POD (The Pattern Universe) (11 page)

“Why do you think building Zeke a Gunship will help him?”

Osbourne leaned forward, almost spilling his beer in his excitement.

“Simply two things. Firstly, we desperately need a small, fast Marauder-type ship; one that can be as effective in the atmosphere, as well as in space. Two, we need to test out the latest AI prototype that we have been developing in the lab and only Zeke is experienced enough with one to trial it for us.

There is a lot of new stuff being incorporated into the ship, and Zeke is the ideal person to test it out. He is, out of everyone on this island, the only one with sufficient knowledge of alien technology and also the most experienced in dealing with artificial intelligence. We desperately need his experience to iron out the bugs so that we can incorporate the new technology and Al’s into the big ships down there.”

“You're telling me why ‘we’ need this ship; you aren’t telling me why you think Zeke will want to be the pilot.”

“No, you’re right.” He thought for a moment, gathering his thoughts properly. “The simple answer to that is obvious when you think about it. Zeke wants or needs, to go back into space. He has no home here; he doesn’t even keep a spare shirt in his apartment.” He pointed off down in the direction of the apartment block, as if they could both see what he was referring to. “It's the same in Washington. It's as if he is waiting to be whisked off and doesn’t even want to carry a bag.” Osbourne finished leaning back with a sigh.

Garner thought about it for a moment. He had to agree. Osbourne had identified the problem and while he and Annie had been trying to help Zeke put down roots, Zeke had been avoiding doing anything of the sort. The lad was spot on and, if anyone deserved this, then Zeke was that person. He sighed. He had never won a single argument with Osbourne, his logic was unassailable. If he didn’t like the boy so much, he would be infuriated. As it was he just looked at him fondly. He thought of him as a son, while his real son stayed safely in Washington DC, living under his mother’s protection, Osbourne was here making a difference.

He made his decision. “Okay, Ossie, do what you need to do. Let's make it the best ship we can build and if you have any problems with anyone, send them to me.” Garner resigned himself to the fusillade of complaints he would receive from the different section heads. Still, he thought, it would be worth it if Zeke came back to them. Oh heck! wait until he told Annie, she would flip.

Osbourne grinned and leaped out of the chair, keen to be off now he had achieved his primary objective. He backed out of the room, smiling. “Thanks, Frank. Don’t tell him what I’m doing. Let's leave it as a surprise for him.” He left the office and the door closed behind him.

It was only after he left that Garner realised they hadn’t gone through Osbourne’s budget, and he had just agreed to sign a blank cheque. Damnation, he really must try and get a better grip on that generous streak of his where it applied to Osbourne, he should at least try and get some concessions out of him to appease the bean-counters He chuckled momentarily forgetting how tired he was.

He thought about the whole idea some more. It had been obvious to those who knew him, that Zeke had been reluctant to participate directly since Pod had gone. The more he considered the actions of Osbourne, the more he realised that, by chance, he might have provided Frank with a way of pulling Zeke back aboard the Space Island project.

Annie, who was aware of Zeke’s close call with Ferris and the ‘Crusher’ tractor field that nearly killed him, thought he was possibly feeling the strain of failure. In his mind, he was supposed to have stopped Ferris. Instead, he had armed him and set him on the world. Garner, as President and Commander In Chief, had been Ferris’ superior so if anyone should hold the blame, it should be him.

Now, Zeke felt that he could do more as a roving ambassador, so spent his time making influential friends for the Space Council wherever he could. He also regularly found talented people and sent them over to the island.

He and Annie both knew the real reason, as did Osbourne, Garner realised. Zeke had lost a large part of his life with the departure of Zirkos, Ship and Pod and had been trying to find a way to go on without them. Now, through Osbourne, they might have found a solution.

He would have a word with the ship-building crews himself and see if they couldn’t drop everything and move forward on this. He would cite military threat and security of the island as the reason and it would all be done ‘hush hush'. Frankly, Osbourne’s idea of a Marauder class ship was an excellent one, especially if they were going to have a policing requirement in the near future as Pennington had outlined in their last meeting.

