Spaced

by Greg Curtis

  “Then send him a note.” Newman didn't care. His voice spoke only of fatigue.

  “Would you like to catch the bad guy or not?” Annalisse gave up and shouted at him, at least making him look up then his eyes wide in shock.

  “Catch him?” His eyes were so wide that they almost looked as if they would fall out of his head.

  “Get … the … Major … now!” She emphasised every word with all the power she could muster. Finally it got through to him, enough at least to make him stand up and hurry over to the Major's office. Enough to make other people hear her and begin heading her way as they realised that she had something.

  Soon she was surrounded, even the Major was heading her way. He didn't look hopeful though. He looked like a man who’d been given his execution orders. But maybe she could change that. She waited until he arrived before showing them what she'd found.

  “We have a defective batch of androids and someone's reprogramming them.” Annalisse blurted out her discovery before she could think of something more intelligent to say. Still it got people's attention and so she quickly showed them the string of coincidences before they could object.

  They didn't object. They all understood crimes and solving them, plus they all wanted the bomber caught. They mostly wanted him dead. Instead they called technicians. If anyone knew what might make one batch of androids susceptible to having their basic programming overridden, it was them.

  Before long she was surrounded by technicians analysing the data she’d dug up. And while much of what they said was unintelligible jargon, she didn't care. She just knew that for the first time in what seemed like ages they had a theory.

  They had hope once more.

  Chapter Twelve

  There had been a time when Carm had lived for the thrill of arriving in new systems, and especially of landing on new worlds. Being the first human being to stand on an alien planet was something special. Something very few would do. Lately, though, that thrill had vanished. It had become the norm. Even standing on a new world wasn't what it had been.

  When he’d made it home, and when he'd cleared his name and had restarted his life, he was going to find his bar in New Andreas – The Hangman’s – and there he was going to find his friends and drink the place dry. He was going to have the music turned up to the max until it drove the other customers away, and then he was going to dance. Deep spacers danced. It was what they did to celebrate their return from each new journey. And after he drank and danced he would share his stories of the worlds he’d visited and the things he’d found. That too was their way. But when he did Carm wasn’t sure if Bounty would be one of the worlds he'd tell them about.

  Bounty, as Carm had named the world, was not a nice place. He was only able to breathe the air through complex filters and even then it still stank. The vegetation was jungle – dense, sickly yellow green foliage made him want to throw up. Much of it was covered with thick diseased-looking slime, which made his skin crawl. Big creatures wandered through it, and some of them looked decidedly nasty. All of them it seemed had spines, horns, and teeth. Plus he weighed too much here: the gravity dragged on his body and it dragged on his spirits.

  He didn't want to be here. He kept thinking he shouldn't be. Maybe the planet didn't want him here either. It had been an iffy descent to begin with when the stabiliser had failed to deploy correctly, and that had put him in a bad frame of mind before they'd even landed.

  That wasn't supposed to happen. The damned things were ancient technology, little more than sets of foils and fins that shaped the air around them like the wings of an antique plane and kept them flying straight. He'd never heard of one failing before, and it had happened with no warning. The Nightingale could have landed simply by killing all its forwards momentum and very slowly descending on its antigravity. But they seldom did that. It was very slow and cost energy and thruster fuel. Still if there had been some warning that's what they would have done.

  It had been nothing like any descent Carm had ever made before. A stabiliser deploying incorrectly at the worst possible moment was one of the most frightening and dangerous malfunctions a ship could have. It was one of the worst nightmares he knew of, and it had scared the life out of him.

  The fault had only shown itself while they were descending, occurring just as he'd deployed them. The ventral stabiliser had only half worked, the port side lifting into position and the starboard side remaining firmly fixed against the hull, sending them wildly off course. And, to make things more interesting, the hydraulic actuators had burnt out preventing him from un-deploying it.

  Travelling at thousands of klicks per hour with a stabiliser at the wrong angle and unable to correct itself had been terrifying. The crooked foil had been constantly trying to flip the ship on to its side, meaning he'd had to balance the unequal lift with thrusters – thus burning through more of his precious fuel. They'd sharding near gone vertical at one point and he'd tumbled across the bridge, smashing into a wall. Lying where he’d landed he’d yelled orders at the ship hoping it could pilot its way out of the disaster because he couldn't reach the controls.

  They’d eventually made it down safely and he knew they'd been lucky. The stars had been more than generous, but he couldn't count on them ever being so merciful again. Nor could he expect the ship to ever stop reminding him how it had saved the day with its skilful piloting.

  Still they’d landed in one piece and he knew he’d made the right decision in coming here. Now he had water, air and twenty tonnes of biomass for the organic reactors. On top of that a few of the service bots had managed to inspect and repair portions of the hull-mounted equipment including the damaged stabiliser. They'd also re-panelled the hull’s patches so they were once more photovoltaic cells. And he had to admit, when he made it back home, that landing would be a tale to tell.

