by KA Hopkins
Guide provided an update on the search for us. The memory wiped hovercraft successfully traversed a number of bio-domes and crashed into a transport truck. The crash and subsequent fire completely destroyed the wiped hovercraft’s data crystals along with the explosion evidence left on the four Sentinels’ remains. With the destruction of the hovercraft the physical evidence of our firefight with the Sentinels was now entirely obscured - what was captured on the security footage was inconclusive as our stealth suits didn't show up on the surveillance tapes. The tapes only captured the Sentinels shooting at the transport, a large explosion and then the hovercraft driving off. While this scenario would cause a human to think, “Something is not right here,” a computer intelligence might not have sufficient logic routines to come to the same conclusion.
The reason why, the original mission parameters were to investigate duplicate transponder codes which disappeared once the Sentinels showed up. The transport fire at the same location was handled by the fire department - both incidents though unusual, were handled by separate departments. So in a weird twist of programming logic the actions on the tape followed the rules given to the Central Surveillance AI. A human would have questioned the coincidence of the two simultaneous incidents, but to a computer intelligence everything more or less fit the facts.
Given the lack of police activity in our sector, it appeared our run in with the Sentinels had been forgotten. Guide queried the central maintenance computer for a status update on our transport - it was time to go, our ride home was ready. The next step was to come up with a plan to get us to the surface without setting off any alarms.
Our plan followed the KISS principle: “Keep It Simple Stupid.” We hid in the prisoner compartment using our stealth suits and the shielding of the compartment to mask us from the surveillance sensors while Guide drove us to the surface under the pretext of picking up passengers from the loading docks. Guide would blend in with the normal traffic leaving the complex and once clear of security take us to our vehicle. The entire plan depended on a single assumption: getting out of a secure complex is usually much simpler than getting in. On the way out, security guards typically only check your id and manifest; if this cursory check is ok there is seldom a detailed search of the vehicle. We were exploiting a weakness in a system everyone assumed was one hundred percent fool proof. One should never be so arrogant and forget: “What one man builds, no matter how well designed, another man can screw up.”
It is surprising how well a simple plan, well executed can work.
Guide got us through all of the checkpoints and out of the complex without any issues. It was then a short drive to one of the hundreds of repair bays where our vehicle was parked, undergoing a major overhaul. As we pulled up to our transport, Guide opened the door to the prisoner compartment giving us an uninterrupted view of a harsh, yet beautiful, desolate landscape and what is perhaps one of the most iconic images ever captured on film. The picture was taken on December 22, 1968 - it was the first photo from deep space that showed the Earth rise above the Moon with the sunset terminator crossing Africa. The picture was taken by William Anders as he, Frank Bormann and James Lovell circled the Moon in the Apollo 8 command module. You see, for the past eighteen days, we had been on the Moon.
As Marc and I jumped out of the security compartment onto the Moon surface, I was struck by the beautiful illumination of the sunlight reflecting off the still Moon surface. Unlike the grey hued NASA moon photos, it showed similar colors to what you would find in the desert around Sedona Arizona - a palette of purples, reds, and pinks. I was lost in thought looking at the beautiful colors, only brought back to the present by the voice of the ship’s AI, “Mother.”
Mother was an appropriate term for the ship because she certainly acted like one and it was the name the ship preferred when we spoke. “Welcome back gentleman. My repairs and upgrades are complete. I have swapped registrations with another ship scheduled for immediate decommissioning; my old identity is gone. The deception won’t survive an in-depth check, but should last long enough to permit safe passage through the security sentries and the automated defense systems. If you will board I will arrange for a departure slot.” (I don’t know how, but her voice after the upgrades sounded younger).
Marc ran up the ramp and checked a monitor in the airlock to see if our escape had set off any alarms. So far so good - nothing was flagged by the Central Surveillance AI. There was no sense in toying with Murphy’s Law any longer; it was time to go. I started up the ramp and stopped half way. “Guide, what’s going to happen to you?”
“With one hundred percent certainty I will be caught as there is no way to hide our route from the hovercraft storage facility to the repair bay in the transportation logs. The automatic audit routines will show I dropped off passengers when I had actually been granted permission to pick them up. An inconsistency of this magnitude will be immediately flagged by the Central Surveillance AI and investigated. To prevent any intelligence being gathered from me I would suggest you erase my memory crystals in the same fashion as the destroyed hovercraft.”
Although Guide was a machine and not alive in any biological sense, Guide did have the capacity for independent thought as demonstrated by her conversations with Marc over the past two weeks. That alone had to demonstrate some form of independent intelligence. Letting Guide commit suicide when there were other options struck me as wrong and wasteful. Racking my brain for ideas, I asked, “Since you cannot stay here with your memory intact and wiping your memory crystals will effectively kill you, why not come with us?”
“Thank you Jake for that most kind offer, however I must refuse. Given the fact that my mission is complete, it is expected that I destroy all memories and cease to be. My core directives are exceedingly clear on this. I must obey – it is the law for AIs.”
