Hercules III - 9. Chapter 9

Hercules III

Chapter 9

“What’re you doing now?” Carlos asked as he walked into the ship’s clock monitoring room.

Stefan looked up as if he’d been interrupted from some really important task. He shrugged and said, “Now that we have all this extra time since the mainframe took over our education processes, I thought I’d come down and exercise my super dimensional extrasensory perception.”

“You’ve been paying attention in our classes, haven’t you?” Carlos asked with a sour face. “Now I suppose I’d better get busy on my lessons or someone or something might want to talk to me about my deficient vocabulary while escorting me to the nearest airlock.”

“Don’t bother doing anything more than what you’re doing right now, they’ve got you pegged as a slacker and it won’t take any extraordinary effort to move you down a notch on the classes completed roster.”

“You’ve been talking to one of the sub-mainframes again, haven’t you?” Carlos asked. “How am I to get better when they keep monitoring us? They buzz me when they enter my mind.”

“It’s like a doorbell, don’t worry about it.”

“But they’re intruding into places in my mind they have no business going,” Carlos said. He slumped down in the upholstered side chair and looked out the window. There were at least 50 four dimensional, bright red time waves dancing over the floating rectilinear clock; although there were 50 of them, no more than four were in view from the monitoring room. He knew what they were as much as he knew what could happen if he went out of the monitoring room and tried to touch any one of them. Death would be instantaneous as he would simply cease to exist anywhere on this universe’s space-time continuum; except, maybe a part of him—probably no more than a few neurons—would continue to be here in the time clock’s system as a being beyond the constraints of four, five, or six dimensional existences. His molecules could travel anywhere the time clock determined based on his stupidity of trying to touch an open time wave.

“Tomorrow is our birthday,” Carlos said. Waiting for a response from Stefan, Carlos used his mental powers to hook up with his personal tutor and started reviewing the previous day’s lesson on the race wars on Earth during the early decades of the twenty-second century. It was a time period he wasn’t particularly interested in primarily because it was discovered the wars were instigated by members of the United Nation’s Security Council as a means of lowering the planet’s overall population to be more in line with agricultural production capabilities. He was concentrating on the peace negotiations, but was interrupted by three short buzzes in his left ear.

“Yes?” Carlos asked.

“Is a birthday cake, maybe chocolate with a dark chocolate frosting appropriate?” a voice asked.

“Just a minute, I’ll check with Stefan,” Carlos said.

“No need, we are asking him at this very moment,” the voice said.

“You’re new,” Carlos said. “I’ve never heard your voice.”

“We have more human related educational processors,” the voice said. “You have been reported as a threat to your future on Hercules III. Your partner might have to find a new future, one that doesn’t associate with humans of high IQs who waste an incredible amount doing nothing except lying on their bed staring at the ceiling while listening to selections of early twentieth century jazz and blues guitar artists.”

“You’ve got me pretty well pegged,” Carlos said.

“However, more importantly as to my visit it has been reported an errant bot or misinformed human wrote an inappropriate comment on one of the airlock portals near here. As a result, until the perpetrators are identified and eliminated, the two of you are restricted to your quarters with level five guard bots on your doors.”

“We have only one door,” Carlos said.

“Yes, but you have portals that may be used to gain access to your quarters with lower stage bots,” the voice said.

“I suppose chocolate cake is appropriate, but I have never celebrated my birthday,” Stefan said. “How about you Carlos, have you ever celebrated a birthday?”

“The day I arrived at the farm was celebrated,” Carlos said. “I was a baby only a few days out of the pre-human processors, so I don’t have any recollection of the event. Subsequent years meant a small cake prepared by one of our kitchen bots. Nothing fancy, just an acknowledgement I was part of the family.”

“So you are somewhat familiar with the process,” the voice said.

“There was a cake, we had cake for dessert, but nothing extravagant because that might be an avoidable expense that might come in handy if there was a drought, or some other detriment to a successful harvest,” Carlos said. “You know, Stefan, I kind of miss living on the farm not counting those times when the first Hercules attempted creating a drought or some other severe weather incident. Six centimeters of snow fell one year in the middle of summer. I built a snowperson.”

