The Brutus Code

by John Lane

  Weltha and Tommy dove through the hatch to bay fifteen just as it cycled closed. The atmosphere was venting. To Tommy’s dismay, they found the Angel Reaper latched onto one of their drones, her spine already imbedded among the cables through an open panel on its side. While the Reaper’s real eye focused on its work, her mechanical eye floated on a tether detached above her skull. With this eye, she targeted them. Tommy dove with Weltha taking cover under another heavy worktable bolted to the floor.

  As they watched, the Reaper interfaced and took control of the drone. She opened the outer hatch to the cold of space and launched the drone with her body securely attached. She paid no attention to her skin freezing, and her real eye popped out of its socket under the vacuum of space. And then she was gone.

  Weltha moved to the closed hatch. Turning to Tommy, she watched as he slammed his fist into the worktable. He bounced into the air with the force of his blow but turned and tapped the bulkhead over his head. She heard him contact Alfred.

  “Close external hatch. Compress hold. We’ll meet you in bay six,” he said.

  As soon as they regained the corridor, Agnes and the deputy met them at bay six. All four moved into the hold and got ready.

  Weltha contacted her negotiator, “Any progress?”

  “Stalemate, Sheriff. What’s our next move?” the deputy asked over her com unit.

  “Suggestions?” Weltha opened this up to everyone.

  “We can’t pull the same maneuver as last time with a hostage and rushing them is out.” Alfred joined them on the com channel and listed off the logical possibilities. “The likelihood of surprise from our side isn’t a possibility either. The hatch is too slow and the equalization of pressure on both sides is always off enough to make noise.”

  “Micro Spiders?” Tommy suggested.

  Agnes answered, “They could get in unseen, but they don’t have the power to zap an adult to unconsciousness. Even a swarm would have a hard time.”

  “Not pirates, weapons.” Tommy said with a glint in his eyes.

  A short while later, Alfred was running the show. He’d taken control of several hundred micro spiders the deputies commandeered from a MOM docked close by. Pressure was equalized and in zero gravity Alfred floated the micro spiders into the docking bay.

  To stall for more time, Alfred used the com frequency of pirates and impersonated the Angel Reaper. He ordered them to stall for more time.

  When the moment came, all the pirates were caught off guard. Their weapons shorted out. Tommy led the assault from inside the ship. He rushed to two pirates guarding the Postmaster. He gooed the first, but the other, a small woman, was clever. She hid behind the Postmaster. Tommy could not get an angle on them as he performed well-practiced zero gravity moves. On one pass, he almost caught her by an arm, but she rotated her human shield between them. So, Tommy just gooed them both. When he checked on the others, it was all over.

  Agnes stood anchored to a wall holding two large unconscious pirates by the scruff of the neck. Weltha was dragging another one. It looked like she had broken his leg. Weltha gooed him to stop his suffering until a medical team arrived to treat his injuries. The rest were being hauled away by the deputies.

  “Everyone okay?” Weltha checked all of them. She wasn’t being a mother hen. She needed an account of her team’s actions. No one seemed to be injured except the Postal Service guards. The waiting paramedic teams moved them first. The pirates were marched away under heavy guard. Each one was checked, but only one of these had the Reaper tattoo.

  As the clean up continued, Tommy gathered Weltha and Agnes into the Swift hold. Knowing Alfred listened on an open channel, he asked, “What was their target?”

  “By the looks of it, they were after Christine. They must have found out that she was infected,” Agnes offered.

  “Perhaps,” Alfred picked up on her thought. “But if you review the surveillance, she was searching the whole ship for something that isn’t on our manifest. She went for Christine’s casket only after hesitating over which one to hack. She was not interested in Christine herself or there would have been a larger contingent on the ship to take the whole casket.”

  “I agree,” Tommy stated, “with Alfred. Agnes we need to get into the systems on those caskets.”

