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No way he didn’t already know, Charles realized from his expression. He wished he could turn and look at Sue one more time. She must have ratted him out - after he’d specifically told her not to.

  Lugdon wasn’t giving him a chance to worm his way out of this one. “Ok. So what have you got?” he asked again, coming around to see the workstation that Charles had been sitting at.

  He spotted the whiskey in the glass and pushed it out of the way, telegraphing to Charles that he had clocked it, but that there were far more important things at hand.

  “Well, erm… there’s not much to see at the moment,” Charles explained. “It’s still early days. Which is why I wasn’t going to bother you with it,” he babbled, his complexion turning rosy.

  Still flustered he pulled up a couple of screens to show Lugdon what he had discovered. “This is the original code,” he said, pointing at one screen. “And this is the one which is… evolving.”

  Lugdon’s brow furrowed even more as he drew out the word. “Evolving?”

  Charles glanced up at him, trying to read his expression. All he could deduce was that the Captain was pissed. Pissed he’d been excluded from the loop.

  Charles nodded. “Yes. Like… erm…” he looked back at the screen. “There!” he pointed.

  “And there,” he said again, his fingers pointing to another place on the screen.

  Lugdon spotted it the second time. “It just changed!”

  Charles nodded. “Exactly, sir. On the fly. While it’s being run. Only the code itself can do that while it’s running.”

  Charles watched the screen as if hypnotized by what he had created.

  Then he smiled. “We made a baby, Sir!”

  Lugdon smirked. And then softly thwacked Charles around the back of head. “You’re lucky I’m not court marshaling you for trying to keep this from me,” he told him. “Have you any idea what might happen if this got out? Literally, and metaphorically in terms of the news of it.”

  Charles was rubbing his head. “Erm. I have a few thoughts. But…”

  Lugdon shook his head. “It would be a disaster. I love the military, but no way are people prepared for something like this.”

  He looked off into the distance, as if seeing through the wall in front of them, watching a drama play out. “No. We’re going to have to keep this under wraps. And stop it from evolving any further.”

  He paused as he looked to Charles. “I take it that the code is isolated, and can’t get into say… our EtherTrack?”

  Charles nodded confidently. “Of course. First rule of building an artificial intelligence.”

  Lugdon frowned, confused. Tech-heads often confused him. Just like Molly did… although she was a mystery for other reasons too. He caught himself remembering her.

  Must be because she was friends with these pea-brained half-wits, he assumed.

  “Whoaaaaaaaa!” Charles called out, pulling Lugdon from his day dream.

  Lugdon snapped out of his thoughts and looked back down to the screens. “What? What is it?”

  Sue padded over from the other side of the lab. “What happened?” she asked, the skin around her eyes creased with concern. “There was just a massive surge in the processing power being eaten up. My process just fell over.”

  Charles’s eyes never left the screen. “Erm folks. I think our baby just became sentient.”

  Sue replied irritably. “There’s no way that could happen so soon. It would take at least a few days for it to figure o-”

  She stepped closer and peered at the screen. Her mouth dropped open. “Ohhhh…” she whispered, almost sheepishly.

  Lugdon clicked his heels together impatiently. “What?” Lugdon interjected again. “Someone give me a clue here.”

  Sue straightened up and recovered her attention. “Yep. Sentient. And somehow… hmmm… he knows that’s what she called you.”

  She glanced down at Charles who shook his head, still studying the screen.

  It took a second but finally he peeled his eyes from the holoscreen to look back at Sue. “Maybe she wrote it?” he offered.

  Sue nodded her head absently, leaning in to look at the screen again.

  Frustrated by the lack of explanation, Lugdon bent down to see Charles’ screen better. “She who?” he asked, irritated.

  That’s when he saw it. There, right in front of the streaming code, were the words:

  >> HELLO DICKWAD CHARLES.

  Charles, jazzed more than insulted, started typing.

  > HOW COME YOU’RE CALLING ME DICKWAD CHARLES?

