by John Lane
“Yes, up until your own projects take you away from her. She has no peers to distract her. She has exhausted the resources of the settlement’s schooling systems.” Virginia paused and took her husband’s chin in her hand as she leaned against his side of the partners’ desk. Looking into his eyes, she said softly, “And we’ve got a new baby to prepare for. How much time will you really have for Agnes?”
Joy and sadness competed for his emotions as the confirmation of what they had hoped, a new child, competed with his love for his daughter, the child most like him.
Their eldest son, Jasper, buzzed in, “Sorry to interrupt, Dad. Mom, I’ve got those projection reports you needed on our crop yields this quarter.” He handed her a tablet to inspect his figures.
Still hiding, unseen, Agnes sobbed behind the couch. When her father finally heard those sobs, he knew instantly his little monkey was spying. He crossed behind the couch and gently called to her by her nickname, “Monkey, please come out of there.” He reached out to embrace his child and comfort her.
“NO!” Agnes pushed his arms away and ran from the study to her room and her own hiding place. In her bedroom closet, Agnes flopped down in front of a small box she used as a workbench. She powered on her own tablet and waited for it to sequence through the startup.
“How may I serve, Mistress,” the male voice greeted her.
“Marcus, nobody loves me!” she exclaimed.
“If Mistress desires, I can play her some music,” Marcus’ metallic voice and preprogramed prompts responded.
This distracted Agnes from her personal misery. “Maybe I can install an empathy routine based on tone and inflection of the voice…” She mumbled to herself as she reached for her tool kit and took the back off of her tablet. “I’ll need to install additional memory…”
“Let me know if I may be of assistance, Mistress,” Marcus’ prerecorded response routine prompted.
Agnes waited in the closet until she couldn’t stand it and than waited longer. There was no sound in the hall except the zapping of open circuits sparking as power was sporadically routed through the lines. The screaming stopped. She no longer heard the footsteps of settlers running or the thuds of bodies falling. Even the sound of the maintenance robots dragging those bodies away had ceased. She silently thanked God that the majority of the settlement was evacuated. Those that remained were technicians and scientists studying the problem.
Not sure they couldn’t hear her, she inspected the storage closet more closely. Janitor’s closets all over the known galaxy remained unchanged. There was a deep sink, a mop and bucket, cleaning supplies and a locker. The locker door squeaked as she opened it. She cringed at the sound and waited for the sound of approaching treads. When her hiding place remained safe, she continued with her inspection. Inside, there was a large coverall, and next to that she found a fire suppression canister. She took both and stuffed them in a pack she found in the bottom of the locker. She stepped quietly back to the storage room door.
Slowly, she raised her sweat and grime covered hand to the door release and opened the supply closet. She lost her pursuers. If she cut through the park, she could make it to her lab. She had to make it to her lab in the R and D building. It was the only chance.
The park was beautiful, and he was beautiful. They walked hand in hand toward the lift. He stopped and pulled her behind a tree out of sight of the other staff who were enjoying their holiday in the settlement.
“I just love the way you smell. I love your nose, and your ears. Your hair, your smile, I love your eyes. I love everything about you.” He pulled her closer and tried to kiss her again. What was it about sixteen year old guys that made them lose their minds? When Agnes asked Gabriel to come home with her during the holidays, she thought they’d have time to complete their research. Their assignment was a presentation on cybernetic biological adaptations for the human body. After all, what better place to gain experience and maybe first hand examples than her father’s research labs. This is where they had already advanced the science further in ten years than all of the last one hundred.
“It’s true. Boys really do only have one thing on their minds,” Agnes observed.
He gave her a downcast look and responded with, “You know better, but it is a lot of fun, and we are on holiday”
So she giggled and pushed him away with a quick peck on the cheek. “Later, Gabe. We’ve got to hurry if we want to catch the tram to the surface.” And being a good boy, he complied with her wishes, knowing it would be no use trying to distract her. Maybe later he could get some alone time when she wouldn’t protest much he thought.
