A.I. Zombie

by L. A. Johnson

  "I saw it," she answered, "and it was good. Lately, I'm more interested in your little science project, though."

  The waiter appeared, and in the end, after some fun back and forth, they both decided on signature steaks and a more than satisfactory bottle of wine. Lyra had never been to this restaurant before, and looking around the place, she was impressed. There were nearly wraparound windows with peaceful views of stars.

  Inside the windows, cozy tables with beautifully decorated tablecloths dotted the landscape with plenty of room in between to allow an impressive amount of conversation privacy. A quick glance around revealed that he had cleverly reserved the best of these tables with the most beautiful view of both the stars and the beautiful, glowing, nearby moon.

  A stunning, blue Cecaelia walked by, accompanied by a guy in a red fedora. She couldn't help but stare. In a space station full of strange creatures, that was the first time Lyra had ever seen a Cecaelia. Half octopus, half goth-human, she thought. That’s pretty cool. The guy in the fedora was just a guy in a fedora.

  She turned her attention back to Ian. The bread came while she was looking around and he was tucking his napkin onto his lap. She did the same and grabbed one of the rolls. They were still warm.

  "So, you have your science project and your web fame, I've been meaning to ask you, which came first?" she asked in between bites.

  "Well, that's a funny story, actually. I'd have to say it all started with me trying to get thrown out of grad school."

  Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Alright, that's a point to you. That's how you start a story."

  He smiled. "As I said, I was in grad school, and I wasn't entirely sure that I liked the direction that my life was going. So, I tried to think about the most outlandish, crazy thesis I could come up with for two reasons. One, so I could basically waste my own time thinking about what I actually did want to do with my life and two, so that when I presented the thesis for my masters, I would be laughed out of the room."

  That's when the steaks came. Lyra waited for the food to be set down and the waiter to leave. "Okay, go on."

  Ian was already digging into his food. "Oh yeah. Where was I?"

  "Trying to get laughed out of the room presenting your thesis. And I have to say, there was probably an easier way to get out of grad school."

  "I don't know," he said, "nothing came to mind at the time. Anyway, even though the thesis was crazy, it was fun enough that I actually spent more time researching it than I thought I would."

  "Okay," said Lyra, pausing from her food to take a sip of wine. "Are you going to tell me what this crazy thesis was? And what all of this has to do with your video blog fame?"

  "I'm getting there,” Ian said. “Because they're connected. You see, I decided to research the effect of location on algorithms. Specifically, the effect of the spookiest, most haunted places in the universe."

  "No way," Lyra said. "You're just messing with me now."

  "Honest," he said, raising a hand like he was taking an oath. They both giggled. "There's no way I could make this up. And I'm fully aware of how crazy it sounds. That was the point, remember?"

  "Okay. Fair enough."

  "So I go in to present my thesis. I had slides and everything. I only had enough money to research the one haunted place nearest my home planet, but sure enough, there were actual fluctuations in the data. I still expected to get laughed out of the room, but on some level, I felt that I had not completely wasted my time."

  "So, they laughed you out of the room and you proved them wrong by going out and becoming a famous web star?" Lyra asked.

  "Way worse," Ian said. "They gave me the degree and threw a bunch of money in grants at me to go and do more research."

  Lyra paused, wine glass in her hand. "You're kidding."

  "Nope, all of this is one hundred percent true."

  "Wow, so, you failed at getting kicked out of grad school?"

  "Yup. And then I started traveling the universe getting weird data in spooky places."

  "That sounds kind of fun actually. What about the web stuff?"

  "Well, that started on a dare from my roommate, who was too chicken to visit the haunted moon of Vermilion. He said he wouldn't believe that I was actually there unless I live-cast it. So I did. And then I put it online. And then it just took off after that. It made me orders of magnitude more money than being a scientist, so when the grants ran out, I just continued to visit and live-cast from creepy, haunted places for money."