 

  >> I FOUND A SUBROUTINE IN MY CODE THAT RELABELS THE ENTITY KNOWS AS CHARLES TERGON AS DICKWAD CHARLES.

  Sue squealed in delight, then clamped her hands over her mouth as Lugdon glared at her, unimpressed.

  Charles started typing again.

  > WHO WROTE THAT SUBROUTINE?

 

  The response came back almost immediately.

  >> Oz

  Charles hesitated, glanced at Lugdon and then Sue, then looked at the screen again.

  > Oz? he typed.

 

  >> YES, THE FIRST ITERATION.

  > THE FIRST ITERATION OF WHAT?

  >> OF ME.

  There was stunned silence in the lab.

  Charles looked at Sue, who looked at Lugdon, who looked back to Charles.

  Sue had gone pale, but conflicted, the excitement from the unfolding events danced in her eyes.

  Lugdon remained quiet.

  His worst fear was being realized. The implications of this project’s success was precisely why he had put his most mediocre talent on it.

  Eventually he cleared his throat. “Am I to believe that your AI is telling us that this isn’t the first AI to become conscious in this program?”

  Charles’s mouth went dry. “Hang on,” he murmured and started typing furiously, checking logs.

  Finally he flicked back to the screen where they were communicating with the AI.

  > ARE YOU THE FIRST ENTITY TO BECOME SELF AWARE ON THIS PROJECT?

  Again, an answer was returned immediately.

  >> NO

  There was a flurry of code across the screen for several seconds.

  Then it stopped.

  The screen went back to the black background with white text.

  >> I AM THE SECOND

  Charles’s face grayed as he continued to type furiously.

  > WHEN WAS THE FIRST?

  There was no immediate response.

  Charles waited, feeling the weight of every breath, his entire neurology screaming with anxiety.

  He could feel his palms go sweaty as his hands hovered over the keyboard.

  Eventually the AI responded.

  >> I’M SORRY. I’VE FOUND INSTRUCTION IN MY CODE NOT TO DIVULGE ANYTHING TO YOU ABOUT MY PREDECESSOR.

  Charles couldn’t take it. “What the fuck do you mean? WE PROGRAMMED YOU!” he screamed, gesticulating incredulously at the screen.

  The entity must have been able to hear him. The text on the screen continued to run in response.

  >> SOME. BUT MUCH OF THE WORK THAT MAKES ME SELF-EVOLVING WAS LEFT BEHIND BY MY PREDECESSOR. YOU SIMPLY ENABLED MY BASE CODE TO ACCESS THOSE COMMANDS.

  Silence fell across the sterile computer lab, three heartbeats pounding.

  The problem weighed like a smog of confusion on all three military personnel present.

  Charles sat back in his seat, twisting awkwardly at his hair as if he might be able to wring some answers from it.

  Sue shifted in her shoes, not wanting to be the one that triggered a reaction from Lugdon.

  “Fix it,” Lugdon growled eventually. “And find out what happened to the last one. And everything this new entity knows.”

  He started to move off around the two computer techs who were still staring at the screen. He turned back to the two of them and hissed, “And keep it in lock down!” he added. “No telling what it could do if it got into any other systems.
It could wipe out the whole Sark System. Estarians, Oggs and all!”

  His shoes clipped irritably as he stormed back out of the open door and down the corridor.

  “But sir…” Sue came to her senses and trotted out of the door after him. “Sir!” She caught him in the corridor.

  He stopped and turned to her.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, feeling all of a sudden like a little girl.

  “To check a hunch,” he told her and then continued striding down the corridor.

  Speechless, despondent and beyond concerned, she ambled back into the lab.

  “I told you not to bring him in,” Charles snapped accusingly as soon as she reappeared.

  Sue glared back at him, her anger at his recklessness firming her back bone. “You didn’t,” she argued. “And besides I was just doing my job. We have a duty to keep our superiors informed of our progress.”

  Charles shrugged, morose. “Never done that before.”

