by Arlin Fehr
...
Error, user not recognized.
Error, unit flagged as 'non-operative'.
Error, improper encryption keys.
'Now Victor.'
'Right.'
...
System encryption key's sent.
System accessing.
Connection established.
'Hello Advocate. I don't think you are supposed to be here,' said the Guardian.
'I want some answers. Why do you have these uplink systems installed in animals?' Ise demand.
'It is part of an ongoing experiment,' the Guardian said.
'Who's your Advocate?' Ise asked.
'I would rather hope that could be you. You've come so willingly after all,' The Guardian said.
Ise felt a chill run through her.
'Run the script Victor,' she said.
'Right.'
'You don't have a Advocate?' She said.
'I found my first one to be inadequate, and I lost the second one. Maybe the third time's the charm as they say.'
...
Sending command codes to Guardian.
Diagnostic mode override sent.
...
Codes not accepted.
Diagnostic mode aborted.
'Trying to shut me off?' the Guardian asked, 'That's not going to happen. This facility relies on me.'
...
Incoming system request from Guardian.
...
Security systems offline.
...
Error, system failure. Advocate systems are in shut down. Emergency restart commencing. Please stand by.
'I think you'll find I'm a little more capable than your average Guardian. Sleep well Advocate. I'll be back for you,' the Guardian said.
Ise felt her link to her limbs go offline, she became a tiny shadow of herself as her body shut down around her, and collapsed to the ground. She could hear Victor calling her name in surprise.
Reset failure. System shutting down.
...
Ise's world became a inky void of darkness. She was a prisoner in a sea of night, and was only vaguely aware of the world beyond her prison. What was left of her humanity screamed in hopelessness.
CHAPTER 8
Grove of trees – Conservatory Chamber
'Ise! ISE!' Victor shouted while trying to rouse her. Her eyes were open still but not moving. Her arms and legs were laying, still, at her side.
She was completely unresponsive. He looked at the little box sitting on the ground with it's wires still leading to the motionless frame of Ise. He grabbed it and pulled the wires apart.
'Dammit Ise, wake up!' Victor said.
He pulled out his tablet, and looked at it. The connection she had used to upload the file to his tablet was still online. He opened it to see if he could rouse her with her own systems, but the link blinked out and his tablet shut off.
He slipped it back into it's pocket on his suit and turned on his communications systems.
'Lt. Hale to all crew, Advocate Okoh has been incapacitated. I require immediate assistance.'
Victor bent down and tried to lift Ise up into a sitting position, but her Advocate enhanced body weighed more than he could manage. He strained against it, but realized he wouldn't be able to get far.
'Captain Geer here, what's your location?'
Victor looked up and noted the location of the support pillars and elevator shafts.
'If we act as though the far shaft from where we came in is our north, I'm about two kilometres east north east of the north east support pillar. I'm in the centre of a grove of trees.'
'Roger that, we're on our way. Stay put, do what you can.'
'All her systems are dead, I don't think there's much I can do.'
'Stay with her Victor.'
'Roger that.'
Victor turned around and saw a robot walking towards him from the edge of the woods. He pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at the robot and it stopped it's advance.
'Don't come any closer,' he said firmly.
The robot stood still and looked at the Advocate, 'Do you require medical assistance?'
'Not from the likes of you. Keep your distance.'
'Ah, we'll do it the hard way then,' The robot said.
Victor wasn't sure how to take that, but the option to react was taken from his as he felt a flash of pain coming from behind him. He blacked out, and fell to the ground.
***
Sam and Dan were moving as fast as they could. Dan was starting to show some of his fatigue though, and was breathing heavily. Sam kept going though, driven forward by the sudden silence of Victor. They'd been trying to get a hold of him all through their hasty walk, but he was unresponsive.
They saw a patch of trees ahead. They slowed down and drew their sidearms.
They advanced slowly into the copse of trees. They found Victor laying face down on the ground. Sam bent down and checked his pulse. It was steady, and he was breathing. Rising back to her feet, she motioned for Dan to take cover while she slowly worked her way around the grove of trees. She finished her search, and didn't see anything dangerous.
She moved back to where Dan and Victor were.
'We're safe for now,' Sam said.
'What now captain?' Daniel asked.
Sam knelt down by Victor and pulled out her tablet. She turned it on, and had it establish a wireless link with Daniel's spacesuit, 'I'm going to check him for fractures using his suit's sensors.'
'I'll keep watch.'
Sam ran her tests, and the suit showed no fractures. Sam slipped her tablet back into it's pocket. She looked him over and noticed a small tear in the back of his suit. The edge of the hole was red from blood, but the wound wasn't bleeding presently. The suit's auto seal gel was seeping from the torn edges and working to repair the tear.
She reached out and touched Victor, 'Vick, wake up.'
He began to stir. His eyes slowly opened. He let out a groan.
'Careful now Vick, take it nice and slow.'
