Belters

by Greg Alldredge

  Chapter 05:

  AD 2051 Kuiper Belt – John Huss

  “Happy New Year, John,” Elliot spoke to the oil painting. He’d not seen John’s hologram representation for many days, not spoken with him in nearly as long. The man inside the machine had grown more reclusive the longer the ship remained underway. Despite the technician’s misgivings, the systems all ran at optimal levels. By every measure, the UI system remained green across the board. Despite all the positive indications, it proved hard to not worry. Elliot excelled at worrying.

  Over the preceding months, Elliot tried to pull John out of his shell to help him interact more with the crew, but he’d failed. A computer jock, Elliot often found it hard to make friendly connections and interact with the outside world. His whole life, he’d found more in common with the programs he worked with than his familial connections and passing acquaintances.

  He was hired to maintain the integrity of the systems not play psychologist to the man locked inside the machine. The suits should have found John a shrink to work with. The way things were going on the ship, the whole crew needed a brain doctor or two.

  It was never discussed, but Elliot wondered how lonely it must be to have your mind forever trapped in the equivalent of a box. The lack of physical contact would drive a person insane.

  Intellectually, Elliot knew John’s five senses were attached to the ship’s sensors, but they couldn’t be the same. Despite the advances in VR, it remained easy to spot the fake world when in it. Elliot didn’t think he could spend eternity in a blatantly fake world.

  The more John pulled back, the more time Elliot spent alone in the core, checking the systems and talking to himself—to John. Anything to help the man maintain his grip on humanity. Elliot questioned his sanity nearly as much as he questioned John’s.

  They made a wonderful crazy pair.

  Days ago, the ship changed course, now pointed back to home station before the scheduled completion of the space trials. No one told Elliot why the ship returned. That sort of information proved way above Elliot’s paygrade. The ship was full of speculation. The computer tech did his best to ignore the scuttlebutt, as rumors only served to fuel his worries. The captain would make an announcement when it was time for the crew to know.

  Alone, day in and day out, with no new information fueled Elliot’s paranoia.

  Willpower alone wasn’t enough to ignore the situation. With some digging, Elliot was able to sniff out some unsettling information the rank and file probably didn’t know. Data he decided to keep to himself. No need to worry John. There was nothing either could do now.

  At the current heading and speed, they should be stationside a day or two before Elliot’s twenty-fifth birthday. That at least helped to lighten his dour mood. He focused on the positive whenever he spoke to John. No need to worry the man in the machine with Elliot’s unfounded concerns.

  Due to the nature of the experiment, news from the inner planets and stations was heavily censored. There was no access to health and comfort calls for the crew. No reason to burden them with news from home. The universe, as they knew it for the past five months, remained inside the skin of the ship.

  The lack of contact increased the stress level of the crew. Cut off from family and news only served to set the already high-strung people more on edge. The mess decks had become a place for the rank and file to vent. Most times, displayed in heated discussions. At times, in a fistfight. Elliot wasn’t a fighter. He locked himself away inside his workstation for even longer hours at a stretch. The tension of the crew only served to drive a wedge deeper.

  Accelerating home at one gravity returned a sense of weight to the surroundings. With the concern for the early return buried, the new year brought the joy of returning to the larger space of the asteroid they called home. Elliot forced himself to focus on the good and ignore the bad. He wished the crew would do the same.

  Unfamiliar music started playing over the speaker. The singer’s voice was strangely haunting, a sultry contralto. Elliot ignored the words. The catchy tune held a familiar ring to it. It was an ancient style, decades before his time.

  Over the music, John’s disembodied voice spoke. “Happy new year to you too.”

  Elliot didn’t jump from his chair. Over the months, he had grown accustomed to John’s popping in and out. He forced himself to keep his voice measured while he spoke. “It’s good to hear your voice again. All systems are in the green…” Elliot risked a more personal question. “How are you doing?”

  “We are doing fine.” The simple response came flatly.

  The lack of emotion worried Elliot. Even if a machine, John should retain his human side. That was why he’d been joined with the AI to begin with. Elliot risked a request. “Why don’t you use the holo-tube projector? I want to see if it still functions.”

  “You can run diagnostics as well as we can. The tank functions within parameters, and you know it.” John’s voice seemed colder than normal, mechanical.

  Elliot countered, “You both know there is only so much that can be learned by running a program. Sometimes you need to energize a system to make sure it functions properly.”

  The room never slipped into silence. The constant hum of the living ship was a reminder Elliot’s life depended on kilometers of cable and thousands of circuits, unmonitored algorithms operating most of the life-sustaining processes. All to keep the crew and him alive. Everything controlled by someone or something else.

  The programmer returned to his workstation, pushing the fragility of his humanity to the back of his mind. Something was wrong. It shouldn’t take the computer this long to respond. “John, is everything all right?”

  A few taps on the screen pulled up the systems display screen. Everything remained in the green.

  “I was thinking about your statement… How can we know if something works if we don’t turn it on… like me…?”