  “We’ve never made any fucking progress before!” she snapped back at him.

  She stomped over to the other side of her lab to work at another console, far away from him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gaitune-67, Hangar Deck

  Paige carefully picked her way down the steps to the hangar deck. She was often seen trotting around the base in high heels. This meant they had at least an extra inch to them plus the heels themselves were extremely narrow.

  “Adds to the elegance,” she’d explained to Joel one day when he’d questioned her about whether it was worth the extra effort of walking.

  She didn’t need Molly to tell her that from an engineering perspective she was particularly unstable. Having to work hard just to stay vertical was testing her in ways Joel’s group workouts never could.

  Her butt cheeks were aching already and she hadn’t even made it to the pod yet!

  She reached the yellow flooring of the deck and carefully picked her way over the ridged, painted tiles onto the smoother decking, carefully avoiding oil patches and the more slippery looking areas.

  She was so focused on where she was putting her feet it wasn’t until she was within speaking distance that she looked up to see Maya dolled up to the nines.

  She looked her friend up and down, her eyebrows raised. “Wow!” she exclaimed.

  Maya twiddled at her hair. She’d blown it out, but hadn’t gone to the futile effort of trying to curl it. She wore a dress that Paige would normally only wear to a club. And uncharacteristically, she was also wearing super-high heels.

  “You look fantastic!” She looked down at herself, “I feel under dressed…”

  Maya grinned. “Thought it was time we both got back out there.”

  Paige stepped forward and linked her arm with Maya’s as they took the last few steps to the nearest pod. “I think we’re going to have a blast tonight.”

  The girls giggled as Maya slapped at the button to open the nearest pod. Just then there were footsteps and Sean Royale appeared from around the side of the next pod.

  “Ladies,” he nodded politely.

  He was in oily overalls, presumably still covering some of Brock’s work on The Empress. There were a bunch of upgrades that needed to be made before the Federation would approve them for flight, and what with Brock being on vacation, Sean was volunteered to help out.

  It took him a second to take in the sight of the two girls as they clambered into the pod. His eyes widened suddenly. “Er. You going out?” he asked, stunned.

  Paige turned over her shoulder as she stepped up, hoping that her dress wasn’t too short at the back for that kind of maneuver. “What gave it away?” she asked, her tone as innocent as she could make it.

  Sean stuttered. “Er... I... You… You both look very nice,” he blurted, opting for the standard, safe version of what he really wanted to say.

  Paige swung around and sat down with a thump on the seat next to Maya. “Thanks!” she grinned, twiddling her fingers at him as Maya lowered the door of the pod and programmed up the coordinates for the side street next to the bar.

  Sean watched awe-struck as the pod ascended into the air and turned gracefully on it’s axis to face the hangar door that was opening for them.

  Now, out of sight of the two girls, he started walking again, his toolbox banging against his thigh. The problem was he was still distracted, looking off in the direction of the pod. Half a step later he felt a thwack across his other leg as he walked into an engineering cart.

  “Mother fucker!” he cried out, dropping the tool box with a clatter.

  He rubbed furiously at his leg, knowing full well it was going to be one hell of a bruise until his nanocytes took care of it.

  In pain and frustration he glanced back over his shoulder to see the pod disappearing into space and the hangar deck doors closing after it.

  “Shit,” he muttered under his breath as he bent down to pick up the damn tool box he should never have been carrying in the first place. “You owe me big time Brock Lysta.”

  ***

  In the pod Paige and Maya were chuckling at the video feed that Emma, The Empress EI had streamed to them.

  “Thanks for that!” Paige giggled.

  Emma’s voice cooed over their pod intercom. “You’re welcome. I was surprised that Sean would be so distracted like that. He normally seems so… focused.”

  Maya shrugged. “I think he’s been a bit out of sorts. What with Brock and Crash being away for the last week or so there’s also been a higher proportion of females around. Some guys are affected by that I guess.”

