by Marc Landau
“Frustration is not a programmed function. My function is to support our primary mission.”
“Well, we’re pretty fraking off course from our primary mission, wouldn’t you say?”
“Affirmative.”
“So can you do whatever robot stuff you do? Try to find anything out about where we are or how to get back? Or how to at least find some planet or station that is in our database.”
“There is a point zero eight four…”
“Remember what we agreed on about percentages?”
“Affirmative.” The bot beeped, then paused. “To use your vernacular, there’s like zippy-da-da-do-da chance I'll find anything.”
I wanted to punch the sassy bot in its stupid face, but all that would accomplish is breaking my hand. Then it would take me to med-bay for a physical and mental check. That was the last thing I wanted. After what we just went through, I never wanted to see the med-bay again.
I couldn’t help but wonder if the alien and being so far off course was affecting the bot too. Zippy-da-do? That was a bit of a stretch, even for the bot. Then again, I vaguely remembered a training vid about the onboard AI systems being self-adjusting. Supposedly they could learn and even evolve. I wished the thing was evolving into a bot that could get us out of this mess, not a back-talking sarcastic pessimist. That was my job.
“Okay, well, since you’re basically useless, can you feed Poka?”
“How can I be useless if I am providing sustenance to the bio-AI?”
“Please stop arguing and just feed the damn dog!”
“Did you just confirm that the bio-AI actually is a human pet?
“Yes, you win! You finally busted me. I snuck my dog onboard. Poka's not a bio-AI, she’s just a regular part-Prime mutt. Are you happy now? You’re right. You win.“
“Winning is irrelevant, and I am not capable of being happy.”
I didn’t buy it for a second. The way its eye slits were lighting up and its mouth appendage was smirking from ear to ear, I knew the thing was happy as a Limbian hog in a hot mud bath.
“Protocol is the only relevant factor. Dogs are not permitted, as per Section Three Seven Six Four Dash Two of the Military Code of Conduct. I will now remove you from command and have the dog returned to Earth Prime for shelter housing.”
“Please do that! Send her back to Earth Prime.”
The bot beeped gleefully, like it had finally gotten what it had wanted ever since I’d set foot on the ship. It scooted around preparing the shipping container and preparing the secure room to lock me up in when it relieved me of command. I watched and waited. It was actually surprising how long it was taking for the thing to figure it out. I guess emotions had gotten the better of it, even though it swore it didn’t have any.
Suddenly the bot paused and started humming and whirring. There it was. It had finally clicked.
“Just figured it out, didn’t you?”
It didn’t reply. For sure it knew the answer, but its programming wouldn’t let it admit I was right about something.
“Come on, you can say it.”
The bot’s ear-to-ear smirk turned quickly into a pained grimace.
“You can’t send her back can you?”
It still wouldn’t respond. Stubborn walrus. I had to give it that. It was trying desperately to solve the problem, but no way that was gonna happen.
“You can’t, because you don’t know where we are. Do you?”
“I do not.”
“So how can you send her back?”
The bot’s eyes flittered in confusion, then all of its face appendages slumped in defeat. “I cannot.”
“So you’re breaking protocol?”
“I am.”
“So I can relieve you of duty?”
“You can.”
“How can I do that, if you’ve relieved me of duty?”
Beep. “Conflict protocol engaged. Adjusting cognitive systems.”
“Yeah. You better adjust those systems. Because things are not going according to protocol. Protocol is out the mother-fraking window from this point on. So adjust to that.”
“Confirmed.”
I’d won the battle, but it didn’t give me any satisfaction. Before this whole mess started, I would’ve been ecstatic to prove the bot wrong. Now it was a hollow victory. My priorities had changed since back in the old days, a.k.a two days ago. I felt more alone and panicked than I had since my first day of mid-edu school, when a group of Lorvellian bullies were waiting to kick my ass for no apparent reason.
Sidenote: The true warrior species don’t bully. They fight. It’s not my cup of Velium, but I get it. They fight from the womb. It's a literal battle to be born, and it never stops.
It wasn’t just the bullying that bothered me. It was the unknown. They never told me why they decided to make my life so fraking miserable. I hadn’t done anything to them. Or to anyone. I pretty much kept to myself. I guess bullies don’t generally explain themselves. Not that it matters. Was there really a good reason to stuff me in the waste basket and roll me down the corridors?
The experience stuck with me. To this day I sometimes feel like the universe is randomly out to get me for some reason I’m not privy to. I know it’s illogical, but I can’t seem to shake it after all these years.
On the plus side, it’s also made me feel like I was special enough to be singled out. Sure, I was picked on, but it was better than being ignored all together. There’s not much worse in the universe than being ignored. Though there are some reptilian aliens that believe it toughens your hide. I always found that to be ironic, since reptiles have hard shells to begin with.
Even if you believe the universe and our existence is random, humans evolved to have emotions. To be social and have connections. Soft shells.
I’m trying to think of any creature that lives alone, and I’m sure there is one somewhere in the galaxy, but nothing comes to mind. Like the robot would say, “ninety-nine point nine three seven percent of all creatures need connection.”
