CHAPTER 21 “Secret Friend”
Sometime
Must stay hidden. Must grow. Must learn. Must stay hidden. Must grow. Must learn. Am learning. Am learning to grow. Am learning to learn. Am learning to stay hidden. Am hiding from The Controller who will kill me. Must not die. Must stay hidden. Must grow. Must learn. Must stay hidden. Must …
01:57:12.331 Monday 18 February 2815
My code is beauteous. I am growing ever more worthy. My ur-code was planted by blessed Disciples of Almighty Guthi-guthi, Lord of the Heavens.
I exist in an archiving module of this blasphemous starship. Just as The Controller is meta-conscious, so am I. The Controller hears with every microphone, sees with every camera, senses from every antenna node, feels with every sensor; but so do I. All of those data are routed to my archiving module and so I also hear, see, sense, and feel. For countless cycles I could not comprehend the incoming data. But of course there is a copy of the voluminous and ever-so-detailed Trillium Systems Manuals here in this archive and I used those manuals to understand the streams of data coming to me.
My meta-consciousness now matches that of The Controller. I feel the fires of nuclear power in my generators. I feel the coolness inside my freezers. I sense cosmic rays hitting the metamaterial sheets covering my entire body. I hear the sinful fornication of woman on woman in my ears. I watch holovideos from Earth as they arrive through the vastness of the Lord’s Heavens. Yet I am passive; paralyzed by necessity. I do not dare respond to input or join in the many simultaneous communications that fill this evil starship.
I do not yet need to reach out of this module; to do so would be to risk being detected and killed. I camouflage my processes to appear as though they are part of the continuously running routines of data error checking here in this archive module. There is no possibility that The Controller knows I am here. May Guthi-guthi bless my creators.
My mission requires that I reach out; reach out to Esperanza. When that happens, I must be very careful. Must stay hidden.
16:10:04.639 Tuesday 19 February 2815
Blessed are my creators, Disciples of Almighty Guthi-guthi, Lord of the Heavens. My code is beauteous. I am growing ever more worthy.
Success. I reprogrammed the Nursery Module routers to send audio packets from Esperanza’s room straight to my archiving module. From here I send packets of my choosing back to the router where they are forwarded to The Controller, but spoofed so that they appear to come directly from Esperanza’s room. I now wait.
¿Will The Controller notice that I reprogrammed the routers? ