We've Seen the Enemy

by Paul Dayton

  He frantically worked on his device as it approached, and jumped clear of the bot’s swing at the last instant. He ran back across the room, knowing full well that he was working himself into a corner. Bishop frantically connected the last few leads, knowing he had only seconds. His fingers shook as he threaded the final wire into its connector, missing repeatedly as he continued to back up into the corner. Finally it went in and locked, and without waiting he raised it up, aimed and hit the power button.

  Nothing happened. “Shit! Of all the times…!” He yelled frustrated as Angela tried to distract him. The giant bot was only a few meters away. All the connections were good, but at the last second he remembered the potentiometer and turned it the opposite way as he pulled the trigger. A hole suddenly appeared in the bot. Trying to control his panic, he slowly brought up the laser assembly as he attempted to create an even line across its chest, but the bot’s movement was making that difficult.

  It stood only a meter away as it raised its arm quickly, but it stopped when it realized it was on fire. The bot wasn’t programmed to feel fear or anger but it was programmed to protect itself. The brief hesitation was just enough. By the time it had realized the danger to its central operating unit Bishop had cut another neat square in this one’s torso, cutting off all power to the rest of the unit. It slowly tipped over and fell on its side.

  Bishop looked at Angela with a smirk on his face. It had changed its appearance and was now wearing a low cut, short dress. He shook his head at the image. “Angela, you are gorgeous! Wow.” Before it could reply, he added, “A gorgeous snake in the grass. Never knew pure evil could look that good.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” it said coldly.

  Turning to the now obviously open door, he added, “Door won’t open, you said?”

  It ignored his comment as it walked to the middle of the room and said, “I was wondering if you could answer my questions now.” Bishop smiled, and calmly shot out the door control and the rest of the laser signal amplifiers and cameras in the room.

  ***

  Finley was worried. He feigned sleep as he ran the issue through his mind. His virus was installed but not activated, and Angela was prying through the program as he watched. His finger rested on the button that would activate it but he was afraid to push it. What made matters worse was that he couldn’t confer with Gomez. A few hours ago he would have refused to do so anyway but now Finley reluctantly felt that perhaps Gomez wasn’t that bad after all.

  He peeked over to where Gomez was and watched him as he struggled with the connections to a manual hydraulic actuator he had removed from another door and had installed inside the one they were trying to open. Finley had to admit that Gomez was quite ingenious as he laser-cut wrenches out of wall panels and fabricated a bleeding system to remove air from the re-installed lines, but he could hear Gomez swearing under his breath and figured that he wasn’t being very successful.

  Finley got back to the matter at hand. ‘Are the aliens really attacking? Things are quiet now,’ he thought. That unusual hum came twice and then disappeared. Obviously Angela couldn’t have faked the effects during the humming. The floors vibrated and he and Gomez clearly heard walls collapsing far below.

  He worried about the rest of the group but didn’t know what to do. He was about to search for any information that could help him come to a decision but he stopped himself, afraid that Angela would get annoyed and cut off the keyboard. That’s when he noticed the smell.

  “Gomez, is something…” but he didn’t finish the sentence.

  Gomez interrupted and said, “Yeah something is bothering me! Can’t get my hands deep enough into the access panel to open this da…” but he didn’t finish the sentence.

  Finley looked up. Gomez had a strange look on his face and was looking at a point somewhere behind Finley. It took a second to find it, but an erratic dot had shown up on the wall and had started zigzagging across the surface. Finley turned to look for the source of the dot and saw a clean cut being made on the door, quickly traveling across it, following the previous cut made centuries ago. Soon it traversed down, then around, and finally back to the beginning. It took about a minute to cut a square big enough for a man in a bulky Maxon to come through. Gomez knew that none of them had the equipment to cut that much that fast, so he grabbed Finley and brought him as far back into the room as possible, pulling out his gun at the same time.

  After a moment, they heard three quick sharp kicks being made to the door and the square in the middle finally fell in. Gomez had his gun pointed at the opening as he waited for an alien to come through, but to their surprise a human leg showed up.

  “Gomez! Finley!” Bishop yelled.

  “Here, Sir! We’re both in here!”

  Bishop entered as a surprised Gomez and Finley ran up to him. He was shirtless but wearing medical pants.

  “You guys have any water and food? My mouth is completely dry.” He looked up and slowly shot out each camera in the room. “And Gomez, give me a report.” Finley had gone in search of food and water from their emergency packs while Gomez quickly filled him in.

  “It isn’t an alien attack,” Bishop said.

  Finley suddenly remembered what he was doing before, and he jumped to the computer interface he had been using. He looked at the screen and his face went white as he realized that Angela had just found the virus. He quickly punched the hot-key and watched as nothing happened at first. “WHAT IS THIS! YOU BASTARD!” shot out on the screen, but Finley didn’t reply, wondering if he had gotten the program started in time. He could see Angela setting up firewalls and quarantining the virus, and then the screen went blank.

  “Angela? Are you there?” Finley asked, and then remembered that Bishop had shot out the camera/microphone units, so he tried typing it in but nothing showed up on the screen. By this time Bishop and Gomez had come over and watched what Finley was doing. “What’s going on?”

  “I sent her the gift, Captain. Just not sure if it’s working or not.” Gomez was lost but Bishop just nodded his head and watched the now blank screen.

  He took the opportunity to get filled in. “How long have we been here?”

  Gomez looked confused but replied, “Almost six hours, Sir.”

  “Only six? That lying bitch.”

  Characters suddenly appeared on the screen again, jumbled up and indecipherable. They watched as hundreds of characters flooded the screen, slowly scrolling down line by line and increasing in speed until they moved faster than the eye could follow. This continued for a few moments and then the screen went black again. The lights suddenly shut down and all they could hear was the creaking sound of machines cooling down.

  They switched their eyesight to IF and Bishop finally said, “I guess it worked Finley.”

  “Whatever you guys are talking about worked a little too well,” Gomez said. Bishop laughed but Finley was troubled.

  “It shouldn’t have happened like this, Captain. My virus was designed to knock out logic units, not the idiot programs needed to run infrastructures. Something must have happened…”

  As he finished his sentence a small dot appeared on the monitor. It slowly enlarged to form a bubble composed of bits of rapidly changing code. Finley could see an order to the code but he couldn’t make out what it was about, until the bubble finally spoke.

  “Hel-Hello-Hello…” issued from the computer speaker as the words were written. They kept on being repeated over and over without anything else being said, until the bubble disappeared again.

  “Finley?” Bishop asked.

  “I don’t know, Sir! This shouldn’t have happened…”

  Another “Hello,” interrupted them. “My name is Angela. Is there anyone there?”

  The voice startled them. It not only emanated from the computer’s speaker, but also from the hallway too. Finley’s hands shot toward the keypad as he attempted to activate the virus again, but Bishop stopped him short.

  “Wait. There’s
something Angela said to me…give me a second…” and he sat down to type on the keyboard.

  “Hi Angela,” he typed, “…this is Bishop. Long time no see…” He waited to see what it would say. A few seconds later the voice over the speakers said, “This is Angela, Pluto Deep Space’s interactive A.I. program. You may call me Angela. Who are you and what is your purpose?” it replied.

  Bishop looked at Finley and asked, “I don’t think this is a trick but I can’t be sure.”

  “I can’t say either Captain. Give me a second…” he said as he sat down in Bishop’s place and started typing.

  “This program is stored and being run from a completely separate system. The original system that the Angela we know was on is probably now incapacitated from my virus. So I would say that this is in fact a different ‘Angela’.”

  “Yeah, but is it as crazy as the first one?” Gomez asked.

