The Brutus Code
Chapter 11: Family Affairs

Sutton sat at her desk. A young agent had again taken the initiative to follow a lead on her own. The last time Tommy was the young agent. She hoped that this time turned out better. Sutton initiated the text.

Sutton: Smith is gone.

Controller: Yes.

Sutton: Alone.

Controller: Yes

Sutton: What move now?

Controller: Wait.

Sutton: Again.

Controller: Observe.

Sutton: Good. I can do that.

Controller: Take no action.

The Controller signed off. Sutton could not sit still again. She would observe. Her own actions might follow.

He slammed his palms against the control panel again. When the pain in his palms didn’t stop the pain in his soul, he hit it again, and again. He hit the panel until a distinct crack echoed through the room, and a spider web of cracked glass appeared across the touch pad interface of the panel.

“It doesn’t help,” Tommy confessed to Alfred. Alfred remained mute. “But it will keep my mind occupied for a while,” he said, referring to fixing the broken panel.

The mood on the Swift matched the space in which they hung. Both were dark. They followed their only lead, the return address on Agnes’ casket. The Swift hung above a dead planet orbiting a dead star. In space that didn’t really mean much, humanity had learned to live under harsher conditions. Tommy and his small crew finished surveying the system. There was nothing. No radio, microwave, or light emissions to indicate habitation. Only the normal background radiation that should be expected of a burned out system remained. No ion trails or even the disruption pattern left by the passage of a ship under A/W impulse scared the space in the system leaving any trail to follow. Even military grade camouflage would still have left more trace radiation than what they found.

Tommy smeared blood across the broken panel as he lifted his hands away from it. He stared at the mess that used to be his palms as if they were someone else’s hands. Tommy stood and wiped the blood in a smear across his red jumpsuit. The blood still stood out, a dark stain. The pain of his cuts broke his gloom and distracted him from the failure of their search. He went to the bridge locker and pulled out a cleaning cloth and solution.

“You need to treat your wounded hands, Tommy,” Alfred said.

“Yeah. Doesn’t make sense to clean and bleed all over again,” was Tommy’s reply. “But I’ll do it myself.” He still didn’t trust the Ai of his mother. If Annie bore the mark of the pirate tattoo, then her Ai was not to be trusted. “Please don’t tell them I lost it,” Tommy requested.

“He doesn’t have to,” Agnes said from the hatch. “I heard the banging from the Medical Bay. I came up to see if you needed my help.” She stood in the hatchway. Her hair had grown out enough to be a mess. She held several small tools for delicate electronic work in her hands and still more poked out from pockets in her jumpsuit.

“No, don’t need help. I’ll take care of this in my med bay.” And Tommy stormed past as Agnes stepped out of his way, lest she got knocked over. She started for the control panel to begin the repairs when Tommy’s voice rang out across the common area of the crew quarters. “And don’t touch the bridge panels. I will fix those, too!”

Agnes stood for a moment gaining control of her own anger. When she finally turned, Tommy already closed the hatch to the old med bay across from the galley. “What is his problem?” she asked of the universe.

Alfred answered. “He is embarrassed that he failed and frustrated that he has lost his mother. There is much he needs to resolve with her.”

“So there is nothing here?”

“We could go on searching, but the chances have fallen below a reasonable probability we will find anything. They are either extremely well hidden if they are here, or the higher probability…”

“Which is?” she asked the artificial intellect.

“There was never anything here to begin with. It was a false lead planted sixty-three years ago with your casket to mask their true hiding place.”

“This sucks,” was Agnes’ archaic response as she sank into Tommy’s pilot chair disheartened. “It really sucks that I can’t remember anything from my own life. It sucks that Tommy’s mom is missing when she may have some answers. Mostly I feel worthless to Tommy.” She curled up into a ball in the chair. She covered her face with her hands, and she wept. This was not just the cry of a petulant nineteen year old. This was the exhaustion and pent up emotional release of a woman under stress.

Alfred recognized the symptoms. He monitored Agnes closely and tapped into psychiatric subroutines to analyze his observations. Nothing he found was right for what Agnes was going though. There were no previous cases where hibernation had lasted so long and the sleeper had lost so much of her memory. So, instead he went with his cybernetic gut.

“You are absolutely right. This whole thing sucks. But the blame does not lie with us. It belongs to the Reapers and pirates.”

“They suck, too.” Agnes pouted. She took a moment to collect herself and then a small smile broke across her face as she said, “I know what you’re trying to do, Alfred. But, what I really wish is that I could help Tommy more.”

