by Tony Teora
Stop sobbing and get me the fuck out of this chair! Hank listened to Swann crying. He could have sworn he heard Swann say, “Oh, Hank.”
Hank’s still here! Turn around, Swann! Finally, Swann did turn around. He looked directly at Hank. Hank tried to mouth the word “help,” as that was all he could do. Swann walked up to Hank and, with eyes that looked like they’d seen the devil, said: “Hank, I gotta get help. If that’s you, Hank?”
James Swann turned and ran out of the room, almost falling over the body. In doing so, he knocked over a shiny metal tray used for lab equipment. The reflective metal tray hit the floor only a foot or so from Hank, the sound ringing in his ears.
What the hell’s going on? thought Hank. Swann couldn’t even untie his buddy? Maybe he went to get security and a doctor? As Hank looked in the distance, his eyes froze. The body Swann had rolled over was another doctor. It had a badge. The badge name made no sense at all. The name said Hank Kumar.
As Hank looked at the body, he noticed the head was missing. It was Hank’s body without a head! Hank looked over at a reflection on the tray on the floor. It was angled so that he could see himself. Hank’s heart would have skipped a beat if he had one. To his shock, he was nothing more than a head wired up to the alien hemoglobin machine. Wires stuck from his head, and there was a strange, transmitter-type antenna sticking out. The robot had him wired him up, undoubtedly so that he could connect into SAI and only God knows what else. He stared at his bloody head, all wired up like some modern Frankenstein. Hank looked away, closed his eyes, and cried.
***
“A robot escaped?” Captain Karr stood in the officer’s mess holding a cup of JoJo. Some of it spilled on the floor. “Damn, where is it?”
Lieutenant Goldberg continued. “Captain, I don’t know. All I know is that Hank was working on the robot and something went wrong. Swann was there after the scene. I’m with him now.”
“Swann, what the hell was Hank doing with the robots?”
Swann explained, eyes tearing. “Sir, he had two broken robots. He was adding some kind of nutrients to a fluid. It’s like some kind of biological battery juice. I guess they started up and assembled or something. Now they’re gone, and Hank’s head is wired to some kind of heart-lung machine. I wanted to read his mind to see what happened, but I was too shocked. But his head appears alive, though …”
“Alive? Jesus Christ. Where was security?”
Goldberg answered. “I was called up once we received the bodies, but I didn’t need to guard anything because they were all parts—just dead robots, sir.”
“Well, they couldn’t have been that fuckin’ dead if they have one of our guy’s head ticking like an old Rolex watch on a goddam platter. Now could they?”
“No, sir … er … we, I never thought—”
“Your job is not to think Lieutenant! Your job is to follow my damn orders—that’s why we had those robots in containment. Hank was not supposed to remove them without guards protecting him. Get your ass onto the bridge, on the bounce!”
“Yes, sir,” said Goldberg.
Swann cried. He couldn’t remove the image of Hank’s head wired up, as the captain commented, on a platter.
***
The Boss robot, his head now attached to the Worker robot’s body, walked his robotic system slowly though a passageway looking for the SAI, the ship’s centralized command and control computer. At the first access-controlled hatch, the robot used Hank’s stolen access badge and swiped it across the console. With a beep, the door opened with a pressurized hiss. Another twenty meters down a red-lit hallway was another door. The access got more difficult, as it required Hank’s badge and a right thumbprint. The robot casually took Hank’s cut-off thumb and pressed it on the access panel. Nothing happened. Why?
Connecting to biological unit H1 Kumar. Compartment access rejected—analysis.
***
A signal went from the robot to Hank’s wired up head. Hank didn’t know it, but the special antenna in his head allowed the robot to access Hank’s brain. A special chip was at the base of that antenna, and it had already grown miniature, spider-web fibers throughout Hank’s grey brain matter.
Hank—or what was left of Hank—rested on a platter with a hose bringing in oxygenated blood, or the alien battery juice which contained oxygen. He had stopped crying some minutes ago, accepting his fate. He wondered if there was any precedent for reattaching a person’s head to a severed body. He knew that answer was a no, except for some Russian experiments during the Cold War with dogs. And in that case, the dogs only survived for a little more than a week. Plus, his body looked fairly dead.
Hank had a memory flash. It was him trying to access a Level Two door. This required thumb-print access, but the access panel read “Access Denied.” That didn’t make sense. That’d only happened once, when Hank’s hands were really cold. Hank recalled that he had a strawberry ice-stick for desert, and because of that, his thumb was too cold to trigger the heat- sensitive panel. He had to warm them by rubbing them.
What the hell’s going on? Why am I having these flashbacks? Hank saw that his thumb was cut off his dead body. Hank brought up the courage to look at himself again in the shiny tray. He noticed the antenna. No! The robot must be reading my thoughts and transmitting them. I must stop this! He must be trying to gain access to a Level Two area of the ship. SAI ! He must be entering the computer room. I have to warn the ship! But how? What could a head on a platter do?
