Deathship (The Outsider Series Book 1)

by Steven Oaks

  All these tests were done within the underground facility. It seemed much larger than the building it was constructed under, so it is possible that it led underneath the hangar. I was led everywhere by first one employee, and then another. I had gotten so turned around I can not tell you for certain where anything was as all the hallways looked the same. They twisted and turned upon themselves so often, I am to this day astounded by the ability of the employees to navigate that underground facility.

  Having apparently passed the physical exam I was taken to the hangar by yet another faceless employee. When I reached the massive entrance Adam sat waiting for me on a little electric personnel carrier. He took me to the ship that was to be mine. He was not wearing his glasses today, but he was still wearing his expensive looking suit with his blue tie. He was being rather chummy with me as we drove over to my ship.

  “Have you been informed the ship has its own AI you’ll be able to converse with?” he asked.

  “No sir, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Are you familiar with these ships yourself?” I asked. I felt elated by being chosen. I was in such an ecstatic mood, more euphoric than ever before, and felt comfortable enough with myself to hold a conversation.

  “I am. I had to be well enough informed to make judgments to select pilots. Fortunately for you, you seem to have had the qualities I thought would be well suited to this role—and you met the requirements the Outsiders requested,” he said all this while he wore what I took to be a smug smile. Perhaps he liked knowing things before anyone else and took pride in being selected to make choices for these powerful entities.

  “Will you be the one instructing me on how to do my tasks and fly this ship?”

  “Yes, I am well enough versed to help you in that. Of course it is a part of your task to figure out how best to do your job. You will be required to collect the departed on a regular basis so there will be no huge stockpile waiting for you. Since we are still constructing the facilities to house the departed while they wait for conveyance, it would be an issue if such facilities were to become, shall we say, backlogged.”

  “I can see that sir. Are you saying that I will be keeping my own schedule?”

  “Yes and no. Each pick up point will have certain days planned—but you can request the time. Of course at first we are making a schedule, so you have a template, but once you get into the swing of things, feel free to change it.”

  As he said this we arrived at the ship. It had taken us several minutes to drive from where the employee had left me, as the hangar was large enough to hold hundreds of aircraft carriers. It seems I did not have to wait for my ship to be built as it was constructed and waiting for me. I tried to see if there were other ships, but the expansive nature of this hangar did not allow me to see another. Glancing around the interior of this massive structure, I could not even see the walls. The uniformity of construction and lack of color made it impossible to estimate distances. In the expanse I could see a black shape surrounded by the ever present white, but it could have been anything.

  I felt overwhelmed by how large this building was and I felt I could almost make out the curvature of the Earth as I tried to look from one end to the other. The roof loomed monstrously high above us. I suspect given the right conditions clouds could form in the ceiling of such a place.

  I found myself dumbstruck as I laid my eyes upon the ship—my ship. Looking at the vastness of this vessel, one could wonder how it would ever fly. I reminded myself, with Outsider technology, perhaps it was not a wonder at all. It appeared to be a rounded, elongated building and stood several hundred feet high and several city blocks long. I thought it would take me a half hour to circle the whole ship at a run. It was a solid black color with no visible windows or seams. Something so perfectly smooth should shine with glossiness, but not a single ray of light reflected from its surface. She looked more than black, almost as if someone had cut a hole in the fabric of reality in the shape of a spaceship. I could not identify the material she was made from, but it must have been something only the Outsiders could manufacture. I was already immensely impressed by her.

  We got out of the electric vehicle and walked up to what appeared to be the smooth, black surface along the side of the ship. As we approached the black wall near the front of the ship a portion slid up to reveal an entrance several feet off the ground. Pools of the black material seemed to flow down to the floor forming steps that led up and inside.

  “Whoa, that’s interesting. I don’t see any cameras or electronics on the outside surface to let it know we were approaching,” I said startled.

  “Ah yes, I happen to have implanted in my skin a little tag, similar to an RFID the size of a grain of sand. You will be issued a similar id.” Adam tapped his left arm to indicate the spot of the implant. “When the ship’s recognized pilot is not aboard, it periodically sends out a signal to see if you are near. Don’t worry, it’s just a beacon. It’s for your safety, as well as the ship’s. We wouldn’t want some child, or ne’er-do-well, to have control of this.” He patted the side of the ship, “Now why don’t we enter, and I’ll introduce you to the AI.”

  We climbed the steps and I took this opportunity to feel the outside surface of the ship. She was just as smooth as she looked. There were no hand rails and I worried momentarily that the steps would be a slick, but they each had their own pattern of treads. Even so I was very careful of my footfalls, and gingerly made my way up.

  As we stepped into the ship, my first thought was how large, and how luxurious it was. It had such thick red carpet on the floors I could see where I had walked by the indentations I left behind. Also there was dark wood trim on every wall. The wallpaper was some dark floral design that I always equated with the opulent, extravagance of the rich. Lining the walls were marble statues, one of which I took to be the Venus de Milo. She stood there with a skirt and nothing else, including arms. Paintings of all varieties lined these walls, and filled the room with even more splendor. I did not recognize a single one, though I knew their styles. The person who had put this together seemed to have enjoyed the impressionist movement.

