The Spark (White Gates Adventures Book 4)

by Trevor Stubbs

  The sun vanished behind the houses; it would soon be set. Already the street names were becoming too difficult to read. But the darkness could be her friend. She could escape the gaze of the drone – unless it was fitted with night vision…

  Then the gloom was pierced by the sound of marching metal. Around the corner appeared four medium robots. It would take her a whole year to admit to anyone how terrified she had been at that moment. They were marching right up to her. Was her life about to end there, on her own, out of all reach of any sentient being on a planet that her sister and brother did not even know she had visited? She thought she would faint – she might lose consciousness even before the machine-heads inflicted the final blow.

  But two metres from her, the bots suddenly stopped. They lined up abreast and the furthest right circled around and took a small step forwards while the others remained still. Wennai looked to the left. The way was open. She made to move in that direction and the bot to the right inched forward again. They want me to walk this way, she thought. They’re herding me. She decided to be herded.

  After about a hundred metres, one of the bots moved in front of her. Wennai stopped. Now she was trapped – was she to be murdered at this point? The bot behind stepped up and opened a gate in the wall that Wennai hadn’t seen, and another jabbed her in the side with his wand – but there was no electric charge this time. “Ow!” said Wennai out loud. “No need for that!” The gate was the only option; resistance was not going to get her anywhere – and anyway if these bots wanted to do her in they had had plenty of opportunity. Wennai stepped into a sweet-smelling garden. The gate was shut behind her. She heard the mediums march off. It was now almost dark but she could still make out plots of what she assumed were overgrown vegetables and small bushes laden with berries. Could it be that the machine-heads had simply taken her to a place where she could browse? On one level it was purely logical: they had learned that her kind ate berries, there were no berries in the streets, she was lost, therefore she needed help to find what she was looking for. On another level, it could be interpreted as an act of kindness. Did they care? Had they become sentient beings? If so, Wennai thought, I have become a terrorist bent on infiltrating their world to destroy them, while they are kindly looking after my needs. As she stood and pondered, she became aware that the drone was moving away. All was still.

  The house to which the kitchen garden belonged bordered one side of it. A rear door stood ajar – perhaps the owners hadn’t had the time to secure it in their haste to escape; perhaps they had been captured by the ASI without warning. Perhaps they were still inside… dead. Wennai was desperately thirsty. Surely looking for water inside would not make her a looter. The room was dark – finding anything inside was going to be difficult. Water would be kept in a fridge she supposed. Wennai felt round the cupboards that lined the walls between the windows for anything that resembled a fridge. On the far side of what was clearly a kitchen, Wennai found the entrance to a passage that led further into the house, and laid her hand on the wall beside it. Almost immediately she discovered something small and square that gave beneath her touch. A deluge of light engulfed her – so bright she instinctively closed her eyes against it. But getting used to the light took no more than a few moments. She rushed to the windows to close some shutters that were partially open.

  So the electricity was still on. Of course, she thought, the ASI needs electricity like we carbon-based mortals need water. Keeping the power plant going stands to reason. There was no sign of the Sponron inhabitants – living or dead. The kitchen appeared to have been deserted in the middle of preparing a meal – the owners of this house had clearly been taken by surprise. She found a bottle of water standing on the table. She drank.

  Her insides were not great; the berries without anything to dilute them were definitely on the move. A second door led to where she needed to go next. It was a simple affair – and easy to cope with.

  After these initial gifts of civilisation, Wennai was feeling much, much better. She had even managed to flush using a bucket that stood ready. It was as if someone was looking after her. No matter how hard she had tried, she just couldn’t put the idea of God out of her mind. He (or She) seemed to keep forcing His way in. She soon found herself saying a sort of prayer for the people whose house this was. If she ever managed to meet them, she would thank them – and apologise for her intrusion.

  Experiencing a brief twinge of a Goldilocks moment, Wennai tasted the contents of a box that lay open on the table. They were savoury biscuits, not only still edible but delicious. And on the side there was something sweet. Wennai ate. It was enough.

  Now it was time to explore the rest of the house. Wennai decided on a single bed at the top of the house with a fully equipped en suite bathroom…

  Steam filled the air as the tough heroine indulged herself in a bath of hot water complete with some sweet-smelling liquids that stood on a shelf.

  ***

  Earlier that day, Shaun had decided to go for a circular route. Just keep turning right, he reasoned – but it took him further than he had intended – and then, when he realised he would re-join the lane metres from the bots’ factory, settled on retracing his steps.

  He got back to the wood just as it was getting dark. The men and boys had already returned from their turn in the stream. Never mind, he told himself, it’s a bit cold to take everything off. I’ll have a good soak when all this is over.

  24

  A shaft of white sunlight cut across the room in which Wennai still lay naked beneath some clean sheets she had found in a cupboard drawer. After her bath, she had not put her shorts and top back on – she had felt so wonderfully fresh. She praised the Lord (if She existed) that She had sent her on an adventure with hot water on tap. Unlike Shaun, or even Kakko, Wennai decided she needed to be clean to operate effectively. It seemed that her Creator (if She existed) knew this. But now there was nothing for it – she would have to dress herself in the same icky stuff. There was no borrowing from the Sponron this time; their clothes were a completely different shape.

