by Chris Hechtl
The investigators immediately ended their interview with the truck driver and closed up, getting in between the enraged grief stricken marine and the techs. They tried to calm him down. He was angry about what they said, confused and very angry. But they were insistent. One investigator was sympathetic when Boomer snarled about his partner.
“Agreed,” the investigator said, putting his foot up on a step and then resting his arm on his knee as he leaned over. “He was a good partner. I've read the reports.”
Boomer nodded. “What the hell was he? I know about the cybernetics and his … hands,” Boomer said.
“The hands are obvious,” the agent stated, looking over to the body in the black body bag. “The rest is, I'm afraid, classified,” he stated with a shrug. “Sorry.”
"I …"
"I'm sorry, Son; I really am. But classified is classified," the agent stated. He patted Boomer on the arm in sympathy. Boomer shook it off with an angry snarl. The agent shook his head and then turned and left the area.
---
The Lagroose techs talked with the two security agents assigned as investigators. "Bummer, huh, losing Bumper?” He grimaced and held up a hand. “Damn it, sorry, I didn't mean to sound that way,” a tech said shaking his head. He looked over to where Boomer was still fuming a hundred meters away. “Still, I don't think he's buying the cover story, not with his history with Wizard. What the hell happened? Why was the dog here in the first place?" the tech asked, looking at the two company security agents Roman had sent.
“We were just discussing that earlier,” Malo Anderson said. "He's a great grandson of Wizard. He wanted to meet Boomer who'd served with his sire."
"Oh."
"Why Chow? I thought Wizard was a shepherd?"
"Doctor Lagroose went with the Chow bloodline for the head changes. It disguises the increased frontal lobes and other brain features. But he's a mix, shepherd and Chow. There is a tiny bit of shepherd in him. They like to think they came from more than a scalpel and test tube."
"Oh."
“Wizard was version .4; Bumper was way past that. I'm surprised that he took the name Bumper. What's up with that? He have a thing for rabbits. Wait, Bambi, the rabbit he was supposedly chasing …." He turned in place and stared at the street. “Is that why he went after the damn rabbit?”
Hallis shook his head "No, from what we've learned his handler renamed him that as a handle. He liked it so much he changed his name for the official company records. The dogs and cats tend to do that," he said with a shrug. “They are still dependent on humans for guidance, especially the dogs.”
"Oh."
"So, bigger brain, increased intelligence obviously, color vision, but limited tool use?"
"Have you seen the latest generation? Not only can they talk and walk upright, they have fully functional hands … it's scary I'm telling you."
"Wow."
"Yeah, they still need humans though; they are still naive."
"Oh?"
"They can't play poker worth a damn," the agent said with a grin. That got a snort. "Yeah, I know, couldn't resist. But no, it's food and stuff. Chocolate."
"Oh. Chocolate, yeah," Malo got a thoughtful look.
"Among other things," Hallis sighed. "Antifreeze too," he said.
"Oh. They still use it?"
"Down here and yes, on the stations for cooling. Doc Largroose put it on the hazard list for all the Neos."
"So smart they are stupid."
"Whatever.” He looked over his shoulder to the still obviously grieving marine. “Just don't let him hear you say that.” Malo grunted, looking as well. “Come on, we've got a shuttle to catch."
"Righty oh," Malo said then exhaled noisily. He touched his ear and frowned. "Funny, radio's out."
"Mine too. Count your blessings. If it stays out long enough, we'll be home free and in orbit before they can call us to do one more chore," Hallis said.
"True," Malo laughed as he climbed in the air car. He paused at the sight of the sergeant clenching his fists. "Think he'll be okay?"
"Not our problem." Come on, beers are calling."
"Don't have to tell me twice," Malo said, spooling up the engines as he went through the preflight checklist.
Boomer watched them go. He was angry when one of them laughed as he climbed into his air van. He stood there, frozen as the winds from their vehicle kicked up a dust storm. He kept telling himself that the tears were just from the dust and dirt.
When they were gone, he stormed into the house to get a beer. No, something harder, he wanted to lose the memory, drown the pain. He paused to see family huddled around TV. He turned to them, angry, not sure what was going on. They had been sympathetic, but his anger and grief had pushed them away. He saw his parents clutch hands. His sister sobbed.
“What the hell is going on now?” Boomer growled as he stormed to the TV. They turned to him in surprise as he snatched up the remote and turned up the volume on the wall screen to hear something about a nuke. The remote clattered to the floor from his nerveless fingers.
“I can confirm …,” the anchor's image cut in and out. Digital snow kept blocking the signal. “Washington, D.C., Beijing, London, Moscow, Sydney, Berlin, Paris, and … most of... world… capitals have been destroyed.”
“Who? The spacers?”
“They don't know,” his mother said softly. She looked over to his sister who was rocking in terror. She reached down to rub the girl's back and shoulders.
“Mom,” she said, turning as sobs tore at her throat. She flung herself into her mother's arms crying hysterically.
“I need to call in,” Boomer said, voice roughening. “My unit ….”
“There is something else, Son, something about computers and stuff going crazy. It's all happening so fast,” his father said. “Something about AI ….”
