A beep informed him that the shuttle had landed back on the Iron Fire. They had returned. He waited for them on the bridge.
“Any idea where he went?”
Tar’Lock scowled. “No, I’m sorry.”
“What now then?”
“I don’t know, Daniel. Perhaps we should head back home?”
“No, what have you learned about Keera?”
“She’s a bounty hunter. Apparently she registered for a big warrant.”
“Perhaps that’s what we should follow.”
Tar’Lock clicked nervously.
“What now? Why did he make that noise?”
“And he can talk,” objected Tar’Lock.
“The warrant is for Argos’ capture,” said Ryonna, gesturing for Tar’Lock to drop it, which only brought another series of clicks of frustration out of him.
“That explains why he left with her.”
“Yes, I agree, but the only way to find her would be to find Argos.”
“Let’s do just that then.”
“You can’t be serious, Daniel. He would kill us before we opened our mouths. I want to find Chase as much as you do. I owe him my life, but taking on Argos is not an option and you know it.”
“Who said we need to take him on?”
“What do you mean?”
“We just try to locate him. Perhaps that way we can locate Chase as well.”
“I’m not sure this is wise.”
Tar’Lock clicked again.
“Enough with that!” said Daniel, raising his index finger at Tar’Lock. He returned his attention to Ryonna. “Alright, where next? You must have an idea.”
“I guess we could try asking those who made the warrant.”
“Any idea where they are?”
“Yeah, let me key in the coordinates.”
“Be my guest. Let’s go. Chop-chop.”
“Chop-chop?”
“You’re not the only one who watched too much Earth TV.”
“Alright, Daniel, but you may soon regret your enthusiasm.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because these people are not to be trusted.”
“What people?”
“Datalight Thieves.”
“And they are?”
“Hackers, criminals, cyber terrorists, you name it.”
“Try not to ice any of them, will ya?” said Daniel with a smile.
She grunted. “No promises.”
Once the coordinates were in, Daniel took neuronal control of the Iron Fire and opened a hyperspace corridor.
Back on Earth, Cedric prepared for his date with Johanna. He was nervous. It had taken him three months to finally build the courage to ask her out, as clumsily as he did. He never thought she would say yes, even though Ryonna had told him she fancied him.
He looked at himself in the mirror and adjusted his costume. He grabbed the red-rose bouquet from the bed, took one of the flowers out, cut the stem and inserted it in his costume’s front pocket.
Neat!
Cedric’s heart rate was accelerating; he was panicking at the thought of going to dinner with her. Saving the Earth from total annihilation was one thing, but girls? Oh boy! That was another challenge altogether and, in his eyes, way more difficult.
As he walked to the door of his flat, the door signal chimed and the door opened at the same time. It was Yanis.
“Hey, Ced—”
“Hi, Yanis,” he said, cutting him off. “Not really a good time.”
“I can see that. Who’s the lucky gal?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Is it a dude?”
“What? No, it’s a blond.”
“There are blond dudes,” said Yanis, pointing at his own hair.
“She’s a girl; she’s blond. Look, I’m sorry if I was insensitive. Got nothing against gay people. I’m just not one of them.”
“Buddy, chill!”
“Right. . . Except I can’t.”
“First date thrills?”
“It shows?”
“Yeah from how your face looks, I would say it feels like your first ever.”
“It kind of is.”
“Oooookay, so I don’t suppose you have time to look at something I’ve discovered on the Internet.”
“If it’s porn it’s not a discovery. That’s there on purpose.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, genius. I mean something weird and actually meaningful.”
“What’s wrong with porn?”
“Nothing at all. As a civilization we didn’t really have that concept, but I must say you guys are a sick bunch. I mean the quantity is one thing, but the depravity. Pheeew, well . . .”
“Let me guess, you look at it for the stories?”
“Yeah . . . in fact.”
“You love it don’t you?”
Yanis looked from side to side. “Dude, this shit is making me crazy. I want to jump anything that moves now. Before there was always an impending threat of death. I mean, invent this, create that, repair whatever. But lately I have had waaaaaaay too much time on my own, and the Internet, well, it’s kinda there.”
“You’re watching too much of it then.”
“Yeah, that could be the reason. Still, I’m not here to talk about that.”
Cedric looked at his watch.
“You’re late?”
“Unfortunately not. I’m an hour in advance.”
“Then it will pass faster if I show you what I discovered.”
“Yeah alright. Come in.”
“Well thank you.”
Yanis entered the living room and crashed on Cedric’s couch.
“About that gay comment?” said Cedric, clearly uncomfortable.
“What about it?”
“Are you? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I really like gay people in fact. I really didn’t want to offend if you are . . .”
“Gay?”
Cedric swallowed hard.
“You humans are funny.”
“What?”
“Well, from what I’ve read online there are a lot of touchy things related to one’s sexual preferences.”