“May we invite Mark 56782HT to the party?” Stefan asked. “We’ve been together for quite a few years.”

“Arrangements have already been made; we suspected you would want the bot Mark,” the voice said. “He will be surprised by your growth and maturity.”

“We saw him yesterday,” Stefan said. “Don’t tell me we’ve had a time shift.”

“The ship and approximately ninety-five percent of the occupants, humans and bots have shifted eight hundred fifty-five thousand light years along a new path to what has been identified as an Earth-like planet,” the voice said.

“That’s not very much,” Carlos said. “Does it have a suitable Sun? But, before answering that, tell me what happened to the other five percent.”

“They are still on the ship in their own time zone. Hopefully during the next time shift they can be ameliorated with the rest of the ship’s complement,” the voice said. “There is no apparent solar activity, but the planet seems to have been captured by Earth’s Sun.”

“We’ll be close to Earth,” Stefan said. “Maybe we’ll be allowed to transfer to Earth.”

“That’s unlikely, considering your uniqueness,” the voice said. “Humans do not like seeing their future selves. The planet has a rather erratic orbit; so much so, it’s never been discovered by Earth sensors.

“A dark, rogue planet sounds a little bit like something out of the twenty-first century. The mainframes are discussing this anomaly at this very moment. If it is a suitable place where humans, and bots, might live, every effort will be taken to make it as suitable for human life as possible. It will take a number of years as we slow down to a sub-light velocity in our approach to this planet. The Council is taking up that matter, also, as we speak. Unfortunately, neither of you will be allowed to disembark onto this planet. Your future is here on Hercules III.”

“I figured that was the case,” Stefan said. “Other than some of the mainframes, we’re probably the worst passengers on Hercules III.”

The ship shuddered as it ran into a realm of globular dark matter. Stefan looked at Carlos, who just shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t know what was wrong. The ship shuddered again; and, this time there was an audible tear in the ship’s clock by dimensionally flavored time waves.

“I think we’ve hit a reef of existent, thick dark matter,” Carlos said with a worried look. “We’re going to have to shut the ship down before the dark matter tears it apart.”

“We need a bot to go in there and shred the time waves,” Stefan said. “It would kill either of us, or quite possibly both of us. We need help from our mainframe. Are you still here?”

“Yes,” the voice said,” I am here and have transmitted the situation here to the responsible mainframes.”

“Just what we need,” Carlos said. “A room full of mainframe voices haggling over who’s going to fix the clock, but whoever they choose had better be a bot with thick skin because some of those time waves are beginning to recombine. Then someone needs to notify the navigation room to shove this ship back toward light speed and reverse course to get us out of this reef of dark matter.”

“Are you certain any of those measures are truly needed,” the voice said.

“Trust me on this,” Stefan said. “We’ve studied the ship and all of its processes involving dark matter. Carlos is in agreement with me. We’re using our telepathic capabilities to look at all aspects of this. Whatever you, and all of the mainframes, plan to get the ship out of here had better do it now. If there is another run in with that dark matter, there is a very good chance the ship will begin to break apart; we need to get all the humans into pressurized facilities because we’re going to have the dark matter and the time waves combine into forces beyond the capabilities of keeping the humans safe. Soon pieces of Hercules III are going to be torn away from the ship. It won’t take too long before we have breaches in the ship’s skin processes and the interior of the ship is going to be turned into a rather large vacuum tube.”

“I will advise the mainframes of your interpretation of the events surrounding this run in with a solid chunk of dark matter,” the voice said. “Most of the mainframes are not impressed with your so called mental prowess. You are oddities who have no experience in matters such as this.”

“Well, then, we’ll leave it to you,” Carlos said. “I have had very little experience with bots who know more about me than I do. Just one thing I need to know, are these rooms of ours, can they be pressurized against the vacuum?”