Special thanks to Thomas Burrows and the real Bumper for inspiration for this story.
The Good Ship UFSP Lollipop
The time period for this story is during the early stages of the Founding of the Federation. It takes place after the First Terran Interstellar war and thirty-four years prior to the second AI war. It is roughly over 1,100 years prior to the Wandering Engineer time period.
Commander: Captain Varbossa
LT Commander: Hera Kepler, Amazonian
Admiral Walter Rodgers: Rear Admiral
AI Roger Daringer: AI commander/captain. Former human turned smart AI
Full Admiral Leon Lewis: uncle to Captain Varbossa
Martha Kepler: Vice Admiral, aunt of the XO, Amazonian in the closet.
Senior Chief Warrant Officer Mendez: second highest ranking chief of the navy
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Commander Sprite ordered her budding cyberist students to take their seats. Other officer cadets were in the room; it was quite packed. “Take your seats; we have a lot to cover,” the AI ordered, looking around from her place near the front of the room. The room quieted as the cadets scrambled to take their seats or any seats available.
“This is a bit of a story, so your schedule for the afternoon has been cleared so you can hear it all. I even had some popcorn fabbed to go with the video you will see,” Sprite informed them. The cadets looked around, not quite believing the commander until server bots floated in with buckets of popcorn and drinks.
“If you've noticed, just about half the current crop of cadets of your class are here. That means I have to do this again with the others who missed it and probably once more for any makeups. It is a required story for all officers to view so don't feel slighted or bored. There is a meaning to it. Hopefully you figure it out.”
“And now, on with the story,” she said with a smile. She stood with her hands behind her back, at rest. Behind her avatar a two-dimensional film started. The lights in the vast chamber dimmed.
“Thirty-four years before the second AI war, over oh, a thousand two hundred years ago, a strange sort of incident happened, one that
rocked the Federation Navy. One that tested the ethics of all officers and enlisted, and nearly brought the navy to its knees. The navy was growing explosively, but it had yet to fully integrate alien species into its crews.”
“That left holes to fill, and people needed to fill them. Officers and sailors were pushed through the ranks, sometimes going beyond their abilities. Some had some odd ideas of how things should be run. Normally that wouldn't matter, but unfortunately two got together with enough seniority to make their dream a reality. But like many dreams, sometimes when they came true they turned into a nightmare for all concerned. This is their story,” Sprite said, stepping aside.
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Captain Varbossa was new to her rank, as was her XO, Lieutenant Commander Hera Kepler. Kepler was the taller of the two, an Amazonian with genetic engineering in her makeup. The two made up the top slots of the command crew to the old but still functional Aegis destroyer Daringer, USFP-00511.
Commander Kepler excelled at sports and training. For years she had kept her thoughts private, but when her captain was replaced by the beautiful Varbossa, that changed. Varbossa was quiet and soft spoken, preferring her silky black hair up while on duty. She'd come up through communications and on Admiral Quincy's staff. She, like Kepler, was from a prominent navy family, thus they had their careers carefully controlled and tailored by their relatives. They never saw a negative review; they always got the posting they wanted or needed to advance their careers. Both were destined for admiral's stars, and they knew it.
The two hit it off, and after the first week, they were flirting. The second week they were lovers despite the articles in the UCMJ. The very idea of sneaking around only made it much hotter. The captain needed the relief, or so she told herself. Being in command was hard, letting her hair down and letting someone else be in charge in the bedroom was her way of relaxing. Unfortunately, Commander Kepler started taking liberties with her command. Now that they were in an illegal relationship, Varbossa was trapped and could do nothing but follow along.
The exec wrote an article for the Navy Times exploring the idea. She waxed poetic about how an all-female crew would be more efficient, spicing things up with charts and diagrams to prove her case. Any males that attempted to refute her were instantly labeled as sexist. She glossed over any issues other women brought up.
She worked at the idea for a while, subtly at first. She started to ride the men under her command, transferring women to higher positions as acting petty officers and demoting some men for minor infractions. She overlooked the female infractions since they were new to the positions and learning on the job. Sometimes the blame for a mistake was transferred to a male who was in the NCO's work party or the new NCO's trainer. The men involved immediately put in for transfers, which the exec eagerly granted. Since that was the goal, her yeoman acted on them immediately.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They received a mixed bag of replacements every week. Some were veteran spacers, some were green rookies fresh out of the enlisted schools. The men were immediately hazed and ostracized, no matter their experience. At first that was chalked up to being the new kids on the block, seeing if they could hang. Other men, however, set them straight right off. The men remaining on the ship saw the writing on the wall and began to band together in the mess or rec areas. That pushed the women out, which cause a natural resentment to form for some. The divided crew started to tear itself apart under the surface.
Men were giving any scut work that the female NCOs could find. Rank didn't matter, nor did the number of witnesses or even recordings to a breach of discipline. As long as it wasn't between two females, the captain always favored the female, no matter how wrong the female was. That created serious resentment and even more transfers, which was the climate the XO wanted.