The intercom buzzer went... That would be his next appointment. Frank sighed.

Three weeks later, in record time for the construction crews who were on a bonus for fast completion of the build, the Terrestrial T-Ship was born. The sleek lines impressed Garner no end. He had seen many ships, although only recently spaceships, in his time. This one was seriously and overpoweringly, the most impressive to look at.

Osbourne had the AI run through a complete stationary systems test and the full complement of guns and missile tubes grew out of the sides of the ship via dedicated nanobots. Garner thought of flying up to the Fortress and screwing with Ferris a little, before discharging everything at him. He still hadn't forgiven him the murderous coup attempt.

They had put in a call to Zeke last week under the pretext of needing him for issues to do with the major cradle and ship crews as well as a surprise for him. He had agreed to drop everything and come back for a few days. Garner was going to meet with him in the morning. He didn’t for one minute believe that, knowing Zeke as he did, he would suffer the routine without first seeing the surprise. This was well and good by Garner, seeing as he had no other items on the agenda for Zeke to deal with.

He was arriving the following day and the AI was prepped to only accept Zeke’s commands. Osbourne, who was now under pressure to catch up on field tests he had been delaying, had unexpectedly left Garner to do the tour, with the proviso that the AI would prompt him if he forgot to include anything. Garner was secretly pleased about that. He rarely had the opportunity to take Zeke by surprise - this was going to be an enjoyable experience.

Osbourne had been all smiles when he saw Garner look admiringly at the ship, and he had walked away whistling. He had given the handover to Frank because he knew that Zeke would respond to that better. He also wanted to thank Frank for backing him on the construction.

He was aware that Frank had made sure that everyone pulled for this build and where he had anticipated maybe six months, Frank had ensured it was done in under a month. He would watch from afar and let them enjoy the moment. Besides, he had access to the AI remotely so could watch from his terminal in the lab.

- 9 -

Lang’s personal shield emitter lay dismantled on his desk, the innards spread about in an orderly manner. The main component board was raised off the desk with clamp stands. Trailing from it were four coloured wires tagged with tiny bulldog clips, each linked to an attachment plugged into his computer.

Even though Ferris didn’t allow them to be worn, everyone still kept their shields; they were bio-linked and expensive to replace. They often kept them in a pocket, switched off; in case of emergency, they justified when questioned by security. Ferris didn’t seem to mind, he just wouldn’t tolerate them being switched on. He said they aggravated his Ferrazine molecules.

Everyone knew it was only because he was a control freak and wanted his people to feel vulnerable. None of the others believed the shields would work with him around anyway, they knew he had over-ride control codes. They weren’t prepared to get him mad by contesting it, and they knew they were safe enough in the Fortress.

Lang had seen Ferris’s abilities once or twice. On one occasion Ferris, who had just been walking through, moved in a blur across the room disabling a malfunctioning robot that was attacking an engineer. The engineer had later told Lang that the particular model robot Ferris tackled was capable of crushing a human being with one clawed appendage, yet Ferris had overpowered it, effortlessly.

He continued to watch the screen as the lists of files and code sped across it as they downloaded onto the board. He had inserted the memory chip earlier in the day while working in the general lab. Now, he used a tiny dropper to coat it with a grey smudge which, even as he watched, dispersed the upgraded nanobots evenly across the chip. He had designed them to protect the data in the event his shield was switched off, or overridden. Should the case be opened without them being disarmed, they would destroy the chip by eating through it, then destroy themselves by overheating, so that they melted.

Satisfied he had done everything possible to safeguard his technology from getting into the wrong hands, like Ferris and others like him, he gathered up all the bits he had used and ‘nuked’ the evidence in a crucible burner he kept on hand for that purpose. Now, all that remained of his research was contained in the secret chip within the shield emitter.

He turned around and noticed the hover globe. He thought he detected movement, as if it was just re-settling in its wall cradle. He shook his head; part of him had never trusted the damn things. Unlike many of the workers here, he rarely trusted it to do anything except a rudimentary housekeeping of his schedules.