“No, that’s not true. Gay marriage exists on Earth.”
“Everywhere? Accepted by any religion and every single one of you?”
“Alright I see your point. But it was becoming widely accepted. What about on your planet?”
“We don’t care. We don’t discriminate against anyone.”
“You haven’t answered my previous question though?”
“Oh that. I can go both ways. Depends on my mood.”
“So, bi?”
“Want me to leave already? I just came in.”
“I meant bi-sexual.”
“Oh that. Yeah, pretty much. I’m so damn horny though, lately.”
“You really need to dial down the porn, man. I’ve been there. I know how you feel.”
“Sorry. I think you’re right, though. I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure that I watch too much of it. I never felt like this before I started watching the stuff.”
“Didn’t you have this on your wor— You know what? Forget about that. Here’s my computer. Please show me what you found.”
“You think your date would go for a threesome?”
“What? NO! If you say one more sexually related thing, I’m gonna hit you in the head with my laptop!”
“Right, my bad. Really need to get laid though. This is getting out of hand.”
Cedric pointed at the computer. “Show me what you came for.”
Yanis brought up some code on Cedric’s computer. “You see that?”
“Yeah, what the hell is this?”
“Damned if I know. It looks so random; and look, see how it rewrote its own code there?”
“Whoa, you don’t think it’s . . .?”
“It’s what?”
“Crap, I think I did this.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“When I worked to t
eleport the explosive devices from the nuclear power plants, I linked your network of computers to the Internet. That was the only way I could get enough processing power under the time constraints.”
“What are you saying?”
“I . . . I think I might have inadvertently created the first Earth-bound AI.”
“An Artificial Intelligence?”
Cedric nodded.
“Can we erase it?”
“Look, as much as I don’t want anything bad to happen, we have to think about this. I mean, if this thing has a consciousness already, if we try to kill it, it could consider us a threat.”
“What if it already does?”
“I don’t think that’s the case; at least not yet.”
“What makes you say that?”
“If it had been aggressive or seen us as a threat, it would have taken action already. Everything is connected through the Internet. An AI could create chaos in our world if it wanted to, probably in a matter of minutes. Traffic lights, train and plane traffic control, power plants . . . It could just decide that humans are a threat and use all these connected tools to wipe us out.”
“But can we conclude that because it hasn’t done that yet, it won’t in the future?”
“I wish I could say yes. I guess it’s still learning.”
“What if it doesn’t like what it learns?”
“Then we’ll have one serious problem.”
“That’s perhaps why we should strike now.”
“It’s too risky. If it has already developed a self-preservation instinct its answer will be swift and deadly.”
“Can’t we just turn the power off on the planet and restore machines one by one with backups; erase those that don’t have one; start fresh?”
“In theory this is doable, but do you have any idea what that would be like? And how much time it would actually take?”
“You tell me. It’s your planet.”
“We’d be back to the Stone Age for a few weeks at best, probably more like months or years. It will create civil unrest, and we’ll have other problems on our hands.”
“I understand, but then what do we do? Do we just let it be and hope for the best?”
“I don’t think we can, but we must think about this and try to find a way to communicate with it, gauge it up, see what it’s like, before we decide anything.”
“That’s sounds reckless and risky.”
“Not more than doing anything in a rush and making the wrong move.”
“I really don’t like this.”
“Yeah, I can understand that. We need to talk with Commodore Saroudis and Admiral Thassos about all of this.”
“Alright, I’ll arrange it. In the meantime, see what you can get out of this code, and let’s try to think of a way to communicate with this entity.”
“Sure. I can work on this all night.”
“No you can’t, at least not right away. Your date, remember?”
“She’ll understand.”
“Dude, this thing was born about three months ago. Surely it won’t evolve into a killer in the two or three hours your date would last. A few more if you get lucky,” said Yanis with a smile and a wink.
“You’re projecting it mentally aren’t you?”
He chuckled.
“Stop it! Go home, whack off or find someone to help you shake this off. And for the love of god, stop watching porn!”
“I wish it was that easy.”
“Well then, perhaps I can come and install filters on your computer to make sure you can’t access any.”
“Yeah, that would be a good idea, says my brain; my other one is in panic mode at the mention of turning off the flow of these new sensory experiences.”
“Well, you’ve watched enough to create your own mental images by now.”
“Perhaps.”
“Anyway, I should go, and so should you. Let’s pick this up later tonight or tomorrow morning.”
Yanis nodded.
7
When Chase came to, his head was pounding. The aftereffects of drinking most of that whisky bottle, no doubt. His thoughts were foggy and it took him a good while to shake off his haziness.