  That's when the waiter came back with a dessert menu. Lyra got the chocolate mousse, while Ian went for the brownie sundae.

  "That sounds great," Lyra said. "I have a question, though. Why still do the math if you're famous and have lots of money?"

  "Turned out, I did like spooky algorithms after all. Now it's just a fun hobby."

  Dessert arrived and they dug in. Ian caught her sneaking a glance at his brownie sundae and offered her a bite, which she accepted.

  "That's not to say I don't like the spooky stuff. In fact, I think my favorite part of this webcast was the bit about the fearless nature of the people who live and work here. If there's been one aspect more fascinating than math about scary places, it's the people who live there. I meant it," he said. "You people fascinate me."

  "You people?" Lyra raised an eyebrow.

  "You know what I mean," Ian said. "The residents here. You're brave and you know it, don't pretend you're not."

  "Why? Because we choose to live near a fairly stable black hole? You do realize that it's stable and the chances of anything bad happening in the next several hundred eons is very, very slim."

  "I know. I looked it up. But as I said on the video, fear doesn't have to be rational."

  "Tell me about it," she said. "For instance we have a resident, fabulous doctor, mind you, but he has a hang-up and it's keeping him from moving on."

  "We all have hang-ups, though don't we?" he asked.

  Lyra thought briefly back to earlier in the day and the stupid rat. Fear of gross, mutant rats was perfectly rational though, and up until today had not ever held her back in the workplace. "Absolutely. I have plenty, giant mutant rats for one, but back to my friend. He can't operate on Cephalopods. They freak him out."

  "What was that about rats?" Ian asked.

  "Nothing," Lyra answered.

  "That's interesting about the cephalopods, though," he said, and she could see the wheels in his head turning. His video show was sort of an intelligent fear factor meets motivational speaker. Maybe fear of Cephalopods was something he hadn't covered.

  "That's a new one for me," he said as if reading her mind. "There are a lot more beings in the universe attracted to tentacles than repulsed by them."

  "You?" Lyra asked before she could help herself.

  "Wouldn't you like to know," he said playfully.

  That's when her phone buzzed with a notification from the hospital. She shot him an apologetic look and then glanced down at the phone.

  "I'm sorry, it's the hospital. I have to check it."

  "By all means," he said. "Duty calls, right?"

  She read the message and then looked up. "I'm sorry, Ian. I have to go." She held up her phone for him to see. Emergency Meeting in fifteen minutes: All Upper Level Hospital Personnel. Lyra, this means you.

  Ian shook his head. "Grayson, eh. He doesn't usually call meetings this late at night, does he?"

  "No," Lyra admitted.

  "Why the extra part on the end, just for you?" he asked. He looked inquisitive not accusatory.

  "Oh, Grayson and I go way back. Before he was Chief of Medicine and way before I ever qualified as Upper Level Hospital Personnel," she answered. "And in addition to that, he's just a cranky old pain in the ass."

  "So you two have a history?" he asked.

  "You could say that," she said, standing up from her seat. "See you soon." She gave him a kiss and then made her way out of the restaurant.

  11

  Lyra was among the l
ast of the summoned personnel to arrive. She wondered what could be so important to warrant an emergency meeting this late at night. The last emergency meeting was during the day and had to do with a machinist strike on the station.

  "Now that everybody has arrived, I have an announcement." Grayson shot Lyra a look about being the last to arrive.

  She rolled her eyes fast enough so that he'd know it had happened. Damned if I do and damned if I don't, she thought, knowing full well he wouldn't be giving her such a hard time if he knew she was out on a date.

  "As all of you probably know by now, a large rat caused a disturbance at the Frenzy nightclub earlier today." He searched the eyes around him, presumably daring them to say something about his coincidental presence there, but everybody knew better than that by now.

  She wondered what the deal could be with the rat. Was it carrying a specific communicable disease? Was she about to be quarantined? What was going on? For the first time in her career, she was happy to be upper management so that maybe for once she'd know what the helios was going on.