  The kitchen cupboard supplied some interesting foodstuffs. Wennai tried some packets that looked as if they contained food that did not need to be cooked. Some clearly did but she discovered an absolutely delicious bar of what looked like a mixture of cereals and fruit. It was chewy and refreshing. Pulling open the shutters, she beheld the garden in the early morning sun. It showed signs of having once been wonderfully tended but now was becoming overrun with weeds. The berry bushes were laden with lovely-looking fruit – red, green and purple. These must all be edible, she thought, otherwise they wouldn’t have planted them. She resolved to try them all and eat them with some of the savoury biscuits she had discovered the night before.

  She pushed open the outside door and the scents of the garden filling the morning air thrilled her. Her heart brightened. She found a dish and was making her way towards the bushes when she heard the drone. Now her heart sank. Her instinct was to hide – but then the drone expected her to be in the garden. The best way of being ignored was to act according to their predictions. The drone hovered, seemed to register her beside the berry bushes, and left. All was quiet.

  Wennai gathered enough berries and then breakfasted. She made a final use of the facilities, making sure she had left everything as tidy and clean as she could. Then she decided to write a note on the back of some packaging. She had learned to say thank you in Sponron – biba. And although she had never seen it written, she wrote it in Sponron characters phonetically. Then she put her name. Wennai looked strange in Sponron writing – but great.

  So, where to go now to find the lab? I must be methodical, she said to herself. But she had no need of any method, for immediately across the road from the garden gate she read the sign she was looking for: Department of Robotics, Mulga Research Centre. The machine-heads had led her straight to it!

  The building stood open to the world – nothing was secured. It remained exactly as the
day the occupants had been surprised at their posts – except that all the contents had been removed. There were supposed to be experimental robots and electronics in construction, as well as hard copies of documents in filing cabinets. All had gone.

  Wennai stood and gazed at the emptiness. In room after room there was nothing left. Was she too late? She followed the signs to the room she had been directed to. That, too, was empty – except for some pictures on the wall and a desk with its empty drawers opened. In one of the pictures she spotted a photo stuck in the bottom corner of the frame. She thought she recognised One. After a moment, she was sure. It was hard to distinguish one alien face from another – and the man in this one was smiling. She had seen that smile the first time One had met them entering the wood. She took the photo from the frame and looked for something to wrap it in. There was nothing, so she put it as carefully as she could in her back pocket.

  The safe? Was it still there? She couldn’t see it. Then she realised that the desk must have been moved. There were marks made by the legs in the centre of the room. She ducked down and, sure enough, in the wall behind the desk she could just make out the safe. The desk was heavy. It took a lot of lifting and dragging. If Shaun had been with her, he would have justified his presence at that moment. It took her a long time but inch by inch it moved. Eventually she was able to get behind it but she had to duck under it to access the lock. She had memorised the combination a whole day before – now she had to remember it again – but she wrote it in the dust and it looked right. The first time it didn’t work. She tried it again. Still nothing. She checked her lettering. One letter could have an extra stroke (like you can easily make a P into an R) but otherwise she couldn’t see any alternatives. Perhaps if she tried the code with the extra stroke… It still failed.

  After a quarter of an hour, Wennai was on the brink of giving up. The whole reason she had been the one chosen to do this part of the job was that she was supposed to be the better person for it. And now all she could boast was a delicious bath and a good night’s sleep. She felt rotten about herself.

  OK, Wennai, she told herself, what would Shaun do if he were here? Approach it logically, methodically. What, though, if I have mucked it up with all my false attempts? Think logically… Right, if someone puts the wrong code in, there must be some way of clearing it. That’s the first thing I should do. There could be another code to enter first, and I haven’t the faintest idea what that is. But supposing it is just one letter. There are twenty letters in all, so if it’s one letter then I will have to enter it followed by the code no more than twenty times. If that fails, I have to move on to two characters – a maximum of 400 combinations. I will be here all day! So what if I am? I have a whole house to live in…

  Wennai thought about the code. She was sure she had got it right the first time. The symbols were clear. She began with the first letter followed by the code. No success. After sixteen letters she began to lose heart. Twenty letters, and still failure. Now she was on to the double letters. She was thirsty and tired. She must take a break.

  Wennai descended the stairs and crossed the road. Back beyond the gate, she heard the drone. It came up to the garden, hovered and returned the way it had come. She had been ticked off its checklist. Someone is on your side, Wennai. Thanks… Look, you don’t happen to know the way to get into this safe, do you? I’ve got this far… But Wennai had never heard of anyone being given a code to a safe by an angel – even if they were well intentioned.

