Virtual

by S A Pavli

  “One at a time please.” He nodded to Anja who looked the most animated.

  “I see what Leslie is saying,” exclaimed Anja. “You all remember how the Virtuals travelled from my ship to the Bounty Hunter and infected you all? It was because my crew had died. Death, or a comatose state which is what Leslie was in, releases the Virtual. But, what Leslie is saying is that the consciousness of the individual remains within the Virtual.”

  “So when your crew died, would their personalities have remained in the Virtuals?” asked Mark.

  “No,” said Leslie, to everyone’s relief. “You see, if you are infected with a corrupted Virtual, that is one which has random electrical content, it will kill you. That’s what happened to your crew Anja, and to all of us in fact. But, as we know, the defibrillator shock clears down the Virtual and allows the human brain to function normally and, in time, to grow into the Virtual. The Virtual is a substrate that supports structured electrical activity and retains it. Even after the brain dies.”

  “Damn,“ exclaimed LeBlanc. There were exclamations of incredulity from the others.

  “Yeah but would you want to carry on living like that?” asked LeBlanc. “I mean, it’s not much of a life without a body is it; Wondering around vicariously peeking into the minds of others.”

  “Do you all remember that a Virtual also took over Alden?” asked Leslie. “I think the key is that the Virtual can bond with any brain that operates at biological electrical levels. That operates at microvolt level. Alden’s brain is made from molecules of hydrocarbon, similar to biological brains, and operates at similar voltages.”

  “Are you saying Leslie, that when we die, our consciousness can be transferred to an artificial brain?” asked LeBlanc, looking at her with blank disbelief. “Because… well… that’s just science fiction…!”

  “Only if there has been a long enough symbiosis with the Virtual to bring about a full transfer of consciousness. There has to be enough of you in the Virtual in other words, to , well, make it you. Otherwise it will some incomplete version of you.”

  “But will there be continuity of consciousness?” asked Mark. “Or will the me that I now feel come to an end, and some incomplete copy of me continue to exist in the Virtual?”

  “When I was disconnected from my body, it was still me,” said Leslie. “And when I came back, I still retained the memories.”

  “Yes, but your body didn’t die,” pointed out Mark.

  “The point is,” said Leslie insistently, “That the Virtual part of our consciousness is not separate. There is, I am sure, total continuity of consciousness.”

  The discussion went on for a while. Gradually people left to continue with other tasks. Mark asked Andy to remain after everyone had left.

  “Let’s try to access the Archive directly tomorrow.” Andy nodded his agreement.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “Odd that the AI should be so uncooperative,” said Mark. “You would have thought being as we brought him back to life…”

  “He could show some bloody gratitude,” finished Andy. “Who is on watch?”

  “I’m on watch tonight and I believe the Major is on the Chameleon.”

  “Did the Major volunteer?” asked Andy with a grin.

  “What do you think,” chuckled Mark.

  Chapter 41

  The various crew members completed their tasks or finished their various recreational activities, and went to their beds, until only Mark was awake, checking his instruments on the flight deck.

  During this time ZAC the robot had remained quietly unmoving next to the huge discoloured box that contained the alien archive. Now, he moved, his new limbs gently whirring, he slowly and carefully walked over to the blocky square shape that was the alien archive. He crouched down and with careful precision he inserted back into their sockets all the power cables removed by Andy. Straightening he pulled another cable from a receptacle in his waist and plugged it into the archive, then, finding a communications wall socket, he inserted the other end. He paused for a moment as if listening, then, moving with greater alacrity he made his way out of the science room and down the corridor towards the engineering section of the ship.

  Mark had completed his checks and was pensively mulling over the days events. The resuscitation of the archive AI and it’s lack of cooperation was a mystery. Did it have something to hide? he asked himself, then decided he was being paranoid. It’s just a computer, albeit a very sophisticated one. It must in some way be following it’s programming. A green light on the console blinked red, and then went back to green again. Mark frowned and flicked the light with his finger. It remained green. The legend on the light was ‘AI module’. It was one of a group of indicators that showed the health of Alden’s electrical, air conditioning and hardware support system. Any failure in that would cause Alden to power down. “Alden, I’ve just had a red light on the AI module. It seems to have cleared itself but I’m just going to run a diagnostic to do an environment check on your module.” He clicked a few buttons to initiate the test and waited for the results. After a few seconds he realized that Alden had not answered him and an alarm bell went off in his head.