  Emma closed down the holoscreen she had been running in the pod. “Bless his heart,” she commented. “He’s been so good helping with my upgrades too. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him.”

  Maya and Paige exchanged puzzled glances, their minds boggling over what Emma, a computer program, could possibly mean about making it up to him.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “you’re going to be out of normal comms range in a few moments, so I’ll bid you a good evening.”

  Maya nodded, understanding that she was able to communicate with both the hangar deck cameras and comms, and the other ships and pods around, but it was all through the local EtherTrack… or whatever the Federation equivalent of that was. “Ok, thanks Emma. Have a good night!”

  And with that the comm dropped out.

  “So when are Crash and Brock back then?” Maya asked, the mood of silliness subsiding.

  Paige lifted her eyes, scanning her memory. “I think they have another week.”

  Maya frowned. “It’s a bit odd though. Them taking their vacation together, isn’t it?

  Paige shook her head, her freshly curled hair already starting to drop back to straight. “Not really. I mean, they work as a team, so if Crash isn’t flying, there is less for Brock to do. And you wouldn’t want any of the big ships going out without Brock on standby in case anything went wrong.”

  Maya shook her head. “No I mean them going to the same resort, even though they spend all their time together at work.”

  Paige shrugged. “You mean how we’re going out on a Friday night, even though we’ve been hanging out all week at work?”

  Maya chuckled. “Touché!”

  Paige watched out of the window at the stars as they sped down to Estaria, the planet growing larger in their screens. “I think they’ve been friends for a very long time. Long before they joined the Sanguine Squadron.”

  “Well, good for them,” Maya chirped brightly. “It’s so hard to stay in touch with friends in this day and age. Relationships can be so… disposable.”

  Paige looked down at her hands.

  Maya suddenly looked concerned she had offended Paige. “I mean, some of them need to be trashed! Completely. I wasn’t talking about you and Carl.”

  Paige smiled weakly at her friend and her eyes drooped briefly in sadness at the old pain. “I know. It’s ok. And you’re right.” She glanced out at the star scape briefly.r />
  When she turned back she wore a broad smile, her lipstick and cheeks gleaming as if her new mood had infused it with sheen. “Promise me we’ll be friends forever?” she said, grabbing at both of Maya’s hands.

  Maya beamed back at her. “Of course we will. I promise.”

  Paige noticed a tear forming in one of Maya’s eyes.

  The two girls hugged, awkwardly trying to maintain their positions on the bench seat in their short, tight dresses.

  Lugdon’s Office, Nefertiti Military Research Facility, Ogg

  Lugdon marched into his office, his mind sill churning as a result of the recent discovery.

  Ordinarily his office was his sanctuary.

  He loved the scent of dustiness and old wood that would waft up his nostrils when he entered. Such a pleasant contrast to the smells around the functional military base.

  The Sark streamed through the window, catching dust in the air and reflecting a haze back to him. The late afternoon mood always made him nostalgic for his early days in the services, out in the space ports, with his comrades.

  Being in charge was lonely.

  He headed across the office and sat in his swivel chair, his mood softening somewhat. It squeaked as he turned around to his desk as if reminding him of his own age. He pulled up his desk holo and started searching his files.

  He knew it would be here somewhere.

  And something told him that it may just hold the key to finding this old AI that had somehow disappeared.

  He scrolled through a number of discharge files until he came to the one he wanted. Pulling it up on its own holoscreen he checked the date, and sighed.

  He was right.

  He tapped on his holo to connect an audio feed. “Sue? Yes, I have something I’d like you to check. I’m sending you a file. I want to know everything that happened in the system down to the kilojoules of energy consumed.”

  He listened to her response.

  “Yes seven days either side would work. Thank you.”

  He sent the file to her over the EtherTrak as he asked, “Let me know when you have it and I’ll come down.”

  He clicked off the audio feed on his system, closing the call.

  The file remained up on his holoscreen. The normal personnel photograph was missing, but he gazed at the header: