Shadow Core - The Legacy (20 page)

“So... they're oblivious? That doesn't seem like a very good trait for a species,” Zen commented.

“That's one word for it. They just get so used to technology that they stop noticing it. They take it for granted... they do that a lot,” Drake said and grinned as the tram sped through the Zenith.

“You lost me,” Zen said. “So a human will take something for granted, getting so used to it that he won't even notice it until it's gone. Strange, but OK. But how does that translate to Kade being in shock when I fell on my father?”

“Synthetics are technology personified, literally. But you, unlike the normal synthetics that Kade is used to dealing with, stand out like a beacon. Refusing to be ignored... demanding to be noticed.”

“I'm going to die of old age before you get to the point, aren't I?” Zen smiled.

“Ha ha, what I meant was that Kade was forced to take notice of you because you represent something she had never seen before. A non-human sentient being with the full range of complex human emotions who, to top it all off, happens to be the daughter of an AI and a former human. Now you got to admit, for a human who has never come across anything more than your average synthetic worker, that's a lot to take in at once. She was expecting a machine which merely pretended to be human, and she got a cute, purple headed, spunky girl who is more than she thought possible.” Drake smiled, lifting Zen's spirits.  

“Is it really that big of a deal? I've never seen you react like that and Jude's reaction was almost the complete opposite of Kade's. She was downright ecstatic to meet me.”

“I'm not exactly your typical human being. I've been around longer than most. To me, all of this seems perfectly natural. And Jude is an engineer. Her fascination with technology makes her naturally open minded to accepting new concepts and ideas.”   

“You make it sound like the bulk of humanity consists of closed minded bigots,” Zen said, causing Drake to burst out laughing.

“No, not at all... not the bulk anyway. Most people are just not used to the idea of artificial life and there are some who actually feel threatened by it. Case in point, the Church of Universal Will. Those religious fanatics go out of their minds whenever anyone just mentions the word 'Artificial'. Their clergy would have a mental breakdown if they ever met you in person.” Drake grinned.

“So... let's see if I got this right... Kade was shocked because I proved to her that I am alive?”

“Pretty much... yes.” Drake smiled.

“Why couldn't you just say that then?”

“What would the fun in that be?”

“You're evil... you know that right?” Zen smiled as the tram started slowing down.

Drake took a moment to look out of the window as the tram started to come to a stop. Docking Bay One was on the other side of the doors, and he could see the Icarus moored down to the space-dock.

The tram doors opened and the hover-bed started making its way to the nearby escape pod, which had been extracted from the Icarus by the dock workers; non-sentient synthetics that carried out all manner of maintenance tasks throughout the Zenith.

Drake and Zen were following behind the bed when a sudden flash of light caught Drake's attention. Some of the workers were performing hull repairs on the Icarus, the arc welders filling up the dock with occasional bursts of intense light.    

“Hmm...” Drake mumbled to himself.

“What?” Zen asked as she looked at him.

“Here's a stupid question... what are they doing?” Drake asked as he pointed towards the workers.

“Repairs?” Zen asked, wondering why he would have asked such an obvious thing.

“Yes... but why? I didn't authorise any repairs. Could you check the logs to see who gave the order?” Drake requested as they walked along.

“Sure... hmm, apparently there was no order given. The automated repair system kicked in when it detected a Shadow ID signature,” Zen said.

“The Icarus isn't a Shadow ship,” Drake said with absolute certainty in his voice. “Have the automated systems in the dock been damaged?”

“Nope, all's well as far as I can see. But...” Zen paused mid-sentence, stopping in her tracks with a surprised look on her small face.

“You OK?” Drake asked in a concerned tone.

“The Icarus... has a dual signature? The dock logs say that a secondary transponder was activated immediately after the ship was locked down, identifying itself as the 'F.S. Phoenix',” Zen said, causing Drake to stop and stare at the Icarus.

“No... he couldn't have!” Drake said, clearly surprised, but also seemingly happy at the revelation.