  Refreshed, Wennai recrossed the road. All I need is patience, she told herself. It was then that she saw a box just inside the front door. It was in the wall and bore a lightning sign on it. It shouted out to her that this may be a way of disconnecting the power. If the power were disconnected and then reconnected, the safe lock might automatically reset. The box opened easily and inside there was an obvious master switch. Wennai pulled it down and all the humming stopped. It was amazing just how much electrical humming had filled the empty building; now it was dead quiet. It was as if the place had died. But Wennai pushed the big switch back up again and new life flowed through all the wire arteries and electronic capillaries. A green light came on above her as if to say: “Thanks. I needed that.” It had been red before. Wennai scampered up the stairs, got back under the desk and re-entered the code that she had learned and had first used. The safe door sprang open with a joyful plunk – as if it, too, felt the relief mixed with delight that at that moment surged through Wennai’s brain.

  Of course, reasoned Wennai, the machine-heads would have tried to get in and, when they couldn’t succeed, pushed the desk against the safe. They were the ones that mucked it up, not me. So who’s the brightest, then? You ASI might be able to think fast but you didn’t think of the power!

  Inside the safe all was exactly as One had described it. She found the motherboard marked Medium where One said it would be. There were two others around the same size. She thought she should take all three just to make sure. But there were no carrying boxes as One said to use. How could she carry the boards safely when all she had was what she was wearing? She knotted her top at the waist to make a little pouch and slipped the one marked Medium into it. She would borrow a dry towel to wrap it in when she got back to the house. But she had just got back beside the berry bushes when she heard the sound of a vehicle. It stopped at the gate and two mediums entered the garden. Wennai clutched the board in her top in an effort to conceal it. The bots did not seem to notice her hands; their task, as they made plain with their wands, was to get her to leave the garden. All she could do was comply. Beyond the door, she was ushered aboard a vehicle and restrained by a metal harness. What next?

  To her relief the mediums that got in alongside her also placed themselves in the same kind of harness. It was merely a common seat restraint. Wennai continued to clutch the board as if it was part of her. As they raced through the narrow streets, Wennai tried to remember which way they were going. If she ever got out of this, she would have to find her way back. They very soon got to smaller houses and then were out of the town altogether – and then Wennai recognised it. They were heading up the same road that she had come by. Were they taking her to the factory? But at the gate to the field that she and Shaun had originally been herded into, the vehicle drew to a stop. Her harness was removed and she was ushered off the vehicle, the gate opened, and there she was, inside – still clutching her top containing the precious cargo. The ASI had brought her home!

  As the transport disappeared back down the lane, Wennai felt elated. She had succeeded. Just how much was pure luck and how much was down to her own ingenuity, she couldn’t assess. Shaun would have given credit to his Creator; Wennai didn’t need to believe that God had anything to do with it. She felt a bit stupid saying those prayers but she might tell Shaun that to cheer him up one day. Just maybe. But one thing she was sure about, she would never admit to feeling so scared – the doubt and the loneliness she had experienced weren’t something she wanted to remember. She deliberately wandered up the field as if she was just returning from a stroll. A distant sound of an approaching drone reminded her to stop and look for berries – these were not a patch on the cultivated ones. The drone passed and Wennai entered the wood and within minutes was in the arms of a very concerned Shaun. He had been so worried! He tried not to show it – but couldn’t hide it. And that totally disarmed Wennai who, careful with her precious cargo, returned his hug as tears streamed down her face.

  “You missed me?” asked Shaun

  “Of course… sometimes… mostly…” She let out a sigh. “All the time.”

  “What’s wrong with your belly?”

  “What do you think? Where’s One?” she said as she carefully produced the board.

  ***

  Wennai’s adventure would be forever recorded in Sponron history. Who knows, her picture might even appear on a banknote in some century to come, as the legend of the human, Wennai, was told to admiring Sponron children. But that thought, than
kfully, did not enter Wennai’s head which was already getting rather big as the delighted Sponrons danced around her.

  ***

  The rest of the plan was executed. The ASI fell for it. The sentient beings only had one chance but that was all they needed. The first sign that all was not well with the ASI was a drone that began circling – round and round it went for hours until eventually, probably for lack of power, it crashed. It was decided that Wennai and Shaun should explore further. They got into the lane and spotted two mediums sitting in a ditch – lifeless. Further on was a caterpillar-tracked bot, standing completely still – its head lowered. They reached the factory. Some small bots were still walking around as if in a trance, while mediums were collapsed all over the place. The hum of the power continued but there was no sign of any of the charging trucks. The ASI was dead.

  Wennai recalled just how much help the ASI had given her in their mission to destroy it. She couldn’t prevent a few tears slipping from her eyes. “They were not evil,” she said.

  “No,” agreed Shaun. “They were not evil because they had no feelings at all. Robots cannot be moral beings.”

  “But they looked after me.”

  “They didn’t want you snooping around the town. Their logic told them you didn’t belong there. They didn’t care for you because they couldn’t care – they were not sentient.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Completely. Anyway, they had to be stopped.”