That depressing thought made Hank want to give up, but his heart—or at least the spiritual heart left in his head—told him to resist, to fight the flashes, to fight the memory access. If that was the last thing Hank would do in his shortened life, he would fight with his entire mind, for in actuality, that was all that was left of Hank. And in reality, thought Hank, wasn’t that the most important part of human existence? Even if shortened, human life would have some meaning as long as the brain worked. The late, great physics professor Stephen Hawking was a perfect example of that theory. Hank thought of what he could do to resist, and amazingly, he came up with a brilliant idea.
***
Ace rushed to the Medical Engineering Laboratory, but he could sense it was too late. On the floor was a bloody body. It was Hank Kumar, yet Hank’s head was wired to some contraption. There was an antenna in his head. What the fuck’s going here?
Ace walked over to Hank. Hank must have heard the sound. He couldn’t speak.
Ace felt sorry for Hank, but was also angry. He wanted to pull out the wires and antennae, as they had to be for some evil purpose, but he wanted some answers. Ace looked over at Hank and said: “I’m sorry about what they did to you, buddy, but I think we’re running out of time. Can you blink your eyes?”
Hank blinked his eyes once.
“Good, blink once for yes and twice for no. Now, was Tucker here?”
Hank blinked once, a yes.
“Do you think he did this to you?”
Another yes.
“Fuck! I knew I should have left him to rot. Do you know where they went?”
Two blinks, a no. Then a blink for yes.
“You’re not sure but have an idea?”
One blink.
“Do you want me to unplug you?”
Two blinks and two blinks more.
“Okay, okay, but I don’t know what we’re gonna do to fix you,
Hank. I have to run. I gotta stop Tucker. I’m really sorry this happened.” Ace looked at Hank, who had now closed his eyes. He seemed to be resting, dying, meditating, maybe all three. Ace rushed out to the shuttle deck, which he was sure was Tucker’s destination.
***
The Boss robot received his answer from biological unit H1 Kumar. He took the cold thumb of Hank and pressed it against a light bulb. He kept it there just long enough to get it to the ambient temperature reading of H1 Kumar. Once at the appropriate temperature, he pressed the dismembered thumb to the access panel. A green light scanned it.
> Access Granted.
The door clicked, indicating it was now unlocked. The Boss opened the door. It hissed as the pressure equalized. The Boss entered and saw another biological unit with a weapon standing next to another protected door. The biological unit was another H1 classification unit. The unit looked at the Boss and hit an alarm. The Boss had already been updated on biological weaknesses from data taken on planet Kabbalah, when the humans had ascended into the alien hive world known as InfiniSphere. He knew what to do next.
***
“This is the XO, we have an intruder alert. All non-security personal are to remain in their rooms. Security—sweep sections Zebra One, Two and Three. If you see any aliens or robots, shoot to kill. Repeat, shoot to kill. Medic team to Medical Engineering Laboratory. We have an emergency with Doctor Kumar. Security details to assist.”
The XO, Justin Lightfoot, scratched his short, blond and grey hair and looked at a closed-circuit monitoring station. Cameras had been systematically shut down in sections S1 and S2. The robot had to be trying to enter the computer command and control center. That area was guarded and required high-level access. The XO looked over at the head of communications, Lt. Jr. Grade Ron Brassfield, the senior comm officer. “Brassfield, get me access into SAI ’s cooling room, and call the standing guard. And let me know who’s accessed S1 and S2.”
“Yes, sir,” said Brassfield, switching cameras. As Brassfield looked at the S1 feed, his jaw dropped and eyes widened. “Sir, the robot is in sector S2. It’s approaching the guard.”
The XO picked up his microphone. “Security, we have visual on intruder, S2 port side chamber. On the double.”
The XO and Brassfield both watched the security cameras. Behind them, Captain Karr rushed in.
“What’s going on? Has the robot been captured?” asked Karr, approaching.
“Sir, security is on their way, but the robot is in S2. It’s on screen.”
“Where’s Archer? Did you contact him?”
“I did. He’s on his way from Medical Engineering. The sec team is closer and on their way, too.”
Karr looked up at the camera feed. This was not good. The screen showed the guard, Lance Corporal Fabian Perez, who was training his XM-50 on the robot. Something was said by Perez. He appeared to be talking to the robot.
“Turn on the sound,” ordered Karr.
Brassfield clicked a few switches. “Patched in, sir.”
“Shoot that thing!” said Karr. “That’s an order.”
Perez fired, but it was too late. The robot had already jumped, put his arms up for protection, and slid, ramming into Perez. It then knocked away the gun, picked up Perez like a paperweight in front of the access door and stared at him, face to face.
“Where the hell’s security?” demanded Karr, banging a table.
“They’re on their way. They’ll be there any second, sir,” said Lightfoot.
“Perez may not have seconds,” replied Karr.
***
Fabian Perez, a strong Marine, had never been so manhandled. He looked at the silver head, the shiny black eye sensors, and the round, filter-covered mouth. The metallic hands were cold. They felt like a vice with motors and controls that adjusted as Perez tried to free himself. He soon realized it was futile and waited for his chance, or at least for help to arrive. He was surprised at the robot speaking. That shocked him—especially the words. It had sounded exactly like his mother, who was dying back on Earth. The damn robot had somehow gotten into his head.