  Ironically the problem with the stabiliser had had nothing to do with their wild jump. The wrong unit had been fitted. The hydraulic actuator had been far too small for the foil it was trying to lift. It would always have failed at some point. He was going to have a chat with the astro-engineers at the space-port if and when he returned. Such a basic mistake should never have been made. All he could think was that the engineers must have been drunk at the time. Maybe they were DDs, though someone should surely have caught that.

  Now the ship had been repaired so it could fly straight and recharge faster. And while he would dearly love to get the stabiliser replaced with a new unit, the repairs had been tested and would hold. Every little bit helped.

  Bounty had what he needed. The planet was a goldmine – though not literally. This world might one day be made suitable for people via some terraforming but it would always be mineral poor. It might become a farming colony, perhaps. Maybe they'd name it after him. Simon's World – it had a ring to it. The ship seemed to think that Nightingale's Landing was a better name, and perhaps it had a point.

  Now though, it was time to leave and in spite of his hatred of the place, Carm didn't really want to. Staying here would be pure torture. But it was still better than being on a cold, empty ship, surrounded by infinitely empty space.

  But he didn’t have a choice in the end. Every minute he spent here was a minute he wasn't trying to get home.

  The Nightingale was ready to leave. He only had one thing left to do. Actually it was already done, Kendra’s packing crate coffin had been unloaded and left on the grass some way from the ship. Service bots had carried her out, and now all he had to do was leave. Before that he had a decision of sorts to make, except that it was Kendra’s call.

  In spite of the foul smelling air and the extra drag of gravity, the terror of the all but uncontrolled landing, the slimy trees and the dangerous creatures, it was this moment that he truly hated. It was this that had filled his heart with dread.

  Reluctantly – it would have been easier not to do it and probably saner – he pushed the button that sent a trickle of power through to her neur
al cortex and vocal synthesiser. He waited a few seconds for initialisation.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Of course Carm. I always hear you.” Kendra sounded happy, pleased to hear him. She would have been smiling if she’d been able to move her facial muscles. It would have been a lie.

  Carm supposed it was a good thing that she was being nice. It might make things easier, but he doubted it.

  “I'm sorry Kendra but there's no point in trying to be pleasant. No point in trying to upset me either, and no point in lying. Your fate is sealed.” Carm did his best to be direct, but the guilt was overwhelming. He knew she was a machine determined to destroy him. But she had been his lover and his friend for years. His confident and advisor. She had kept him sane for so long. He loved her and abandoning was the most terrible betrayal he could imagine.

  “Carm?” She was still trying to be nice, perhaps appealing to his merciful side.

  “This is an uncharted world and not a particularly nice one,” he rushed on with his speech. He couldn't keep her onboard even powered down, and neither could he just throw her away like a piece of trash. “It's going to be your home from now on. You should be safe in your packing crate. But you will be alone.”

  “Carm!” Kendra sounded shocked and hurt. Despite all that had happened it wounded him. He'd never hurt anyone before, not even an android.

  “Stop!” He held up his hand before she could continue. “You know I can't keep you on the ship any longer. I'm sorry, but I can't trust you even when you’re unconscious. So this is where you stay.” The truth was that, other than her words, she was probably safe onboard the ship. If he kept her turned off he could trust her. What he couldn't trust was himself. Every time he saw her in her coffin he wanted nothing more than to set her free. He ached for her to return to him. He’d read endless manuals on synthetic engineering and reprogramming. And one day, he feared, he just might go ahead and repair her. And then she'd kill him. He simply didn't want to be alone.

  “But –” she tried again, not because she cared about spending the rest of her days here. She tried because if she was here and Carm wasn't, then she couldn't kill him.

  “No,” he held up his hand again, “this is only about you. How you want to spend your remaining days here. Do you want to have power to your neural cortex like this or would you rather be shut down?”

  Why was he even asking? He should never have turned her back on. And yet every time he asked himself that he kept thinking that she had some right to decide her own fate. Attempted murderer or not, he couldn't see her as just a machine. Not after all he'd been through with her. And both fates would be horrible. In one she would live or die without ever knowing which she was. All she would know was that when he flicked the switch that would be her end. It would be like shooting her in the head. In the other she would have to live potentially for decades, ultimately being torn apart by wild creatures or rotting away in her coffin, knowing what was happening and unable to do anything about it.

  “You sick bastard!” Kendra abruptly screamed at him as if she was a real woman and he was hurting her. “How could you do this to me? What sort of a monster are you?”

  Carm reacted, stepping back a pace or two in shock. And yet – what else should he have expected? She wanted him dead or at least to give up trying to get home. And breaking his spirit was the best way she could do that. Still he felt worse than a murderer. The shame and guilt he felt grew.

  But if she thought that it was going to save her, she was wrong. Once he'd started stepping back Carm discovered that he could keep doing it and that he wanted to.

  So he did, turning and running from her accusations and false hysteria, away from her venom and tears. Her voice grew quieter as he hurried back to the elevator and the quiet relief of the ship.

  And in the end, pushing the button that lifted him up into the ship's bottom hold, he realised that she had made her decision.