Keera was still sleeping. He looked at the controls and saw that they would soon arrive at their destination. They needed to refuel her hyperspace engines to make the last jump to Earth. Chase didn’t relish the idea of being back there, not one bit. While he was drunk he hadn’t thought of all of this; for a little while he hadn’t thought of all that was eating at his soul.
But the constant pounding in his head reminded him how ephemeral this feeling was, and what the consequences were the next day. He put his hand on top of his head and healed himself. In half a second the splitting headache was gone.
There’s that, at least. Time to wake Keera.
With his hand on her shoulder he gently shook her back to consciousness. She groaned, and he could see she was just as disoriented as he was a few minutes ago.
“Headache?”
“Oh yeah, big one.”
“Let me take care of that.”
She looked at him, confused. He put his hand on hers and took the pain away in a split second.
“What was that?”
“I can heal any ailment or injury.”
“That’s neat. Thank you. Is that what you did back on the station?”
“You’re welcome. And yes, that’s how I flushed out the poison that had you paralyzed.”
She looked at the empty bottle.
“We really went to town yesterday, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, we did. I guess we needed to phase out old, painful memories.”
“That we did.”
“Anything I should know about the place we’re refueling?”
“I don’t think so. It may not be the friendliest place around but I’ve used it enough times not to be worried.”
“I’ll come with you just in case.”
“Worried about me?” she said with a wink.
“Well, you never know.”
“That’s sweet, but I’m a big girl.”
“You can drop the tough act with me. You’re a skilled bounty hunter but, you know.”
She understood what he wanted to say.
“I know, and yeah I don’t mind the backup at all.”
“Good.”
“Here we go.”
The Valken jumped out of hyperspace near a station in orbit around a vibrant green planet. Keera maneuvered her craft towards the nearest docking bay after obtaining authorization to land.
They left the ship together. Keera went towards the nearest engineer, ordered the refueling of her ship, and then called Chase over with a gesture.
“What is it?”
“Need your StarFury refueled?”
“Do they have quadrinium here?”
“Yes, that’s what the Valken runs on as well. But they pretty much have all the fuels used by most of the engines roaming the universe.”
“Alright, then, yes. If you can afford it, that is.”
“No worries there. I have credit here.”
“How long will it take?”
“We should be on our way in less than an hour. There’s a bar here if you’d like to wait there?”
“Perhaps we should go together?”
“Okay. Give me a minute here.”
Chase nodded as he looked around. Soon she joined him and they went to get a drink at the bar. The place was quite deserted; only a few tables in the entire establishment were occupied.
“Charming atmosphere,” said Chase sarcastically.
“Not really a tourist attraction, but at least it’s here. Want a Ju’Ran’s Blackhole?”
“That sounds good yeah, thanks.”
“Sit at a table over there. I’ll bring the drinks.”
“Alright.”
As Chase sat where Keera gestured he noticed the table included controls. He waved his hand above the monitor inlaid into the glass table. It
came on and displayed news from this sector of space, as well as a login to the intergalactic network, the equivalent of the Internet but on a larger scale. Then he saw a section called “Warrants.” He touched it and a list of warrants was displayed. Of course, the warrant for Argos was at the top, thanks to the insane amount of credits offered as a reward.
That’s when it hit Chase: probably more than half the bounty hunters in the universe were after Argos. And he looked just like him. That sent a shiver down his spine. He looked around at other occupied tables. Most of the customers were either interacting with their own table-bound terminal or just chilling out, but one seemed to look at Chase funny; but as soon as their gaze met he looked away and started interacting with his own table terminal.
That’s not good. We’ll have to stay on our toes.
Chase scrolled through the warrants and saw Keera’s picture. A new warrant, apparently less than two days old. He opened it and looked into the details. Wanted dead or alive.
What’s this about? wondered Chase.
The warrant was proposed by an individual called Tor’Tak, probably a family member of Tron’Tak. Perhaps he should have just disabled the man. Now they would have bounty hunters after them as well. It couldn’t be helped now, but Chase decided to inform Keera.
Where is she?
She stood at the bar, her back turned to him, her body blocking Chase’s view of the barman. Something in Chase started to tingle.
Crap! was the only thing he had the time to think before the shit hit the fan.
The man who had eyed him earlier was already reaching for a blaster. He raised it and shouted, “Hand’s up. Make a move and I make a hole where your heart is supposed to be!”
Chase smiled at the threat. “Holster this weapon if you value your life. I’m not Argos. I know I look like him, but we’re twin brothers.”
“Sure, I believe you. Hands up now. Last warning.”
Chase exhaled with frustration. He turned around and saw that the barman was also pointing a weapon at Keera. Her hands were in the air. So much for hoping things would go smoothly. Wishful thinking anyway. Ever since the Alliance fell, it had been one crap day after another. One more day of grinding in this damn universe.
Chase turned back towards his aggressor and played along, raising his hands.
“That’s better. Don’t you move!”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 96