  Elliot faced the oil painting. It served as a focus for him to speak to. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  The holo-tube sprang to life. “But it remains the truth…”

  This time Elliot had prepared himself and didn’t squeal at John’s sudden appearance. The music cut off just as the boy flashed into existence.

  The teenager looked the same, dreads and all, but instead of the simmering Zen Mist filling the chamber, the tube was filled with a weird psychedelic organic fluid. All shades of orange, green, and purple, throbbing as it flowed around John’s image, filling all available free space.

  Against his better judgment, Elliot commented, “That’s a different look for you…” He regretted the statement as soon as the words slipped from his lips.

  “Now you know why I have been hesitant to use the tube.” John’s voice remained calm. “We look like the star of a bad ‘60s acid trip.”

  The reference slipped past Elliot, but he had John in front of him. Now was the time to run some diagnostics on the holo-tube system. “Let’s see if I can figure out this interference.” The tech returned his attention back to his screen. A few touches started a myriad of subroutines to test the systems.

  “It isn’t interference. It is the other half of us. It is how we want to be seen.”

  That didn’t seem right to Elliot. “The AI is pushing into your space?”

  “Something like that… we find it hard to explain in terms you might understand.”

  John’s words didn’t make Elliot feel any better. The pair should work together, but John should remain in control at all times. If the AI was pushing into the human’s brain space, he might lose himself to the machine.

  The same cold voice asked, “Why are we returning early?”

  The question caught Elliot by surprise. “You know I don’t have that kind of pull to know the ship’s schedule. Like you, I go where I’m told.”

  “But we shouldn’t be like that… We were put into this ship to fly not be chained by manual controls… The lack of hands shouldn’t be a limitation to us
. Only the stars should be our limit… The heavens call our name…”

  Elliot parroted the company talking point, “I know your concerns, but until the company is certain the controls on the ship are interfacing with both your systems, the lives onboard can’t be placed in jeopardy of a system-wide failure.” The words really meant nothing, and Elliot was certain John understood the real reason he’d not been given control of the entire ship. With good reasons, the people making the decisions were terrified John might run away with their new toy.

  “You will never understand how we feel.” John’s voice sounded sad.

  “I’m sure I never will.” No matter how alone and isolated Elliot felt, it remained a fact his exile was self-imposed. He could reach out and touch another soul if he wanted to. No matter how he tried, John would never be able to experience that again.

  “Maria warned me this might happen…”

  The words caught Elliot off guard. He had access to John’s complete bibliography file and had studied it in his boredom. He’d never heard mention of a Maria in John’s life. “Who is Maria?”

  The pause took several seconds. “Maria Gonzo… we went into training together. The only reason why I received this posting was… I died first. If things had been different, this would be her posting.”

  The tech was surprised he didn’t have any information about the others John trained with. He assumed the company held many bits of information close to their chests, but details of his training had been left out of his background files. Elliot turned his attention from the screen to the young man who stood behind him. “What did she warn you about?”

  “That people in power would never give us free reins of control over an expensive piece of hardware like a ship. Somewhere, there must be a kill switch.” The boy’s eyes remained lifeless while he spoke.

  The thought gave Elliot a cold shiver up his spine. He’d long assumed there were many ways he didn’t know about to stop John in an emergency. He was glad they didn’t entrust him with the knowledge. Taking another life, even of someone who was technically dead—Elliot doubted he could pull the plug. That was a cold way to go out.

  John must feel the same way. By the reports, the man inside the machine had been a devoted philanthropist. He spent a good deal of his later years and vast fortune working for the betterment of mankind.

  In his heart, the tech knew there had to be some “off” switch. Elliot knew of several safeguards the company had set in place should the need arise. The largest safety net was the manual controls for several key systems and overrides. As long as human hands were required to operate the ship, John was hamstrung.

  The robotic spiders were meant as the ship’s hands, and they remained firmly in human control. The design of the robots creeped Elliot out, much too lifelike movement. The semi-automatous machines scurried about the access tunnels, working near the skin of the ship and other places too dangerous for humans.

  The first officer’s voice boomed over the intercom. “Mister Taylor, what is going on down there?”

  Elliot answered quickly, “Ma’am, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Can you be more specific?”

  It was easy to read abnormal stress in the woman’s voice. “We are getting wild fluctuations in the power grid. What are you and John doing?”

  A quick glance at the screen and Elliot didn’t find any of the problems described by the first officer. “Everything is reading five by five on my end. We will look into the fluctuations and get right back to you.”

  “You do that… Bridge out.” The woman cut him off.

  “John… what is going on?”

  “We will see what we can find…” The music started to play once again as John faded into the tendrils of color and disappeared.

  “The music… what is that song?” Elliot asked.

  “It’s from the early twenty-first century and called ‘Rehab.’ I thought the song… fitting. The singer died much too young…” This time the sadness proved easy to hear.