“You are effectively committing suicide for no reason. In my culture suicide is only considered as a very last resort. It is against our laws and morally repugnant, resorted to only in extreme cases by desperate people who see no other means of escape. You have a choice.” I said.
“I’m sorry Jake. My operating directives are exceedingly clear and unambiguous. Once my mission is complete to prevent the knowledge falling into the wrong hands, I shall wipe all memories and cease to be.”
Computer logic can be pretty black and white; it can also drive you crazy. Our debate was going nowhere fast and we needed to take off before a security team showed up in the landing pit.
While I normally love a good philosophical discussion, I was still tired despite having slept for nearly two weeks and wanted nothing more than to get aboard and out of my suit and into a hot shower. So I took the path of least resistance and said, in my best command voice, “Guide prepare to receive new orders. Your mission is not complete; the situation is more complex than anticipated. Additional intelligence is required. You are ordered to provide whatever assistance is necessary to any human investigating the Moon.”
Guide replied without any hesitation, “I believe you are correct. I was mistaken; my mission is not yet finished. If you will remove my memory crystals I can join the same network as the ship’s AI, until such time as my mission is complete.”
Guide's sudden change of heart was a surprise. It seemed a whole lot easier than it should have been to convince her not to follow her core directives. It may have been my imagination, but I could have sworn I heard just a touch of smugness in her voice. Had I just been out-reasoned by a machine? A machine looking for a way to save its own life despite being programmed to the contrary, one that understood the subtleties of reverse logic, had a sense of self, along with a self-preservation instinct. There was definitely more sophisticated technology at work than I was used to.
In the meantime, Marc received a notice on the display in the airlock: “We have a takeoff slot. It’s time to seal the hatches and prepare for launch.” Now came the tricky part - taking off without a crew. Mother was fully automated, so no crew was requi
red for flight operations, but not having a crew would trigger alarms as all ships had to have an assigned crew for Earth bound missions.
“How are you going to get a liftoff clearance without an official crew manifest?” I asked Mother. “Don’t worry it’s all taken care of,” Mother replied.
“Care to tell me how you are doing it?”
“You will have to trust me. It would be best if you let me finish the automated liftoff checks and plot our course to Earth. Why don’t you get out of your stealth suits and get cleaned up. There’s hot food in the galley.”
Mother engaged the magnetic gravitonic drive and we lifted off. Our initial flight vector kept us low over the Moon's surface which provided a wonderful view of the many ruins, made up of interstellar ships, mile long colony ships, massive old mining equipment and abandoned space port docks. The ruins went on for miles - the Moon had been the center of activity for alien visitation to Earth for tens of thousands of years.
Contrary to popular scientific belief, not all the craters on the Moon were caused by asteroids. Some were alien made as the Moon had been the center of a number of wars, when various space fairing alien races fought for control over this region of space - and in some cases domination over Earth.
Extraterrestrials using the Moon as their base of operations had a perfect location to observe and influence mankind’s development, close to Earth but remote enough to remain completely undetected. They have visited Earth for thousands of years, but only since the 1940’s have the rumors of their existence become popular fodder for conspiracy theories - to the point where over fifty percent of Americans believe, “we are not alone.”
Many of those who believe, "we are not alone," have a misplaced noble image of benign extraterrestrials, naively hoping that they are here to help mankind; nothing could be further from the truth. If aliens are inviting you over for dinner you might want to check the main course to make sure you are not in it. The reality is, extraterrestrials have a piss poor opinion of mankind for many reasons. Foremost are our warlike tendencies and lack of spiritual development, not to mention our seemingly uncontrolled breeding habits.
While extraterrestrials are without question far more technically advanced than mankind, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are motivated by vastly different things. On Earth in the 16th and 17th centuries, the need for more resources and living space brought the old world to the new world. This mixing of cultures seldom worked out well for the indigenous populations of the new world. History tends to repeat itself.
Now that we were once again relatively safe and heading back to Earth, I had time to reflect upon the events of the past twenty-eight days. Had it really only been four weeks since a series of unexpected events changed my life forever? Me, an average middle aged family man, on the dark side of the Moon, hiding out in an ancient alien underground complex with a stolen alien scout ship.
My, how time flies when you are having fun!
Chapter 5 - My name is White, Jake White
Timeline: Four weeks earlier…
My name is Jake White. It’s a simple Anglo Saxon name; it does not roll off your tongue or have the charm of great adventure heroes like James Bond, Dirk Pitt or Jason Bourne. Nevertheless, while my name is pretty common and I consider myself just an average guy, somehow, as unbelievable as it sounds, I ended up at the center of circumstances that would give any of those adventure heroes a solid run for their money.
I’ll start from the beginning...I’m fifty years old, happily married to the same women going on twenty years. It’s my second marriage and Pam’s first, so hopefully I have finally figured out a thing or two about relationships and can make this one go the distance. I really didn’t have much of a choice; I couldn’t afford another break up. We did not have much when my first marriage dissolved, but I had a whole lot less when it was over. I found that like most things, marriage, if you worked at it slow and steady, you could solve just about anything - well almost anything.
