“Everybody just woke up,” Jessie said, holding her earphones against her head with her eyes shut tight.
“We’re at full speed now,” Vee said. “Pushing fifty-five KPH.”
“I now have active pinging from all sides,” Jessie said, “with multiple targets heading our way.”
Ash did some calculations on his dashboard and then looked back at Jake. “We’re not going to make it.”
“We need more speed,” AJ yelled.
“Transferring more power to the thrusters,” Raines said, and Jake felt the tug of the ship accelerated.
“That’s helping, but they’re still gain on us,” Ash said.
“Pushing thrusters to one hundred twenty-five percent,” Raines said. “I can’t do anymore.”
“We’re doing it,” Ash said. “We’re out running them now. Fifteen seconds to vent opening.”
“Bilge!” Vee screamed as she reversed thrusters and yanked the Wave hard to port. Jake was barely able to stay on his feet.
“What’s wrong?” he yelled, but then saw the huge isopod emerging from the very same vent they were trying to escape through, and heading straight towards them.
“Abort!” AJ yelled.
“We have to try,” Jake fired back, his heart still beating excessively fast, caught up in the race to freedom.
AJ looked back at him. “We’re already surrounded, Jake. We can’t make it.”
Jake sighed. “You heard the first mate. Shut it down, everyone. Shut everything down.” As thruster power dropped from maximum down to zero output and each of the consoles were turned off, the bridge became eerily quiet. Within minutes, they were surrounded by a hundred isopods of all different sizes.
“What do we do now, Captain?” Jessie whispered.
He leaned back against the darkened chart table. “I guess we wait to see how bad they are going to punish us.”
They didn’t have to wait long. A text message appeared on Vee’s helm dashboard, informing them that they would be guided back to dry land and then escorted off the Wave.
“I thought they would be more...” Vee started to say.
“More what?” Ash asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Angy, I guess.”
“They’re making us leave our ship,” Jessie said. “I’d say that means they are pretty angry with us.”
Vee looked back at the message. “It’s just the wording. They used ‘guided’ instead of ‘led,’ and ‘escorted off the ship’ instead of ‘forced off.’
“They’re heartless machines,” AJ said. “Who cares how they said it. They are kicking us out. We tried, and we failed.”
The swarm of isopods began to move in unison. “We’d better follow them,” AJ said. “Ahead slow.” Vee powered up her console and Jake felt the vibration as the thrusters engaged.
“Our thrusters are still working?” he asked.
Raines walked back to his console and turned it back on. “All ship’s major systems are nominal, Captain.”
“Are you planning another great escape, Sir?” AJ asked dryly.
“No,” he replied, ignoring the sarcasm, “but I do find it interesting that they didn’t just shut us down.”
Ash spoke up. “As I’ve been trying to tell you, Captain, this is our ship and it’s fully under our control.” He started to look away, but then added, “At least it was our ship.”
“So how do we use that information?” Raines asked.
Jake stared at the floor for several seconds, unable to accept what was happening. They had a good plan. It should have worked. He expected to have problems once they made it through the vent, locating the transport tube, making sure it was the right tube, all of that. But he never considered being stopped before even reaching the exit.
“How do we use it?” he finally said, looking at the faces around him, all expecting him to give them a new plan. A Plan-B and then Plan-C, and so on until they were finally free. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“Captain?” AJ asked.
He walked past them to the stairs. “I’ll be in my quarters. Let me know if anything changes.”
He took two steps at a time down the staircase, pivoted to the right at the bottom, then jogged back to his quarters. He wasn’t even sure why he was hurrying. Maybe he wanted to see it one last time before he was forced to leave it for good.
Not forced to leave, Vee’s words echoed in his head. Escorted out.
He stepped through the door when it opened for him, then turned and watched it close. He slid his hand to the controls and heard the door click as it locked.
“At last, we’re alone,” he heard Stacy say from behind him.
Startled, he yelled “Lights!” as he pivoted around. Jane sat cross-legged and barefoot on his bed. She looked so much like Stacy and apparently sounded like her as well. “I thought you were...”
“If she was here, would you finally accept that she’s not real?”
He walked over to lean against his small desk. “If she was supposed to be on the shuttle, and then appeared in my room? Yes, if that happened, then I would believe you.”
“But you don’t believe me now?”
“Do you have some sort of proof?”
“You’ve always trusted me, Jake. Why won’t you believe me now?”
Have I always trusted you? he asked silently. “She seems real to me,” he said aloud.
“So did your father. So did Ash when you first met him.”
“She passed AJ’s knife test,” he said. “Every other copy, or assistant as I guess they’re called, disappeared when threatened. Stacy didn’t, and in fact, she was injured.”
She turned and patted the bed. “Come sit with me.”
He tried to brush the inappropriate thoughts that suddenly sprung up in his head, and then stood up and walked over to her. “Okay.”
“No,” she said. “Actually sit down.”
He sat beside her. “Okay, what do you want to talk—” She suddenly whirled her body around and pushed him onto his back, then sat on his chest. “What are you doing, Jane?”