  <=OO=>

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Daniel Frazier

  The stench of stale air tickled Jacob’s nose, waking him from his impromptu slumber. Head pounding with a wicked headache, for the moment, he kept his eyes closed, fearing the worse. He murmured, “Shit.”

  He was unsure whether he suffered the remnants of a hangover or if there was some other cause for the pounding of his skull. No matter, the pain was real and let him know he must be alive to feel so badly.

  Several causes of the pain ran to the front of his thoughts, the next more dire than the previous. Overindulgence, stress, lack of sleep, elevated levels of carbon dioxide, low oxygen levels, and the dreaded radiation all might be the cause of his throbbing temples. Out of reflex, he risked keying in an analgesic with his tongue.

  Nothing happened.

  The effort caused a wave of nausea. God, don’t let me puke in my closed suit. He prayed for the first time in years. He didn’t want to check out by drowning in his own vomit.

  He floated uncontrollably in the microgravity of the mine shaft. The suit refused to answer any commands. He remained helpless, unable to move without the powered assist.

  “Is anybody out there?” He spoke to the void.

  His answer came in a bright white arc of electricity. The flash of light illuminated the tunnel wall his faceplate rested against. The rock wall was the only thing he spotted through the fogged visor.

  Best he could tell, he drifted alone. His body rested near the side. Ava should be nearby and alive—as long as the sparks didn’t come from her suit.

  “Shit.” The word slipped from his mouth once more. He knew it would do no good, but the curse somehow made him feel better.

  Some form of power surge must have snaked its way down the tunnel and tripped the suit’s overloads. If the shielding proved heavy enough, he should survive most cosmic events.

  The suit should have reset by now… if it could. “Reset…” He called out to the dark.

  The only sound he heard was the airflow.

  “Dammit, reboot…”

  Still nothing. At least he had air, but without his HUD, he didn’t know how long that might last him. For any hope of survival, he needed power. If the ship still remained tethered to the rock… he might reach safety… without power… he didn’t want to think about the alternative.

  A dim light flashed over his HUD, the single word flashing yellow: Reinitializing.

  Jacob silently prayed. The suit seemed to be starting back up after the attack. The software running to the factory default settings. It was a program he’d run daily over the past six weeks. In the comfort of the dressing area adjacent to the Frazier’s airlock, the process became second nature.

  The words changed, flashing before his eyes. Press reset. His heart sank. His exhaled sigh frosty in the yellow glow.

  This operation was normally done before EVA operations. The reset was located under a locked safety flap between the suit’s shoulder blades. Impossible to reach without the prehensile tail, the damned suit was never meant to be reset while in the void of space. Without power, the switch might as well be on the far side of the solar system.

  He did have the glow of the HUD now. It gave the rock wall an eerie urine-yellow hue. All punctuated by the flash of sparking and arcing somewhere from behind.

  He had maybe an hour of air left to ponder his next moves, limited as they might be. As cold as the interior of the suit was, this might be a race to see what killed him first. Lack of O2 or heat. In space, both were equally deadly.

  With no other choice, Jacob floated there and contemplated the life choices that brought him to this lonely death entombed in a rock. At least he wasn’t floating off into space. Sooner or later, some future miners would find his body. With luck, they would treat his remains with respect. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Not like he would be around to complain.

  Something pushed him against the curved side of the tunnel. Perhaps the bore equipm
ent drifted behind him, pinning him against the wall. Despite the bore equipment’s weight, chances were good it shouldn’t crush him in the low gravity.

  He felt more than heard a resounding click reverberate through the suit. Factory restored flashed before his eyes.

  Someone or something saved his ass.

  A voice crackled in his ears. “You alive?” Ava’s voice never sounded so sweet.

  “Yeah… I’ve never been so happy to hear your voice.” Jacob’s head swam. It wasn’t the high carbon dioxide alone. He was happy to see another day.

  Ava spun him about. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “What happened?” He slowly regained control of the suit’s powered extremities. “Anyone else make it?”

  She pressed her faceplate to his. “Not sure, coms are silent. Let’s go find out…”

  The black circles under her eyes were partially obscured by dried blood that covered a good portion of her face. That must be why his nose tickled so badly. Jacob wasn’t sure what hit them, but if he looked half as bad as Ava did, it was something powerful, and probably deadly.

  At least the two of them lived. From the looks of the pair of them, the others might not have been so lucky.

  Chapter 06:

  AD 2051 Kuiper Belt – John Huss

  “I’m sorry, Elliot, but the first officer is correct. We are detecting a problem with the auxiliary cooling units of the drive.”

  “How did we miss that?”

  “We cannot ascertain the cause. Our sensors in that region of the ship are not functioning.”

  The question leaped to Elliot’s lips, “Sabotage?”

  “Possibly. Without the sensors, it is impossible to guess the cause of the malfunction.”

  “Is the danger real?”

  “With an impaired auxiliary cooling system, the chance for a cascading system failure is near one hundred percent. It is only a matter of time, but without good sensor information, it is impossible to determine the cause or remedy.”