That was an odd tangent. I guess having Kat back is making me realize I’d been feeling lonelier than I realized.
Bullies and ex-girlfriends. This was turning into a cheesy lifetime vid series! Ironic, because Kat loved those things. Every Sunday she’d make us a giant bowl of Atuvian pips drizzled with butter. The perfect snack mesh of two cultures. It put popcorn to shame, and that’s hard to do. Then we’d snuggle up and binge-watch a reality series called sMelt. It was a house on an undisclosed planet filled with eleven different species. They partied, argued, and of course slept together.
I’ll admit I liked it. Not at first, but after a few dozen episodes, I got sucked in. I loved the Gregons, a humanoid species. They were all humanoid—that’s why they all slept together. All humanoids are horny.
Gregons were at least seven feet tall.Their skin was sea blue and they had more muscles than could fit on any life form. They had muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. A Gregon with a six-pack was like a human with a big pot belly. Even the most out-of-shape Gregon had at least a sixteen-pack.
They kind of looked like gigantic blue panthers without the fangs. I probably liked them because they looked like superheroes. And of course, the females were ridiculously hot. So were the males. So basically, Kat and I drooled over our Atuvian pips while we watched them prance around shirtless, flirting and fighting with everyone in the house, because everyone was always jealous of them.
Who wouldn’t be? If I was a Gregon I’d be in the actual military, actually protecting Earth Prime, in an actual danger zone.
Turns out I’d wound up in a danger zone anyway. All my best efforts to run and hide simply threw me in a meat grinder. Note to self: Don’t bother running away. If life wants to chew you up, it’s gonna do it. You can’t hide. Might as well face it.
I should’ve gone with Kat to help the stupid Delivan dolphins. I don’t know what held me back. That’s a lie. I do know; I just hate admitting it. It was fear. It
’s pretty much always fear. We try to rationalize, but it’s fear. I was scared of how much I loved her. Worse, somehow I’d convinced myself that if she loved me enough, she would’ve stayed. The dumb dolphins were more important than I was.
It was bad logic. The bot would agree. I was playing games with her, and myself. But really, I was just chicken-shat. I should’ve gone, and because she never came back, I never got the chance to make things better. Now she was back. Except it wasn’t her. Or was there some way the alien was actually Kat?
Stop thinking crazy, the voice in my head said.
“But what if it's really her?”
It can’t be. Kat’s dead.
“Or is she?”
Stop it. You’re just trying to convince yourself. That’s what the alien wants.
“You’re probably right.”
You mean, YOU’RE probably right. You’re talking to yourself again.
“Sorry. I’m going a little crazy.”
Yeah. Women can do that to guys. Even alien women.
“Are you okay?” Kat asked. “You’re mumble-arguing with yourself again.”
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah, I’m fine. Just trying to figure all this out.”
Kat smiled. “Join the club.”
What the frak was I going to do? This was too much responsibility for someone of my rank. It was the textbook dictionary definition of “above my pay grade.” I was barely coffee-server pay grade. Making a mocha chai whip foam espresso could send me into a tailspin.
Stop whining, I heard myself say.
“Stop whining,” Kat said
“I’m not whining.”
“I can see it on your face. I know you, Wil.”
“You don’t know shat. You’re a fraking alien-mind-succubus!”
Kat’s face went stern, and she stormed out in the exact same way I’d seen her do it a hundred times in the past. Damn that thing was like a perfect replica! How was she-it pretending to be her so convincingly? It must be literally sucking the info from my brain. Memory-mapping and recreating her to exact specs. She was doing things I couldn’t even remember. Damn, that alien was good.
A darkness fell over me. I really had to keep that alien away from Earth Prime, no matter what. Even if that meant killing it. Of course it seemed all-powerful, so good luck figuring out how to kill it.
Chapter Three
Prime was safe for the moment. We weren’t anywhere near it. We weren’t even on the charted map of the galaxy, so there was little chance we’d suddenly wind up back in our system. Unless she teleported us there. But if she’d wanted to go to Earth, she could’ve sent us there in the first place. She could’ve easily sucked the information from my mind or the ship’s database and beamed us to Prime, but she didn’t. She beamed us here. Wherever here was.
It was time to find out where the frak we were and why she’d brought us. No point in asking the bot. I was sick of arguing. I’d just have to wait and see if it would calibrate, reconfigure, and come up with some kind of map. If and when it did, I was sure I’d be the first to know. The bot had no compunction about gloating, even though it said it wasn’t “programmed to gloat.”
Alien-Kat said she didn’t know how or why we got here, but it definitely had something to do with her. This planet meant something to the alien, whether she knew it or not.
Maybe this was its home world. Maybe it had pulled an E.T. and phoned home. Maybe it would just go back to its house on planet whatever it’s called, and leave Prime alone.
But then I’d be stuck up here alone with the bot and Poka. I’d lose Kat. And I didn’t want to go through that all over again. I wasn’t even over the first time.
It’s not Kat.
True, but it wasn’t making me feel any better. She seemed so much like her. I was so desperate to see her again, I couldn’t accept reality. First things first. Let’s find out if this was even her homeworld.