  “Mine needs to be powered and some repair. You did a job on it when you yanked me out of there, Tommy. I’ll get right on it.” Agnes left to get her tools.

  “So it’s more than biological terrorism,” Weltha mused. “They want something else. But what?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.” Tommy answered. “I need to find out.” He was about to enter the Swift when a voice rang out across both bays.

  “Mr. Judson! Stop right there!” The Postmaster came bounding across the restored partial gravity in the station dock. Gravity had not been restored in the Swift hold, however, and when she crossed the threshold, she flew off through the air. Her momentum would have carried her into a bulkhead. Tommy snatched her by a foot and anchored her to the deck.

  As soon as she caught her breath, she launched in on Tommy. “Young man, where do you think you’re going in my Postal Service ship? You have much to answer for. This ship is still impounded. There is still an investigation into your actions to complete. And you gooed me!” she finished in a huff.

  “Calm down, Connie,” Weltha stepped in. “I’ve concluded that Captain Judson’s actions are in accord with his responsibilities. He saved his ship, now two stations, the mail, and your life. That pirate pulled a knife and was going to use it on you. Had Captain Judson not acted as he did, you would be dead.”

  This took the wind out of her sails. “Well,” Postmaster Connie stuttered, “yes. Thanks for that.”

  “Connie,” Weltha laid a hand on her shoulder, “you’re in shock. This has been an ordeal. The medics will help you rest. In the meantime, you’ve got to release the ship. You are holding up the deliveries she has in her holds.”

  “Oh, well yes, I guess you are right there.” Postmaster Connie glanced at Tommy one last time before she turned and floated to the station dock where she shuffled into the waiting arms of two medics.

  “Thank you for that,” Tommy smiled at Weltha. “You do know I only handle the Dead Mail and there is no hurry.”

  “Yup,” Weltha responded as she turned to the station hold. Just before she passed through the other hatch, she turned and gave a friendly shout. “You should be cleared to leave my station within the hour. Much as I enjoyed your visit, I just think it’s safer for us if you track this down. Goodbye, Tommy.” She gave him a wave and returned to her station.

  *****

  The Angel berated herself. She had failed. He would be disappointed in her. That would be worse. She waited for his response. When it came, she was shocked.

  Bring the MOMA. That was all it read. She was to report back to him. She had no new data on the biological. She had no new body for him. The only progress had been personal. She lost her last shreds of human softness. She prayed for repair. Her prayers would be answered.

  Chapter 11: Family Affairs

  Sutton sat at her desk. A young agent had again taken the initiative to follow a lead on her own. The last time Tommy was the young agent. She hoped that this time turned out better. Sutton initiated the text.

  Sutton: Smith is gone.

  Controller: Yes.

  Sutton: Alone.

  Controller: Yes

  Sutton: What move now?

  Controller: Wait.

  Sutton: Again.

  Controller: Observe.

  Sutton: Good. I can do that.

  Controller: Take no action.

  The Controller signed off. Sutton could not sit still again. She would observe. Her own actions might follow.

  *****

  He slammed his palms against the control panel again. When the pain in his palms didn’t stop the pain in his soul, he hit it again, and again. He hit the panel until a distinct crack echoed through the room, and a sp
ider web of cracked glass appeared across the touch pad interface of the panel.

  “It doesn’t help,” Tommy confessed to Alfred. Alfred remained mute. “But it will keep my mind occupied for a while,” he said, referring to fixing the broken panel.

  The mood on the Swift matched the space in which they hung. Both were dark. They followed their only lead, the return address on Agnes’ casket. The Swift hung above a dead planet orbiting a dead star. In space that didn’t really mean much, humanity had learned to live under harsher conditions. Tommy and his small crew finished surveying the system. There was nothing. No radio, microwave, or light emissions to indicate habitation. Only the normal background radiation that should be expected of a burned out system remained. No ion trails or even the disruption pattern left by the passage of a ship under A/W impulse scared the space in the system leaving any trail to follow. Even military grade camouflage would still have left more trace radiation than what they found.