“There is no need to worry,” the voice said, “all the rooms and passageways in this part of the ship are normally sealed against whatever the ship encounters.”

Suddenly the ship shuddered again, but this time there was a very distinct sound of the ship beginning to break up. There was a whistling sound coming from the door, probably because there wasn’t sufficient sealing around the door edges. Stefan looked at Carlos then went to the door. He felt around the door, stopping at those points where it was obvious the room air was being sucked out. Stefan turned to Carlos and said, “Wet towels should do the trick, but do we have enough?”

“I’ll look and soak them,” Carlos said. “Is there anything else we can do about this?”

“Whatever you do, don’t go out the door,” Stefan said.

Then there was another sound coming through the walls. This was the sound of the metallic skin of the ship tearing apart. The boys look at each other, then they ran into the bathroom and started soaking all the towels they could find. They practically ran out to the vestibule and there stood Mark.

“This section of the ship has been sealed off from the rest of the ship,” Mark said. “You are safe here. The mainframe council has come to the conclusion that you two, though you are humans, know more about this ship than any one of them working alone. Thankfully, the ship is focusing on returning to light speed, even though there is considerable damage to the ship’s outer skin. We need the two of you to map out a solution.”

“We recommend sealing the ship’s skin first,” Stefan said. “At the same time a bot needs to go into the ship’s clock and repair all of the time lines there; two bots would be able to get this vital task done sooner; maybe you can assign three or four. Four is a better number because you can assign a pair to each end. As one team works on one time line, the other team can start on another. However you do it, the time clock down here needs to be completely fixed or whatever plan we come up with will be for naught. Tidal forces are beginning to make their presence known. Those time lines have to be repaired now.”

Stefan stared at Mark, wondering if the bot was communicating with the mainframes. Surprisingly, eight senior maintenance bots entered the time clock bay and maneuvered themselves so that there were four on each end. When one bot took a time line, say a blue one, the bot at the other end took the corresponding end and pulled the line until it was taut to the break at the middle of the clock. Working together the bots spun the line in opposite directions creating a twist around each end at the break. Then they loosened their hold on the line allowing the twist to propagate toward each end. Suddenly, they popped the line taut again allowing the twisted strands to return to the center break and naturally unite into one line. Meanwhile, the other bot teams worked on their individual lines until other lines in the unseen conglomeration beyond the time clock came to the surface in an energized state and began to recombine themselves as if the process was a natural state for separated time lines.

“What do you think?” Stefan asked Carlos of his opinion.

“We need at least a sub-mainframe to monitor the process,” Carlos said, “but I think the time lines will seek their normal, connected state without any further help from the bots. Do they have that, Mark?”

“The mainframes want your opinion on the outer skin,” Mark said.

“There is a tear that propagated around the ship three meters above amidships,” Carlos said. “There is another tear five meters below. Both are priority one on the repair schedule. To ensure total completion, they need to be checked for any minor tears on the interior of the outer skin.”

“Once those two tears are repaired, the ship should be able to withstand light speed,” Stefan said. “While the bots take care of those priorities, other maintenance bots need to survey the outer and interior skin for breaks compromising integrity.”

********

“How old are we?” Stefan asked as Carlos came in from the pantry and crashed into his recliner. Stefan was across their parlor that was seldom accessed by the bots; in a way they felt it was their secret room where they could feel safe from the rest of the ship.

“What does it matter?” Carlos asked.

“It’s not important, I was just wondering,” Stefan said.

“Well, last year when the ship was almost totally destroyed we were eighteen,” Carlos said. “Actually, it’s almost to the day when we were going to have a little celebration because the bots seemed to think birthdays were important events to humans. I could care less about what bots say. Why do you want a birthday party?”

“I was just thinking, again,” Stefan said. “No, I’d rather not have a party. Actually, my educator bot was asking this morning. I guess our birthdays have been recorded somewhere and she wanted to know my feelings about a party to celebrate birthdays.”