  As I was taking this all in, Adam stepped deeper inside. “Come along, let’s get you to the controls so you know how to direct this thing.”

  A sultry feminine voice suddenly filled the air around us saying, “I am indeed an object—but I object to your calling me a thing, Sir.” I looked around but I could see no one. The voice had sounded as though it came from all directions.

  “Now Athene, you know I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about the vessel in which we stand,” Adam said.

  “I am indeed the vessel of which you speak, as you are the body which you compel to move. One does not separate the mind from the body—unless you are the morbid sort.” The voice again sounded, still sultry, but I could here wry humor within those tones.

  “Very well Athene. I was going to make the introductions when we got to the command center, but I suppose here is just as well as there. Michael, this is Athene.” As he said this he made a gesture at the surrounding room. “And Athene, this is Michael, your pilot, and hopefully your partner.”

  I was taken aback. I had not expected an AI to have this much personality. The Outsiders must have been studying us for longer than I supposed. To get the subtlety that Athene was showing, with even these few words she had already spoken, was amazing.

  “Greetings Michael. I suppose it would be better to say welcome aboard, but the implications for a lady to say such things might be a bit improper.” Again Athene said this with wry humor in her voice.

  I cleared my throat a bit at that, but I managed a meek, “Hello Athene. I hope we find mutual friendship, or at least a cordial understanding as we fulfill our assigned roles.”

  Adam shook his head as he rolled his eyes. “I think you two will get along just fine. Now come on, I
have yet to show you how you fly ‘her’,” He said this while emphasizing the word her by gesturing once more at the surrounding room.

  As Adam guided me through the ship Athene kept making small talk.

  “Michael, do you enjoy going on hikes?” Athene said.

  “Yes, I do enjoy being outdoors. It is one of my favorite things to do,” I said, still amazed at her conversational ability.

  “How often are you able to fulfill that desire? Also are you a fan of art?” she asked.

  I was starting to think of the ship as “Athene” rather than a regular computer.

  “Well, there is a park near my house and I do go out for walks sometimes there. If I was able, I would spend more time out alone in the woods, just walking around—enjoying nature. I always did that when I had time away from school or work. As for art, I’ve been to a few museums and I generally enjoy my time there, but I’m not a connoisseur by any means. I can generally recognize a Van Gogh, but that’s about it,” I had said in response.

  “Oh I wish I could go for a walk in a deeply wooded area, but I have a bit to much of me to go winding down any trail. You are lucky you could. You will have to talk to me of your experiences of being out and about,” she said this with a hint of sadness in her voice. It seemed strange this AI wished it could go for a stroll in the woods. Curiouser and curiouser said Alice, I thought to myself.

  Soon enough we arrived. While the entrance had apparently been the nearest portal to the outside world, it had taken us a few minutes to traverse the space between it and here. The hallway that led us here had been decorated similarly to the entrance room, save the walls which were painted a deep emerald green rather than using wallpaper. The corridor curved, and after a few steps one would not be able to see much of where one had just been.

  “Well, welcome to the control room. As you can see there is a seat. That’s for you, so sit down,” Adam said gruffly.

  “Alright, I suppose I can do that,” I said, unsure of why he sounded so abrupt when he had been so friendly earlier.

  As I walked forward to the awaiting chair, I glanced around. This room was different than the others. It had all the hominess and luxury of a naval command center. All the walls were either black or metallic gray. As I reached the chair I did notice it seemed to be rather plush. I was somewhat relieved that it was not as austere as the rest of the bridge.

  I took a seat expecting to sink uncomfortably into it. While it was as soft as it looked, it was not cushion-like. It was more like it was gel filled. Comfortable enough, I thought, as I would be here for what I would assume several hours a day. As I got situated, a hiss of hydraulics sounded from beneath the floor and out came what I took to be a control stick. Two pedals then extruded themselves from the floor right beneath my feet.

  “Jeez, a little warning please!” I said, slightly flustered and surprised.

  “I am sorry, it is an automatic reaction. Perhaps, Adam, you should have said something to let pilots know what to expect,” Athene said.

  Adam ignored the statement. “Athene, move us outside, and have us hover 100 feet above the hangar.” The dark control room lit up as the wall in front of me dissolved into what looked to be several glass windows, and I was looking into the hangar. As we moved forward I felt no momentum—nor any sensation of movement. I got a bit of vertigo as my eyes were telling me that I was in motion, but my body felt nothing.

  We drifted out through the front of the enormous structure. No walls seemed to ever have been placed to hinder the movement of air through the building, though I had seen doors when I first spied it. I saw Athene had lifted herself several yards above the ground so as not to collide with any other vehicle inside this edifice, and as we emerged outside I could see others looking up at us from the now uncrowded parking lot. We were floating outdoors above the ground and suddenly we shot up above the hangar. I involuntarily jerked in my seat, expecting to feel the sudden increase of speed, but again there was no sensation. Athene had reached her designated point in the air and levitated in a fixed position. The morning breeze seemed to do nothing to shift us out of place.