  Tommy smeared blood across the broken panel as he lifted his hands away from it. He stared at the mess that used to be his palms as if they were someone else’s hands. Tommy stood and wiped the blood in a smear across his red jumpsuit. The blood still stood out, a dark stain. The pain of his cuts broke his gloom and distracted him from the failure of their search. He went to the bridge locker and pulled out a cleaning cloth and solution.

  “You need to treat your wounded hands, Tommy,” Alfred said.

  “Yeah. Doesn’t make sense to clean and bleed all over again,” was Tommy’s reply. “But I’ll do it myself.” He still didn’t trust the Ai of his mother. If Annie bore the mark of the pirate tattoo, then her Ai was not to be trusted. “Please don’t tell them I lost it,” Tommy requested.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Agnes said from the hatch. “I heard the banging from the Medical Bay. I came up to see if you needed my help.” She stood in the hatchway. Her hair had grown out enough to be a mess. She held several small tools for delicate electronic work in her hands and still more poked out from pockets in her jumpsuit.

  “No, don’t need help. I’ll take care of this in my med bay.” And Tommy stormed past as Agnes stepped out of his way, lest she got knocked over. She started for the control panel to begin the repairs when Tommy’s voice rang out across the common area of the crew quarters. “And don’t touch the bridge panels. I will fix those, too!”

  Agnes stood for a moment gaining control of her own anger. When she finally turned, Tommy already closed the hatch to the old med bay across from the galley. “What is his problem?” she asked of the universe.

  Alfred answered. “He is embarrassed that he failed and frustrated that he has lost his mother. There is much he needs to resolve with her.”

  “So there is nothing here?”

  “We could go on searching, but the chances have fallen below a reasonable probability we will find anything. They are either extremely well hidden if they are here, or the higher probability…”

  “Which is?” she asked the artificial intellect.

  “There was never anything here to begin with. It was a false lead planted sixty-three years ago with your casket to mask their true hiding place.”

  “This sucks,” was Agnes’ archaic response as she sank into Tommy’s pilot chair disheartened. “It really sucks that I can’t remember anything from my own life. It sucks that Tommy’s mom is missing when she may have some answers. Mostly I feel worthless to Tommy.” She curled up into a ball in the chair. She covered her face with her hands, and she wept. This was not just the cry of a petulant nineteen year old. This was the exhaustion and pent up emotional release of a woman under stress.

  Alfred recognized the symptoms. He monitored Agnes closely and tapped into psychiatric subroutines to analyze his observations. Nothing he found was right for what Agnes was going though. There were no previous cases where hibernation had lasted so long and the sleeper had lost so much of her memory. So, instead he went with his cybernetic gut.

  “You are absolutely right. This whole thing sucks. But the blame does not lie with us. It belongs to the Reapers and pirates.”

  “They suck, too.” Agnes pouted. She took a moment to collect herself and then a small smile broke across her face as she said, “I know what you’re trying to do, Alfred. But, what I really wish is that I could help Tommy more.”

  “Completing routine maintenance has freed him to scan this system,” Alfred pointed out the obvious.

  They both shared a silence. “Enough of this,” Agnes exclaimed. “What are we going to do now?”

  Alfred’s only reply was, “I don’t know.”

  *****

  In the old medical bay Tommy struggled to clean and wrap his hands in bandages. He had made a complete muddle of it. His hands were still bleeding and most of the supplies he needed were moved to the larger cabin in cargo bay A-1. He fumbled around in frustration for several minutes before he leaned against a wall and slid to the floor.

  The intercom beeped. Tommy stared it down with blood shot eyes. That didn’t stop the beeping. If it had been Agnes, she probably would have given up. If it had been Alfred, he would know better than to contact Tommy so soon after an angry blow up like the one he just detonated. That meant only one entity on board remained to annoy him, and he had been avoiding contact with it.

