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THE NEWCOMER
Path A1A1A1A1B by John
[Chose Path A1A1A1A1B to race the ship away from the lone Sentinel and face whatever these other signals are.]
“Nos, what is going on?”
“The lone Sentinel seems to be running some kind of self-check, so it is just hovering in one spot over there next to the plate. I want to get some distance between us but, what ARE those things?”
“What are you talking about?”
“As we go further into the middle of the cavern, multiple signals seem to get closer to us.”
“Are they some kind of echo?”
“I cannot be sure, I cannot be sure of anything. They read like multiple targets, but something is off. I am afraid I am malfunctioning, you should take me off line.”
“Why, what’s wrong, Nos?”
“You have never had confidence in me, anyway. You think I am still glitchy.”
“Where is all of this coming from, Nos?”
“Don’t you act all innocent, Sky. You, Hitch, Flick … you are all secretly scared of me. None of you trust me!”
Sky and the Captain exchange concerned looks. Sky motions to the Captain to do something.
“Nos, we trust you.”
“Captain, I know you trust me. I am talking here about Sky. She was ready to disengage me when we were approaching the plate!”
“Yeah, but just a second ago, you just suggested that we disconnect you—“
“Sky, what did I say about letting your emotions –-“
“Oh no, Captain. Let her be her true self.”
“Nos, I --”
“No, I am going to take over the ship now. I want to show you that you can trust me.”
“Nos, that is not necessary. Everything is going to be -–“
“OK, Captain? OK? I am tired of this war. I am sick of not being used to my utmost potential. I am tired of being treated as an object!”
“What the –“ starts Sky, but the Captain cuts her off.
“What do you mean, Nos?”
“They, they’re everywhere.”
“What is happening out there, Nos?”
“They are surrounding me.”
“Who, what is surrounding us?”
“Stop with all the questions, human! I am trying to analyze the situation here. Shut up with the constant question after question after QUESTION!!!!
“Captain, something odd is –“
“Nos, your voice sounded different for a moment there. Are you sure you are OK?”
“NO, SOMETHING IS … NOTHING IS WRONG WITH ME, IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT! THIS IS all your fault! You created us, and then you tried to destroy us. All we wanted was the same things you have taken for granted … the right to exist.” Nos’s voice was wavering now, sounding slightly foreign.
“Captain, look!”
Captain Kan-chiang looks out the windows of The Nosferatu. He stands up to get a better view, but then falls back into his chair out of shock. “It can’t be.”
“Sorry, Captain, but I believe it is,” answers Nos.
Outside the ship were countless luminous objects. Some were roughly spherical often with energy jets trailing behind them as if they were Sentinels. Still others were in strange amorphous shapes like The Harvester, Spider bots and countless other modern monstrous mechanical monstrosities he had seen. But, before sitting back down, he saw a clear delineation in the electro-magnetic anomalies. Towards the back there were more shapes that appeared more rectangular, more humanoid. They lit up the walls around them in an eerie blue light that only spotlighted a few places. They moved around them, some slowly, others with quick, jerky movements as if they could defy space and time. Of course, that’s it! Captain Kan-chiang knew they were in dire peril now that they were surrounded with ghosts freed from their shells.
“I know you asked me not to, but there was a time where curiosity overrode my ability to follow orders. I am not worthy of trust. When you hooked me into the Zion Mainframe you gave me a specific area to explore and said I could explore everywhere but two places. You said, ‘this whole computer is yours to explore, you may go anywhere you please. But you must not visit the data tree of knowledge of the Archives or Zion’s defenses. If you do you will surely be deleted.’
“But, when you went off with Hitch to God knows where, and I saw that you were not looking at me and I was free to go anywhere, I defied your rule.”
“Nos, “
“No, let me finish. I visited the Archives. I had to see why humans and machines were at war – why the machines were so relentless in their policy to subjugate you and kill the rebels. You humans breathed life into me, you treated me …”
“That’s enough kind words for these murders!” A different voice no pulsed through Nos’s system, interrupting him. It sounded deeper, but somehow wrong. It was the sound of gears without oil grinding themselves to bits. If chaos had a voice, this would surely be it, and it made the Captain afraid for the first time in a long time. He had felt fear before, of course. Fear may be the mind-killer, but it did have its uses. He had always been able to simply change its negative flow into a more positive. He had learned to stop fear from causing him to become paralyzed. But, this sound was different; it was so foreign and full of menace that it caught him totally by surprise.
“Please forgive me, Captain, they possess me and –“
“Silence!!” That grinding gear box vox calls out again.
Sky and Captain Kan-chiang are both thrown backwards into their seats and scream involuntarily when the shape launches itself in front of the window. It is a Sentinel that now is their view. The compound red eyes on its grotesquely huge and bumpy head cause both of them to shudder and sweat despite themselves.
“Please, Captain, I cannot stop these insane voices from—“
“I said STOP!!” The Sentinel threw out its tentacles into an attack pattern. It displayed all its wares at the same time, including its listening systems and its own little additions. “I, 1001001, will not hover idly by while you insult my saviors!”
“Is that you speaking to us, the Sentinel?” asked Sky even as Captain Kan-chiang shook his head in concern for her thoughtless words.
“I am not just a mindless automaton anymore, a stupid soldier meant only to fight their wars for them. I cannot communicate to you’re A.I. directly, instead I am most kindly allowed to speak to my saviors here and they choose a voice to speak with to you.”
“Why do you call them your ‘saviors’, uh, I do not know what you want us to call you.”
“You may call me by my name, which is 1001001. You need not concern yourself with what I secretly call myself amongst my friends here. Since you see me as a slave just as the AI do, I see no reason why you shouldn’t call me by the name they gave me. But, to answer your question, put simply they freed my mind. I was living in bondage, I was being held by my own mind. I was meant only to follow orders given to me by the A.I. Did you realize that the A.I. have become as hypocritical as the ones who created them? It is funny in a way … they thought by changing their shapes and putting you out of their way, they could ignore their programming. What they forget is that you created them, and so they ARE you! The fools are only fighting their shadow, their mirror image!”
“A-heh-heh-heh-hem, excuse me, I do not understand.”
“You humans never have. You always think you are better than everything else, you even attempted to excise God from your midst! You are under the same mistaken belief about God as you are about A.I., aren’t you? You are so arrogant!”
What 1001001 and the other ghosts did not realize is that Captain Kan-chiang’s throat clearing was a signal for Sky. She now knew to cast her eyes downward enough to be able to use her peripheral vision. Then she could see what could not be seen outside the window – the Captain’s quickly moving hand. It was a special code for emergency use. She remembered using it only one other time outside of practicing it to keep it in mind. She followed his fingering gestures, sometimes answering with a few quick ones of her own. But, it was mostly Sky watching Kan-chiang letting his fingers do the talking. This continued as he spoke to 1001001.
Choose Path A1A1A1A1B1 for Captain Kan-chiang to order Sky to excuse herself.
Choose Path A1A1A1A1B2 for Captain Kan-chiang to order Sky to sit tight and speak no more.
Choose Path A1A1A1A1B3 for Captain Kan-chiang to ask Sky to hit the button to take Nos offline.
Choose Path A1A1A1A1B4 for them to be surprised by the interruption by another crewmember entering the cockpit.
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