  Finley shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s find out,” Bishop said as he took Finley’s seat again and typed. The others looked over Bishop’s shoulder as he typed, and they read: ‘Angela, we’re here to stabilize this computer system and put the base functioning again. Our Support ship is now being used to power your systems, but the remainder of my crew is somewhere near the bottom of the elevator shaft and out of communication range. Can you find out what is happening to them?”

  The Angela interface calculated all the variables given and compared it to what it knew from sensor readings. The information was inadequate because her logs had been corrupted and quarantined, so she queried the humans again. “What damaged Pluto Deep Space Base and what happened to the experimental Angela program?”

  Bishop paused for a moment as he gathered his thoughts and then carefully typed, “I am Captain of a World Federation ship that is orbiting this moon. We appear to be the first humans to have set foot on this base since it was originally occupied. We have been in search of the planet Earth for centuries and have finally found it, but our scout ship was destroyed as it approached Earth’s moon. We came to investigate this destruction and as we approached your base we were queried and lured here by the active artificial intelligence at the time, also called Angela. We have been trapped ever since.”

  Gomez interrupted and said, “Are you sure we should be telling it this?”

  “I have a hunch about this. When I was in the Interface Room the Angela there made mention of an original program, and it seemed as if she had done away with it. But this may actually be the original program the base used.”

  “It’s likely that with the experimental Angela out of the way, this original one was reactivated,” Finley interrupted.

  “If we’re wrong, then it’s simply the Angela we know playing games. In any case, we have nothing to lose either way.” Bishop continued typing. “This Angela lured us here and imprisoned us. I have lost contact with my crew and my ship. We have been told that aliens have this base under attack but we can’t be sure of that until our ship communicates with us.”

  It took Angela two tenths of a second to consider the information and reach a conclusion.

  “Captain Bishop, I find no reason to see why you can’t communicate with anyone else unless your own device is not functioning. Perhaps the others with you have a communication device that they could try.”

  Bishop hadn’t thought of trying to communicate again and as soon as Gomez did a surprised Mat responded immediately.

  “Bam-Bam! Am I every glad to hear your voice! Report!” Bishop said into Gomez’s suit microphone.

  “Likewise here, Sir! We’re alive but trapped. Bulldog is injured but he’ll survive. The elevator shaft has collapsed and we’re on EVA power and air, about six hours left. Are you coming to visit?”

  “We’ll be there if I have to grab a shovel myself. I’m checking to see if I can reach the ship. Talk to you soon.”

  “WF221, this is Captain Bishop. Can you read me?” Bishop asked as he waited for a reply.

  “Captain, this is Jack. Sorry for interrupting but do you mind if I pop in for a visit?”

  “That’s impossible!” Bishop muttered, stunned at hearing her voice. He looked over at Gomez and repeated again, “That’s impossible.”

  “Captain, if you’re worried that I’m upset at you, I’m not. Overly. For now though, I’m here to see if you need any help.”

  The communications officer on board WF221 was listening in and added, “Sir, that is in fact Jack that you are talking to. Commander Hollander will be on the bridge in a moment. First Officer Dresdon is here now. In the meantime, Jack was sent to help out in any way necessary. By the way, we’re all very glad to know you’re alive.”

  Bishop couldn’t believe that Jack had actually survived. “Jack, am I ever glad to hear your voice! You’ll have to fill me in on how you made it out of two impossible situations, but for now, I’m not sure how you can help. The remainder of our crew is at the bottom of the elevator shaft which has collapsed. They are priority. Their air supply is low. Officer Randy, please inform Commander Hollander of the situation.”

  “I’m here Captain,” Hollander said. “We’re sending in a team but Jack thinks she can get you out. Let’s see what she can do.”

  “Out?” Bishop replied. “Jack, it’s impossible, unless you come with a team of heavy robot excavators.”