  Finally, he gave in. “Yes!” he shouted, his voice command completing the connection. He continued in the same vein, “What do you want?”

  “Captain Judson,” Dr. Judson Ai used the formal address for Tommy. “It is my understanding that a crew member has been injured. Is this true?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Tommy replied. As if she didn’t know it was me, he thought.

  “Thank you for confirming the situation.”

  She sounded just like his mother when she knew he was being unreasonable. Oh, the memory of that almost sent him over again. Except, it also was reassuring on a deep level that Tommy hadn’t expected. This was the voice of his mother, a copy yes, but his mother. “You’re welcome,” Tommy continued.

  “I request permission to treat the crewman. This was my role on the MOM and I stand ready to contribute to the Swift and her crew in the same capacity,” she spoke softly, with only concern for Tommy. He knew he couldn’t and shouldn’t refuse the help.

  “Alright, send your avatar over. I’m not coming to you.” At once the hatch to the cabin opened and the avatar entered. This was the humanoid avatar without its hologram. It carried a medical kit slung over its shoulder.

  “May I see your hands, please?” Dr. Judson Ai knelt down next to Tommy on the floor as he held out his hands, palms up. The avatar gently took his hands in its own and examined them, turning them from side to side to get a full scan from its sensors. “There does not appear to be any broken bones. Your lacerations can be cleaned and mended easily enough.” She kept the exam simple and professional. Her manner, Tommy noted as she handled his hands, was more gentle than when Alfred’s avatars had mended his cuts in the past.

  He could not help asking, “Are you always this gentle with your patients?”

  “I try to be,” she answered. She swabbed the blood from his hands. And she paused.

  The avatar’s head turned toward Tommy’s face and stared into his eyes for just a moment. If a human or Alfred controlling the avatar, Tommy would have sworn that it was sad. And that was his fault. He felt guilty. “Are you getting claustrophobic in the cargo bay?”

  “No, it is spacious enough. And remember that I am a copy of your mother who has spent many years in her bio-casket. She does not experience claustrophobia and I do not.” She paused here.

  Tommy sensed an unfinished thought, so he prompted, “But…”

  She hesitated to answer, and Tommy let the silence stand. During the silence the avatar sprayed his cuts with synthetic skin. Finally she said, “But on the MOM your mother and I shared the freedom of the ship. We both saw patients and shared that experience almost as a single person. I do miss her.” If the avatar could
blush with embarrassment it would have.

  “Understand, it is hard for me,” Tommy said.

  “Yes.” She checked her handy work and, satisfied, she put her supplies back in her kit. “Yes, I understand. Seeing you again both thrilled and scared us, your mother and I. We shared all we could until that last moment when her casket disconnected.”

  “Do you share all my mother’s memories?”

  “No, there were some things she had blocked as too sensitive and dangerous.” The avatar waited for Tommy to continue. When he did not, she prompted him, “I can try to answer any questions you have. If I come up against a block, that information will be blank and I will let you know.” Tommy was silent, contemplating what she said. She continued, “I am capable of speculating, based on my understanding of your mother and how she thinks. I will tell you when that is happening as well.”

  Again, Tommy took some time to consider this. The avatar stood to leave. Tommy said to her, “I am sorry for making you wait this long. I still have reservations.” The avatar stopped at the hatch and turned back to him. Tommy continued, “Little steps, please. You have the freedom of the ship, accompanied by Alfred.”

  The avatar nodded. It could not smile, but Tommy was almost sure that its shoulders lifted slightly and the head straightened. “Thank you, Captain Judson. I will attempt to earn your trust.”

  “Don’t call me Captain Judson. Tommy will do.” The avatar again nodded consent and left the cabin to return to the Medical Bay A-1.

  *****

  Agnes picked up the cleaning supplies that Tommy left in the bridge locker. “Tommy asked us not to fix the panel,” Alfred warned.