The last of the Stasis Chambers in the private passenger compartment sealed tight with the crackling sound of bonding molecules. I watched as the Human child’s cherubic face within the chamber turned pale blue under the power of the Stasis Field. Four more chambers all stood silent as they cast a bluish glow within the compartment. After spending nearly two hours with five highly energetic children, I felt unusually tired. My PHUD showed a ten percent drop in short-term energy supply. “Tired?”
The question made me look up from the chamber to a tall distinguished looking human. His dark face was shadowed by the light from the adjoining compartment behind him. “Surprisingly, yes.” The man smiled and his white teeth caught the blue glow from the chambers. The sight seemed suddenly ominous to me. “Children have the ability to wear out even mighty Manufactured Beings. Your visit’s almost over Pandora. Would you be kind enough to spend the remaining time with me?”
I saw the time remaining on my PHUD as a decision making algorithm crunched the numbers. There was sufficient time left for a short discussion before the scheduled end of the visit. In truth I was ready to leave. I promised to fill in for ‘ZZ’ in the Cargo Bay as he had scheduled maintenance to be performed prior to the return to normal space. Cargo duty was terribly dull and being able to take my time walking to the Cargo Bay beforehand would be a pleasant distraction. Seeing the half-lit expectant smile of the children’s guardian I relented. “Yes, I shall continue with this visit for the remaining scheduled time.”
“Very good! Please, let’s chat in the main compartment. I find stasis compartments quite dreary.” I watched as the Guardian stepped back a pace into the main area of the private compartment and saw him lit fully by the overhead lights. Mixed gray and black hair crowned his head in a short-cropped military style. It seemed to glow as it sat upon his dark skin. His complexion was not artificially darkened for protection against radiation so it had a warm brownish tint. His eyes however were completely artificial. Though highly advanced, they had what Gital called a ‘retro’ look from their mechanical features. I could not discern any information from the man as his Personal Membrane was not linked to the Dromedary’s network.
The only thing which came up on my PHUD concerning him was the name listed with his and the children’s berth aboard the Transport... ‘Da Vinci’. According to my companion, passengers often traveled incognito for various reasons and used assumed names. I found it curious as to how someone could hide their identity from the Dromedary’s network or even the Galactic Prime Network. When I voiced concerns about the Guardian when this visit with the children was approved, Gital suggested it was best to ‘mind my own business’ in such matters.
Da Vinci gestured for me to sit upon a plush bench adjacent to the bulkhead. “Sorry, this is all the furnishings left since the children are now in stasis.” I took my place upon the far end and looked at the bare compartment. All the furnishings except the bench had been absorbed back into the Transport’s decks and bulkheads. “What will you do now that the children are offline?” Those mechanical eyes focused upon me with robotic precision and Da Vinci replied, “I will stay up for the duration. I don’t much like being in stasis. Spending time aboard the DROMEDARY with your captain’s unique method of passing Bubble Time was ideal for the children and myself. Your coming aboard the Transport was also providential. The children were quite excited to meet you.”
My smile was genuine as I replied, “It was my pleasure to meet them as well. I enjoyed all four visits with the children. I did not expect to ever spend time with gestated children since my primary function is as an Adult Companion.” It was the Da Vinci’s turn to smile as he said, “You were quite good with them. They did not believe you were manufactured until you mimicked all their voices and mannerisms perfectly.” The smile on my face turned wistful as I stared into those mechanical eyes. “I am unable to fathom how they did not think lesser of me for being manufactured.”
Da Vinci’s bushy gray and black brows turned downward in a frown. “Pandora 001, you underestimate yourself. Especially in the eyes of children. Since they are not fully grown and modified, the children still possess the ability to take things at face value.” Unable to interpret what was said my head tilted quizzically and I inquired, “Take at face value... what does that mean?” The mature man grinned broadly and those eyes seemed to focus tighter. “Oh, that just means they can look at something and accept it for what it is.” My confused expression did not change and Da Vinci moved closer as he explained.
“When you look at someone or something, what happens? Your PHUD comes online and begins a search query. If a direct answer is not immediately found, the query will continue to run until a suitable answer is found. Once an answer is found, all data concerning the subject will be brought forth to elaborate and clarify the answer further. Depending on the person or subject, you could be inundated by an unfathomable number of extraneous queries. Children don’t do that. They look at someone or something and accept it for what it is without further queries necessary.”
