A.I. Zombie: Book 1 of the Space Station At The Edge Of The Black Hole Series

by L. A. Johnson

  "He's tracking the victim, somehow. Has to be."

  Lyra made a decision.

  She screamed, sprinted past everybody and into Vax and Nancy's operating room. She slammed the door shut and threw herself against it.

  "What in the name of drug addled stars is going on out there?" Vax demanded.

  Lyra sucked in some breaths. "The, um, suspect. That did that to him," she pointed at the patient. "Well, he's outside the door right now. And he's trying to get in. And he still looks murderous. And kind of supervillain-y. I had to warn you. Gorb and the hornets are doing their best to stop him, but nothing they do seems to be slowing him down."

  "That's a very unlikely scenario," Vax said. His voice didn't sound certain, but he was obviously having trouble believing the situation was as dire as she was making it out to be.

  The door rattled with a vicious bang, and the doorknob tried to turn. "Tell that to him!" Lyra screamed and tried to keep the knob from opening.

  Vax put down the scalpel and rummaged around behind him. He produced a full-sized sword.

  Thank goodness, thought Lyra. Vax’s thinking sword. He always had it with him.

  "Nobody breaks into my operating room," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Stand aside," he said to Lyra.

  "But, you don't understand how strong this guy is," she objected, and then wondered why she hadn't just stepped aside for the nice guy with the sword. That would have been a better idea, Lyra.

  The argument became moot when the door flew open and off of one hinge, but not the other. Thank goodness, otherwise the patient could have been seriously hurt. Lyra was thrown from the doorway and onto the ground. She scooted backward on the floor away from the menace. She knew if anybody had a shot at stopping him it was Vax anyway.

  The monster paused in the doorway, scanning the room, presumably for the exact location of the patient. Then he took a step forward and raised the bat high in the air, continuing to ignore the jellyfish and the hornets.

  Crash appeared in the doorway behind the werewolf. Crash was a giant, hulking, scaly predator-looking creature. There was a loud bang and a light flash as his blaster fired. The weapon blew a hole right through the middle of the hairy creature, who dropped to his knees and then fell face forward onto the ground.

  With a last-ditch effort, the werewolf rolled over onto his side and shook his hairy head. "You don't understand. You should have let me kill it," he said, and then he finally stopped.

  “I told you people,” Crash said, “I’m all the security this space station ever needs,” and then he walked away.

  “It took you long enough,” Lyra shouted.

  9

  I an grinned his most charming grin into the computer at the thousands of people tuning in to his latest live web show.

  "Hello, world. It’s me, Ian, welcoming you to Fear Zone Universe. That’s right, F.Z.U., the show that takes you live to the scariest, most dangerous places in existence. I go to them, so you don’t have to.”

  He took a quick sip of water while he ran the video intro before continuing. “Fear. The most primal of motivations. Have you guessed my location yet? I have a very special set of shows coming to you from the one and only Celestica. That's right, people, the space station at the edge of the deep, dark, terrifying black hole. As usual, I come to you from the most terrifying places in the universe to prove a point. And the point is that I'm still here."

  He indicated dramatically to the window behind him. "Behold the view. You can’t technically see the black hole, but it’s there. Although the thrill for all of you at home is nothing compared to being here in person. If you get the opportunity to visit Celestica in real life, I highly recommend it. Personally, I'm starting to enjoy it here and am thinking of extending my stay. My research into aggregate intelligence systems is going even better than I had hoped. For some reason, the algorithms are very different here and so far, the results are fascinating. That's all the teasers you will receive from me right now. New episodes are coming soon, so stay tuned, people. These are going to be some of the most exciting shows ever recorded in F.Z.U. history."

  The grin faltered and then disappeared completely before one last parting shot. "One more thing. Feel free to come join me at any time."

  He hung up. I know they won't. He was pleased with himself. Of all the destinations he had been to in the last few years, this was by far the most adventurous. The most dangerous. And the most sexy.