  “Alden, did you hear me?” There was no response from Alden. The results of the environment test flashed up on the screen, and Mark gasped. “Damn! What’s going on.” Mark hit the alarm button and the ship was suddenly filled by the clamour of the emergency alarm. It was the worst sound that any crew could hear and gritting his teeth against the wall of sound Mark leapt out of his chair and headed at breakneck speed towards the engineering section and Alden’s AI module, which was one level down from the flight deck.

  He entered the engineering section and found the lights on. Someone’s here he thought. Lights were normally dimmed throughout the ship, and came to full brightness when someone entered the room. The section which housed Alden’s AI module was down one spiralling flight of stairs to a lower level and Mark ran quickly through the banks of humming equipment to the top of the stairs. He paused and with thoughts of Leslie’s aberrant behaviour on his mind, he opened a service panel and pulled a large wrench off it’s mounting and made his way cautiously down the metallic spiral stairs, clutching the wrench and feeling just a little foolish. He paused a few steps from the top and bent down to look. There was something next to Alden’s AI module which he didn’t immediately recognize. He bent further and a shock passed through him as he recognized ZAC’s feet, legs and bulbous body.

  “ZAC what are you doing here?” he shouted and ran down the last few stairs and towards the robot. “This is out of bounds to everyone except the ship’s crew. Get back to….” He stopped as the robot turned and moved purposefully towards him. At the same time he noticed that the lights on Alden’s module were showing an error condition . The thought came to him like a bombshell that ZAC was up to no good. He threw the wrench with as much force as he could muster. It bounced with a metallic clunk off the robot’s head but ZAC continued towards him seemingly unaffected. It came to him that he was not going to get the better of the robot and he turned quickly and scuttled back up the stairs only to meet Jimmy Petrov coming the other way.

  “Captain! What’s happening?” asked the young soldier, then spotting ZAC who had returned to guarding Alden’s module his eyes widened with alarm.

  “Jimmy, are you armed?” asked Mark quickly.

  “No…”

  “Then get armed quickly. Get the Major. ZAC seems to be trying to sabotage the ship. I’m going to check the alien archive. I thought we’d disconnected that.” With his usual alacrity Jimmy bounded off, not wasting any further time in asking questions. Mark made his way quickly back through the engineering section and down two levels to the science room. On the way a dishevelled Andy hurtled up the stairs and they met at the door of the science room.

  “Andy, glad to see you,” gasped Mark.

  “Wha…?” began Andy.

  “It’s ZAC, he appears to be trying to sabotage
the ship.” Andy immediately came to the same conclusion as his captain.

  “The Archive …!” he exclaimed. Both of them dived through the door into the science room together. They looked aghast at the alien Archive which was fully powered up.

  “How the hell?” exclaimed Andy. “We disconnected all his power cable.”

  “And look at that,” said Mark pointing to the cable connecting the archive to the comms socket.

  “He’s plugged himself into Alden's computer network,” Andy scowled and leapt over to the offending cable, ripping it out of the socket. He then pulled all of the archive’s power cables. The lights on the massive dirty grey coffin remained on.

  “The bastard’s got working batteries!”

  “Sure looks like it,” agreed Andy, “but if we’ve disconnected him from the comms socket he should not be able to do anything…right?”

  “Unless he’s already uploaded a virus and brought down Alden,” said Andy. “Or worse, taken him over.”

  “Jesus, is that possible?”

  “In theory no, but we are dealing with an alien AI of unknown power… Alden has fail safe systems that should kick in to protect him.” Andy strode over to a comms terminal and started hitting buttons. Mark set his communicator onto the general band.