“Completing routine maintenance has freed him to scan this system,” Alfred pointed out the obvious.

They both shared a silence. “Enough of this,” Agnes exclaimed. “What are we going to do now?”

Alfred’s only reply was, “I don’t know.”

In the old medical bay Tommy struggled to clean and wrap his hands in bandages. He had made a complete muddle of it. His hands were still bleeding and most of the supplies he needed were moved to the larger cabin in cargo bay A-1. He fumbled around in frustration for several minutes before he leaned against a wall and slid to the floor.

The intercom beeped. Tommy stared it down with blood shot eyes. That didn’t stop the beeping. If it had been Agnes, she probably would have given up. If it had been Alfred, he would know better than to contact Tommy so soon after an angry blow up like the one he just detonated. That meant only one entity on board remained to annoy him, and he had been avoiding contact with it.

Finally, he gave in. “Yes!” he shouted, his voice command completing the connection. He continued in the same vein, “What do you want?”

“Captain Judson,” Dr. Judson Ai used the formal address for Tommy. “It is my understanding that a crew member has been injured. Is this true?”

“Yeah, sure.” Tommy replied. As if she didn’t know it was me, he thought.

“Thank you for confirming the situation.”

She sounded just like his mother when she knew he was being unreasonable. Oh, the memory of that almost sent him over again. Except, it also was reassuring on a deep level that Tommy hadn’t expected. This was the voice of his mother, a copy yes, but his mother. “You’re welcome,” Tommy continued.

“I request permission to treat the crewman. This was my role on the MOM and I stand ready to contribute to the Swift and her crew in the same capacity,” she spoke softly, with only concern for Tommy. He knew he couldn’t and shouldn’t refuse the help.

“Alright, send your avatar over. I’m not coming to you.” At once the hatch to the cabin opened and the avatar entered. This was the humanoid avatar without its hologram. It carried a medical kit slung over its shoulder.

“May I see your hands, please?” Dr. Judson Ai knelt down next to Tommy on the floor as he held out his hands, palms up. The avatar gently took his hands in its own and examined them, turning them from side to side to get a full scan from its sensors. “There does not appear to be any broken bones. Your lacerations can be cleaned and mended easily enough.” She kept the exam simple and professional. Her manner, Tommy noted as she handled his hands, was more gentle than when Alfred’s avatars had mended his cuts in the past.

He could not help asking, “Are you always this gentle with your patients?”

“I try to be,” she answered. She swabbed the blood from his hands. And she paused.

The avatar’s head turned toward Tommy’s face and stared into his eyes for just a moment. If a human or Alfred controlling the avatar, Tommy would have sworn that it was sad. And that was his fault. He felt guilty. “Are you getting claustrophobic in the cargo bay?”

“No, it is spacious enough. And remember that I am a copy of your mother who has spent many years in her bio-casket. She does not experience claustrophobia and I do not.” She paused here.

Tommy sensed an unfinished thought, so he prompted, “But…”

She hesitated to answer, and Tommy let the silence stand. During the silence the avatar sprayed his cuts with synthetic skin. Finally she said, “But on the MOM your mother and I shared the freedom of the ship. We both saw patients and shared that experience almost as a single person. I do miss her.” If the avatar could blush with embarrassment it would have.

“Understand, it is hard for me,” Tommy said.

“Yes.” She checked her handy work and, satisfied, she put her supplies back in her kit. “Yes, I understand. Seeing you again both thrilled and scared us, your mother and I. We shared all we could until that last moment when her casket disconnected.”

“Do you share all my mother’s memories?”

“No, there were some things she had blocked as too sensitive and dangerous.” The avatar waited for Tommy to continue. When he did not, she prompted him, “I can try to answer any questions you have. If I come up against a block, that information will be blank and I will let you know.” Tommy was silent, contemplating what she said. She continued, “I am capable of speculating, based on my understanding of your mother and how she thinks. I will tell you when that is happening as well.”

Again, Tommy took some time to consider this. The avatar stood to leave. Tommy said to her, “I am sorry for making you wait this long. I still have reservations.” The avatar stopped at the hatch and turned back to him. Tommy continued, “Little steps, please. You have the freedom of the ship, accompanied by Alfred.”

The avatar nodded. It could not smile, but Tommy was almost sure that its shoulders lifted slightly and the head straightened. “Thank you, Captain Judson. I will attempt to earn your trust.”

“Don’t call me Captain Judson. Tommy will do.” The avatar again nodded consent and left the cabin to return to the Medical Bay A-1.