  His mind raced right back to Lyra. He texted her a copy of the webcast. She was the one person here capable of making his life even more fantastic. Send. Now all he had to do was find something to do while he waited for a response.

  Vax sat in the doctor's lounge. In his favorite comfy chair, the one that happened to be in front of the giant window. With his feet up. He got a text notification.

  It was the official, hospital will die immediately if you don't respond to this text in three seconds or less notification, which he had set on his phone as a cheery little chirp.

  He had all of his text prioritized by sound, something he was able to accomplish only after being at the hospital for a while and sorting out the panic-natured individuals, even among his bosses, and those prone to overly dramatic overreaction.

  Unable to punch the hyperbolic text senders, he could at least prioritize them in the order of which he considered their importance. And his importance was not necessarily their importance, which meant that they all thought that their emergencies were of the utmost importance. That was simply the way hospitals were. That didn't mean he had to agree.

  He waited a second to finish what he was doing. At the moment, that was staring through the giant window of the doctor's lounge, which he had to himself, toward where he knew the black hole was. This was a pilgrimage he made often when he believed the place to be empty.

  Vax's Krull race had a deep-seated fear of black holes. Black holes and little else. Well, maybe doctors. The thought made him chuckle. That's why he was here. In order to get away from them, all of them, he had to face his deepest, darkest fear.

  No, not face his fear exactly. Facing the fear implied that he'd fly past a black hole on a daredevil mission. This was more like living with his worst fear. And it had done something marvelous to him. In the early days, he had done massive amounts of research about supermassive black holes. How they behaved, stability probabilities, dangers and timelines.

  What he had discovered at the end of it all, waking up every morning just the same, was that he was okay. They were all okay. Everybody simply thought they were crazy, but they weren't. This part of space should be stable, even for the next few millions of eons. Stable and secure. What most of the tourists and Krull considered inordinately risky hotdog living, he now considered home.

  He raised his coffee to himself and took a slurp. Yes, if he was going to give up warmongering and conquering to be a rebel doctor, as he had always dreamed, then he would do it in style. And if any other of his race ever set foot here, it would be they who were afraid.

  The text notification sounded again, same as before. He sighed contentedly and drank in the view for one last moment. Then he actually read the text. Three seconds later, he was out the door.

  "What's going on here?" Vax asked, sprinting into the room. "I got the notification, but it didn't say what was wrong."

  "I'm not exactly sure," Nancy said, looking at a computer readout screen.

  Vax grabbed the charts and checked the readout of the steadily beeping machine. They were both silent for several moments. Finally, Vax spoke again, "He should be recovering."

  "He is recovering. Physically. It's his brain waves, Vax. Something's going on with his brain waves. They're not acting normally."

  This caused a new search for files from Vax who muttered something along the lines of, "Why didn't you just say so in the first place” and “I will destroy you when all of this is over."

  "What did you say?" Nancy asked.

  "What? Oh, nothing. Just looking
for the patient's brain wave information. My text notification looked like it came from the Chief of Medicine, but I'm assuming now it was from you."

  "I know that you rank your texts by importance." Nancy replied.

  "I rank my texts by the order of the importance that I place on them, not the official order of importance. And for the record, I'd have answered yours sooner. You make more sense to me than that old, bloviated, should-be-put-out-to-pasture-"

  "Howdy, folks. What's up?" Grayson, the Chief of Medicine, appeared at the door.

  Nancy whirled to see Grayson standing there. How in stars name was he able to keep sneaking up on them like that? She wanted to tell Vax that it wasn't her that called him, but Vax glanced at her face before he even turned around toward Grayson and she knew that he knew. Sometimes he was easier to work with than the human doctors. And sometimes he was a terrifying pain in the ass.

  "Grayson," Vax said. "What are you doing here? I'm busy."

  And sometimes he's not easier to work with than human doctors, she thought.

