Spindown

by Andy Crawford

  She whooped and stabbed into the axe-spike hole, setting the Bot into spasms and jerks. Gritting her teeth, she plunged in again, opening and closing the shears on any circuits or wiring she could feel, gritting her teeth through a staccato of electric shocks, until the Bot stopped moving.

  She let out a weary sigh and pushed the motionless Bot away, kicking it free into the foliage of the Garden. She should feel sick, even at violence against a Bot, but all she felt was dull triumph.

  A sound behind her made her turn.

  “Oh, not again…”

  It was a TechBot — most likely drawn to repair the damaged GardenBot by some electronic distress signal.

  “Stay back!” she cried, but the Bot kept coming. Too late Mattoso realized that it wasn’t headed for her, but rather the damaged GardenBot behind her — but once in reach, the heavy appendages of the TechBot swung in her direction. There were only two limbs, but they were much stronger than the GardenBot — strong enough to pry open and overhaul a Bot chassis.

  She tried to move to the side, to give the Bot room to reach the damaged GardenBot, but this part of the Garden passage was too narrow. Frantically, she looked around for the fire axe, but it had drifted across the passageway, too far to reach.

  Backed up against a cluster of tomato vines, she swung the GardenBot’s shears just in time as the TechBot grabbed for her, deflecting one appendage to the side. The larger Bot’s optics swiveled and panned up and down, as if to reevaluate its new opponent.

  Screw this. Tired as she was, she’d have to end the fight quickly against this stronger, tireless opponent. She set her feet against the vines behind her, intending to lunge for the Bot’s optic stalks. Before she could stab home, a furry limb latched onto the back of the TechBot, pulling it out of reach.

  What the hell?

  “Zinnia, disable the TechBot!” ordered a voice. That furry appendage belonged to a MOMbot, which proceeded to dance adroitly across the body and “head” of the TechBot, yanking and crushing components too fast for the eye to track. Of all things, it reminded her of the antics of an animated monkey from childhood vids, always thwarting the honest work of its bespectacled engineer nemesis by tearing apart his workshop.

  The TechBot had no chance. As fast and agile as an acrobat, the MOMbot was also apparently stronger than the repair Bot, and quickly overwhelmed it, separating limbs and ‘head’ from body until the big Bot was in pieces.

  “Well done, Zinnia.” The speaker finally came into view around the bend of the Garden’s figure eight passageway, a woman with those indeterminate features that could indicate any age from thirty to sixty. The MOMbot responded with a low-toned squeal.

  “Are you okay, Lieutenant, uh, Mattoso?” Her eyes quickly darted up from the name stitched in her coveralls. “Oh, you must be Pat’s lady friend.”

  “Pat? You know… is Pat okay?”

  “Of course I do — we’re both teachers, though I’m afraid I haven’t seen Pat since well before the emergency Spindown. But we have to go now, I have to get back to the kids. It’s not safe here, and I left them alone.”

  By instinct she pulled back when the MOMbot scuttled by.

  “It’s okay, Lieutenant. Zinnia wouldn’t hurt a fly. I know a safe place.”

  Confused and curious, Mattoso followed. Couldn’t hurt a fly, but tore apart a TechBot in less time than it takes to brush your teeth…

  CHAPTER 41

  Commander Papka cleared his throat and stood — a clumsy maneuver in freefall. Zero-gravity meeting etiquette was awkward as hell — the tables and chairs were bolted down for the freefall rig, but holding one’s self seated without gravity proved to be a continuous challenge. Konami thought that it would have made far more sense to dispense with the chairs altogether, but no one could spare the labor that would otherwise have been performed by Bots, so the chairs remained. The Engineer reported the status of the power systems. All formerly automated systems were now on manual control, more than doubling the manpower required to operate them.

  Exhaustion was just a way of life since the emergency spindown. By order of the captain and mayor, Madani was issuing stimulants to key personnel, including most of the department heads. Konami had barely slept a few hours in the last three days. At least he had been able to put his head down during his most recent break — during his first time off-watch after Spindown, he’d had to spend all his time cleaning after poor, confused Kostya and getting her situated with the Vet Techs.