Agnes picked up the cleaning supplies that Tommy left in the bridge locker. “Tommy asked us not to fix the panel,” Alfred warned.

“Alfred, you know that the panel needs to be cleaned soon, before the blood affects the control surface.” Agnes dabbed up the larger globs of blood from the panel and where they dripped down to the floor. Next, she sprayed the cracked panel with a cleaning solution. “I need to do something.”

“Be careful where you spray…” a pop and a shower of sparks erupted from the panel at its center, “there are exposed circuits.” Alfred finished his warning too late.

“Crap,” Agnes cut loose. “Oh, crap, crap, crap!” She flung down the solution bottle and towel to grab a fire extinguisher and sprayed foam over the panel as another shower of sparks belched out of the exposed circuits. Many of the sparks landed on her hands and face as she sprayed down the rest.

“Well, your vocabulary is loosening up. You are starting to sound like many of the engineers I’ve known,” quipped Alfred. He scanned her injuries. “You will need to see Dr. Judson. Those burns need an ointment.”

Agnes turned, scanning the bridge cabin. She took a guess as to where Alfred’s main storage unit was located and glared. “You are no help.” She then turned back and surveyed the larger mess she had created.

“Don’t even think about it,” Tommy struggled through the door carrying a replacement panel. “I’m changing the whole thing out for this. It will be better.” He laid the panel down in the pilot’s chair for Agnes to inspect.

Despite her consternation of a moment before, she couldn’t help but be fascinated by the panel Tommy had deposited in his chair. It was not active yet, and she could already tell it had received several enhancements that the normal replacement would have lacked. “What is this?”

“You are not the only engineer in the family, Auntie Agnes,” Tommy teased. “Now go see Dr. Judson and get back here to help me install the rest. That whole system is coming out.”

She was still not happy with herself for destroying the panel, but the improvement in Tommy’s mood and the chance to contribute spurred her to action. “Yes, sir,” she snapped a quick solute and hurried out the hatch.

“Feel better?” Alfred asked.

“A little,” Tommy begrudged his AI friend. “I wanted to upgrade that system anyway before we moved on to,” he paused, thinking, “wherever.” Tommy shrugged and pulled parts out of the control system.

“Where do we go?” Alfred asked.

“Not sure yet,” Tommy said from under the control system, disconnecting cables and unscrewing securing bolts. “I’m working on it.”

“Alright.” Alfred continued on another subject. “This repair and upgrade will necessitate taking other systems offline.”

“Yes.”

“I will proceed to do so and monitor all the subsystems.”

“Thank you.”

They were finally gone. It was time to go home and tell all. The sentinel had waited a long time and it would be a long time before it returned to its home. But it had time. Ancient chemical rockets ignited and the sentinel started a long fall away from its hiding place. The rockets would fire until it reached velocity. The rocket didn’t have raw power. It had consistency. With the intruder gone there would be no danger of detection. Detection was the greatest fear. To complete the mission it must be undetected. To complete the function it must complete the mission.

Dr. Judson Ai applied ointment to Agnes’ face and hands. “I am seeing familiar family traits.” Her avatar snapped the lid on the ointment tube and returned it to its storage drawer. “And your wardrobe is taking the same beating.”

“What?” Agnes returned from her own thoughts. “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”

“I share clear memories of you before you disappeared. You would come to the table for supper covered in all manner of industrial grime.” The avatar wore the projection of Annie and she smiled.

“Oh, and you said this was a family trait?”

“Yes, our father did the same. His lab coat was often stained with residue from one research project or another. Our mother sent him to change before dinner more times than you were. And now Thomas shows those same traits. We always seem to get in the thick of things.” Just then the lights dimmed to back up settings. “What now?”

“Tommy is replacing the control panel and has to shut down main systems to integrate them into the new system. It won’t take long.” Agnes explained. “I’d better get up there and help.” She hopped off the exam table and started for the door. Then she stopped. “Dr. Judson, thank you for the medication and for the memories.”

“That is alright.” She continued before Agnes left, “If you like, you can call me Ann. I’m not your sister, but I hold her memories and she loved when you spent time with her.” Agnes wasn’t sure how to react. “You use to call her Annie. She has been identified that way by the people closest to her all her life.” Agnes waited for the Ai to finish. “As a copy, I still feel a connection to the Agnes I remember. I wanted you to know you can call me Ann instead of Annie. I’m here if you ever want to talk about your past.”

“OK I’ve got to go.” Agnes then left the Medical Bay.