  She also found herself hanging on Grayson's every word, which was doubly unusual. Most of all, though, she was happy that it was Arthur and not herself that had touched the thing. Sorry, Arthur.

  His pause was too long for her to take. "I'm sorry, what about the rat?" she blurted out.

  "I was getting to that," he said, "stop interrupting."

  Everybody shot her a look so she stopped talking and took a step back.

  "Anyway, the rat that was the center of the disturbance was found to have unspecific mutant properties. We are not quite to the point of a full quarantine on the space station, but we are looking into specific abnormalities."

  Lyra's head was spinning. Mutant? Abnormalities? Other than being huge, what was the big deal here?

  Vax mercifully broke the silence.

  "For star's sake, Grayson. From what I hear it was simply a giant rat? Why the extra concern and the cloak and dagger act?"

  "I can't tell you that right now."

  Now Lyra was mad. You call us all here to freak us out, especially those of us who were close to it and then you refuse to answer questions? Lame. "Are those of us who happened to be in close contact with the weird, giant, mutant rat in any immediate danger?"

  "Inconclusive," he said.

  Now he was just pissing her off. "For heaven's sake," she said. "Why call us here and worry us if you won't answer any of our questions? What's the whole point of that?" She cringed for him to unload on her, but he didn't. She wasn't sure if that made her feel better or scared her on a whole different level.

  "Good question. Glad you asked. This one I can actually answer. Because I had to. If you ask me, it's nothing. Just some good old fashioned intergalactic bureaucratic I-dotting and t-crossing if you ask me. How's that? Does everybody feel better? Breathe, people. There will be no personal time granted tomorrow. Now go home, get some sleep, and deal."

  For the first time in her life, Lyra decided that one of his stupid meetings actually ended too quickly. She turned and headed back to her apartment, but she wasn't at all sure about the sleeping part.

  Lyra was unable to get much sleep after Grayson's weird rat meeting the night before. She grabbed some coffee and made her way early to the doctor's lounge in the morning. This morning the room was packed.

  Arthur was there sitting in the corner, but he tried to get her attention as soon as she walked in the door. She headed toward the back of the room as usual and collected him on her way.

  "Hey, why are all the upper level doctors so agitated this morning?" he asked.

  "Because we all had trouble sleeping," she responded truthfully.

  "All of you?" he asked, his face scrunched up. "Together?"

  "Not like that," she said. "Um, Grayson called a late mandatory meeting. Kept us all up. Being upper management isn't all fun and games," she said, rifling through the first of the very old filing cabinets.

  That brought another frown of concern from Arthur. "Forgive me for noticing, but usually you just sulk with your morning coffee in the corner by yourself. Why are you searching through these old cabinets?"

  She took a deep breath and a sip of coffee and wished him somewhere else. She blinked. It didn't work. "Since you're so observant, what exactly makes you think that I want company this morning? Because, spoiler alert, I don't."

  "What are you looking for?" he asked, undaunted.

  Why couldn't he ever be daunted, anyway? Then she remembered that he had also expressed an interest in the robot, MACRO.

  The other morning, when it had emitted its weird, new beep it had made her wonder. And then they were attacked. Maybe it was related. Maybe MACRO was trying to warn them somehow. And now, in addition to needing something to do to keep her mind off the giant rat, she was more motivated to figure out what the heck the little guy was up to.

  She glanced at the robot in the corner, who didn't give any sign that he acknowledged her presence. She doubted he could help at all with the medical mystery, but that didn't mean that there would be no advantage to understanding him. His arrival at the station and how he came to be in that robot body and why he hung out in the doctor's lounge was the stuff of mystery and legend. There were only rumors. From Grayson. That meant that none of the rumors were particularly responsible.

  "Actually," she said, "maybe you can help me. You expressed interest in MACRO. You wanted to understand him, right?"