  Captain Horovitz’s stone face rippled with cracks and shadows as she asked for Fabrication’s report.

  Konami was relieved to hear that the vidcam orders, from the lone fabrication shop still in operation, were finally complete. Every watchstander, whether roving or not, would soon be wearing a vidcam at all times, providing plenty of data for the crew tracker and identification program Data Tech Third Class Wren was putting together. The chief inspector felt remarkably at ease in keeping this new program secret; he had long ago concluded that at least one of the department heads was involved in the conspiracy, though he had no idea which one.

  Zubiri concluded by noting that they were starting production of the prototype firearms

  GravTran was next, and everyone turned to the wall-projection. Konrote’s face was streaked brown with grease, and he had to raise his voice to be heard over the bustle of activity around him in the Can rotation gears. With Bots unable to assist, they were a week behind schedule on repairs. Groans and signs rippled around the table. Shit… Bots have the advantage in freefall. “If we had more techs, then—”

  “Every Department is maxed out,” interrupted the captain. “Can rotation repairs are a high priority, but still secondary to regaining control of the ship and protecting our people. Director Shin — your team has analyzed captured Bot CPUs, correct?”

  The Data Systems department head fumbled at his wearable, reporting that they were analyzing the captured Bot CPUs, but hadn’t yet found anything unusual.

  “And the wearable problems?”

  Shin’s fingers tapped at a projection on the table, as slow as the old fogeys Konami recalled from Lagos libraries. “An invasive program — Master Tech Lopez says here they used to be called ‘viruses’ — got into wearables’ update routine, and set them to discharge high frequency signals continuously, which ate up all the power. They normally go for weeks without a recharge, but this virus had them burning out in an hour. Nothing sophisticated — we cleaned it out by the next day, and new sweeps will look for programs like it.”

  It was Konami’s turn. He cleared his throat and reported that they had cleared Ops and Engineering spaces from Bots, along with the surface of the Cans. Just minutes before the meeting started, Konami had finally received authorization from the Mechanical department head, the authority for access hatches throughout the ship, to lock shut most of the lower-level access hatches in the forward and aft Cans. Once the hatches were locked, ensuring no wandering Bots would make their way to the surface, dozens more deputies and constables previously consigned to guarding passageways would be free to join the surge effort. He estimated they were days away from regaining control of all spaces.

  Medical was next. “Thirteen confirmed dead,” said Madani. Konami shut his eyes for a moment, recalling the bodies found by surge teams, trapped in the grip of some heavy ship’s equipment, or in the embrace of a Bot, drifting through thick globules of blood. There were over nine hundred injuries, half of them serious, and the Infirmary was already overflowing.

  The captain started to move on, but Madani broke in again. “There’s one more thing. Among the healthy crew —those who weren’t injured — there’s been a jump in the minor medical complaints. Stomach pains, headaches, dizziness, and the like.”

  “That could just be from the freefall,” offered Papka. “When was the last time any of us spend more than a watch or two in zero-g?”

  “Perhaps,” responded Madani, but Konami got the sense she felt differently. She continued. “We
can’t spare any beds, so we’re letting the AutoDoc program prescribe them meds. We’d give them light duty chits, but no department can spare them.”

  They moved on to the XO, who reported almost a thousand Aoteans still missing.

  At these numbers, Konami shook his head to himself in dismay. He often forgot how huge the ship was, and how many spaces and corridors he rarely traversed.

  The captain was silent for a full half-minute, turning to meet the eyes of everyone present. Konami had to resist the temptation to turn away from her gaze. For a moment he sensed uncertainty, as if she was trying to find words, but it passed.

  “I don’t have to tell you how serious this is. We are under attack. An attack from within — from individuals onboard this ship. In all likelihood, one or more of you here, in this room, could be involved.”

  Despite his own identical suspicions, Konami’s eyes went wide. He looked around the room at each person present, mentally noting which ones he suspected might be involved.