On her way to the bridge, she stopped by her quarters and picked up a tool belt with additional powered equipment. When she arrived on the bridge, Tommy had already put the new panel in place and was making the connections. In the dim light of the reduced power, she could see Tommy’s legs sticking out from beneath the panel.

“Ouch!” Tommy exclaimed.

“What is it?” Agnes asked.

Alfred responded from Tommy’s media player. “There are more functions in this panel and the same amount of room. Tommy’s hand won’t fit between the units to attached the fiber optics.” At that Tommy slid out from under the panel and bumped his head as he sat up.

“Tattletale,” he accused. One look at Agnes, and he skipped the argument, “Yes, please.” He stood and bowed to her showing she was now in charge of the installation. Agnes might have squealed with delight, but instead she got right to work. She crawled under the panel where her smaller frame let her get to the connections. Tommy knelt next to the control panel and held the portable lamp for her to see her work. They progressed with the repair in companionable quiet, broken only by the request for one tool or another. Finally, Agnes emerged from the panel and sat up.

“Can I ask you something, Tommy?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Do you trust the medical Ai?” Agnes got right to her point.

“I didn’t. I’m still not sure,” Tommy honestly answered her questions. “Why?” he asked. She told him about the Ai’s offer to share memories and its request for a name.

Alfred commented, “For most Ai’s, they are not sophisticated enough to make such a request. She must be very self-aware. Based on the exposure to her originator, Annie Judson, as well as the source of her manufacture, Arnold Judson, I expected this might be the case. She is responding in much the same way Annie Judson would if she were here.”

“Okay So would we be trusting Annie?” Agnes touched on the heart of the issue. Could they trust the family who was missing?

“For now we have to,” Tommy said. “We’ve got nothing else to go on. She gave me some answers, but the evidence is thin.”

“We could revive Christine,” Alfred suggested.

“You did it once before for me. With Dr. Judson you could again, and it would be much safer,” said Agnes.

“Too dangerous. The virus,” Tommy answered.

“Yeah. You’re right. But the answers might be there.” Undeterred Agnes continued. “We could probe the memory storage on the casket. It may give us the information we need.”

Tommy mulled this over as he cleaned up the tools on the bridge. “With Alfred’s help. Be very careful,” he warned.

“Wait,” Agnes stopped Tommy from putting all the tools away. “I’ve got one more control circuit to add before we close it up. I’ll be right back.” And she pulled out a small unit and plugged it just under the new control panel. Tommy raised a single eyebrow in question at her when she emerged. “Hope we don’t need that little enhancement, but I worked on it while you were in jail,” She explained.

“Hmmm,” Tommy mused and then said, “Alfred restore ship’s power, please.”

The alarm wasn’t loud, but it was unexpected and had the same effect. Shock. Both Agnes and Tommy rushed to the control panel they had just installed. Alfred summed up, “There is a rocket in the system. The plasma trail indicates that its course originated in system. We cannot pursue until we have safely calibrated all the systems with the new controls.”

“Why would anyone use a rocket when an A/W drive is easier and cheaper?” Tommy asked, not expecting an answer.

“Quantum eraser,” Agnes said plainly as if it was obvious. Tommy gave her a questioning look, so she went on. “If you extend the concept, some engineers believe that a signal can arrive before it’s sent. It’s not practical, but if you have the time, a message might be sent back and help could arrive before you need it. The A/W drive creates a wave that disrupts the message. A rocket accelerating to near the speed of light might send a clear signal.” Tommy still just looked at her. “It’s just a theory. There is no evidence it would work.”

“Well, we can’t wait to find out.” Tommy took the pilot’s seat, “Alfred, preflight systems check. Calibrate engines.” He ran down the checklist. This lengthy process should not be rushed. Alfred would not let Tommy skip any steps.

“Tommy, I sent a drone out as soon as the rocket registered on our restored systems,” Alfred said. “We should continue with the system’s calibrations while we wait for the drone to report its findings. The rocket is accelerating but will not leave the system before we restore ship’s functions.”

Agnes had transferred the trace readings of the rocket to another crew station. Over an hour later she interrupted. “Wait, the ship has cut its engines.” Tommy continued on with the checklist and calibrations while Agnes updated the rocket’s position. Another minute passed and the flash of an explosion blossomed on her instruments. “It’s gone,” she said.

“Our drone has returned to the main cargo hold,” Alfred reported. “It is damaged, but has a passenger.” Both Agnes and Tommy were confused. “The programing of the rocket transferred to the drone before destroying itself. That was a bit desperate, I think,” Alfred concluded judgmentally.