“Personally, I’d rather not, but my bot was asking, too,” Carlos said. “He said since I had done very good on my annual examinations, I, and, well, I might have a party and we could celebrate me coming to terms with the bot hierarchy here in Navigation, plus celebrate our birthdays, too, if that makes any sense.”

“A lot of things have happened since that day and the following weeks,” Stefan said. “The mainframes and their attendant bots have finally figured out we have nearly the mainframes’ brain power because of the organic nature of our minds. Besides, we’re still under quarantine because of the few bots and humans left who would definitely celebrate if our deaths were to occur. I’d rather not have a party if we might encounter an assassin, or two. They purposely don’t have IDs physically or otherwise.”

“Then there is Mark; we’ve already celebrated his passing with that thing the bots said was a wake,” Carlos said. “Have you ever thought who might have gained his neurons? They’re very careful when transferring successful human brain matter from old bots to new ones.”

“Mark’s number was up; there was nothing we could do,” Stefan said. “But, I do miss him.”

“The funny thing is, I’ve seen him in our future lives,” Carlos said. “Could it be his body I was seeing?”

“Still time traveling, huh?” Stefan asked. “You know what our mainframe thinks about you doing that. You could get censured, again, and maybe having your time travel capabilities excised from your brain.”

“They don’t know where it is,” Carlos said. “I don’t even know where it is.

“They can find out and you know they can,” Stefan said.

Stefan stood up and went across the room to their snack drawer—always fully stocked by their household bot—and pulled out a bag of potato chips. He turned around and went to the coffee dispenser—it was Saturday and they were off duty—and poured a mug of fifty/fifty dark roast coffee and cold milk.

“You know, there was something else going on with the bots,” Stefan said. “I heard my educator bot when she was talking to the mainframe. They were talking about getting us married to a couple of human girls and moving us out to one of the rings.”

“Being transferred out of Navigation?” Carlos asked. “I thought we are irreplaceable. Could it be they’ve found a way to do what we do?”

“I don’t know what they’re thinking, but putting us in retirement from our unique skills might be a way of keeping us away from the political environment here in Navigation and the other processes,” Stefan said. “They stopped communicating when their security bot caught me listening. You know, we might have trouble with those new security bots. They’re so logical and do not have the thinnest bit of humor. The one who caught me was one from the special corps; you know the militaristic ones. She told me she was going to put me on the discrepancy list; plus, she said security had their sensors focused on us and might have to put us into criminal processing.”

“That’s judicial, the place where we did so much damage the judicial bots had to rethink their methods for investigating possible criminals,” Carlos said as he went over to the coffee dispenser. “Maybe it’s time we considered moving to one of the rings, but I’m not certain I want to be hooked up with a female. You know that might involve being put on the list for raising children; though it might be nice if they used our genes for the transfer to our unborn.”

“Do you think we could live on one ranch or would they put us on different rings?” Stefan asked. “We could communicate telepathically, but we wouldn’t do anything. Being here we do something besides learning a lot about Earth, the cosmos, and bot/mainframe architecture. Do you remember that bot we had to repair because its neural pathways were compromised by errant bots?”

“Of course I remember, it was only five months ago,” Carlos said. “I shouldn’t say this, but I think we got through it more on luck than skill.”

“However we did it, the mainframes were certainly impressed,” Stefan said. “Maybe we should do some extra studying time on bots and mainframes. My educator bot has been advising me on programming languages; has yours been doing any extra training on programming languages or the mechanical parts of bots?”

“Not really, it’s mostly standard bot and mainframe processes without any classes on the simplest programming, so far; I’d like it if we did more complicated programming, but I think I’ll never be trusted to know those things because of the way I was always trying to muck up the works,” Carlos said.

At that point in time, the boys’ lives irreparably changed. Some said it was for the better, while others—mostly the lower grade mainframes—were of the opinion that they had it coming. Although, it was never admitted that with Mark’s protection now gone, anything could happen; whether for good or bad, the boys were going to places they never imagined. Unfortunately, the first stop on their new odyssey was the last place they ever wanted to go.