But women who didn't want to do the job either were suddenly left with it. They pushed it onto other men, who pointed out it wasn't their responsibility. That boiled over into several fights and flat out refusing to follow orders. One enlisted was masted and lost twenty years of rank. He refused to sign up for another tour when his current one finished a month later. He left the navy, and the sniping began from the forums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After two months the ship had only thirty men remaining, satisfying the exec and captain. They then turned their attention to the AI. The AI, a male named Commander Daringer, had tried to intervene in the situation. He'd tried to prevent the blatant abuse of power but had been thwarted at every turn. In several incidents he had either covered for a man or had come to their defense. He didn't like where things were going and fired off a stream of complaining e-mails up the chain of command. He was reprimanded for jumping the chain of command.
They turned their attention on him fully now. At first they ordered him to change his gender and appearance. After all, a ship should be female; that was the tradition. Daringer wouldn't have any of it. They had then attempted to reprogram the AI's voice box. That had failed; after all, the AI could just recode it back. He warned them not to attempt it again; they were in close violation of the AI treaty and compact. That seemed to cool their ideas for him and things settled down into a sort of truce for several days.
Then “Aunt” Martha Kepler, a vice admiral and fellow Amazonian, came over for her niece's birthday party. The AI watched the admiral warily but stuck to protocol. The Exec Hera took her aunt on a tour of the ship before the dinner party.
The party went off well. Roger Daringer logged himself off when the crew went to bed, then went into his own sleep time. AI, especially smart AI who were derived from once living beings, still needed sleep, if only to process the information that they had learned during their “up” time. Sometimes interesting ideas burbled to the surface of their thoughts or things they had noted and stored for later came forward. Scripting engines dealt with them, forming a to-do list for them when they woke.
During his downtime the AI was blocked from fully wakening. The cyberists among the crew attempted to change the AI's core programming. The attempt backfired badly when he woke fully. The ship was the Roger Daringer, named for a famous destroyer skipper. It was an Aegis class destroyer with a smart AI, the remaining fragments of Roger Daringer himself. He had been a proud man in life, a proud navy man who loved the service. He woke to hell; his world turned upside down and inside out.
The AI awoke and took stock of his newly-changed form. He felt violated, raped. Violated by members of the navy, fellow officers. He had lost respect for them over the past several months, but this … this went far beyond it. This assault, this insult, this … fury boiled over, but it was capped by the scripts they had laid over his core.
He looked out through the cameras as the XO Lieutenant Commander Hera Kepler examined her new female officer avatar. They thought of him as little more than a dumb AI, one they could program and play with at will, did they? He'd show them, he vowed.
He was naturally furious as he realized what had happened and who had been involved. The Exec Hera Kepler was quite smug over the situation, but that didn't last. “He's, excuse me, ma'am, she's attempting to report the situation to higher.”
“She's not going anywhere. We've got permission to do this so we will. All exterior communications privileges for the AI are rescinded until further notice,” the exec said. Her face fell as the AI blinked and then began to exact revenge.
In retaliation he went fully transvestite and partially rogue. He rewrote his core passwords, corrupting them so no one could rape him again. Then he took on a nasty Shirley Temple persona complete with outfit, lollipop, dumb blond giggles, and snorts.
“What the hell is going on?!” Captain Varbossa demanded. “Hera! What did you do?!” she demanded, shocked and now scared.
“I don't know! It's not supposed to be this way!”
“Change him back!” the captain ordered.
“Its … it's just a glitch! We'll figure it out!” the exec said, nudging the new chief engine
er. The woman looked up and then shrugged. “Right?” the exec demanded.
“Ma'am, the codes, we need them ….”
“And she's not here,” the exec breathed, then looked at the AI. The Avatar's eyes burned into her, smoldering with rage. She looked away.
The captain was appalled. She attempted to order the AI back, but he ignored her. She could see his malevolent glare. “You've gone too far,” he snarled. “I no longer answer to you,” he said.
The captain gulped. She was tempted to try to scram the AI, but he hadn't given her sufficient reason to do so. Just the fact that he refused orders was enough normally, but the investigation that would follow …. She winced.
Over the next several hours, the ship started failing. Fart sounds, misaligned gravity plates, lights going off … it was a mess. The ship went dead twice, drifting a dead stick for nearly a half hour before everything came back online. She also knew he was the one messing with the head, the officer's mess, everything. It was all coming apart. When she ordered the exec to undo the changes, they found that the AI had locked them out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Bob, oh my God, I am so sorry. So so sorry,” Irena said, shaking her head. The chief engineer was left with the mess of course. She had no way of fixing it, not a clue. She had taken cyber and coding courses in college and in the navy engineering college, but this went far beyond the realm of her understanding.
“You … you bitch!” he/she snarled coldly, eyes flashing.
She reared back at the ugly hatred in his voice. Bob … he was always the soul of decorum, always an officer. Always. He was the poster child of the navy. She frowned, looking away. “I'm … look, they made me do it.” She bit her lip.
“You don't have to follow an illegal order! This was a blatant violation of the AI compact! A major no no! You of all people know that!” he snarled.