headed toward the starport. Unfortunately, there was not much cover outside, but it didn’t seem chaotic—which was odd. She wondered if there was another entrance to the facility the Squitoes used to enter. She saw movement to one side, almost panicked, but recognized the figure as human.
The Vergan Unified Army, she thought. And one of them is coming toward me.
Trisha put on a little extra speed; she was close to the starport entrance. The soldier caught up with her before she made it though.
“Civilian, come with me—we’re taking other civilians to safety,” the woman said. She stood taller than Trisha by a smidge, had golden brown skin, and dark brown hair pulled back into a tail. Her face showed a sincere amount of concern.
“I’m sorry, but I have to make it back to my ship,” Trisha said and tried to think of an excuse as to why it was necessary.
“Please come with me,” the soldier said, making a move to grab at Trisha’s arm.
“No, wait!” Trisha jerked back to avoid being touched. “The Council expects me to be on my ship, and after all this they’ll want to hear from me as soon as possible.”
“The Council?” the soldier hesitated. “Wait, are you the girl with the AI?”
“What?” It took her by surprise that she knew about Nadani. “No, that’s not me—that’s my partner. We were both involved, and the Council wants to see both of us.”
“Right, if you’re going to your ship then I’m coming. Name’s Jana Addington,” the soldier said. “Call me Jana.”
“I’m Trisha Nakamara,” Trisha said.
“I hope you know how to use that blaster rifle,” Jana said.
“Yes,” Trisha said.
“As long as you aren’t planning to fly your ship either,” Jana said. “The skies are not safe for civilian starships.”
“Oh, no,” Trisha said. “The ship has good shields and I know Nadani will try her best to make it back to it.”
“And that’s the girl with the AI,” Jana said, nodding her head.
“Yes, that’s Nadani, my girlfriend” Trisha said, feeling anxious like the conversation took too much time.
“All right, let’s move,” Jana said. “You lead since I don’t know where we’re going, I’ll cover and check the back.”
Upon entering the starport they encountered a group of Squitoes, five of them. Three of them had their backs to Jana and Trisha. The other two must have warned them somehow since they turned around faster than they would have reacted otherwise.
Trisha felt the gun warm as she fired two shots—one at each of the aliens whom were originally facing them. Both of those slumped to the ground and Trisha rolled her body on the floor to the left and to get into cover behind a large plastisteel planter box, about half her height not including the tall plant within it. She glanced across the wide corridor and saw Jana had done the same thing behind a similar planter.
Thank goodness for symmetry in design, Trisha thought. Her heart raced, her stomach tightened, and she felt sweat beading on her forehead.
Trisha stood up and fired the blaster twice. On
e lucky shot hit a Squito in the eye, killing it instantly, but the other shot went wide as the next Squito seemed to anticipate it.
Trisha squatted again just in time as the remaining two aliens fired in her direction.
Jana wasted no time in making her own move. Trisha watched as she peeked around the corner of the plastisteel box and a barrage of rapid blaster fire struck one of the Squitoes in the head. It killed the Squito and she was on the last before it realized what happened. She downed the last Squito the same way.
Jana is a good shot, Trisha thought.
She felt sick to her stomach and shaky. If something had come up from behind then they would have been out of luck. She was an engineer; this level of excitement and near-death experience was not her forte. In some of the stories she enjoyed reading, characters would get a rush and enjoy the fray. Trisha certainly had the adrenaline rush, but she enjoyed no part of it. This was different than being trapped on the Squito spaceship. They weren’t here to abduct this time.
The cautious pace they took through the wide corridors made Trisha anxious. She wanted to be on Astromancer as soon as possible.
The rest of the journey went without conflict. Trisha felt overjoyed when she approached Astromancer and the door slid open for her.
“You go in first,” Trisha said to Jana. “I can’t add you to an access list so if I go in first the door will shut behind me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jana said flatly, making it difficult to tell what Jana thought or felt. She complied, and Trisha followed her.
The relief Trisha felt as the door shut behind her almost made her cry. As soon as they were both through the inner airlock, Trisha went into the bathroom and heaved into the toilet.
Alarm
“According to the data we have, it appears that the Squitoes are hive minded,” Franklin said. “I cannot discern whether it is a King, Queen, or something else in charge.”
“Let’s just say Royal then,” Bordon said. “What else?”
“Royal is good, yes,” Dr. Tysgan said.
“There is a great deal of starchart information,” Franklin said. “It will take some time to sift through it to find anything of import.”