  But, even as the ship took off, gently rising on its cushion of antigravity, he could see her glass coffin growing smaller and smaller in the holo. He heard her accusations following him, calling him a murderer. It was then that something within his very essence shrivelled up. She had tried to kill him, but he was still the monster.

  One thing he was sure of: he was never coming back to this sharding world. That would be true madness.

  “So are you finished with the malfunction?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. This was a waste of time and energy – you really should have just jettisoned it long ago. Once a primitive machine like that goes off program it really isn't worth repairing. And let's be honest – it never really had much in the way of neural capability. It had an ancient processor, well past its prime.”

  That caught Carm by surprise. It made him wonder. Was it jealous of an android in some bizarre way? Or was it trying to comfort him in its own disturbing fashion? Then again could it be angry?

  “I liked her.”

  “Of course you did. Your neural processor is also well past its prime!”

  Carm didn't respond. He was becoming too familiar with the ship's thoughts about his mental abilities lately. Besides, while he watched the sickly yellow green of the jungle becoming ever more distant, he finally understood a little more of what he'd done. He realised that it hadn't been about right or wrong or justice or all those things he'd imagined – it never had been. It hadn't even been about giving her a choice in her fate.

  He'd been saying goodbye. That was what a funeral was about.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Billingsgate Lucius Scientific Industries, a large name for a company which had only a single factory producing only one product: exceptionally high-end androids. With a name like that Annalisse might have expected it to build spaceships, or something industrial. And yet what it actually manufactured were luxury toys for the rich. Toys like the Type 23 BLS android which looked to be the soul of the ALEB's troubles.

  It didn't look much like a terrorist's base. It looked exactly like what it was – a high-tech facility where the most modern and sophisticated androids were built.

  The building was a clean white stone structure, three storeys high with large panoramic windows and balconies. A bit boring perhaps, certainly not architecturally interesting, but still it was far from ugly. More importantly she thought – balconies and panoramic windows? That was expensive. It wasn't what you normally found in factories. What sort of business in these difficult times could afford to waste credits? Maybe there was a motive behind the crimes, which wasn't political at all. Perhaps this mess was some form of fraud or theft. Extortion perhaps, or some other sort of credit-making scheme.

  The plant had been set amidst acres upon acres of gardens. Beautiful flower gardens that people must have spent years designing and bots years laying out. The flowers and fruits were from at least a dozen different worlds, all of them bedded out in soils that no doubt had been carefully fertilised. Four-winged lava birds fluttered about singing their birdsong happily. That was another extravagance. They’d been imported from Trinidad Two because of their song and their pretty colours. And as if that wasn't enough, the gardens were filled with park benches and gazebos, the perfect place for workers to eat their lunches and relax. Not that there were many of those – there were only seventy three full-time staff and another thirty part-timers. It was mostly run by bots who didn't eat lunch or sit in parks. With all that had happened recently, that was a little worrying.

  Above all the scene appeared peaceful and serene – anything but the hangout of terrorists.

  But if her theory was right – and it had been checked out by any number of technicians and military bigwigs – this was the heart of the enemy's domain. Which was why she, along with hundreds of soldiers, and the Navy’s newest, biggest and baddest warbots were here.

  It turned out that the standard Aquarian warbot had had a few software upgrades and parts written and manufactured in this very facility. J
ust like the ALEB policebots. Both the Navy and the civil authorities had decided to outsource some of their production, never realising that as well as worrying about quality and standards they should have thought about the possibility of hidden coding. That had been a costly oversight. No doubt there would be some firings and court-martials down the line, as well as the inevitable enquiry.

  That was how the crimes had been committed. It had taken the technicians a full week with some of the most advanced software analysis computers, but eventually they'd found the encrypted software. A piece of programming called a trapdoor spider, which only did one thing – access the bots' comms systems to allow them to receive and accept programming from an outside source. And that wasn't supposed to be able to happen. Bots' programming was factory set and locked away. Unable to be accessed by any outside system. The only true privacy on the mesh after all was not to be connected to it.

  That system up until now had been considered impregnable. The best hacker in the universe couldn't hack a system he couldn't connect to. However, Billingsgate Lucius Scientific Industries had corrupted it.

  Once the parts had been installed, the bot was vulnerable. It could be reprogrammed without anyone ever knowing. All that was needed was for someone to carry a minuscule, undetectable transmitter, and get close enough for the covert signal to be received. That was where the androids came in. Some of the type 23's had what the technicians called a two layer operating system. The top layer was a vastly complex artificial intelligence that allowed them to serve their owners. But beneath that was the override and it was completely loyal to its original master. The result was that some type 23's had been designed from the ground up as double agents. And no one had suspected.

  Worse, some of them were doppelgängers, built to precise specifications to mimic certain people. Then all that had to be done was get the right double in the right place at the right time and the world was theirs for the taking. A known spacer delivering water to a purification system could be an android double delivering a thermo-kinetic bomb. A technician working on the bots could be an android double reprogramming them simply by being in the same room as them.