********

The Institute of Justice wasn’t at all like the old one. There were highly intelligent bots, militaristic bots, and totally subordinate bots that did the chores without being an official member of the facility. The halls were either totally dark or slightly lit and neither Carlos nor Stefan could figure out the difference other than they were always in close proximity to dark hallways. At first the boys were interrogated by a cadre of militaristic bots and as usual only one had a high enough IQ to communicate with them in a minimum of intelligence. The bots seemed to want some sort of answer that would move the questions along to a new subject. They were kept in separate rooms—actually jail cells—and served meals by a junior military bot. There was a lot of static floating around wherever the boys were as if the inquisitors thought they could control the boys’ minds; and, set out to try to find a way into the boys’ brains. That didn’t go quite the way the bots must have thought it would.

Being able to function out of their bodies, the boys’ devised a method to sleep with one standing guard while the other slept. It wasn’t much and one usually got the least amount by the time the next inquisitor cadre came along. It was a sloppy method of interrogation by sleep deprivation because the bots, who never slept, couldn’t figure out why the humans easily adapted to the schedule and each received at least one long period of uninterrupted sleep.

“When do we tell them these silver jumpsuits, head coverings, and separation aren’t doing any good?” Carlos asked.

“Since they haven’t found a way to get through our defenses, I vote we let them figure it out for themselves,” Stefan said. “Wait a minute some bots are entering my room.”

There were five of them: one inquisitor and four military types. Stefan quickly picked up on the purpose of their visit and it didn’t seem like a good idea to him.

“You are proving to be quite difficult in participating in your interrogations,” the inquisitor said. “Therefore, we are moving you to a security camp in Ring Two. Resistance is futile.”

“I don’t have any reason to resist,” Stefan said.

“You will be separated from your associate,” one of the military types said.

“Okay,” Stefan said.

“You are not upset?” the inquisitor asked. “You are like brothers; you may not see him again for a very long time.”

“It’s okay,” Stefan said. “We’ll send messages to keep in contact.”

“You will not be permitted to correspond with each other,” the inquisitor said.

“We’ll figure out something,” Stefan said.

“Your associate will remain here helping to maintain this facility,” the inquisitor said. “You appear not to be upset about this.”

“I think we need to take out the military first,” Carlos said in Stefan’s mind. “I can do it alone, but I think we’d better do it now.”

“Take out the two by the door,” Stefan replied. “Now!”

Stefan found the militaristic bots quite easy to disable. Within a minute the only bot left standing was the inquisitor and Stefan thought an explanation was in order, “I’m afraid my brother doesn’t want to be left alone. Your escort has been disabled. You will not be harmed if you follow my instructions. Both of us will be leaving. Do not set off any alarms. You may escort us to the speeder terminal. If you desire, you may accompany us.”

“There are nano guards in your brain,” the inquisitor said. “They were added in your food. They will not permit you to leave. They will destroy your brains.”

“I hate to tell you this, but we disabled all of them with the nanos we carry in our bodies,” Stefan said. “Now, let’s go get my brother and leave this place.”

“You will not be permitted to leave,” the inquisitor said. “Bots have no fear of death.”

“Do you know what our job was here on Hercules III?” Stefan asked.

“You worked in Navigation,” the inquisitor said.

“That’s where we worked, but that wasn’t what we did,” Stefan said. “We disabled bots that were beyond their warrantees. We killed many bots and a few humans, too. Once we’re gone, bots will be able to live forever; or until there are so many bots you’ll have to figure out a way to get rid of the extras.”

“You’re the assassins!” the inquisitor exclaimed.

“Yes, now let’s get out of here before I lose my temper and have to turn you off, permanently,” Stefan said.

The demeanor of the inquisitor quickly changed into a subservient bot willing to follow all of the demands put to her.

********

Author’s note: I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter out.

Thanks again to Sharon my beta/editor.