  No way is Ilsa… He chided himself for his personal feelings — he’d have to consider everyone equally based on the evidence. Gut feeling can be evidence, he recalled from one of his earliest instructors. Just not legal evidence. Don’t let it push other evidence aside, but don’t ignore it either. He realized that it could be anyone at the table, but that wasn’t good enough. Which ones set off the butterflies? He looked at each face in the room once again. XO. CHENG Papka. He hoped that it was his detective gut, and not his dislike, that put Commander Papka in that category. Bigwigs — who the hell ever knows with them? He tried to recall their backgrounds — Ngayabo was a geneticist; Maltin was an agricultural engineer; and Paramis was a demographer. What does that tell us? Not much, he decided. Ngayabo and Maltin were part of larger departments focused on their specialties, while Paramis was loosely attached to Human Support and Education, without any strictly defined duties, at least according to ship scuttlebutt.

  And who was he most sure wasn’t involved? Ilsa. Captain. Konrote. He had trouble imagining that the steady, dedicated Engineer in charge of GravTran would sabotage his own equipment. That left a lot of faces. Including, he realized with a slight shock, Mayor Akunle.

  Captain Horovitz continued. “I say that not to sow suspicion, but awareness. I’m sure you’ve all considered it by now. Chief Pohamba, you’ll send this order to all hands: From now going forward, all movements will be logged. All personnel will report, by routine log, their movements, to their supervisor, the executive officer, and the chief inspector. There are no exceptions.” Konami noticed that, with this, she glanced pointedly at the Bigwigs. “All personnel will report when they leave their quarters, for any reason, and when they return. All personnel will report their destination, and if that changes, append the log. The curfew will continue, and when not on duty, all personnel will remain in their quarters, unless they have authorization by message from their department head. The Director-Superintendent and Commanding Officer have instituted Martial Alert. All nonessential activities and operations will cease. This includes food service — for the foreseeable future, we will all be subsisting on emergency rations, which will be distributed regularly. The Education Department will continue on Martial Alert status — children will report, escorted by roving watchstanders, to consolidated classrooms only when their parents are on duty, and all educational field trips and recesses are suspended. For all non-vital inquiries, utilize your chain of command. End order.”

  She leaned back, floating off her chair slightly, the stone-face breaking for the barest instant.

  In that instant, he saw something he had never seen from the captain before — fear.

  CHAPTER 42

  “Of all the places to get stuck onboard, the Garden’s gotta be one of the best, right? Plenty of food, space, pretty things to look at…”

  Mattoso couldn’t help but admire Teacher Kabila’s optimism. Shortly after the Spindown, the Teacher and her eleven students had found themselves floating in the Garden, out of contact, wearables drained of power.

  “Let me tell you, getting eleven screaming kids organized in zero-g is no picnic,” the surprisingly upbeat Teacher had explained. “Even with Zinnia here, with no guycables and no sky, the kids didn’t know what to do or even how to move. If they weren’t crying, they were puking, and that was before the GardenBots went crazy.”

  According to Kabila, a GardenBot had latched onto a child straggling in the back. Luckily, the MOMbot Zinnia was nearby and separated the two, with nothing more than scratches on the child. Once out of reach, the Bot reverted to its normal obedience, though the Teacher had Zinnia jam it into a cluster of vines just to be safe. Until I was dumb enough to go swimming in the greenery, that is.

  Based on the shipwide announcements, the Teacher had wisely assumed that the children would be safest staying put, and she’d found a Garden staff meeting room to occupy. It was on a foraging run in the Garden with Zinnia that they had heard the sounds of Mattoso’s struggle with the TechBot, and come to her rescue.

  “I tell you,” continued the laughing teacher. “Managing eleven kids in freefall, on an all fruit-and-vegetable diet, with just a single, semi-functional toilet two hundred meters away, is a lot less fun than it sounds.”

