Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens

by Robert E Colfax

  The others were collecting weapons, water, and ration bars for the excursion. The plan was to meet at the shower in just a few minutes. She didn’t want either Ron or Geena to know what she was doing. Even Urania was questionable. Meat got the whole arena thing from Urania’s mind. She thought it was reasonable to assume that the sim-engine might have access to everybody’s thoughts. Lexi was the only one of them who trained with Jis, learning how to shield her mind, at least partially, from others. She could only hope that would be enough. She knew she needed more training.

  She reached down and removed the educator headset from the comatose woman’s head. “Wake up now, Lexi,” she said gently. “I expect you’re going to find this interesting. Do you remember using the educator to get into Urania’s mind?”

  “Yes.” Lexi-sim opened her eyes and smiled up at herself. Her expression exhibited curiosity but held no sign of confusion or panic. “It didn’t work. And you’re right, this is interesting. What’s up, me?” She laughed. “As Dad was wont to say, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do. Where did you come from? And what are you?”

  Lexi-avatar handed her the mug of coffee and the protein bar she had set on the console. “We don’t have much time. First of all, we’re on a simulated version of our ship. The cabin sensors are all active, but Urania isn’t command-comp on this one. The derelict ship Urania found is sentient and pretty close to pure evil. It traps and kills the crews of passing ships because it enjoys it. I suspect it’s of Wraixain origin, largely because I believe all of this is related to educator technology. When Urania tried to hack its command-comp, it pulled her into a simulation, in a human body no less, and tried to kill her. I stopped it.”

  With a smile, she added, “She’s been trying to catch up on the use of the shower ever since.” The Lexi on the chair matched her smile. “We’re stuck in his simulation. None of what you’re experiencing now is truly real. I’m sorry, but neither of us is real either. According to the alien sentience, I’m an avatar housing the consciousness of Lexi Stevens. You’re a copy, a computer simulation, of Lexi. The primary difference seems to be that, like Urania, I entered the sim via the educator interface. Ron and Geena are here too, as computer-generated representations of themselves, with no actual consciousness. Damn convincing though. The computer power supporting this must be incredible. Anyway, they’re all gathering up things. We’re going hunting.”

  Lexi-sim nodded. “Got it. Can’t say I like being told I’m not real but go on. I kind of have to trust you, don’t I?”

  “Well, it makes the situation easier if you do. I don’t like it much either. We need to take out the avatar of the alien ship. It believes, and there is credible supporting evidence, that killing an avatar kills the consciousness it contains. There is a link between an avatar and reality that I don’t fully understand yet. I named him Meat, by the way.”

  Lexi-sim chuckled. “As in ‘dead’ meat. Right. I can’t imagine why. What’s our plan?”

  “We’re boarding the derelict. I turned the shower into a transporter room. We’re going to beam over.”

  Her twin laughed out loud on hearing that. She thought a moment, and stated, “Clever. You’re bending gravity with the gravity pad technology. I assume you must have beefed it up significantly, probably to the point where it’ll destroy the ship if you try it while the hyperdrive is on.”

  Lexi-avatar continued. “We’re just sitting here with only the hyper-generator active. No drive to worry about. Of course, we’ve been thinking about doing transporter tech for months. It suddenly became my top priority. I don’t believe Urania is powerful enough to cripple that ship in either the real world or the sim world. His weak spot isn’t his hardware. I’m hoping it’s his avatar.”

  Lexi-sim drank the rest of her coffee, waiting for Lexi-avatar to continue. She remarked, “Even the simulated coffee simulated Ron makes is amazing. Go on.”

  Lexi-avatar smiled. “We’re going to attack Meat on his home ground. Take out his simulated computer core and, if we’re lucky, his weapons. I don’t want him destroying our sim-ship. I’m not sure what the consequences of that would be. The real goal, though, is to kill the Meat-avatar. That should free us from his sim. At least it seems like it should. I’m doing more guessing than I like, but we need to take the initiative. He wants to kill us. He’s powerful enough to do it.”

  Lexi-sim said, “If you die in the matrix, you die in the real world too.”

  “Apparently,” Lexi-avatar agreed. “Meat certainly thinks so. As a last resort, we blast his ship with our primary beams. I’ll need someone here to handle that. The others don’t know I woke you up. Urania is beaming over with us. The bottom line is we destroy the consciousness that is Meat and get Urania back to the real world safely. I’d kind of like to get back too. That is not a requirement of the mission, however.”

  “Send me with the team; I’m expendable. You and Urania stay here,” Lexi-sim suggested.

  “Yeah, I’m ashamed to confess that I thought of that. Meat is fast. I’m at least as fast, maybe faster. You might not be.”

  “Yes, you’re like Neo in here, aren’t you? Direct interface through the educator. I can see where that could make a difference. I’m going to be limited to our real-world abilities. Too bad we haven’t finished work on the new meds; hulk powers would be handy about now. You have some control over the sim, though, don’t you? Why does it feel like I’m thinking? Damn, I’d like to take the time to discuss movies with you. Or would that just be boring? Maybe taking a shower with myself would be fun. Hey, what if we both beam over?”