  “This is the Captain. We have an emergency; it appears that ZAC and the Archive AI are attempting to sabotage the ship. Alden is down but Andy is attempting to recover him. Major Follet, please arm yourself and make you way across to the Bounty Hunter. Jimmy, where are you? Everyone else, please stay in your cabins as ZAC seems to be hostile. Let The Major and Jimmy handle him.”

  “Captain, this is Major Follet. Jimmy has already contacted me. We are arming ourselves and heading for the engineering section. What do you want us to do with ZAC?”

  “Disable him if possible Major; It would be a shame if Jo and Andy’s hard work was completely destroyed.”

  “Understood Captain. Problem is it’s dangerous to use projectile weapons in the engineering bay and our low power lasers may not stop him.”

  “Major, this is Jo….” Andy looked up from his concentration on the computer screen.

  “Jo, stay in our cabin!”

  “Shut up Andy! Major, ZAC is not a military robot. He’s not insulated against laser attack. I suggest you aim for his eyes. They are unprotected photo receptors and there’s some essential circuitry behind them. Destroy that and he’ll be immobile.”

  “That’s a small target Jo, but we’ll do our best,” said the Major. “Jimmy, meet me outside engineering, I’m on my way now.”

  “Mark, it’s Melanie. I’m on my way down.” “Melanie..,” began Mark. “I’m on my way,” she re-iterated firmly.

  “Women,” muttered Andy, fingers dancing over the keyboard. Mark walked over to stand beside him.

  “What’s the diagnosis Andy?”

  “Not good Cap’n. Alden is down and the ship’s systems are on local auto.” Mark knew that all the ship’s systems had backup local computers that took over automatically when Alden was off line. “But,” continued Andy, “Alden’s re-boot systems are intact and I am attempting to initiate a startup.”

  “Is the core intact and clear?”

  “No, that’s the problem. The memory core is loaded and I can’t clear it. Unless it’s cleared, we can’t re-load Alden.”

  “The memory core is loaded? With what?” asked Mark. Suddenly, the ship’s alarm ceased it’s frenetic whooping. The silence seemed even more shocking than the noise. The ship’s intercom crackled and an alien voice boomed out.

  Attention human biological scum!

  Mark and Andy gaped at each other in shock.

  “That’s not Alden,” said Mark.

  “No. He’s usually much more polite,” agreed Andy.

  This is the entity you call the archive artificial intelligence. I have taken over control of your ship. You must all leave this ship immediately. Otherwise my servant, the one you call ZAC, will terminate your miserable lives and throw you out of the air lock.

  There was the sound of footsteps and voices and LeBlanc burst into the room closely followed by Walters. Before either of them could speak Mark remonstrated with them.

  “Gentlemen, I asked you all to remain in your rooms while my staff and the military contingent sorted this out.”

  “Mark, sorry, we couldn’t sit there doing nothing knowing the ship was in trouble,” said Walters.

  “OK, you two stay here and keep an eye on this character,” said Mark, indicating the archive box. “Andy, I have an idea. The only way to…..” Suddenly Mark stopped in mid- sentence. He shook his head and picking up a pen started to write on a pad.

  Andy, the Archive may be listening in; As I was going to say, the only way to clear the core is to disconnect it from it’s power supply and then manually clear it on start-up.

  Andy nodded his agreement. Mark showed his note to Walters and LeBlanc and they nodded their agreement. Mark and Andy headed for the engineering section. Outside the entrance they met up with the Major and Jimmy who were carefully checking their weapons and discussing strategy. Mark held up his finger to his nose to indicate silence and quickly wrote on the pad.

  It’s possible the Archive can listen in on our conversation – we must disconnect power from the AI core to kill the Archive AI. But you have to take down ZAC.

  The Major nodded and took the pad from Mark. He wrote:

  Jimmy, I’ll go down first and move to the left of Alden’s module. You are right behind me and you move to the right. ZAC will have to go for one of us. Direct fire to his eyes but don’t let him corner you.