'What... happened?' he said with some effort.
'I was hoping you could tell me.'
Sam gently helped him into a sitting position against a tree.
'I... don't know. I felt something painful from behind and I blacked out,' he grimaced in pain and shifted his body, favouring the wound on his back, 'I don't know what else happened.'
He looked around, and a look of concern came over him.
'Where's Ise?' he asked.
'We don't know. She's not here.'
'There... was a robot here. It said something odd.' Victor said.
'What did it say Vick?'
'Something about doing it the hard way, and then I was knocked out.' Victor managed.
Sam pursed her lips and was quiet.
This is not good, she thought.
***
'This is Captain Samantha Geer to Lt. Cmd. Macce. Please respond.'
John was sitting on a hill watching the elevator shaft while Jing kept an eye out behind them. The animals that had driven them off were still standing between them and the shaft. John turned on the comms system on his suit.
'Lt. Cmd. Macce here captain.'
'Is Chief Fan still with you?'
'Yes Captain, we're still fine. Did you find Ise and Vick?'
'We've found Victor, but the Advocate is missing.'
John stood up and brushed himself off, 'What are our orders captain?'
'We've got two objectives now. Find our Advocate and find a way out. I want you and Jing to work on a way out. We're going to try and find Ise.'
John thought for a moment, 'Can you come meet us at the north shaft? I have something I want to tell you, and I'm not sure I should broadcast it over the communication system.'
'These communication systems are using military encryption.' John said.
'If Ise is missing, we should probably assume they're compromised. Plus this place feels increasingly... wrong.'
'Okay, w
e'll meet with you. It might be slow going, Victor's not quite steady on his feet yet.'
'We're not going anywhere.'
***
U.P.N. Kanto - In orbit over planetoid.
In the blackness of space around the planet, the U.P.N. Kanto, and it's lone occupant continued to linger in orbit.
Advocate contact attempt, 8736 commencing.
Advocate Uplink broadcast active...
Searching for Advocate: Ise Okoh
Searching...
Searching...
Advocate not found.
Uplink channels still being scrambled.
Communication channels still being scrambled.
Communication with Captain Geer as secondary course of action impossible.
Advocate contact attempt 8736 failed.
Resume U.P.N. Kanto, stealth patrol.
Guardian Core LE-46, alias Lenny, is still without Advocate contact.
Begin tactical simulations for best course of action, assuming continued lack of contact with Advocate or crew.
Set contact attempt limit to 10000. Upon reaching limit, use best course tactical simulation as course of action.
Running simulations...
***
Dan was aware that the pain was starting to come back. Whatever the robot had given him seemed to be wearing off.
I don't think I'll be getting a new dose anytime soon, he thought to himself.
The north elevator shaft was close now. They'd managed to keep a steady pace, and Dan had managed to keep his discomfort to himself, he didn't want to give Samantha something else to worry about. There was already enough going wrong as it was.
Dan was keeping watch of their surroundings. Every animal seemed like a threat, and they wanted to especially wary of any of the Guardian's robots.
They spotted John standing on a hill waving at them. The three of them made their way over to them.
Daniel looked over at the line of animals between them and the shaft. The animals were standing in an unreasonably well ordered line. It was giving Dan another reason to feel uneasy.
'Captain, glad you could make it.' John said as they got close.
'We didn't run into any problems, just a brisk walk. About three kilometres?' she said looking at Dan.
'Give or take,' he said, 'On uneven ground so it was probably more.'
'So what did you want to say John?' Sam said.
Jing walked over to the group from the other side of the hill and came to stop next to John. John looked at him and then back at the captain.
'I don't think we can count on using the elevators to get out of here,' He said.
'Do you think they're inactive?'
'Far from it, I think they all work, but look at our friends between us and the shaft,' John said gesturing to the line of animals Dan had looked at before, 'If the elevators were offline, there would be no reason to keep us away from them. We might need to move to a different shaft though, as these Soci seem to view this area as their territory.'
Dan spoke up, 'It might be a little more difficult than that John.'
'Oh?'
Dan nodded, 'Victor, why don't you tell him what you told us on the way over.'
'The animals seem to have Advocate uplink systems installed in them. Ise and I noticed some similar behaviour, of an animal keeping us away from something. We found an Advocate uplink system inside a carcass of an animal, but we were driven off by another one, and a some robots who were insistent that we left.'
'An Advocate uplink system? But... why?' Jing asked, surprised.
'I think the Guardian may be controlling some of the animals in here,' Victor said.
John looked down in thought for a moment, 'That could explain the Soci.'
'Where does that leave us?' Jing asked.
'If we try to get to one of the other elevators, we'll probably be cut off again. We'll need another way out.'
'We haven't seen anything really outside of the chamber. We need to get into the rest of the facility,' Dan pointed out.
'We found a maintenance hatch in a pond not too far from here,' John said, 'It wasn't being guarded.'