He didn’t intend for it to follow him down to the escape route either. He had deliberately trapped it in the other room on at least ten occasions in the last month to test the reactions and see if anything happened, or if it was reported. He fully expected to get hauled in front of Goeth, or worse, Ferris. Nothing happened other than initially sounding its high-pitched alarm. More recently, it just banged itself futilely against the door in an attempt to follow him until he had gone back in again and released it.

He waited until 03:00hrs.., a time that he knew the shifts would be at their lowest ebb and activity in the corridors would be virtually non existent. He had set the hack virus he had previously used in the laboratory, to activate across the corridors he was using, just after 03:05am for fifteen minutes.

Lang looked at his watch and moved into the bedroom. He pretended to be going in, commanding the globe to switch off main lights, so that it went to follow him into the room. It had its own charge point behind the door and immediately went to its cradle. Lang backed out quickly and closed the door on it for the last time.

He was ready to go. His escape clothing, worn under his lab-coat, wouldn't make him look out of place if staff saw him, they would assume he was off on some harmless errand and ignore him. He was the type that was easy to ignore.

Turning around once to look back into his apartment, saying goodbye to the artificially lit set of rectangles that constituted his home for the last year, he let the door close. Then, silently making his way to the first intersection of walkways that criss-crossed the mountain complex, he took the elevator down to the lowest level.

Lang had timed his exit well. He followed the unused corridor downward until he had gone beyond the lit areas where he activated the glow on his personal orb to help guide him through the narrow, rough cut passages.

These were the pools, a place where the waste products from the Fortress were broken down into harmless residues by a mixture of simple nanobots and bacteria. It was then fed back into the water system to flow out of the complex and out of the mountain. It was this he had found as an escape route.

Lang was the person who installed the local shield nullifiers originally, so was one of only a very few who even knew there was an exit out of the Fortress down there. He remembered Ferris grabbing him when he got back and warning him to keep very quiet about it, on pain of a terminal case of inflicted agony. His escape, though, was not without hazard. He had to get through some very narrow channels which, if he remembered rightly, were subject to flooding.

Lang turned his new personal shield up high; he was going to get cold and wet. Despite the incredible innovations implemented into shields that monitored the wearer's health and security, nobody had come up with a way of making the shield impervious to the incursion of water. He hoped its activation wouldn’t alert anyone in the Fortress.

As with air for breathing, the necessity of being able to eat, drink and bathe was intrinsic to human society, so nobody thought it should be possible to block off either. It was a shame because, right now, Lang wasn’t looking forward to traversing an underwater river for several kilometres with just insulation.

He donned his balaclava, made from the Fortress’ own thermal insulation designs, then did the same with gloves and boots and attached a glow-bulb – another Fortress design – to his shoulder harness. Lastly, he donned a small rucksack that contained his worldly possessions: a small data-pad, a few clothes and an encrypted diary full of personal memories. He was all set.

He had to slide off the edge into a deep channel. The cold immediately hit him, causing him to suck in air and tense in shock, while the thermal gear got to work.

For the first few hundred yards, he bobbed along sedately as the small lagoon only held the overflow from the diverted river. As Lang approached the point where the diverted water rejoined the main stream, he was glad of the shield’s ability to protect him from the rocks jutting out as the river became more forceful.

As his body contorted to manage the swift currents, the cold water invaded his thermal clothing, running down his back where gaps occurred between skin and material. It made him shudder as it found new places to go. Then, as the water warmed from his body heat, it added to the barrier from the cold.

Lang wasn’t scared; it was exhilarating. The thought of escape from the Fortress and the actual carrying out of his plan, made him feel like laughing in gleeful excitement. He didn’t have time to laugh now, as the water raced through an increasingly smaller channel. There must have been rain recently as the level was higher than he remembered. He was running very close to the roof and might soon get pushed under water. He tried to recollect the shape of the tunnel from here to the main pool where the nullifiers were positioned.