  “Now Michael, you see the two pedals beneath your feet?” Adam asked, pointing at the floor. “That is the brake on the left and the accelerator control on the right. Very much like a car, except the pressure equates how fast you want to stop in mid air. Say you were flying along, and you saw that you were about to hit a plane, you’d push the brake really hard, right? Wrong. You’d end up hurting Athene if you stomped on it, because this is set up to stop you immediately if you do that. Same thing with the accelerator. If you stomp on that, it’s not just going to speed up over time, it’s going to go all out as soon as you push it. Now there are inertial dampers constructed into Athene, but that doesn’t mean you should do this. You’d still damage her, even if you don’t feel it. Got it?”

  “I think so sir. Don’t be a race car driver, be a conscientious citizen. Don’t hurt Athene,” I said, nodding.

  “Good,” he said with a smile, the first one I’d seen since we got to the command center. “Now have you ever used a flight simulator, or used a flight controller before?”

  “Yes sir, but it has been several years. I have played a number of games where you fly a plane or ship, but this seems more complicated that what I am used to.”

  “This is very similar, but there is no roll. When you push forward, you drop, when you pull back, you rise. When you push left, you rotate the vessel to the left, and if you push right you will rotate to the right. This ship is too large to execute a roll maneuver. But say you are approaching a new planet, how would you align?”

  I sat and thought about it a moment. In my mind I could see myself approaching Earth from a distance, not aligned with the ground. From straight on I could fly to the north pole and I’d be aligned, but if that was the case, how do I stay aligned as I fly around it.

  “Sir, I’m not sure how we are keeping aligned in the first place as it doesn’t appear as though we are being kept afloat via aerodynamics.”

  “Correct. The vessel is instructed to keep the bottom facing the planet no matter where you are. You have no control over that, that is the AI’s duty.”

  “Yes sir. So I don’t have total control over this ship?”

  “No, you do not. You are here as the face of humanity to those in need, and so it doesn’t look like the Outsiders are just here to harvest the dead,” Adam said as a matter-of-fact.

  “Are the Outsiders here just to harvest our dead?” I said, taken aback by the statement.

  “Not to my knowledge. They seem to legitimately think we have been doing a disservice to our deceased before this point by burying them, or burning them. They seem to genuinely feel that to have an afterlife you must enter the energy plane they have found. Whether or not that is true, I do not know. As the people of Earth have declared as a majority they are willing to exchange the deceased for technology, we are here to make that transaction as gentle as possible. That’s why I was hired for this job, to find someone like you who could handle this necessary position. People want to know that it’s not some alien coming to take grandma away, but that it’s a fellow human who will convey her to this new idea of the afterlife. Eventually everyone will become numb to this, and perhaps it won’t be necessary to have someone do it. Then it could be done automatically. But that just depends on how gentle we are with them, and how long it takes everyone to adapt,” Adam said this with a growing wistful smile. “Humans have generally adapted quickly, as those who don’t adapt tend to die off.”

  “So am I to actually to do anything, or am I just going to be the human on board?” I inquired.

  “Oh I think there will be things for you to do, even if we don’t have an idea of all of them yet. Remember, you are setting the pick up times when you get used to the job. Maybe that is a
ll you’ll do, but one day when mankind spreads out among the stars you’ll be there too. You might have to save some poor stranded souls out in the abyss of space. While the ship is equipped for most things, you will have to handle your fellow man yourself. At least until you can get them into the cryo-chambers. You could freeze the most injured, or all of them, it’s up to you. You’ll have plenty of power aboard to feed yourself and those you’ll wish to keep thawed. I know your profile. You will prefer being alone too much to sacrifice to that end. Just put them all in there and Athene will make sure they’ll last until they get to a facility that can fix them up,” stated Adam. He actually seemed unconcerned about any of this. I was feeling like I did not have much to offer, and wondered if the only trait they had looked for was my ability to be alone.

  “Do not worry Michael, I shall always make sure anyone within me is of the best of health. That of course includes yourself. While you are here, you will be expected to keep up your fitness—we want you in tip top condition at all times.” She then paused in her explanation. “You looked confused. Perhaps that was not mentioned. Another duty of yours is to always look like the perfect human specimen you currently are,” Athene said, in her sultry tones.

  “Wait, I thought I was going to get some sort of treatment to make me that way in a permanent sort of fashion,” I said. I had assumed what I had been offered was eternal youth and fitness.

  “Yes and no again. If you needed to be made young and fit that would certainly be taken care of, but currently you are already young. According to your physicals, you are fit. The first pilots will all be like you, young and fit. This is a new task set among mankind, and the best people to use would be the young and adaptable. Those older applicants hoped for youth, but had grown accustomed to their current lifestyles. It would not make sense to put them in an environment where they would be alone. They may believe they could sacrifice familial companionship for youth, but we know that would just cause an unstable pilot,” Adam said this all as a matter-of-fact. “Don’t concern yourself too much. If you start becoming something less than your currently perfect youthful and fit self, that will be taken care of. You’re in luck as you don’t seem like you’ll need it for awhile. Not that it’s painful. You shouldn’t be aware of anything from the time you go in, until the time you leave more youthful and invigorated.”