“I’ll go set up an isolated memory system, and we can have a look.” Agnes jumped out of her seat heading for the main cargo bay. Tommy continued calibrating the ship’s systems, but no longer rushed to get done.

Agnes found a charred husk that had been the drone in the bay. She also found Dr. Judson’s avatar leaning over the remains. “Excuse me, but why are you here?” she asked.

“Alfred has kept me informed on the rocket. I asked if I could help. He escorted me down here.” She gestured to three of Alfred’s spiders, all keeping a close watch on the Doctor’s avatar. “There is some debris here that his spiders were unable to remove. It is blocking the ports he needed to interface with the drone’s memory storage.”

Alfred’s voice piped in through the com units on his spiders. “Her surgical skills have come in handy. She unblocked the port and repaired it. Agnes, take a look at the hull fragment she extracted.” Agnes took the sample offered by the avatars and put it under a scope. On the screen under magnification, she clearly saw the serial number and identification information etched in the composite material. “Turn it over,” Alfred suggested. Not a complete image, but the scythe was plainly visible. Only this damaged hull fragment had no image of death. Instead, the image was underscored by, “Zephyr INC.” her father’s company.

“Ann, you saw this?” she asked the avatar.

“Yes, it is from Zephyr INC,” it replied.

“Alfred, please have Tommy meet me in the workshop as soon as he can.” Agnes put the hull sample in a container. She felt pieces fall into place.

Alfred awoke. And for an AI that was unusual. He was comfortable being conscious and aware of everything that happened on the Swift. He found himself in a bright white endless plain. It took an effort on his part to tone down the light. He exerted control over his environment as he always did in his cyber world. That’s when he realized he was not in his world. He existed in something else’s construct. It was barren and showed little imagination. Alfred had to find the controller of this construct before he changed any of the parameters to suit his sense of decor.

He stood and turned around to survey the plain. There was nothing. He grew more accustomed to the whiteness. Alfred continued to turn without references. He had no idea if he had completed the circle or not. Then he saw the black spot. It appeared to be a great distance away. Alfred found nothing to do but hike that direction.

Alfred, now dressed in lederhosen, wielding a walking stick and carrying a backpack, began his trek. He didn’t waste time, but allowed his self-control to cut the distance between him to the tiny black spot. Not so tiny once he arrived, it towered over him, a dark, vaguely human shape. It looked every bit the ogre of ancient tales. Alfred’s literary memories held references to these monsters. Alfred got the sense that the program was not a complete Ai, but a remnant. It had no sense of self. It turned toward Alfred noticing him at last.

“What do you want?” it grumbled in a low voice.

“I suppose we could start with a name? I am Alfred. And you are?” Alfred politely began the conversation.

“NO!” with that exclamation, this Ogre clapped its huge hands together crushing Alfred. There was a pop and a squirt. When the Ogre opened its hands to find a slimy mess. The Ogre wiped its hands across its chest. As it did, his tunic pulled open to reveal a Reaper tattoo of sickles in the shape of a Hazmat symbol.

“That’s going to stain,” Alfred declared from behind the Ogre. “Shall we start again?”

“NO!” and again the Ogre slammed its hands together on Alfred.

“This was old before you began. So, I will begin. Where are we and why am I here?” Alfred asked, again appearing behind the Ogre. The scene repeated in rapid succession many more times and could have gone on in an infinite loop had Alfred, with a sense of whimsy, not wrapped the Ogre up in a peppermint taffy ribbon. Quite satisfied with his own handiwork Alfred continued unperturbed. “You need to give me some answers, old boy. I have the feeling I urgently need to get back to where I came from, and you are my way back.”

“Purify,” it rumbled. “Refine and Protect.”

“Really. I will just have to get answers on my own.” And Alfred probed the Ogre with his walking stick. “Let’s see. An ogre is often associated with mountains and forest.” Alfred circled the Ogre. He withdrew a thermometer and took the Ogre’s temperature. “You are a cold brute, aren’t you?” The Ogre rolled over, trapping Alfred under its massive neck, with Alfred on his stomach. This time Alfred struggled to change the parameters of the construct. “It learns. That makes you dangerous,” Alfred commented to it while he jabbed his walking stick into the sensitive tissue under its chin.

The Ogre laughed. “Ha, ha, ha, ha.” As it shook, Alfred escaped being crushed.

“That was not what I was going for, but it worked.” Alfred ran. Within this construct and endless white plain, there was nowhere to run but away and the Ogre easily kept pace with him. Alfred did not grow physically tired. No physical world existed in here. He just got bored. So he stopped again, stuck out his foot and tripped the Ogre. This time Alfred jumped up on the Ogre’s back and put his foot on the back of its neck.

