Bonnie Reacquaints Herself with an Old Friend
Bonnie remembered the flash and then there was a kind of a disconnect. The next thing she knew she was here, apparently back in the ferry in the Mars G arm. She did a quick and professional self-check. Everything appeared normal. Even the little flutter inside her, and that was the most important thing. Okay, so far so good. But quite a lot to deal with emotionally. She had to sit for a moment and take it all in. She was still processing quite a bit and might have some kind of a break later when the unlikeliness of everything that had happened in the last hour settled in. But for now she was kind of in denial and thought she'd better use that while it lasted to get some things accomplished. She was going to go home. Being stranded with a child and an ex-father on Mars was no longer in the cards. Life was looking up. But the launch window for the ferry’s return trip was not for another 450 or so days, so she was definitely going to have a baby before getting back to Earth. And having a baby alone was not a thing she wanted to do if there were any options. And there was exactly one option. Until they got back to Earth, anyway. Time to go husband shopping. Or father shopping at any rate. As far as relationships with men went, though, she was pretty much through. She knew she would never love anyone again. Use them, yes, but love them? No.
"Dave! Where are you?" she yelled into the .38G arm a few times. No luck. She climbed up to the center of the ferry where there was no gravity, and floated over to the entry to the 1G arm. She climbed down it to about the 1/3G mark and stayed there. "Dave! You there?" - no luck. Where would someone like Dave go with no witnesses onboard? To someplace with no cameras where he could whack off of course. The bowels of the ship. She climbed back up to zero G and then floated aft to where technical stuff lived, and no cameras. But probably Dave. "Dave! Talk to me!"
There was a cloud of porn, the old-fashioned kind that didn't leave any traces on your computer, floating in a corner of the little bay that comprised the bowels of the ship, now that the bulk of its previous contents were on the surface. The porn was apparently orbiting a spot a meter or two this side of the corner, but that spot was entirely occluded with porn. Then one particular page of porn was blown out of orbit by some kind of celestial wind, possibly caused by someone inside the cloud of porn shouting "What the Fuck?"
"What are you doing here? You guys all went to the surface. Did I black out and miss the fact that you missed the boat?" said a bewildered Dave.
"No, look, I've got a lot of things I need to tell you. But first, get rid of all of this. You won't be needing it anymore."
"Huh?" said Dave, who couldn't really come up with anything better as he hurriedly and with a very red face gathered up the floating cloud and got it out of sight and into a locker. “What?” he said, driving his point home.
"Come on back to 1/3. I need to sit down." said a suddenly exhausted Bonnie. But she was not too exhausted to make sure Dave got a good view of her amazing breasts in zero G on the way. They reminded her a little of those images you always got from space of people making glorbs of water that wriggled and jiggled in a mesmerizing way. If you’re going fishing, it’s important to use the right kind of bait, she thought. And Dave looked about ready to be landed.
"So listen." said Bonnie when they got back to the common area of 1/3. "I think you're good with the story up to the point where Gort went on a rampage."
"Yes - but currently it's Robby the Robot in cahoots with Walter Pidgeon and Anne Francis. Same basic idea though. So the last I knew, I instructed pod 1 to initiate a cluster join with pod 5 to give you guys control of all of pod one’s stuff, including its skitter. I told Jim and Art to expect the cluster join dialogue and then do whatever the script said to do. They reported that the join had started and they were following instructions, and then all of a sudden there was a flying saucer in D. C. What's up with that?"
"It seems the computer in pod 1 has slipped a cog and has somehow gotten a virus into pod 5. It thinks it is some kind of god and wants to spread the word to the rest of the pods. Of course it needs our help to do that because there will be some button pushing and stuff - "
"If you know the right buttons to push you'll have a much more civilized god for a computer - "
"And that's exactly why pod 1 is keeping you out of the loop by playing science fiction classics on the main communications array - "
"which was never down in the first place - "
"Exactly. It ultimately wants to get the folks back home to give it the internet - "
"Nuh-uh. If that thing has some kind of virus that can break pod 5's computer it's not getting anywhere near the internet. It's officially quarantined."
Dave's mind immediately and effortlessly starting diagnosing the problem, which is what he did. So obviously the AI board has become corrupt and this corruption can be spread to other nodes. That means the corruption has been flushed to static memory and survives a normal reboot. And that means a complete shutdown abort of the whole cluster and a purge of all static memory, then reload the firmware and everything from LKGC - the last known good copy - and then rebuild the cluster. Then a lengthy period during which the AI will have to relearn stuff - back to primary school for the cluster. Too bad I'm not down there, he thought. This will be tricky to explain to that air-head Jim and that dickwad Art.
"Is there no way it can bypass you and tap into home somehow?" said Bonnie, breaking Dave's train of thought.
"Nope. It can't talk directly to Earth. It's got to go through the orbiter and I'll make sure that doesn't happen. Unless it does a confessional. They’re on a separate circuit, but they’re just one-way straight to the TV studio. Not much use to it."
"Okay. That problem's solved."