  Chapter 13

  Scotty

  Ron, Geena, and Urania stood together without crowding in the shower waiting for Lexi. “What’s she doing?” Ron asked.

  “She didn’t say, other than she had something she needed to take care of.”

  Another couple of minutes passed. Ron asked, “Should we turn on the water?”

  Geena frowned at him, “Let’s not.”

  When Lexi arrived a few seconds later, despite the appalling seriousness of their situation, she shook her head amusedly. The Enterprise crew never looked this hot. Nor this deadly. Ron, or more likely Geena, had taken extreme liberties with the official fleet uniforms. Geena liked the sexy look and had outdone herself with these. All the tunics were sleeveless. The fine-mesh, see-through tops clung like a second skin. Black lace stockings soared up the three women’s muscled legs to disappear under very short shorts.

  Geena mentioned Ron had tried to talk her into micro miniskirts for the women, but she had nixed the idea. The material’s flare could get in the way of a quick draw from the holsters strapped to each thigh. Black boots came to just above the knee. Ron’s uniform pants ended at mid-thigh. Each wore two knives, one in the right boot and the second strapped above the left bicep. Swords in quick-release scabbards slung over their backs completed the ensemble. The communicators attached over the left breast were fully functional. While the humans were linked via the comm-gear they always wore, Urania-avatar was not. They also needed them as locater beacons so the transporter could find them for the return trip.

  “That’s not the captain’s uniform we made for you,” Geena objected, observing Lexi’s matching red tunic with a frown.

  “Well,” Urania said, “I guess now we know what she needed to take care of.”

  “No, it’s not,” Lexi agreed, answering Geena. “I understand what you guys did and I appreciate the thought. But I want you all to understand something that I think you’re glossing over. I’m not important. Urania is. If both of us can’t make it back, I choose her. Ron and Geena, our loved ones in the non-sim world, need her to get back more than they need me. We’re not even completely sure that if Lexi-avatar dies, Lexi won’t just wake up. We know that my mind is somewhat non-standard these days. We’ve discussed it frequently enough. There’s no good reason to expect what happens to me to correspond with what Meat thinks will happen. Not that I’m counting on that.”
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br />   Geena nodded slowly. Ron looked like he wanted to argue, but stopped himself and nodded instead. They’d still go out of their way to protect Lexi, no matter what color tunic she wore.

  All four of them fit reasonably well in the shower. It was tight, of course, as it had been sized so that the three humans could intimately shower without being squished together. On a small starship, you didn’t waste floorspace just for the hell of it. Other than in the simulation, Urania could only be present through her sensors. As they squeezed in together, Urania announced, “We don’t know how this is going to turn out. Before we go, I want to say I’ve enjoyed being human and our physical interactions over the last day.”

  Geena, already pressed against her, bent her head slightly to deliver a kiss. As she straightened, she said, “You made that fairly obvious, darling.”

  While reaching forward to stroke Urania’s cheek, Lexi said, “Ship, energize.” Without any fanfare, the shower was empty.

  Chapter 14

  Dereliction of Duty

  The air on the derelict was flat and tasteless, with a smell that reminded Lexi of WD-40. The oxygen content was close to three percent higher than they were used to. It was as hot and as humid as an August day in Houston. The gravity was higher than the 1.13 times Earth normal they maintained on board Urania, where they matched that of Cardin’s Paradise, the world Ron and Geena called home. Lexi had adapted without issue. Here it was closer to 1.3 times that of Earth. They knew that the majority of the ship’s power plants were online at minimal output levels. Despite that, the lighting was very dim to human eyes. The builders of this ship saw a somewhat different spectrum. Our Grammin friends would almost be comfortable here. Why is Meat maintaining gravity and environment at all? Is it just part of the sim or is something going on here that we’ve either missed or haven’t figured out yet?

  Urania’s hacking efforts had borne some fruit. In the brief time, before Meat became aware that his systems were being accessed and she had been projected into the arena, she had managed to retrieve most of the layout of the ship. Scans by her simulated sensor array subsequently filled in many of the gaps. The transporter gently deposited them in a storage room near command-comp, located forward and one level above them. Command-comp was itself located one level above the ship’s center deck and nine-hundred feet forward of the bridge located aft of the ship’s center.

  The four immediately spread out. No one spoke. Communication was via the commando-style hand signals they taught themselves on their second job together. They didn’t care to have their voices picked up on microphones, if there were any, although they expected to be noticed soon enough anyway. The computer system on this ship, much like on Urania, consisted of subsystems reporting to and controlled by command-comp. On this ship, with thousands of subsystems, many of them reported to a management layer boasting a minor AI. Under normal circumstances, interior noises would not come to the attention of command-comp. They all realized that if he stalked what was left of his crew in order to kill them, those sensors may very well have been instructed to report interior noise directly to command-comp.