  Mattoso wrinkled her nose involuntarily — there was indeed a faint odor of excrement, though it didn’t seem to bother the children. Her stomach twisted slightly — she wasn’t sure if it was nerves, lack of food, or the odor.

  Kabila’s students seemed to have accepted their unusual circumstances with good cheer and admirable restfulness. Seven of them napped lustily, floating around the conference room at random (and a few in comically awkward positions), while the other four played some sort of bullseye ring-tossing game with the MOMbot. The simian Bot moved alternately like a clown and like a parent, dancing and gyrating in silent, madcap delight one moment, and calmly embracing a frustrated child in the next. Why weren’t they affected? Every single Bot and piece of automated gear onboard is suddenly deadly, except the MOMbots…? If Mattoso could be thankful of anything at that point, it would be this.

  She heard the sound of approaching voices, and she exhaled in relief. She had called Emer for a pickup team as soon as the Teacher led her back to the kids, and now she felt free to resume her search for Pat, who, according to Teacher Kabila, was leading a field trip to Repro at the time of the Spindown.

  When the deputies arrived to escort them back into the safe zone, Mattoso gave a heartfelt goodbye to the Teacher and quietly slipped out into the Garden, being careful this time to stay out of reach of any Bot-sized clusters of greenery. She made a point to assuage the constables’ and deputies’ fears about Zinnia, writing a short note to Konami that MOMbots may not be affected by whatever has happened to the other Bots.

  She had a brief internal debate about how to get to Repro — over the surface, or in the passageways outside the safe-zones? Recalling her need to talk her way past Chief Azbek, she chose the latter. Doubt I’ll get so lucky a second time… Better just to avoid zone guards altogether — she might run into a Surge Team, but that’d be easy to explain.

  As she pulled her way down featureless passageways in the lower levels, Mattoso checked her wearable. She was due back on watch in just a few hours, this time on the Bridge. She sped up her pace, bumping painfully into a comms blister as she pawed through the corridors.

  Nightmare scenarios of what she’d find in Repro flashed through her mind. She recalled the TenderBot from her and Pat’s visit to order a jenji dog — the benign, spindly Bot that administered nutrients to the growing jenji pets in artificial wombs turned into a spider-limbed monstrosity in her imagination.

  An urgent message alert beeped. As she looked down to read it, a DustBot she missed behind a storage cabinet buzzed out and latched onto her sleeve — with a groan, she smashed it against the bulkhead and dislodged it, sending the little Bot spinning drunkenly down the passage.

  It was an all-senior-officers message, w
hich she normally would not receive, but Konami had graciously forwarded it to her. Working closely with the Constabulary, Data Technicians have determined the cause of the dangerous malfunctions from Bots and automated moving components. Technical details follow in the attachment — in short, standard safety programming protocols, common to virtually all moving gear onboard the ship, have been reversed. Instructions that take priority when within a meter of a person, to not make any movements that harm or even make physical contact with a person, have been altered by a tiny change in coding, becoming instructions that mandate movements to contact and harm persons within reach. Outside of a meter’s distance, Bots will act normally.

  At this time, normal procedures for cloud network updates to Bots and automated equipment are blocked. As their highest priority, Data technicians are investigating ways to bypass this block. While wireless updates to Bots are currently impossible, physical updates are possible and have been successfully tested on captured Bots. Reprogrammed TechBots will be sent out with coding sticks to affect these repairs as well. Reprogrammed Bots that have been rendered ‘safe’ will be marked clearly with green paint.

  All hatches and automated moving equipment will remain in manual control mode until standard cloud network update capability is restored.

  All department heads disseminate to personnel as appropriate.

  She looked at the attachment — a detailed description of the programming code — though she was far from an expert on the discipline. From what she could gather from the technical language, Bots and automated gear juggled multiple competing hierarchies of instructions, but when any person came within a meter’s distance, the safety protocols overrode all other instructions. Dozens of actions and consequences were listed, in code-speak, in the avoid category, such as (in coding language) physical contact at speed and/or acceleration greater than… and impeding the progress of any personnel with a margin of...