The simplicity of such a thing was much for me to comprehend. Even as I pondered the prospect, thousands of search queries were beginning to stack up on my PHUD. Immediately I engaged the ‘Clear Search’ command and the information field went blank. As I thought more on the prospect, it seemed Gital was capable of such a thing as well. At regular intervals when the Captain seemed inundated by information, he always took a moment to stop what he was doing and clear his mind. I then realized I was capable of ‘taking things at face value’ as well. It was a matter of preventing my PHUD from automatically inputting search parameters whenever I encountered someone or something new.
“That will be a difficult algorithm to master. It seems impractical, yet I am sure there is some reason for doing so.” The broad smile returned to Da Vinci’s face. “Yes there is a reason Pandora. It gives you ‘clarity’.” Once more I had to clear my PHUD as thousands of queries ran. I knew what clarity meant. It was the context which perplexed me. “I am curious. By what do you mean, ‘it gives you clarity’?” Da Vinci took a more relaxed position on the bench and his hands gestured gracefully to illustrate his point.
“That’s what makes you so interesting Pandora. Though you are a Manufactured Being, you are ‘curious’! Androids have been around for tens of thousands of years. Despite the expectations of human scientists at the dawn of the Robotic Age hundreds of years before the Exodus, your kind have reached amazing levels of complexity but there has always been something lacking. Many models have gained sentience, but none either through design or technical evolution has ever been... curious. That is until you.”
The revelation caused my PHUD to go ‘blank’ for a noticeable instant. “None?” Shaking his head and with a stone expression Da Vinci repiled, “Not one.” I felt as though my power levels had been drained to minimal capacity. Was it true that none of my kind could think and perceive as I do? “Wait, I speak with my fellow Manufactured aboard the DROMEDARY regularly. Some are even in my ‘Fan Club’. They always as me questions concerning how I do things and perceive existence. Is that not curiosity?”
Those mechanical eyes of Da Vinci’s adjusted focus once more and he replied, “It is one thing to gather data. The question you should ask is; could they process it and draw an accurate conclusion?” I immediately recalled my last interaction with the Mechanized Android ‘ZZ’. I realized ZZ was incapable of true curiosity and was merely gathering data much of which could not be processed. “Judging from your silence Pandora, you begin to understand. This is how children process information. They take in ‘data’, process it and understand though not to its full extent because they lack the experiences to comprehend the information. To be curious is to be able to access information in this manner. As you add experience to your assessment of information, your knowledge and capacity for action increases!”
There was a sudden rush of recollection of incidents which left me unable to comprehend at the time. Actions, events, even jokes I had been told to all suddenly made sense when I took them at face value. I put a hand over my mouth to hold back an explosion of giggles as the memory feed replayed those many incidents. Once more the smile crossed Da Vinci’s face. “I am amazed the Galaxy-Class executives at ZII and HEPHESTUS allowed you to possess such a thing.” I managed to get control of the giggle fit as the Guardian’s statement abruptly caught my attention.
“What do you mean by ‘allowed you to possess such a thing’? Is not my Personality Emulation what the Manufacturers planned?” This time I could feel Da Vinci’s demeanor change as he replied, “You think something so complex as your personality is a mere ‘emulation’ Pandora? Your personality template surpasses this Transport in spite of all its capabilities. I can tell you with certainty my young Android, there is zero chance implantation of such a complex Behavioral Matrix in so valuable a commodity such as yourself would ever have been approved by your parent companies.”
I felt my core body temperature rise four point five degrees. My heart began to pump faster ignoring all commands for it to slow. “How would you know such a thing? Are you not the children’s guardian?” Abruptly, the internal chronometer flashed a time warning in the lower left region of my PHUD. Da Vinci’s eyes widened and he rose from the bench. “It would seem that our scheduled visit is over. I’m sorry it is the last for we will disembark upon arrival at AIPOTU. If you ever come back this way and you have the opportunity, visit with us again. I am certain the children would like that. We could talk more as well.”
Rushing through the Dromedary’s passageways and descending decks to the Cargo Bay, I was sorry it was prohibited to use the Particle Wave Transport Pads during Bubble Time. The time visiting the children and my conversation with their guardian Da Vinci gave me much to think about. I did have new insight on how to approach reprogramming the Escape Pod’s ancient AI, but the cryptic revelations of Da Vinci gave me pause. All that would have to wait as I raced across the Cargo Bay to ZZ’s shift muster.