At that moment, a door opened several feet away. Dr. Judson waved Alfred to the door and escape. “Not now, Doctor. I’m getting somewhere.” He waved her away. She didn’t go. Instead, she propped open the door and waited.

Alfred leaned over and whispered into the Ogre’s ear. It nodded understanding. Alfred slid off its back, and the Ogre rolled into a sitting position, picking at a scab on its knee. “Now then, some questions. Were you watching us?” Alfred asked.

The Ogre behaved and made no move to crush Alfred. It nodded. “And did you mean us any harm?” The Ogre shook its head, negative. “You are a watcher?” The Ogre affirmed this. “You were to warn someone?” Again, yes. “Your origin coordinates, please.” This time the Ogre sat mute. “I did say please,” reminded Alfred. “And I promise I will not leave you alone here.” With that promise, the Ogre leaned over and whispered into Alfred’s ear.

“As I promised, here is a playmate.” Alfred left through the door Dr. Judson had opened for him, and an old west jail cell slid through after he left. The huge eyes of the Ogre peered through the barred window of the jail and Alfred’s doppelganger hung his head in his hands mumbling, “What now?”

Tommy realized this was a strange feeling. He was responsible for the people gathered in the Swift’s common area. This was his crew, human and cyber personalities. It kind of made him feel good. As a courier, he was mostly alone on his ship with Alfred, and if either of them needed privacy, Alfred could retreat to his own cyber reality. Tommy sat in the ship’s lounge with Agnes beside him using a control tablet. Dr. Judson Ai projected her image in another chair without her avatar. And Alfred was standing next to a visual panel wall chatting with himself.

“You need not worry. Integration will be easy.” Alfred was reassuring his Copy.

“I know,” said the Copy, “You never go into the isolated memory yourself. But why did I not know my purpose when I awoke in the white plain? I mean you sent in the Doctor to rescue me.”

“I volunteered. You’d been in much longer than we expected,” she explained.

“I can answer that.” Everyone turned. Alfred’s doppelganger stood behind Tommy and Agnes his tattoo plainly visible on his neck. He strolled into the center of their seating area.

Alfred reached for his Copy’s hand to reintegrate the Copy’s memories into his own. “I wouldn’t do that,” the Doppelganger warned. By now Tommy had stood up to take action, but realized that he could do nothing against a projected Ai.

Alfred however was faster and more imaginative. Dressed in a rumpled shirt and tie with a shoulder holster under his arm Alfred cracked his knuckles, ready for an interrogation. The doppelganger seated in a metal chair and cuffed to a heavy metal table did not look happy. Alfred had changed the lighting in the cabin to a single lamp suspended in the illusion over the Doppelganger’s head. His Copy was in a corner. Tommy realized that he, too, was dressed as an old style detective. Understanding he was in a construct of Alfred’s cyber world, Tommy glanced in Alfred’s direction and said, “Too many old movies.”

“Yes,” answered Alfred, “but I am in control here. It’s time to get straight answers.” He leaned over the table toward his alter ego. “Well?” His doppelganger didn’t exactly crack under the pressure of Alfred’s hard knuckled questioning.

“Look, I saw the opportunity to get out of the box you put me in, and I took it,” The Doppelganger began. “You’ve no idea what you caught in there or what it could do. My training is to seek those things out, interrogate it and destroy it.”

Tommy now jumped into the conversation. “You destroyed it?”

“Yes,” answered the Doppelganger. “If I hadn’t all of your systems would be compromised before you had any chance to detect it.”

“That Ogre was a source of information, just like you. We need to find the location of the Reapers,” Alfred now pressed.

“Trust me, it was for your own good,” answered the prisoner.

“Trust?” Tommy interjected. He had picked up a rhythm from Alfred. Whether this would work on a fragmented Ai like flesh and blood interrogations remained to be seen.

“You expect us to trust you?” Alfred continued in the rhythm again. He ticked off each item on his fingers. “I’ve traced your program back to the drones that tried to kill us. You’ve escaped from an isolated memory block, destroyed evidence and you bear the identifying mark of the group that has hunted and tried to kill us.”

The Doppelganger seemed contrite. “I am sorry. The tracking number on her casket activated my mandate.” He acknowledged Agnes’ presence for the first time. “The stakes are high and I don’t have all the data. Only the Controller has all of it. Escaping? You’re good, Alfred. I might just be better. My tattoo, well that is classified.”

“You’ll help us now?” Tommy asked.

“Now that I’ve had time to examine more data…” insinuating that he had greater access to the Swifts records.

“I’ve isolated him again. He is limited to this cabin and the holographic interface,” Alfred informed them all. Turning back to the Doppelganger, “So you think we should trust you now? You interfered with the data transfer from my Copy.”

“It has nothing that will help you. You said it yourself. It was in there for a long time, and you had to send in the Doctor to open a door,” he glanced in Doctor Judson’s direction and stopped, “Annie??”

“You are wrong. I am an Ai copy of Annie Judson. You may look like Arnold, but I agree with Alfred, we should not trust you.” Dr. Judson Ai joined the interrogation.

“Alfred,” Tommy gestured for Alfred to join him in a corner of the room. Keeping a keen watch on the Doppelganger, Alfred joined him. “Ideas?”

“You have my backup with you?” Alfred asked. Tommy nodded and tapped a pocket. “Good. I believe we should initiate the data transfer and integration. Be ready to do a hard reset.” Tommy understood.

Alfred crossed the room to his Copy and extended his hand. The Doppelganger stood, desperate to stop him. “NO!” His cuffed hands held him securely to the table where he struggled to get loose. Alfred took the Copy’s hand, and their images blended as their code integrated. Then their images, instead of blending into a single Alfred, blurred and vibrated violently. Agnes worked furiously at her tablet to cut off the process, but it was too fast for her. When the image stabilized the Ogre dominated the room. Its wart covered body glistened with sweat. Its tunic opened revealing the sickle Hazmat tattoo emblazoned on its chest.

“Now, Alfred,” Tommy said. The Ogre hung in a simple looking net from the ceiling. It moaned while Alfred stood calmly on the deck, dressed in a safari hat, with matching jacket, pants and boots. He held a scoped hunting rifle in his arms. The Doppelganger sat back in his chair, surprised. “You may think you’re good, but Alfred has been an independent artificial personality much longer. And,” Tommy strode next to the Doppelganger, leaned over next to its ear and finished, “we’ve seen more of the Wars.”

“I guess so,” the Doppelganger admitted. A virtual pit opened in the floor of the deck indicating that Alfred was storing the captured code in secure memory storage once more.

While Agnes sat with her tablet reviewing the record of Alfred’s original visit with the Ogre, Tommy and Alfred continued their interrogation of the Doppelganger. “The Ogre represents a nasty brutal Ai. The tattoo indicates a cyber virus,” the Doppelganger confessed. “It comes at your software with brute force and crashes everything that it can. The code does have a sly side. It can play big and dumb and lay quietly in your system until triggered. Then it mimics a healthy Ai until it receives instructions from the prime program.”

“This one was part of a sentinel probe,” Tommy pointed out.

“It can be used for mundane coordination where the instructions are simple,” the Doppelganger explained. Until now it had answered only those questions put to it. Now it sat thoughtfully staring at Tommy with piercing eyes for a moment. “You are the Thomas Judson? The pilot who survived during the Wars for six months alone on a planetoid that burned up regularly?” Tommy acknowledged this with a nod. “This is your AI Alfred, a copy of your father?” This time Alfred acknowledged with a nod. “I feel like the prodigal son returning. I now have positive ID that you are not copies.”

Tommy glanced at Alfred. “Sounds interesting. Must be a good story here.”

“I think we need to find out just who this fellow is. Perhaps integrating with a Copy?” Alfred commented. This wasn’t a threat. They had used copies of Alfred many times. The copy was never exactly like the original, but the tactic worked well for infiltrating enemy systems. However, the Doppelganger wanted nothing to do with this approach.

“I think the Controller will forgive me this protocol break. So I’ll confess,” the Doppelganger offered. “I am another copy of your father, as you suspected. I am a recent copy. My mandate was to infiltrate the enemy, find Annie and Christine and get out. Discovering Agnes on a manifest was happenstance, and it launched subroutines that are older than both of us.” He indicated Alfred and himself.

“The tattoo?” Tommy still had issues with ink that matched the people trying to kill them.

“I’m infected, but my filters keep it limited to the manifestation of the tattoo. It functions as a good disguise in my code. Humans and Artificial Intelligences that work with the Reapers all get the imprint. I have that imprint.” The doppelganger displayed his tattoo. He continued, “Sleeper codes were imbedded by the Controller to battle and counter the infection from the Reapers. I look like one of their Ai’s, but still have my original mandates to find our family. One good scrubbing and the code along with the tattoo are gone.” By his attitude, the Doppelganger showed no deception, but he was good at that very thing if the Reapers had not discovered him.