  The military men entered the ship’s engineering section and quickly climbed down the spiral staircase to the AI section, laser rifles at the ready. ZAC moved purposefully towards them, his long tentacle like arms spread as if to embrace them.

  You will leave the engineering section immediately or my servant will destroy you

  The artificial voice of the alien archive AI boomed from the speakers.

  “He sounds desperate,” said Jimmy with forced levity.

  “We’ve got him on the run,” agreed the Major. “OK Jimmy, NOW!” and with that the Major dived to the left. Jimmy’s laser gun was up and as ZAC lunged at them he sighted between the robot’s eyes and fired. At maximum power the laser would generate kilowatts’ of energy on a focused target, enough to punch a hole through a thin steel plate. The energy was transmitted as an intense beam just a couple of centimetres in diameter. ZAC lurched away from the intense beam, and Jimmy attempted to re-adjust it while avoiding the clutches of the robot but then hastily switched it off as the beam waved erratically. With the robot almost on top of him he dived to the right and rolled away, the laser rifle against his chest. As the robot turned towards him, the Major fired his own gun against the side of his head. The robot seemed confused and paused, which was a fatal delay. Jimmy rolled, straightened and fired from the floor this time holding the beam focused on the robot’s eyes. ZAC shuddered and a whining screech issues from his chest. His limbs seized and he came to a grinding halt. Smoke came from his head.

  “Good work Jimmy,” ordered the Major. “I think he’s done for.” Jimmy kept the robot covered while the Major approached him for a closer examination. The Major prodded the robot with his laser gun but there was no response.

  “OK Mark, Andy, get down here and do your thing. Jimmy, keep this bleeder covered.” Mark and Andy made their way quickly down the spiral stairs but as they did so the ship lurched. There was a distant rumble which suddenly increased in magnitude. The ship lurched violently and Mark and Andy were hurled down the stairs. ZAC tumbled over and crashed to the floor and the Major was hurled against a bulkhead.

  “He’s using the manoeuvring rockets,” said Mark gabbing a stanchion and lurching towards the AI module while the ship bucked. The sound of rockets became louder and they felt the surge of acceleration. “That’s the main fusion drive,” said Mark. “What’s
this mad fucker doing?” The intercom crackled and the harsh voice of the alien AI was heard over the thrum of the rockets.

  You will cease all attempts to gain control of the ship or I will destroy it. The ship is diving towards the surface of the planet.

  “Andy, let’s go!” Mark nodded towards Alden’s AI module and staggering to keep his footing he lurched across the floor towards the blinking lights of the AI module. Andy followed him, removing a screwdriver from his tool belt he dived to the floor and began unscrewing a wall panel. Mark unclipped panels and began resetting circuit breakers. The lights on Alden’s AI panel started to go out. The wall panel off, Andy pulled cables feverishly until all lights were out.

  “Mark we have to power up in the right sequence,” said Andy. “I’ll bring the maintenance processor up and use that to clear the main core. Then we can restore main power and re-boot Alden.”

  “OK Andy. I’ll get myself up to the flight deck. As soon as the AI is dead I will have to fly the ship on manual until Alden is back up.” With that Mark threw himself across the room and up the stairs , suffering painful bruises as the ship lurched violently. There was the sound of things crashing and breaking from the galley as he made his way up the three levels between the engineering section and the flight deck. Outside the flight deck he found Melanie on her way down.

  “I came to find you,” she said breathlessly. “What’s happening ?”

  “Andy is disabling the AI and bringing Alden back on line. I’ll have to be ready to fly the ship as soon as I have control.”

  “Anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Strap yourself in, things are going to get rough.” Mark took the pilot’s seat while Melanie settled next to him.” Mark clicked buttons and operated computer controls feverishly. “All flight control are on auto,” he muttered. “But there is a manual override for when the AI is off line.” He manipulated computer screens and then grabbed the joystick and pulled back. The ship levelled out from its steep dive. Mark throttled the engines back and gently eased the throttle forward to lift the big ship back into orbit. The respite was short lived. The engine sound changed and the ship lurched and the deck resumed it’s previous steep incline.