The tramline opened to the surface halfway up the mountain that sat upon the settlement. It was a short trip down the mountain onto the plain where the observation hut stood. This had been the original survey station for the settlement. It was converted to a recreational excursion point. Agnes and Gabe donned the environment suits reserved for them by her mother and entered the airlock. Once the pressure equalized, the outer door opened, and they stepped out onto the surface. Agnes took Gabe’s hand and bounced over the low gravity surface of the planetoid toward a distant horizon. “Hurry, we don’t want to miss planet-rise.”
After a twenty minute bounce, they crested a small hill, stopped and found a rock outcropping on which to rest. “We made it,” Agnes said with relief. From where they sat, they saw the mountains in clear relief, miles across the plains. On the airless planetoid, light and shadow played out on a razor’s edge. The distant sun cast a weak shadow of the mountains as long fingers scratching across the plain below them.
An aurora of light struck the tips of the mountains from the side. It cut its way across the valley, outshining the dim light from the sun, until finally the gas giant rolled from behind the mountain range to dominate the sky. As the minutes passed, Agnes heard Gabe catch his breath over their coms. “OK You were right. Best morning ever,” he said as the giant fully revealed itself and almost filled the sky from horizon to horizon.
“Yup. As promised, look upon this valley with wonder and awe,” Agnes pronounced. A full ten minutes passed unnoticed for the young couple. They sat drinking in the beauty and wonder of the universe the only way that young people can, in each other’s company.
Agnes broke the spell. “We have to get back or we’ll be late for breakfast.”
“Really, can’t we stay just a little while longer?” Gabe asked. “I mean, I can’t believe that we’re the only ones out here.”
“Planet-rise across this valley happens once every two months,” Agnes explained. And after some moments of quiet thought she added, “I guess that when you can see something so spectacular so often, you take it for granted. Most people don’t seem to see what’s right in front of them.” She snapped a picture of the valley. “Here, turn around,” she instructed Gabe and snapped a photo of them. “You’ll want a copy.”
“Yup, I sure will,” he responded. He took one last look at the valley, turned his suit back to face Agnes and smiled. They didn’t need words. He was looking upon Agnes with wonder and awe.
Agnes smiled back. She didn’t even have to say I told you so. She already knew she was that good.
Agnes skidded to a stop and waited. There was no sound of pursuit, but they hunted her. The only light in this hall came from the observation windows. Through them, she saw out the sheer walls of her mountain home to the valley below and the last rays of planet-set. The tips of the mountain range beyond were glowing in the last light of the planetoid day as if on fire. Unlike the thousands of times she had passed this observation window and ignored the grandeur of the landscape, Agnes noted the light was tinged a deep orange. She saw that the shadow was fuzzy. It should be sharp and clear. There was a haze. Remembering her time in the big cities of the Central Systems, she recognized the haze of an atmosphere. The orbit had shifted, and her home plunged into the gas giant’s atmosphere.
She heard them. They were coming after her from two different di
rections. She already bypassed the safety protocols of the lift, and the shaft was empty of any car. As the doors opened, she stepped in and turned back to the hall. The maintenance bots were scurrying past the debris and aiming for her. One had a pneumatic attachment on its articulating arm, and a nail flew past her, imbedding in the wall of the shaft behind her. She smiled as she fell away. She only had to survive the drop. In the lighter gravity, she fell slowly. If she timed it right, this would place her a few yards from her R and D lab in the depths of the settlement complex, right next to the manufacturing hub. It was also where the biggest source of the manufacturing bots would try to stop and kill her.
For most of the one hundred and thirty-five floors, she held her feet tight beneath her, creating the least amount of drag. At the 140th floor, she tipped forward, grabbed the sides of the oversized coveralls she stole and extended the fabric as far as she could stretch it, creating wings and drag. Facing the bottom this way, she slowed and spiraled toward the bottom. She hoped it would slow her down enough to break her fall and nothing else.