“What the fuck do you want? Let me go!” said Perez, struggling.
“Fabian,” said the robot in the voice of his elderly, sick mother. “Open the door, and all will be well.”
“Fuck you, you’re not my mother!”
The robot slowly pressed on nerves in the back spinal cord of Perez. The pain was excruciating. The robot turned Perez’s body to the key pad.
The mother’s voice stopped. It was now robotic and monotone: “Open the door and the pain will cease.”
Perez was in agony, but knew to stand his ground. “No!” he yelled.
The robot stuck his finger deeper into Perez’s back, and a small hypodermic pin exited the robotic finger into Perez’s spinal column. Minute fibers entered and began probing through his body.
Perez thought a snake was crawling under his skin. “What the hell you doing?”
The robot sent a fiber all the way to Perez’s brain and found the data. It was easy, with all the human biological analysis done on Kabbalah. It then crushed Perez’s head, instantly killing him, and threw the body to the ground like it was a rotten apple.
The robot keyed in the code and the Command and Control access door opened. At the same time, a contingent of Marines entered S2. The robot ripped out the keypad, darted into S1, and hit the close door switch. It turned and stared at the glass-encased SAI computing system. The robot now focused its full attention on SAI and how to cripple the ship’s crew.
***
“Sir, the robot has locked itself into C-CAC and it broke the door control panel.”
Karr knew that Computer Command and Control, or C-CAC, was not a good place for the enemy. SAI , the ship’s computer, controlled all life support and important ship systems such as the quantum-drive. She was the smartest computer ever built—or more correctly, the smartest artificial intelligence system ever built. Having an alien robot interact with that system would be catastrophic.
Karr scratched his forehead, trying to think of a solution. “Engineering, shut down SAI , run the Aurora on backup, and physically disconnect all comm lines into C-CAC. And find a way to get into C-CAC, even if you have to blow it up. That’s an order!”
“Yes, sir,” said Commander William Levy, the Chief Engineer. “I’m here with Lieutenant Brian Kimball, and he’s already working on shutting the robot out of SAI.”
“Good, Sparky. We mustn’t let it have control of life support.”
You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.
—Darwin P. Kingsley
19
_________
Worthy Adversary
The Boss robot looked at the biotechnological device that made up SAI. SAI was an array of six refrigerator-sized cylindrical tanks of custom-designed, manufactured neurons connected to a vast array of supporting processing chips. The Boss appreciated the beauty of SAI; even though she was crude compared to the Boss’s nervous system, they had very similar brains, so to speak.
The Boss immediately connected patch lines into the fiber trunks, connecting to data pathways. Signals were coming in from the humans requesting a shutdown of SAI. The Boss could not let that happen, and intercepted and blocked the shutdown codes. The Boss sent a phony shutdown acknowledgement back to confuse the humans. Information was required on this ship and this species. The ship was far more advanced than the reports of the earlier ships. This species was quick to modify solutions, and that, although admirable, was an issue that had to be resolved.
***
Commander William Levy looked over at the computer readout: “SAI Shutdown Complete.” He grinned at the COMOPS, Brian Kimball. “Excellent job. You shut her down, and quick—great job. I’ll inform the captain.”
“Better wait …” said Brian, pulling up holoschematics of SAI.
“What’s the matter?”
Brian checked the response code sent back and frowned. “Sir, I used a backdoor to shut down SAI. It should have taken at least three seconds to get a response from that method via redundant bio-neural system checks, as it was a full, system-wide shutdown with encryption and security checks. We got a response in just one second. That’s impossible, unless …”
“Unless what, Lieutenant?”
“Unless someone had already hacked in and picked up the response codes. I think someone wants us to believe SAI’s shut down, but I don’t think she is.”
&
nbsp; “Is she disconnected from life support?”
“Yes, but she still has access to ship communications. And I just picked up a power surge in that area. Our high-gain antenna is being activated.”
“Why would the robot do that?”
“I don’t know—maybe to communicate to someone, tell them about us. SAI is loaded with all kinds of ship’s data. Maybe to send out our ship specs, maybe contact Kabbalah … I just don’t know, sir.”
“Fuck!” said the Commander. He picked up a comm line. “Security, we’re not able to shut down SAI. We think the robot has access to SAI and is starting to send out a communication to Kabbalah or deep space.”
“This is security. We’re torching the doors now. We should be through in less than five minutes.”
Brian looked at the console. “Sir, the robot is using the wireless comm to re-patch into our backup system. It got the codes from SAI and is starting to shut down life support.”
“How much time to we have?” asked the Commander.
“It’s venting air. We only have a few minutes, sir.”
The commander picked up the secure comm: “This is Commander Levy. We’re venting atmosphere. Security teams and command, use oxygen tanks. Remaining personnel, get into secure rooms, reduce all activity.”
***
Hank looked at his reflection in the metal tray that’d been dropped on the floor. He knew he’d bought the farm, and for what it was worth, he accepted his situation. He’d achieved what very few people on Earth had ever achieved. He’d seen new, habitable planets, new life. He’d travelled to places most people would only read about in science fiction, since space travel was kept mostly hidden from the masses. But death was not a place Hank could remember visiting.