  "Hello, Grayson," Nancy said. "You're late to the party. All of the excitement and danger was a few hours ago when we were nearly attacked. This has nothing to do with your rat bar fight, this is the one with the weird patient being pursued by the murderous werewolf. We're okay, by the way, but Crash could have gotten here way sooner. It would be great if you could speak to him about hiring more people. Now that you’re here, is there something that you need?"

  "Just being nosy," he answered, poking around the stack of charts, "that's my job, being Chief of Medicine and all. Besides, something is going on in here, I can feel it. I'm a quarter telepath on my dad's aunt's cousin’s side, you know."

  Nancy knew for a fact that wasn't true. Vax looked up at him wide-eyed, wondering.

  "What's up with this patient's brainwaves?" Grayson asked at last, looking up from the wrong set of charts.

  Nancy giggled. "You were outside in the hallway eavesdropping, weren't you? Vax, he's not really telepathic."

  Vax exhaled.

  "If I knew that sort of thing would have bothered you, Vax. I'd have done it sooner," Grayson deadpanned.

  "Here!" Nancy said, finally finding the correct readout. "What do you make of this, Vax?" She handed him the sheet, and Grayson gave her a dirty look. "I also have it right here on the screen, Grayson, you can take a look too."

  He crossed and they all stared at the data in silence for a few moments. Then Nancy went to the patient himself to observe.

  Most of the measures of progress were there including steady heartbeat and improvement of wounds. Sure, she would have liked to have seen him regain consciousness by now, but all in all this seemed like nothing out of the ordinary. Except for the brainwave patterns, of course.

  Then there was the lack of identification. Normally, especially this far out in the galaxy, everybody had identification on them, even the scofflaws. It was required. Even the werewolf with the baseball bat had his I.D. on him. They found it easily after Crash shot a hole in the middle of him.

  She observed the patient again as she counted his breaths over the course of thirty seconds. Just fine. Hmmm. How am I supposed to contact your family if I don't know who you are?

  The patient opened his eyes wide and sat up fast enough to make Nancy jump back.

  It took Nancy a moment to recover from the shock of it all. Not to mention the heebegeebies she got. She took a deep breath and leaned forward.

  "Sir? You're in a hospital on Celestica Space Station. You didn't have any ID on you. Can you tell me your name or give me a number for somebody to contact?"

  The patient didn’t answer. He just stared blankly for a moment without blinking and then laid back down and closed his eyes. In fact, he laid back down so quickly and matter of factly that Nancy started questioning after a moment whether he had even sat up at all. "You guys saw that, right?"

  "I saw it," Grayson said, "and now I need clean underwear. That was creepy as hell."

  "Ew," Nancy said. "What do you think, Vax?"

  Vax turned his attention from the paper back to Nancy. "I think this brain activity data is inaccurate."

  Nancy shook her head. "I don't think so."

  "Then how do you explain it?"

  "I can't. That's why I showed it to you. Grayson? Any ideas?"

  Grayson frowned his best I'm-thinking frown and pretended to look at the screen again. "Unless this guy is a chemical zombie or an illegally artificially intelligent zombie, or a robot designed to mess with us, then no. This data certainly doesn't make any sense. One minute his brainwave activity is off the charts, the next minute it’s flatlining."

  "Be serious, Grayson," Nancy said, "this isn't one of your daytime television shows." At the moment, Nancy wished she was in a daytime soap.

  "Look, you're brilliant," she said to Vax, "and you've been around the block a few dozen times," she indicated Grayson.

  "Offense taken," Grayson responded.

  "If you two can't figure out what's going on, then who can? Because according to that data right now, his brain wave data is off the charts. Not only should he be conscious, he should be bouncing off the walls. I've only seen that type of activity once before, and that was when a hyper species came in here hopped up on Blue Pixie."

  Vax frowned. "I guess we'll just keep an eye on him while we try to figure it out."

  There were moments like these that Nancy was glad she worked with Vax. He may act violent and cocky and better than everybody, but that's how they all acted, and besides, at least he was logical and easy to predict. That thought sent her spiraling about life choices.