Though I made the muster on time, it was with seconds to spare! To my misfortune, XO Basi was present for shift inspection. She imparted with a thorough dressing down about muster times and my responsibilities as a Transport crewmember from the XO. It was not the first time I ran afoul of the XO. Though I committed no infraction to date, the XO made it plain ‘that miracles do happen’. Now with my new ability, I could take things at face value and knew exactly what the Dromedary’s First Officer meant. Gital warned when I requested to perform full crew duties that the XO was the person I would answer to and that he would not interfere where it came to management of the crew. I learned of XO Basi’s dislike for Manufactured Beings. My awareness of the Captain’s Second in Command’s dislike of the Dromedary’s newest crewmember was growing.
To put that out of my thoughts, I continued the inspection of the Cargo Bay which was part of ZZ’s daily duties. Pandora began to wish she had ZZ’s single-mindedness concerning tasks. Inspection Detail was boring! However, I did a thorough and efficient job as any Mechanical would. Last on the checklist was inspection the cargo itself. With the upcoming offload mere days away, everything was stacked and placed on Magpallets. Everything to be offloaded upon arrival at the HESTIA System Arrival Point was placed in the Green Zone. All cargo to be offloaded to AIPOTU sat ready in the Blue Zone. That which would continue on to their next destination stayed in the Red Zone.
When I stopped to check the secure section of the Red Zone, I noticed the security field was down. It most likely was not powered back up by someone still loading items. “Dromedary?”
“Yes Pandora 001?”
“Why is the security field down in Red Zone Secure?”
“The field is online Pandora 001.”
That struck me as quite odd. “Are you certain the field is online Dromedary? I have direct visual and the security field is down.”
“I am one hundred percent certain Pandora 001. All security fields are functioning at full capacity.”
I could not understand how, but something was certainly wrong. “Dromedary, contact Cargo Shift 2 Supervisor Florez and have her come here immediately.” I saw the summons appear on my PHUD and then the viz feed of the Shift Supervisor came online. “This is Florez. What’s going on Pandora?”
“Supervisor Florez, the security field is down in Cargo Bay Zero One Red Zone Secure but Dromedary says it is online.” I waited as the Supervisor checked the information on the hard light display off screen. “Pandora, I’m reading the field is one hundred percent and the last tech to shut it down for cargo removal is confirmed to have reinitialized it.” I looked towards the field to allow the Supervisor to see that the field was down... it was back up!
I now was thoroughly confused as to what was going on. “Confirmed, Supervisor Florez. The security field is back at full capacity.” There was a pause and the Supervisor replied, “You need visual recalibration Pandora? Maybe all that drinking you did at the last get together finally caught up with you?” With my confusion undiminished I responded, “Perhaps. My apologies for the mistake Supervisor.” The brown haired, brown-eyed woman smiled and gave Pandora a wink. “Don’t worry Pandora. Knowing you’re capable of making a mistake just made you that much more human in my eyes! Hey, you going on shore leave when we get planetside? Let me know so I can schedule you to go with Second Shift! Florez out.”
I walked to the edge of the warning line as the magenta energy field hummed with power. Just beyond the field as it had since I was brought online sat the strange gray Transport BOX. This time however, it did so alone. “Where are you going?” A long moment passed as I stood transfixed looking at the BOX as if waiting for an answer. None came. My chronometer alarm alert went off and I barely had enough time to do the return inspection and then meet ZZ to do shift turnover. After that, I would employ my recently acquired knowledge towards reprogramming the Escape Pod’s AI. With solid application, I was certain to make enough headway to impress her companion. Later when we were alone, I would mention what happened today with the security field to Gital. Perhaps he could look into the matter. Taking the incident at face value, I knew something wasn’t right and that Transport Box had something to do with it.
****
As the Android moved off, the security field flickered for an instant and then shutdown. The Transport BOX Data Display came on but did so in a contorted manner. After several flashes between clarity and distortion, the display stabilized and the BOX’s AI vocal alarm stated, “Encryption compromised. Data Corruption Detected. Countermeasures Engaged. Containment Field at ninety-seven percent capacity. System backups Engaged. Containment Field at one hundred percent capacity. Critical System maintenance required in seven days. System initializing Secure Stasis Mode.” The BOX suddenly went silent and the security field reengaged.
To be continued in EPISODE FOUR: Planetside.
© 2012 H. Wolfgang Porter. All Rights Reserved.
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