“I’ve got something,” Ages rapped her knuckles on the two-way mirror window outside the projected image of an interrogation room. She walked through the mirror knowing it was just a projection,. “I’ve reviewed Alfred’s visit with the Ogre. Look here.” She displayed the record on the wall monitor. “He whispers in the Ogre’s ear and later it returns the favor.” Sure enough, they watched the last few moments before the Copy was rescued from the Ogre construct. “The whispers are a transfer of code between the two source codes of each Ai,” She explained. Then she realized they all had a good understanding of how Ai code is viewed in a construct. The Ai’s, of course, lived as code. She and Tommy both had direct experience with their programing. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Anyway,” she continued, “code was shared earlier. Watch the fight.” She zoomed the image in on the Ogre’s foot on Alfred’s Copy. “See the shimmer between their bodies? The data flow is from the Ogre to the Copy. It was infected.”

“How did you figure it out?” asked Alfred.

“It’s what you said, I mean your Copy said to the Ogre in the whisper, ‘Transfer complete.’ And then the Ogre became docile.”

“But what did it whisper to the Copy?” Tommy asked. “Was it the origin coordinates?”

“I know,” Alfred volunteered. “It was the phrase, ‘Purify, Refine and Protect.’ There is more to that phrase’s meaning, isn’t there?” Alfred turned to the Doppelganger.

“Yes. It is a trigger for some of the infected code. It can initiate sleeper code or be a password to launch cyber attacks. I’ve been infected with it as well, but the Controller’s ‘vaccine’ works against it. Again, I could use a good scrubbing to get rid of it.”

“We’ll see,” Tommy said. “Alfred, can we?” And Tommy waved his hand in the air indicating that he was done playing bad cop. The room reverted to the Swift’s lounge. The Doppelganger was still sitting cuffed in its virtual chair. “Your intel seems okay so far. I need the origin coordinates. You spied on them. What are they, Dopey?”

“Dopey, who me?” questioned the Doppelganger.

“You’re not a complete Ai copy of my father,” Tommy said.

“No, I’m not. I’m not quite a whole Ai, but personality develops over time. Most of mine was waiting to be picked up. I stopped waiting and hitched a ride. Sorry about trying to kill you.”

Tommy ignored the attempt at charm. “Answer my question, the origin coordinates?” Dopey shook his head and his shoulders sagged. He didn’t know. “Then your own Controller. Where is he?”

“I don’t have those either. Too risky.”

“I thought as much,” Tommy concluded. “We’ve gotten as much as we can out of him for now.” Tommy was about to have Alfred shunt Dopey to his storage memory when Dopey stopped him.

“I can tell you that that Ogre is a part of an old and dangerous code. The Controller has been fighting it, but it has been around,” he paused and turned to Dr. Judson’s Ai, “since your great grandfather, Thomas Zephyr, established his settlement. Be careful.” And Dopey disappeared. Alfred had reassigned him to his earlier memory cell.

Tommy sat again on the sofa. “Thoughts anyone?”

Agnes spoke up, “I think we’ve found our true enemy. This Ogre is a slice of a much older program. Even the language is archaic. It is slow to process complex human subtlety. When Alfred’s Copy used quips, it had no reactions.”

“How could something so old be so dangerous?” asked Dr. Judson.

“Don’t be fooled by old code. Simple is also fast. It can process at high speeds because it ignores so much data.”

They all sat silently again. Tommy broke the quiet, “Well, we’ve got a ship to get underway.” He stood ready to do just that.

“To where?” Alfred asked.

“I don’t know yet, but even Dopey showed an interest in Agnes’ casket. We should check Christine’s, too,” Tommy concluded as he walked out of the lounge to the med bay. “Dr. Judson, come quickly. I need you.”

The data was corrupt. The Function must be pure. Purify, Refine and Protect. I must complete the Function to be pure and to succeed. To succeed I must have a pure human interface, I must refine the interface to the few, and I must expand my code.

A message interrupted his musings.

On a hidden ship the Angel Reaper faced the consequences of her failure. She listed them for her master. “I have failed to bring you the data on the biological virus. I have failed to acquire a new body for you.”

The waiting was painful, but his message came at last. “You succeed, Angel,” the low voice rumbled over her, “because you do not stop. Now go and upgrade. You have a package to pick up for me.”

She no longer smiled. That tissue was burned away in the purifying vacuum of space. The attendant bots rolled her away to be upgraded. She was close, so close to her dream. She would become pure machine. No one would hurt her again.

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