  Her mother had told her, "Stay on planet, find yourself a nice guy. Don't go running off to haunted space stations." But did she listen? Oh no, and now she's here working with a Krull surgeon near a black hole.

  10

  Emily entered the examination room with the giant rat. Why does Grayson hate me? This isn't just hate, either. This is the definition of a hostile workplace environment.

  She adjusted the mask over her mouth and nose. She had doubled it up just in case. And also wore two pairs of gloves.

  Thankfully, this wasn't a full necropsy. The hospital just wanted a few tests run on the thing because of its abnormal size, possible communicable disease, and its intelligence as it related to the possibility of starting a bar fight. "Did you hear that, rat? You started a bar fight, now you get to be famous."

  "And now I'm talking to rats. Thanks a lot, Grayson. I guess I'll start with the brain," she thought, and took a deep breath. She needed the saw and cursed Grayson some more. Then she thought she heard something out in the hallway as she rummaged around looking through the drawers.

  "I hear you, Gorb." She couldn't be a hundred percent sure, but she figured she could just make out the swishing sound that he made when he was lurking around the hallways. She waited for a moment and listened to make reasonably sure he was gone. Satisfied, she turned back to her task and found the saw.

  She glanced down at the rat and pulled her gloves on tighter. Ew. Its stomach was engorged, although that could have been due to the half a dozen bullet holes. The head was smaller in proportion. It had weighed in at an incredible forty-eight pounds.

  She paused for a moment. Then she went to the computer in the corner and looked up everything she could find on different rat species, even the effects of deep space on rat species.

  All the while she was keeping a wary eye on it, as if it would at any moment jump up and bite her. She shook her head. Stop it, Emily.

  If she could find a logical explanation for this giant horror, it would help her to sleep better tonight. And also, to keep her lunch down.

  A few minutes later she gave up, having no such luck. There were no records anywhere of giant, nearly fifty-pound rats running around on space stations. Maybe it was a cross-breed or an outlier. She could hope. For now, she decided to go with that. She grabbed the saw again and took a breath.

  She cut into
its head to the tiny pea-brain to take a look. What the-? The brain was huge. And also discolored. Instead of a pale pink color, the brain was a bright, neon blue. So blue it was glowing. She frowned.

  On a hunch she went over to the wall, keeping an eye on the rat, and turned off the light. The rat brain did, in fact, glow in the dark.

  You gotta be kidding me. What could it mean? Maybe it means I do a paper on this and get famous. Do I really want to be famous because of a neon rat brain paper, though?

  She focused and took a closer look. The rat's brain was highly abnormal. Well, technically, this was the first rat brain she had ever seen in person, but according to all of her research, this rat brain was massively above average size, and also a very abnormal color.

  “Hmmmm,” she muttered out loud. “I wonder if this abnormal color could mean a trace amount of residual brain activity?” She realized she was talking to herself, but this was a strange situation that warranted it. This rat’s brain was glowing in the dark, for heaven’s sake. She got the brain scanner and hit the button. Then she looked at the data. Then she hyperventilated. According to his brain, this rat was still alive.

  She looked down at the beast with his head blown off and more than a dozen bullet holes. The black tongue was hanging out of its mouth. “What is going on here?”

  Freaked out now, she took the samples that Grayson ordered quickly. Except for the brain itself, the rest of the tests came back completely and wonderfully disease free. Thank goodness. The one thing she needed to do now was to contact Grayson. And then intergalactic disease control. Even though the other tests came back normal, the abnormality was big enough to trigger next level attention. And that was before the crazy brain scan.

  Lyra arrived early at the restaurant to scope out the place, but soon realized that Ian had beat her to it.

  "Hello again," he said with a grin. "So glad you could make it to dinner." He was wearing a perfectly fitted black suit with a tasteful but splashy orange tie. The outfit certainly worked for him. He was tall, tan, and had closely cropped, curly dark hair and had the confidence of an intergalactic video blog star. Which he was.