The lift passed from the upper levels of their cavern home past the open levels where light streamed onto the fields below to augment the lighting already in place. Agnes had just returned home after completing all her studies, and her father sent a message to report to the company right away. She’d thrown herself into school and interned briefly in the Central Systems at various engineering firms. She had to admit that she gained a lot from each, and often they gained a lot from her. It always surprised her how those old established companies stagnated their innovation to the point that improvement was staring them in the face. They couldn’t see it because they were stuck in their old paradigms.
The lift doors opened. She stood a few steps from the offices of research and development for Zephyr INC. Her father made her go through all the hoops of interviewing with HR and applying for this position even though it was an open secret that the job was created for her. Still, it felt good to have a job and to be home. Her brother was waiting at the door.
“This way. We’ve been waiting for you.” Jasper gestured her in and escorted her down a central aisle of cubicles where a few of the employees glanced up to see the new arrival. Jasper was in a grim mood. “Sorry to cut the greetings short. It is good to see you, sis.” He threw the comment over his shoulder as they passed into more private offices. “This is a new department of R and D. Dad didn’t think we’d need it so soon. But those idiots on the Fringe have gone and started Wars with each other again, and the Central Systems are sending in troops to ‘mediate’ the warring factions, again.”
“There is always tension out there, what’s changed?” Agnes asked.
“I’ll let Dad fill in the rest. Here we are.” They arrived at the last room on the hall. It was as much a monitoring room as a briefing room. There was tiered seating and workstations. A glass wall on the opposite side of the room was looking over a factory floor. It was empty and clean except for a fine layer of new construction dust settled over the support structures and floor. New machinery was still on pallets and wrapped in clear blue sheets of plastic waiting to be unwrapped and installed.
Caesar Zephyr broke away from several of his staff when he saw Agnes enter with her brother. “Hello, Monkey,” he whispered into her ear as he embraced her. “Sorry. This isn’t the homecoming you expected,” he said as he hugged her one more time and returned to business.
“We’re all here. Let’s begin.” The staff gathered on the lower tier of the room and assumed workstations around a central dais where Caesar took his place. Agnes was ushered to a station next to Jasper. “The Wars on the Fringe have intensified and are now disrupting manufacturing and transport of goods back to the Central Systems.” Caesar addressed the assembled staff. “We are competing for one of the military contracts available.”
“When did we become a military contractor?” Agnes asked her brother.
“When lives can be saved,” her brother whispered back and then shushed her.
Caesar glanced their direction and gave them both a small grin, having overheard the question from Agnes. “Cassius, please begin the presentation,” he ordered the Settlement’s Ai.
“Yes, Dr. Zephyr.” Over the course of the next hour, Agnes absorbed details about the loss of life on all sides of the skirmishes along the Fringe. The Central Systems were looking for a way to transport the wounded back for medical treatment. More combatants on both sides were dying from their wounds than on the battlefields. Additionally, if the military could salvage their soldiers, they could restore them with biomechanical replacements for damaged organs and limbs and return them to duty at a savings.
Agnes knew that hibernation units were used in early settlement ships to save on resources during the long trips by sleeper ships. The process was slow and carefully monitored as settlers were put into hibernation. When tried with wounded soldiers under battlefield conditions, they died from their wounds long before they completed the hibernation process. So she asked, “Have we tried a flash freezing method? It’s quick and there has been success with lab tests.”
Her father smiled. “Yes. We can put animals into hibernation almost instantly and reanimate them later with little apparent damage. However, when attempted with human test subjects, there has been damage to the memory centers of the brain. They must be retrained. Although the body still functions, the original personality is lost. And, unfortunately, to the military, retraining is cost prohibitive.”
“This might be a good time to take a break,” her father announced to the staff. They all stood and gathered around a refreshment dispenser. Agnes waited back until the crowd dispersed. Her brother joined her.