“I'm not familiar with the ship name, it's not in any of our registration records,” Zen said.

“That's not surprising; the Phoenix never made it out of the prototype stage. It was Toby's ship, but...” Drake paused as he tilted his head and stared at the Icarus again. “How the hell is the Icarus...” he paused again, a smile developing on his face as a theory formed in his mind. “Oh! Zen, have the dock sensors run a detailed scan of the ship's internal structure. I think this ship is more than it appears to be.”

“Scan in progress... it will take a few minutes.”

“That's fine, we have to deal with Nick anyway,” Drake said as the hover-bed stopped near the pod.

Drake removed Nick's restraints and carried him towards the open escape pod. It was an older model but very reliable. It didn't have the range to take Nick to the nearest space station, but luckily for him there was a whole fleet coming this way so he wouldn't need to wait long for a rescue. That is, assuming his rescuers didn't blow up the pod, but either way he wouldn't be waiting for very long.

Nick started to regain consciousness as Drake finished securing him to the pod. He was dazed and confused, with the mother of all headaches bearing down on his skull... with a vengeance.

“Who... who are you?” Nick asked.

Drake said jokingly, “You've forgotten me already? I'm hurt! We had so much fun together.”

“We did? I don't remember... who am I?” Nick asked, wishing that the room would stop spinning.

  “What the heck did you do to him?” Zen smiled as she looked at Drake.

“I healed him, that's all. He was in pretty rough shape but I don't see why it should have affected his memories,” Drake said.

“You healed me? Thank you. But... what happened to me?” Nick asked, feeling as though his skull was two sizes too small for his brain.

“Short version? You picked a fight with the wrong person and got your backside handed to you.”

“Oh...” Nick replied, feeling like an idiot.

“You're all set,” Drake said as he moved away from the pod, which was now ready to be launched.

“What are you doing to me?” Nick asked in fear as he realised he was strapped into an escape pod.

“We're sending you back to your friends. You might need to wait a bit but the fleet should be here shortly to pick you up,” Drake said in a reassuring tone.

“Oh... thank you,” Nick said, calming down.

Zen whispered, “What's wrong with him?”

Drake whispered back, “No idea. I'm still running tests to confirm the purpose of that thing he had in his head. Personally I like him better this way, but his memory might return so let's get him on his way.” He faced Nick as the escape pod hatch closed and said, “OK... happy trails Nick! Enjoy the gift!!” And moments later one of the construction arms in the space-dock lifted up the pod and started carrying it towards the space doors.

“What gift?” Zen asked.

“Oh... nothing special, just something to help him along on his way.” Drake smiled as he watched the pod being taken away.

“Softie!” Zen grinned.

“Thank you!” Drake replied happily.

The Extraction

The construction crane moved swiftly as it crossed the expansive docking bay, carrying the escape pod towards the space doors.  

Nick could see a cavernous facility from his small viewport, stretching far beyond his limited field of view. There was a ship of some kind moored beneath him and a multitude of strange drones were anchored to the far wall.

He could feel the pod's motion slowing down as it started to spin around, leaving him facing a set of reinforced space doors. It was an imposing feature that dominated the landscape, covering almost the full length of the 400 metre long bay.

The bay was being flooded by yellow warning lights as Drake stood on the platform with crossed arms and a hint of a smile. Seeing the locking pillars being retracted all around the expansive construct in order to allow the door frames to slide open. He always enjoyed watching this strangely hypnotic technology dance, as almost countless electro-mechanical systems moved in perfect synch to release the locks on the multi ton reinforced doors.

The doors started sliding sideways, revealing the space outside as trace amounts of atmosphere escaped the normally unpressurised bay. Luckily the doorways only needed to open slightly in order to let the escape pod through, since opening them fully could take the best part of ten minutes. And a few seconds later the doors started closing again, as the pod flew away into space in search of the fleet.

“I have the scan results from the Icarus,” Zen said as the locking pillars started engaging around the frame of the space doors.