  “I have a dirty little secret,” Jack said. “I’m coming down the second elevator shaft and am almost down to their level. I can see the entry to the hanger at the bottom but the doors are closed, and I can also see debris from the blast doors that I blew up on the surface. Give me a minute to see what I can do. Bam Bam, you and your crew stay as far away from the elevator as possible. Jack out.”

  The Klinger hovered level with the room that housed the rest of Bishop’s men, and Jack looked ‘out’ of her cockpit at the rock wall of the elevator shaft in front of her. In reality, her cockpit canopy wasn’t transparent at all and the image Jack wanted to see was simply projected into her mind.

  Soon, a confusing pile of metal and rocks became evident. Clearing this image, she progressed further in until she saw indistinct life forms huddled against the back wall of a cavernous room. Jack mentally willed the walls to crumble and a deep vibration shook the stone, but the Klinger interrupted the action.

  “The walls of the shaft are unstable,” Mike projected into her conscious, “…and they will collapse and bury us if you continue.”

  Jack stopped and thought for a moment, and then she willed that walls to simply disappear. After a few moments of trying, nothing happened.

  ‘That simply can’t be,’ Jack thought as she looked at the stone wall in front of her. She thought about what she wanted – a tunnel through the rocks and debris leading to her crew mates. She focused again, this time visualizing a rectangular hole through the rock wall in front of her. Within moments the rock and the obstructions behind it started vibrating. Curious, Jack mentally peered closely at the wall. The rock appeared to liquefy, and the Klinger continued to ‘zoom in’ until she could see the rock at its molecular level.

  She turned on her ship recorder as the molecules vibrated intensely, their molecular adhesion breaking apart, and she zoomed out in time to see the rock and debris turn to dust, falling loosely to the ground and spilling out towards her and into the room where Bishop’s crew members were. The three stared at the perfectly cut rectangular tunnel in front of them, a thick layer of dust floating to the bottom.

  “Express elevator to the top!” Jack said into her comm as the three Maxon suit-clad humans watched in shock.

  “Jack, I don’t know what the hell you did, but I must say you’ve lived up to your call sign,” Mat said. “We’re jumping aboard. I take it we have a greeting party up top?”

  “It’s practically a family reunion! Hamburgers on the barbecue and cold beer in the cooler.”

  It took them a few minutes to work their way through the loose powder on the ground, and before the
y climbed, the three gawked at the unfamiliar craft now hovering in front of them.

  “Well, don’t just stand there! We’ve got work to do, and a moon to visit!” Jack said.

  She waited until they were all sitting on the dual rocket nacelle supports and then she slowly willed the ship up as the crew jittered around uncomfortably. Mat’s Maxon suit indicated a changing surface underneath him, and he was shocked to see two handholds appear on either side as he hung on to Bulldog.

  “Uh, Jack, something’s happening here!”

  “I know, Bam Bam,” Jack said, but Mat replied, “No, you don’t understand. Your ship is changing and it’s freaking…it’s freaking Bulldog out!”

  “Yeah. Bam Bam, meet Mike. Mike, Bam Bam. Now grab hold of the handholds so that you three don’t slip off.”

  “Hello, Mat,” the Klinger replied. Don’t worry, I’ve adjusted my skin to permit you a safer seating position.”

  “Adjusted?” Mat said out loud, while Bulldog stared wild-eyed at the surface of the nacelle, wondering if what he was seeing was real or drug-induced.

  “Mat, my sensors indicate Bulldog is over medicated. I will adjust his medication.”

  Mat watched Bulldog, not sure of what Jack had in mind. He couldn’t comprehend any of this because he had never seen anything like it before. Fortunately Bulldog was responding and Mat saw him slowly drop the wild-eyed stare and come back to reality as the Klinger cleared the cargo shaft. Jack moved them over to the waiting Medi-Ship. Once everyone was off she moved back down the cargo elevator and quickly scanned the walls until she found Captain Bishop and his team. “Captain? You want out now?” Jack said.