She smiled. “I just want to have your full attention.”
He swallowed. “You’ve got it.”
“You’re being manipulated, right now, Jake. Can’t you feel it?”
He swallowed again. “Is that what this is? A demonstration?”
“You’re a smart person, Jacob Stone, perhaps the smartest person I’ve ever known, but you’re not thinking clearly right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one thing, your crew is waiting for you to tell them how to survive this mess you’ve gotten yourself into, and you’re in your quarters, allowing a woman to sit on your chest.”
“Not just any woman,” he said softly.
She kissed him on the cheek, and then slapped him hard. “Wake up, Jake!” she yelled.
“What the bilge?” he yelled back and instinctively pushed her off his chest. She rolled backward, somersaulting to the floor, but somehow landed on her feet.
“Now you’re awake,” she said.
He stood up. “Jane, I like you a lot, but sometimes I think you are just a little bit crazy.”
She stood facing him. “I’m also a pure Beta, remember? But, I’m not your enemy, Jake. I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to help all of you.”
“Then help me,” he yelled again, but then calmed his voice. “Help me, Jane. Tell me a way out of this. Tell me how to get back to Civica, or at least, tell me how to warn them.”
“I have no power to help you, Jake, but I can help you get help.”
“How?”
She spread her feet wide and crossed her arms. “By showing you how you’re being manipulated.”
That irritated him. “For the last time, Jane, no one is manipulating me.” When she didn’t reply, he gave in a bit. “Okay, who do you think is manipulating me?”
“Everyone.”
“That’s bilge water. No one is
—”
“Against all possible odds, you were reunited with your long-lost mother. When you weren’t content to stay with her, you found Ash, and then your father. When those things didn’t convince you to stay, your ship was rebuilt for you, completely and flawlessly.” She paused, then added, “Do you see where this is going, Jake?”
He had to admit that he did. “Now that I think of it, my sister tried to convince me to stay as well. And when I still wasn’t quite ready to say yes, they...”
“They brought Stacy back from the dead,” Jane finished.
Jake shook his head. “She passed AJ’s test.”
“Remember Stacy’s own words? She said the machines are a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for.”
“So?”
“So they simply made a better copy, one that won’t disintegrate when you threaten it. It’s what I would do if I were trying to trick you.”
“Listen, even if I believed you, that all of these things are just the machines trying to manipulate us, how does knowing that help us?”
She stepped closer and placed her hand on his chest, the way AJ sometimes did. “Not us, Jake. The machines are manipulating you and you alone.”
“But they need all of us to stay, not just me,” he said. “You women have to be far more important to their breeding program than a single male like me. Why aren’t they pushing AJ, Vee, or Jessie to stay?”
“Maybe they understand the chain of command. Maybe their organizational structure has something similar. In any event, they recognize that you are our leader, and they want you to choose to stay so that we will all choose to stay.”
“Again, how does that knowledge help us?”
She shook her head. “I thought you would see my point by now. For them to invest so much in your happiness, it means they care about you. They desperately want you to be happy, and that gives you power.”
“I don’t see how...” But then he saw it. “I guess I really do have power, don’t I?” She nodded. “If they want me to convince my crew to stay so badly, then they are going to have to give me something more in return.”
She nodded again. “And let them know just how big of a sacrifice it would be to give up everything and live here the rest of your life.”
He nodded. “That way I can ask for a much larger sacrifice from them.”
She patted him on the head like a child. “I knew you would figure it out.”
He took her hand and held it in his. “Not without your help.”
She pulled her hand away from his, then backed up to his door and pressed the open button. “I think it’s time for you to make your demands before it’s too late.” With that, she turned and headed out the door.
Apocalypse 07
Jake headed out the door hoping to catch her, but once he reached the hallway, saw that she had vanished. He considered opening the other four doors to search for her, but then heard AJ voice from the bridge saying that they were twenty minutes from docking. Vee replied that the shuttle was already docked and that Stacy and the doctor had been told to leave.
“Twenty minutes,” he whispered to himself. It would all be over in twenty minutes if he didn’t do something fast. Something to get their attention. Something drastic. But what?
He turned and ran down the rear stairwell to C-deck and then made a right turn into the dive locker. Without pausing to consider what he was attempting, he climbed into his hardsuit and sealed the facemask. As cool air began to flow across his face, he turned and walked into the rear shower, then opened the hatch in the back of the shower to the left. That entered a rarely used shared head, which allowed him to reach the back crew quarters without being spotted. He turned right in the hallway and followed it to the hatch for the shuttle lockout.
Normal dive operations were handled by the central dive lockout, but with the shuttle gone, its lockout could be used by a diver as well. Once inside, he sealed the door and began pressurizing the room.
He heard a beep in his headset and saw on his arm pad that the bridge was calling him. He turned off his speakers and continued to watch the pressure display on the wall. When it reached twenty-two atmospheres, the rooms’ lights turned green and the lower hatch began to rise up, revealing a black circle of water inside. He was confused for a moment because he was used to working in pressures ten times as high, but then remembered that he was still inside the torus and not out in the real ocean.