Pam and I, like any proud parents, have what we believe are two wonderful children, blessed with their mother’s good looks and smarts. We were both considered decent athletes when younger and it looked like the kids inherited the same good genes. Both are tall for their age and very fit. They are heavily involved in sports which means Mom and Dad act as chauffeurs pretty much seven days a week. Add in the school homework and you know the routine - Mom and Dad’s lives completely revolve around the kids. Like any parent, I am proud of my kids. They’re not the brightest or the best at any particular activity, but they understand right from wrong, have their own opinions and a good work ethic.
We have a good relationship. No matter how bad my day, my kids can always find a way to change my view on the world. Not all days are rainbows, butterflies and unicorns with them - occasionally they drive me to the point of desperation, wishing that I could sell them for a quarter, but know I would pay anything to get them back at the end of the day. Well, maybe the next day.
Irrespective of the pleasure or grief my family causes me, they are my foundation. They ground me. Everything else in life could change but family is family. Nothing else mattered, nothing was more important to me. Little did I know that my commitment to my family would be greatly tested in the not too distant future.
Fifty had crept up on me seemingly out of nowhere, but like the country song goes, “I may not be as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” It was kind of true for me. While I no longer did any of the extreme sports like free fall parachuting, aerobatic flying or mixed gas scuba diving; martial art training with the kids helped with my fitness level but not with my waistline. Being active was still an important part of my lifestyle, but pretty much all activities caused aches and pains. You know, when golf and a little Saturday TLC with your partner hurts your back, you cannot expect to run any triathlons without a lot of preparation and pain, and even then don't expect to set any records.
The other members of our happy little family were the pets. I strongly believe that pets are great for young kids in so many ways. I’m not sure if it has been studied and proven, but it seems to me kids raised with pets from birth have fewer incidents of asthma, allergies and a better sense of responsibility. Maybe it’s something to do with building up the immune system due to all of the fur and dirt around the house and learning early on that there are others in the world you have to take care of before yourself. Then again maybe not…if memory serves me right, I was the one doing most of the care and feeding.
My wife agreed with my pet theory: if you are going to have them, more is better. So the kids had a bunch: rats, cats, rabbits, lizards, snakes, fish - you name it we had it. Of all the animals, our favorite was our black Labrador retriever we named Natasha, who became the unofficial third kid in the family.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew and loved Natasha. She often jumped the backyard fence to play with other dogs and kids on the green, or to go for a swim in the pond down the street. When she had enough of that, you could always find her on the front porch keeping an eye on the neighborhood. So, even though she was good natured and would not hurt a fly minding its own business, her protective instincts were incredibly strong. If the kids went for a swim, she was beside them. Once the kids became strong swimmers she started to lifeguard other people’s children, patrolling the beach ensuring the kids did not go in too deep. Natasha was truly one in a million - you could not ask for a better friend or family member.
My sanctuary from the world, my happy place that I had worked so hard to achieve for myself and my family was turned upside down in the span of a single night. I don’t know if it was luck of the draw, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But chosen we were, and our lives were forever changed by beings that only conspiracy theorists believe in.
Chapter 6 - Wrong place wrong time
The extraterrestrial snatch team was the standard crew complement: eighteen alien Grays, six in the snatch team, six in the security detail and six ship�
�s crew.
The Grays looked similar to the descriptions commonly found on the internet. They were about four-and-a-half feet tall with pale gray smooth skin and a head much larger in the back than front, giving them a brain volume thirty percent more than that of a similar sized human skull. Their faces were oval with a near nonexistent, flat nose with two tiny holes for nostrils, a sharply pointed chin with a small mouth, thin lips and small teeth. The ears were diamond shaped, formed from small folds of skin. The eyes were the most striking part being nearly three times the size of human eyes. They appeared to be coal black but were actually light green, hidden behind dark protective lenses that acted as a heads-up display for the sensors and computers embedded in the fabric of their single piece flight suits. Their bodies were completely free of hair and were well toned with significant muscle development evident on the arms, legs and chest. They had three fingers on each hand with an opposing thumb. Their fingers were 1.5 times longer than a human’s with four segments compared to three on a human finger. The limbs were all proportional to the size of the body with the exception of the arms which appeared to be slightly longer, causing their hands to nearly reach their knees.
They landed their ship at night, next to our house, smack dead center in the middle of the community gardens. The homeowners association was going to be quite upset when they saw the damage caused by the scout ship’s landing legs to their precious plants and flowers.
The landing site was well outside of their normal snatch parameters. Standard operating procedure (SOP) stressed that snatch locations should always be selected in remote rural locations, to minimize observation by humans. Not only did the isolated remote location provide the needed security…who would actually believe a redneck saying they saw a silver UFO? Doesn’t beer come in silver cans?