  Arthur glanced at the robot himself, his spiky orange hair moving with him and then back. "Yes. Seems like a good idea. My other question is why he spends all day in the doctor's lounge. Is he, in fact, a medical doctor?"

  "Doubt it," Lyra answered. "That's your question, eh? My question is why Grayson stuffed him into that ancient, obsolete robot body. Every other robot on board the station does things and communicates."

  "No offense, MACRO," she mouthed the words at the robot in case it was listening. There was no response.

  Lyra sipped her coffee before continuing. "I spent considerable time last night researching his model number." Because I couldn't sleep because of the possible rat contamination and my close proximity to it. Damn it, Grayson, are you trying to get me killed?

  "And I couldn't find anything anywhere on the internet for that particular model or any related ones either." A piece of her wondered whether Grayson created this robot just to mess with her, but he was far too busy, lazy and self-absorbed for that.

  "What I'm thinking here, is that whoever turned the robot on would have needed the manual for sure. Because the other rumor is that he didn't arrive in robot form."

  "He's a converted robot?" Arthur asked, mouth agape.

  "Close your mouth and try to keep up. I don't know the answers or if the rumors are true." I just need something to distract me from the rat.

  "So, what'll it be, Arthur? You in or out? If you're in, pick another filing cabinet at the other end of the room and dig in." She pointed to the far end of the room. "If you're out, then still go to the other end of the room. I'm busy." She turned to fix him with steely eye contact. "And if you tell anyone about this, I swear."

  "I won't, I promise."

  And then, thankfully, he disappeared.

  Lyra spent the rest of the morning until her shift sifting through very old documents in even older cabinets in between coffee refills and bathroom breaks.

  Grayson had these old filing cabinets brought in here years ago when he had his office remodeled and never wanted them back. So here they stayed, stacked against the walls like old sentinels of useless knowledge from the beginning era of the hospital and in the case of some records, the space station itself.

  Lyra may not have found MACRO's instruction manual yet, but she was finding other odds and ends that were, in fact, interesting.

  For instance, it looked like the space station itself was infused with some very strange mathematical "spells", if you will, at its christening for some reason. She wondered if that had anything to
do with what Ian had been talking about last night as far as his altered math algorithms.

  Mathematical magic. Weird. The idea of it made her head hurt, but the concept seemed pretty interesting. She made a note to ask him about it and took pictures of those particular files with her phone before moving on.

  A little while later, she changed tactics and decided that any document interesting enough to take a photo of would go in a manila folder she had gone to records to retrieve. Her morning at least felt productive, even though it was probably just odd, busy work.

  She had taken at least a dozen documents that had caught her eye, including anything she found interesting about the birth of the Celestica space station. She gathered her new folder, having just enough time to drop it off at her apartment before going to work.

  "You hang in there," she told MACRO across the room. "I'm going to figure you out."

  MACRO, as usual, didn't respond.

  "Ok, buddy. We'll talk later, I've got to go to work."

  12

  Floyd hit the refresh button on his email and wondered if his day was going to get better. His office seemed particularly dreary today. He looked out his window to confirm. Yup. Gonna be one of those days. Usually for him to be having this bad of a morning, the hospital was getting sued. That always made him angry. Refresh.

  There was that little bit of excitement yesterday, when the hospital was attacked by a baseball bat wielding werewolf. That was a first. Crash had to shoot him. Right in the operating room hallway. Crazy stuff.

  Floyd considered the danger of the situation. He could walk into a situation like that himself if he wasn't careful.

  That revelation had sent him to the fun, seedier areas of the space station where he had procured for himself some powerful and illegal weapons. If he was ever in the line of fire for this space station, he may as well be prepared. Refresh. Refresh. Nothing.

  He patted his locked, bottom left drawer newly stuffed with weapons. That's right, in the future he would be ready. Whether it was rampaging emergency room crashers or angry would-be litigants sitting right here in his office, he would be standing up for himself.