By David C. Daoust
The bridge of the old Rover was, normally, fairly spacious. That is, when the majority of the room was not being taken up by the sprawled-out form of a Battle Drone. The drone’s design, was clearly inspired by the agile form of a spider– as its eight legs and exoskeletal carapace were sure to attest. This one, of course, was much larger than a natural spider (lest there would be less complaint as to how much space it took up) and, of course, it was much more solid. It had cut its way into the bridge from above and spliced itself with the helm’s controls, effectively high-jacking the massive vehicle.
Truth was, lack of space was not really a current problem for Hamlin. This was thanks to his current holo-form’s diminutive size. He was less than a meter tall, thus to access the navigation terminal, he had climbed up over the chair and actually stood directly on the table-like screen that was depicting a map of the local terrain from the computer’s memory banks. He stood studying the map below, crouching at times to adjust the image, zooming out, or inching a bit further north to broaden his understanding.
Hamlin had, originally, joined the others playing through the game they all hoped would allow them to regain control of the Rover. That is before he realized he could be of much greater use, preparing a course for their journey. The Wayward Aspirant fancied himself quite the cartographer; it was how he spent his days since the fall of the House of Zhou. Clearly, this was a job that had fallen squarely on his shoulders. Admittedly, he’d taken it upon himself, but he was confident he was the best choice to tackle the task.
While the Battle Drone had taken over the controls of the Rover, they could still access much of the computer’s systems. This puzzled Hamlin. From what he knew of the AI, their current situation should not be possible. It was as though, the AI was completely supplanted- and yet what he would expect from such an absence, would be a completely deactivated machine. Despite this, things still seemed to functioning per the norm.
The fact the hole that the battle drone had cut in the ceiling of the bridge, had almost completely healed itself back shut, thanks to the small army of nanites that had surely hopped-to as soon as the damage was detected, was proof enough of some form of intelligence still at work…
“Oh! Hello there!” Hamlin said with a bit of a start as the mottled boy barged into the bridge, which pulled Hamlin’s attention from, both, his plotting of their course and also his random musings of what the heck’s going on with the AI.
The boy’s name was Ratchet, and he was the man with the plan! Currently, he looked a bit grouchy.
“I was wondering where you had wondered off to,” Ratchet greeted, slightly surprised to find the bot, yet somehow morose, “You vanished from the game.”
“Yes well,” Hamlin explained, “I realized I would be of much better use plotting our course.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Ratchet approached, joining him at the terminal, “I’ve never been as far north as we are planning- but I’ve been pretty close to where it starts getting cold.”
Deftly, Ratchet shifted the map around, zoomed out, and then pushed back in to show where he was talking about. He then called up a different overlay to show the temperature changes; color coded, they were still parked with a deep red, hot area. Ratchet ran his finger along the edge of where the light blue shifted to a much darker blue. “For the most part the moon is as hot and as dry as any inhospitable desert…” Ratchet informed, “Go far enough north or south, however, and you leave behind many of the problems with such an environment– just to find yourself with a whole new set of problems; A frozen tundra, cold wastelands with even less life… Honestly, I can’t say for sure if any First Wave have gone as far as we plan.”
It was clear to Hamlin that Ratchet was confident in their ability to reach their destination. And the boy was clearly adamant that they needed to. The problem, of course, was that he had completely jumbled all of Hamlin’s work thus far.
All to show Hamlin where the temperature changes.
Really, was not helpful at all.
“That… that… well, that is a bit of information,” Hamlin voiced honestly. The Aspirant hid his grimace and was sure that any displeasure would surely be masked thanks to his cartoon-like form. But inside, deep inside… the Aspirant stuffed back a bit rage that was surely inappropriate to release on someone so young, especially in their attempt to be helpful.
Tensions were wearing thin all around.
Suddenly, Ferguson sprang to life. The bulbous bit of Ark-tech, which had been hovering, once again, dormant in the corner, spun about- its forward lens snapped open and immediately began to weave the hologram it used to communicate with them; A hologram that was complete copy of Ratchet.
“Here,” Ferguson said as the hologram shifted across to the other side of the bridge, and pointed out into the dunes, “Look at this…”
Hamlin jumped down off the navigation table, ducking under one of the spiderlike limbs, he made his way closer to the curved glass windshield that wrapped around the circular bridge of the vehicle.
“What is that?” Ratchet asked as he studied what his doppelganger had directed their attention to.
Hamlin just saw a mass of darkness at first, but as it approached it looked like a swarm; one they had seen before.
“The battle drones?” Ratchet asked, startled, “The rest are active?”
They all, in unison, looked back at the drone in the room. Stared at it, waiting for it to suddenly do something. After a beat or two their attention returned to the swarm outside.
“I don’t think they are coming in our direction,” Ratchet announced after a few more moments of watching.
“Let’s see if we can use the girls’ drones,” Hamlin suggested to Ferguson, pretty much asking him to hook the drones back up through the server, “Maybe we can get a closer look.”
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