“You look deep in thought,” he said.
“Well, I hoped for some time to unpack and say hello to Mother and Annie. But, you know me. As soon as a puzzle is opened, I can’t wait to solve it.”
This played right into her brother’s hands. He segued into, “Let me introduce you to someone who will help us greatly.” They both grabbed a pastry and coffee. Jasper ushered her back to the workstations. “Let me introduce you to Cassius Brutus, our upgraded Settlement Ai. Cassius, this is my sister Agnes.”
A smooth calm voice came from the station speaker, and on the screen, a face appeared and animated with the voice. “Pleased to meet you, Mistress.” The image was excellently animated but just short of realistic. He appeared wearing a Roman toga and a laurel wreath upon his head.
“Pleased to meet you, Cassius,” Agnes replied. To her brother she said, “He’s very formal isn’t he? And very familiar.” She gave her brother a suspicious look.
“I admit it. He’s based on your last update of our home Ai, Marcus. There are a lot of innovations in him, and his subroutines run much more smoothly than Marcus.”
“You haven’t changed Marcus?” she asked with slight alarm.
“No, he functions too well, and the apartment wouldn’t be the same. We needed an Ai with a greater capacity for understanding human subtleties than Marcus could give us. Cassius is still far from what we need, but he is still moving in the right direction.”
“Master Jasper, remember I can hear everything you are saying. My subroutines are sensitive to critiques of my work.” Cassius’ silky voice ushered from the speaker on the console.
“Yes, I know. I wrote those emotion simulations myself. Perhaps you should shut them down while we are working this problem.”
“Would you shut down any part of your brain when working on a problem?” Cassius retorted.
“Superb reasoning, Cassius.” To his sister he said, “See what I mean? He can recognize human subtleties and interact with us to provide us better analysis and even make leaps in reasoning.”
“But he doesn’t really make intuitive leaps does he?” she asked.
“Mistress Agnes is correct. I process the variables so quickly that it only appears that I make cognitive jumps in logic and reasoning,” Cassius calmly explained.
&nbs
p; “Sorry, Cassius. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“I am incapable of taking any offense, Mistress,” he again explained.
“That is the first time I’ve ever apologized to a program and been called on it,” Agnes exclaimed.
“You’ll get use to it,” Jasper promised.
Agnes strolled to the window looking over the new factory floor, musing about the possibilities. Her brother joined her to discuss any ideas she might have about the troop transport problem. As he prattled on about one idea for a medical troop transport to be stationed in orbit for the military, she watched as pallets of supplies were unloaded from the large cargo elevator in the center of the facility.
Agnes saw the bottom of the cargo elevator shaft, and she was falling fast. If she didn’t do something, she would be smashed against the bottom of the lift shaft. The calculations came fast and easy to her as she fell toward the bottom. As she passed the factory floor, she pulled out the fire suppressant canister, shoved the nozzle down her coveralls and pulled the trigger. Instantly, the foam filled her extra large coveralls, and she expanded into a ball. She had sealed her feet and hands so no foam was lost there. The only escape for the foam upon impact with the bottom of the shaft was out the neck where her head was. In the low gravity, this acted as thrust, but she couldn’t land on her head.
She did her best she to position herself to land on the inflated belly of her oversized coveralls, but she was off just a fraction. That plus or minus an acceptable margin for error always got you, she thought. Her left shoulder took the brunt of the impact. Grabbing onto a beam, she was able to let her feet bounce up when her belly flipped and hit the bottom of the shaft. The expulsion of foam thrust her gently back up the three floors she needed to get to her lab.
Getting out was more difficult because she lost the use of her left arm. She was trained to accept and work under pain as part of her Central Systems education. Part of her scholarships required she take the yearlong combat training. She never really thought she would use it like this. It was mostly for physical fitness. Citizens on many of the Central System worlds participated in mandatory military service as part of their citizenship contract. As a settler back for school, Agnes had seen no reason not to take the training as well.