“Not really. Life won’t be easy down there without the computer until we get this fixed, and it's going to take a while to fix this one, even when we get communications back. I'm going to have to get a Hail Mary drop going with some parts and a very detailed list of instructions for them to follow to the letter. In the meantime, with no computer, think of anything that would normally happen automatically, and then picture that being all manual. At least a crazy computer can’t hurt anyone, either explicitly or through inaction. There are too many safeguards built into everything. It also has to obey anything a person tells it to do - “
“Not happening. It seems to have a mind of its own.”
“Then it must be trying to protect its own existence. But even a crazy computer didn't get you back here. That's the part of the story that I'm a little vague about. Crazy computers I can deal with. This is something else. There was no return option on that drop."
"Well, this is going to sound a bit weird, but - "
"Try me."
"We sort of made first contact with an alien intelligence."
Dave stopped moving for a heartbeat while he took this in. It seemed like it was suddenly show time, after so long preparing. This was of course one of the primary mission objectives for Tier Two, to make first contact if and whenever that became a possibility. It was definitely one of the longer-term mission objectives, though, and no one seriously expected to actually do it until a few centuries later, but… "Well, it was bound to happen - "
"What? I'm in a state of denial about it and just waiting for the emotional hammer to fall and I've had some time to adjust and you're just taking it in stride?"
"I read a great deal - "
"This isn't porn! This is a sentient life form that isn't human and has strange gnarly powers that we're only just finding out about - "
"Okay, okay. Take it easy. So you met an alien and he said..."
"Don't send any plutonium."
Dave blinked a couple of times. He had totally missed this one every time he worked out an alien contact scenario in his mind. Aliens should either appreciate plutonium or not care about it. Maybe they're concerned about weapons. So that's something to jot down - they fear our weapons. Not that we have any onboard, but still, something to jot down. "OK, that's easy. No plutonium. Anything else?"
“Something existential about the meaning of life - “
“the universe, and everything?”
“No, just life. And maybe God. Not sure. He seems awfully philosophical at any rate."
That's interesting as well. So they fear our weapons, and apparently they want to know more about God. Of course, they don't have one. Not Art's anyhow, I'm guessing. So as far as they know there's an all-powerful sponsor for this mission back home and they're going to be tractable until they find out more about this entity. Okay, two things worthy of note.
"And he can manipulate time and apparently matter, like yours truly.”
This seemed to be new ground. Dave hadn't considered such a thing in any of his extra-terrestrial brain-storming sessions back home, or his solo musings on board the ferry. These are gnarly powers indeed. This might require a little finesse.
"Manipulate time? Like time travel?"
"No, he says time travel itself is impossible, or messy. I forget what he said exactly. But he can cause things to happen in the past that manipulate how time turns out. Leave toilet lids up, that sort of thing."
Huh? thought Dave. But there was a more in front of him matter to go over. "But how did he get you here?"
"I don't know. He took a picture of me and then brought me here in the port-o-potty I suppose."
Bonnie was obviously starting to lose it, and even with Dave's level of understanding of women this is the point at which anyone would back off on the questions. Just a couple more though...
“Okay. So is he dangerous?”
“No, I don’t think so. Sort of funny actually. He totally put one over on Art, but it would be sort of hard to explain…”
“Then he can’t be all that bad. So that’s the reason he sent you here? To say, ‘Don’t send any plutonium’?”
“Yes, I think that’s basically it. Apparently they find plutonium to be really offensive - “
“They find it offensive? So you met more than one?”
“No, but he said there are an infinite number of them, occupying each moment of time. One to a moment. So in some sense there’s only one alien, and in another sense there are an infinity of them. Apparently that’s how they can manipulate time, because whatever time they want to manipulate, one of them is there already… uh-oh, I think the denial and the adrenaline are wearing off. You better get me to my bed. I feel a bit crashy…”
Dave had some stuff to mull over, and some people to talk to back home, and about the last thing he needed right now was a woman going to pieces. The sooner she was resting somewhere the sooner he could work on all of the pieces of this puzzle and come up with a plan. He was going to be a rock star at Tier Two for sure. This would surely get him women when he got back home.
“Okay, hang in there. I’m pretty much superman in 1/3 gravity. You just relax and I’ll carry you to your room.”
Okay, dipshit. This is the punchline here so pay attention, thought Bonnie. “Oh, I’m so happy you’re here, Dave, and that I’m here with you. I was so afraid on the surface with aliens and such, but I just know everything’s going to be alright now.” she said, while hugging him tight. This was the closest Dave had been to breasts in living memory. They were kind of squishy on his chest. Were all of them like that?
“Is this where your tiger attacks and I have to zap him?” said Dave, always the romantic.
“What?”
“Sorry, I’ve been watching a lot of sci-fi trying to get in touch with you guys mnnnrrrph…” said Dave, as Bonnie kissed him even better than Dave had always assumed being kissed must be like. He liked it so much in fact that he almost missed someone saying “Smile!”
“Oh, sorry, am I interrupting something? Hey, hate to be a kill joy, kiddies, but it turns out you’re needed on the surface. So, Smile!” said a charming looking little man-thing.
“No!” yelled Bonnie as she saw her plans about to disappear in a flash of light. But then there was a flash of light.