  Everywhere they went, they passed dead bodies. All of the ones they came across were Wraix. Only the skeletons remained of most of the crew. A few still had shreds of flesh attached. Lexi had to remind herself that she was in a simulation; stopping to take tissue samples would be a waste of time. Especially as she couldn’t be sure the simulation was accurate down to the genetic level. They were only assuming that the ship and everything on it was relatively accurate, but even that was just an assumption. Of course, the other overwhelming consideration was that this was a commando mission, not a science mission.

  Urania wasn’t that interested in the skeletons. She did, however, raise her hand to halt the team. Once she had everyone’s attention, she pointed to the nearest one and spelled out in sign language “Meat.” She could easily picture one of these skeletons supporting the creature she and Lexi battled in the arena.

  It would take the four of them weeks to scour the warship with little hope of success hunting an avatar that Meat could likely project anywhere at will. So they headed toward command-comp, the area of the ship where Meat’s awareness was expected to reside. They transported in relatively close to that area, after a short debate as to whether to actually appear inside the core. Concern for automated defenses led to the decision to approach through the ship’s passageways. Despite all of this, they could not be sure that any damage they did to the simulated computer core would affect Meat. It depended on how deeply his consciousness was embedded in the sim. If he believed he was taking damage, destroying the simulated core might kill the avatar. If he showed up to stop them, the four of them, armed with Zappers, might be sufficient to directly destroy the avatar.

  As tenuous as it all was, it was the best they could hope for.

  Chapter 15

  Pirates, Really?

  The team, with Ron and Lexi in the lead, followed by Urania, and with Geena bringing up the rear, met no resistance as they cautiously crept through the corridor. Reaching an access panel, they entered a maintenance tube and began climbing the wall-mounted ladder toward the next level up. The spacing of the rungs was odd, being a bit close together for humans, so they only used every other one. The tube contained conduits and pipes with cutoff valves and shunts. It extended from the lowest levels of the ship to the highest decks. There were many such tubes throughout the ship. While they weren’t any better lit than normal corridors, they clearly existed for servicing the ship. The Aeolus team exited the tube one level up from where they started, into an equipment room, tools mounted on the walls and bulky motorized equipment lined up on the floor. All of it labeled. The builders of this ship were nothing if not sticklers for order.

  Ron, slightly ahead of the others now, held up his hand to stop. He heard voices coming from the next room. The language was Ritue, his native tongue, but too low for him to make out the words. He backed his way to the others, signaling, “Company.” Then using sign-language, added, “Several voices, speaking Ritue. We’re not going to be able to sneak past them unless we climb the tube up another level. They’re in what looks like another storage room.” He paused a moment, adding, “Ah, Lexi, when you get a chance, buy or build comm-gear with external amplifiers in the earpiece. If we had Urania in the circuit, she could enhance their muted voices, but as she’s standing behind you, we’re out of luck on that one.”

  “Move ahead. Take cover behind the equipment. Let’s find out who they are,” Lexi signaled. When no one objected, once her people had positioned themselves, she stood and called out, “Who’s there?”

  The voices from the other room abruptly stopped. After a moment one of them called out, “We’re the crew of Save Me. May I ask who are you?” The man spoke with a pleasant male voice, but he sounded stressed. His words were certainly polite enough.

  Lexi could picture someone who spoke like that seducing a lonely medical technician working on a secret project sponsored by the Vankovian Empire. Save Me was the name of the ship they were tracking. They knew that from interviewing Helen Jin on Sandlin. Which made this situation slightly ambiguous. She decided there was no point in making small talk with the man. “We’re explorers. Our ship is nearby. I need to get through the room you’re in.”

  The voice chuckled. “Sorry, lady, but that isn’t going to happen. I don’t know what the fick is going on here, but I do know it’s a bad idea to let you through. I have seven men here with me. We’re all armed. I suggest you lose any weapons you might have and come through that hatch with your hands over your head if you want to live.” She heard him mutter, as though an afterthought, “Not that this is the most pleasant place to live in.”

  If there were eight of them in there, Save Me’s crew outnumbered Lexi’s people two to one. Since their presence was now known, they dispensed with hand signals and sign language. They had no idea how the pirates had boarded the derelict, leading Ron to speculate, keeping his v
oice low, “They would have faced the same issues we did getting over here, and I strongly doubt they invented freakin’ teleport technology on the fly. You kind of have to assume that is an unusual talent. Their ship is significantly closer, though, and they could have jumped, but on the other hand what are the chances that Meat can record people and play them back as simulations? We think he constructed an entire Roman arena, after all. These guys should have been several weeks ahead of us. He didn’t waste any time attacking us. These guys might already be dead.”

  Lexi looked thoughtful and glanced to Urania, before replying, “My guess is that he can,” she nodded her head, “and probably did. Although I suppose they could have suited up and jumped. But you’re right, I think it’s more likely that Meat was able to reach them and pull them into a sim as avatars. He probably killed them weeks ago and these guys up ahead are sims of the pirate crew. Our life sensors found no one alive on any of these ships. I still have to believe Urania and I created our own avatars via our educator. If he could reach us, you and Geena would have come along as avatars too. Despite those red tunics, we’re still not sure you’re not.”