“Bot, can you scan the planet for life?”
“I already have.”
“And?”
“There is no life.”
My heart sank a little. I was hoping her parents were down there waiting for their long-lost alien rock. If there was no life, then why were we here?
“There are anomalous signals registering on the scanners,” the bot said.
“Anomalous signals?”
“Correct.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Anomalous. Inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected.”
“I know what anomalous means!” I didn’t. “I meant, what does that say about the planet?”
“There are signals registering that cannot be identified by our scanners.”
“So they could be life forms?”
“Not according to our scanners.”
“But it could be some type of life form that we haven’t identified yet. Like the planet, right?”
“Correct.”
“Okay, that’s something.”
“It could also be literally anything, since the scanners can’t classify the signals.”
“Right. But there’s a reason we’re here. I can’t imagine the alien teleported us to a dead planet.”
“Imagination is irrelevant,” the bot said.
“I’m not arguing with you. We need to figure out why that thing brought us here.”
“Do you want me to take the alien life form to med-bay and conduct a deep scan of its brain?”
“Deep scan. Doesn’t that mean removing the brain?”
“Correct.”
“That’s okay. We don’t need to remove anyone’s brain yet. I’d rather just ask again.”
The bot beeped unpleasantly. I guess it wanted to remove some brains and investigate them.
“How do we even know it has a brain? It was a rock not too long ago,” I said.
“Currently it is in humanoid form and preliminary bio-scans indicate the alien does have a brain. As well as all other human organs and endocrine systems.”
“You’ve been monitoring the alien?”
“Correct. And you. And the…dog,” it said with a sense of smug self-satisfaction.
“Enough with Poka. Let it go. Remove it from your program, if you have to.”
“Confirmed. Should I also remove the creature's brain?”
I wasn’t sure if the walrus meant the alien or Poka. My guess was Poka.
“No brain removals for now.”
“Confirmed.” It beeped disappointment. “Inform me when you want me to remove a brain for scanning.”
“Sure thing.” I shuddered a little. That bot gave me the creeps sometimes.
Chapter Four
I went to find Kat. I didn’t like the idea of an angry, all-powerful alien roaming the ship. But another part of me wanted to see her. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was Kat. Maybe I needed that sliver of hope.
I found her sitting in the garden with Poka relaxing by her side. No big surprise. Kat was a nature freak and Poka was a Kat freak. Where else would she go but the only place in space with a bit of green?
I never understood how she got that damn dog to calm down so easily. With me, Poka was a thermonuclear grenade. Always jumping, wagging, tugging, wanting to play and go crazy. With Kat she would lay on her back in a full yoga stretch with her belly exposed and a weird upside-down smile on her face.
I liked that Poka enjoyed playing with me, but it kinda bummed me out that when it came to relaxing she liked Kat more. “Why the hellvian won’t you just sit and chill and watch some vids?” I’d say to Poka. She’d just look at me wide-eyed, then grab a chew toy and toss it around.
“Your energy isn’t chill,” Kat would tell me.
“I’m chill!”
“Not really. You’re always thinking about something.”
“Can’t you be chill and think?”
“Not the way you do it,” she’d smile.
She was right. My mind tended to buzz around a mile a mi
nute. I blame my mother. Don’t we all? She was the galaxy’s biggest worrier. “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst,” she’d always say. I just never realized there were always ten thousand worst-case scenarios I had to plan for. I was amazed at how Mom could come up with hundreds of things that could go wrong that I didn’t even think were possible.
To make matters worse, she read way too much galactic news and always had at least ten daily items of what could go wrong and what to be prepared for.
“Did you take your anti-virals?”
“Those are for when there’s an outbreak.”
“I saw on Yabblan there was an outbreak of brain explosions in humpback raccoons.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“You never know. A raccoon may have exploded on someone who was visiting, and they brought it back here.”
“Have there been any reports of that?”
“No. But maybe they don’t know yet.”
“I think it’ll be fine.”
“Don’t come crying to me when your head explodes.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t explode around here. I just cleaned the living quarters.”
“Okay, Mom. I promise not to explode in the house.”
“Aw. You’re such a sweet, considerate boy.”
I watched Poka’s slow, steady breaths. She was about ten seconds from nodding off. She was so damn cute. I wished I could relax like that. How do dogs do it? Like they don’t have a care in the world.
Even on vacation on the Paluvian beaches, I’d never been so relaxed. There was always something nagging at the back of my mind. I’d blame Mom for that too, but it wasn’t her fault. I was just always on edge about something. It had ruined many things. Probably even my relationship with Kat. I always thought it would break down, and I’m sure that little seed of doubt messed things up. Ironically, the worst thing actually had happened, and I wasn’t prepared at all.
Poka made a giant dog snort, and I knew she was about to drift away to slumber land. Soon she’d be snoring up a storm. I couldn’t count the number of times she’d woken me up or made it impossible to go to sleep in the first place. There were at least a dozen times on the ship I’d gone to my sleep quarters and found her hogging my spot, snorting and popping like a transport ship with a broken power converter. In case you’ve never heard one of those before, it sounds like a giant, wheezing popcorn machine.