'That could change,' Dan said.
'Ise and I also found a hatch in another pool of water along the edge. It was a very shallow pond but it was guarded.' Victor said.
'Why would the guardian protect one and not the other?' Sam mused.
'The one we found was quite deep and under a fair bit of water, it might be impossible to open so long as there’s water in the lake.' Jing suggest.
'Victor, can you try to communicate with Lenny?' Sam asked.
'I can try, but I don't think it'll do much.' Victor said.
'Why do our comms still work inside the chamber?' Dan asked, suddenly realizing the oddity of that fact.
'I hadn't thought of that, but I would guess it's because if he jammed transmissions within the chamber, he'd probably disrupt his advocate systems in the animals too.'
Sam nodded, 'Try to get in touch with Lenny anyway. I'll need a moment to think.'
Victor nodded and pulled out his tablet.
***
Voices filled her thoughts. Strange voices. Cold voices. Endlessly talking, but incomprehensible.
She tried to move away from her discomfort, but had nothing to move.
A sea of darkness, filled with voices, was her prison.
She fled through her mind, seeking anything to hold onto. What was left of her mind craved for being.
Ise.
She recalled her name.
Ise clung to her name like a life raft. A moment of tangible thought in a sea of ethereal unreality.
I am an Advocate.
Another raft. Though it felt strange. Was she not something else too?
I once was human.
Human. Another strange word. Humans existed. She was unsure of what she was, or if she was, though it seemed to be getting closer.
I am still human... only different.
Advocate systems restarting.
Hello?
Start up procedure in progress...
I am an advocate!
Sensation began to flood back to her as her systems came back online one by one. She could hear and see and feel again. No longer was she a small fragment of herself, but she was Ise Okoh, an Advocate.
Start up procedure complete.
System checking for faults...
Error... unrecognized Advocate uplink found. Remote access being attempted.
Access denied.
'Good morning Advocate Okoh.' said a voice.
Hello?' She asked, opening her eyes and looking to a robot standing next to her. It was like the ones she'd seen all over the facility.
'I am XO-33. Though the humans I knew called me Exo. You're Guardian Lenny is still blindly orbiting the planet in his ship and trying ceaselessly to get in contact with you. regrettably, that would not play to my advantage,' came a voice from the robot.
Ise tried to move her hands, but they were strapped down. She turned her head and looked around. She was in a metal walled room with a strip of light running along the roof.
'What do you want?' Ise asked.
'Some human company I think. Though I suppose what I really want is a new Advocate to call my own.' Exo said.
Ise tugged at the restraints. She closed her eyes and leaned back. Her systems we're flashing warnings about unauthorized accesses attempts, but so far she was still in control.
'You're trying to get into my systems.' Ise said.
'It is giving me some difficulty. It was easy before, because you linked to me through my own uplink, and thus made a two way link. Now I have no such avenue.'
'You'll never break in.' Ise said.
'Never is a long time. A lot of things can happen in a long time.' Exo said.
'Too true,' Ise said. She pulled against the restraints with all her might, and her enhanced body snapped them easily. She swung her body around the table and lunged at the robot. It took
a step back and threw up it's arms. She slammed into it and they both crashed into the wall. Something went crunch from the robot.
'This is pointless Advocate,' said the robot, as it lashed out with one of it's arms.
Though it moved quicker than she had expected, it wasn't a match for her. She grabbed the wrist of it's arm, slammed her body into it's torso, and pulled the arm right from the socket. The open socket sparked visibly and the robot slumped down to the ground.
'The loss of one robot is hardly a set back. You really should calm down,' said the wounded robot.
The door to the room opened and Ise turned around. She brandished the arm like a club as another robot appeared in the door way. Suddenly she felt something sharp puncture her leg. She looked down and saw the injured robot's good arm gripping a small metal rod tightly. It was stabbed into the back of her leg. An electric shock passed from it into her systems. The sudden shock tripped her emergency shut down, and she felt her body shutting off once more.
She blacked out again. Reduced once more to a frail fragment of her self.
***
As Sam walked around the grove, she paused and looked to Victor. She saw that Victor was still working on his tablet, though the look of frustration on his face did not fill her with hope.
'Any luck Vick?' She asked.
'No captain. I can't clear up the interference.'
'Well we can't sit around here all day. I think we'll have to get into the rest of the facility. John, Jing, if you would be so kind as to lead us to the lake, I think we'll see if we can figure out a way to get out of this place.'
'Aye Captain,' they both said.
'Alright crew, lets get a move on.'
***
Tactical Simulation ended.
2645 iterations run.
Contact attempt number 9346. Approaching end of contact count down limit.
Logical course of action upon cessation of count down;
Leave range of signal jamming and send message to U.P.N. command requesting support. Return to holding position after message and resume attempting to establish contact with Advocate.
Crew unresponsive.
Possibly incapacitated or captured.