“Show me,” Drake said and then extended his hand towards Zen as she looked at it in confusion.

“Why don't you just synchronise with the system yourself?” Zen asked, wondering why Drake wanted to use this inefficient method of sharing information.

“Humour me,” Drake said.

“Fine!” Zen reached for Drake's hand.

Drake began receiving information from Zen the moment the two touched hands, his view of the hangar becoming enhanced by all the augmented reality data being streamed into his mind. Not only could he see the Icarus in front of him, he could also see the detailed scan result overlay, allowing him to see down to the very centre of the ship. He could see every weld and joint, every minor imperfection.

“Your Core charge is running dangerously low, is that why you didn't want to synchronise with the ship?” Zen asked, clearly concerned.

“Yes, I didn't have enough time to fully recharge earlier. I'll be fine though, just need to conserve my remaining energy,” Drake said unceremoniously as he looked over the Icarus scan data.

“That explains it,” Drake said, satisfied at the results of the scan. “No wonder the Icarus has two transponder signals. Nicely done Toby!”

“What?” Zen asked with a confused expression and then focused on the Icarus again, looking at the same spot that Drake was staring at.

“Oh! I see! That's pretty clever... but now what? Should I stop the repairs?” She asked.

“No... this old fire bird could use some attention. Let the repairs continue. I wonder if Kade knows what she's been flying around in all this time.” Drake chuckled.

Drake smiled as he looked at the Icarus and then started to turn around in order to go back to the tram.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a couple of workers performing repairs on something at the far end of the bay. Drake let go of Zen's hand, walking a few steps forward in order to take a closer look at the strange scene: part of the spherical object's forward facing section had just dropped to the floor for no reason.

“Aaaahh! What the hell happened to that probe?” Drake asked, horrified, as he looked at the mangled remains of a once proud Alpha class probe, which was now falling to bits as workers tried to perform repairs.

“The log just says 'oops'. What's that supposed to mean?” Zen asked with a perplexed look.

Zen checked the event log again, wondering if she had made a mistake, but to her surprise the result was the same. The listed cause of the damage to the probe was just the word 'oops'. And then she felt the floor under her vibrate slightly.  

“STATIC!!!” Drake shouted angrily.

Back in the virtual environment...  

Static suddenly shuddered, as if feeling a chill running down his virtual spine. His upper body convulsing slightly at the experience.

Kade was still looking on in silence, not knowing whether she should be happy to be seeing her grandfather again, or incensed at the idea that this copy of him was being created right in front of her. And Jude just kept staring at Nexus, observing the AI’s slight mannerisms as she stood in the middle of the data torrent that was cascading upwards from the white circle on the floor and wondering if her slight motions had some kind of meaning.

“You OK?” Nexus asked Static after seeing his body shake for no apparent reason.

“Yeah... that was weird,” Static replied. “Haven't felt that in a while,” he said looking at his hands. “Don't worry about me, focus on the task at hand,” he said with a worried tone, knowing that it could be disastrous if Nexus were to lose her focus at this stage.  

Nexus nodded, closed her eyes and extended her arms to the sides, her palms facing outwards as if she was pushing out against the surrounding data stream. And suddenly, a new white circle appeared on the floor around Toby's unconscious body.

Nexus started moving her arms, her body taking on a form which looked like she was holding a ball right in front of her chest. And as the data stream which was cascading up from the floor ceased, a sphere of light started to grow in between her palms. The sphere was radiating a warm yellow light like a tiny sun. And Nexus, still with her eyes shut tight, let out a few tears as she started smiling.

“Everything OK?” Static asked, clearly concerned.

“Yes... he had a very full life. And he found her!” Nexus said, almost delirious with happiness as tears of joy started streaming down her face.

“Found who?” Kade asked.

“Nova! He found her?” Static asked with a wide eyed expression, stunned at the revelation.

Kade whispered to Jude, “Nova? The AI?”

Jude whispered back, “I was wondering where she was. But how does one lose an AI anyway?”