He felt the floor shift and realized that AJ was bringing the Wave to a stop. She had obviously realized what he was doing, although he was sure she had no idea why he was doing it. The isopods wouldn’t be happy they were stopping, and he was hoping that one of them would be approaching their position to prod them along. In fact, he was depending on that.
When he felt the ship come to a complete stop, he stepped up to the opening, folded his arms across his chest, and dropped into the black water. He was startled when he hit something hard with his feet, but then his suit’s lights kicked on and he saw that he was standing on the inner hull of the shuttle lockout. To the rear was the wide opening where the shuttle entered and exited.
When he reached the edge of the hull, he adjusted his suits buoyancy until he was neutral, and then kicked off from the hull. Small maneuvering thrusters in his legs and arms allowed him to move slowly, but steadily, away from the ship. When he was far enough away that he could no longer see the ship’s lights, he shut off the thrusters and waited.
Minutes passed with nothing in sight. They’re watching me, he thought to himself. Waiting to see what I’ll do. Waiting to see if I’m serious.
He turned his speakers back on and heard AJ yelling at him to come back to the ship. He switched the frequency to one of the side channels, the ones nobody used anymore and heard nothing but static. “Here’s the deal,” he began, “If you call off your attack on Civica, I promise that my crew and I will stay here and make as many babies as we possibly can for you. We’re all healthy and fairly young. I think we will add greatly to your genetic diversity.” He waited for a reply but heard nothing but static. “I know you can hear me,” he said, even though he actually had no idea if they were listening or not.
Time to show them I’m serious, he thought as he entered a command on his arm pad, and then typed in an override password when it flashed red. As he felt the stream of air across his forehead shut off, he said, “My former captain used to tell me, ‘Son, when you have nothing else to guide you, trust your gut,’ and right now my gut is telling me that I need to return to Civica. I need to go back and help my people.”
Nothing but static. He began to feel light-headed as the oxygen in his suit began to be replaced with carbon dioxide from his lungs. Minutes passed. “I’ve done this before, remember?” he said, voice sounding dry and very weak. “I’m not afraid to die. Duty to crew and colony always comes first,” he added.
Suddenly, a huge shape formed in the darkness as an isopod slid through the water towards him, stopping less than ten meters away. It was enormous; easily five times the size of the Rogue Wave. Before he could wonder what it was going to do, it opened its huge mouth and sucked him inside. He tried to yell but there wasn’t enough oxygen left in the suit.
Realizing that his gamble had failed, he finally hit the red flashing light on his arm pad and pure oxygen blasted into his helmet. He gasped and coughed for several minutes while the suit brought him back from the brink of death. Lying on his back in the darkness, it dawned on him that he was no longer under water. He stood up and jumped up and down a couple of times to confirm this.
“Why do you want to kill us so badly?” he asked, all energy drained from him.
“We have killed no humans,” a voice similar to that of the Hall of Records, resonated through his helmet.
“Maybe not here,” he agreed, “But the people of Civica will die.”
“No humans will be injured by the hunters. They are there to secure raw materials only.”
That caught him off guard. �
�What? Why else would you send heavily armed hunters to Civica? Especially when you knew the Betas were coming—wait a minute. You knew the Betas were coming. It can’t be a coincidence that your hunters will arrive at the same time as the Betas.”
“It is not a coincidence,” the voice confirmed.
“You’re going to watch the Betas destroy my people, and then collect whatever raw materials are left over, aren’t you.”
“That is essentially correct.”
“You can’t go there and just sit back and watch the Betas destroy what’s left of the human species.”
“We do not interfere in the affairs of humanity. Our only goal is to keep the life forms inside the torus alive; to protect our genetic diversity at all costs.”
He suddenly saw his opening and took it. “Listen, if there is any way you can help us save the people of Civica from the Beta’s, I promise you that I can convince most of them to come back here. Civica is falling apart. The colonists will come back with me willingly once I describe what it’s like inside the torus. You’ll have thousands of humans to help populate your zoo. Maybe as much as a hundred thousand. All of the genetic diversity you could hope for. Plus, when they vacate the cities, you can have all of the colony structures as payment. Genetic diversity and raw materials, both in abundance. It’s a win-win scenario you shouldn’t pass up.”
There was silence for several minutes, and Jake had just about given up hope, but then the voice spoke. “An agreement has been reached.”
Jake nodded. “So you’ll tell your hunters to help my people fight the Betas?”
“We have no ability to communicate with our hunters,” the voice said.
“Why not? Are they too far away?”
“The hunters were intentionally conceived to be hardened against all forms of electromagnetic and acoustic signals.”
“You made them deaf so that we would have no way to stop them remotely,” Jake guessed. “That was clever, I guess, but then how can you possibly help us?”
Novum Chronicles: A Dystopian Undersea Saga Page 41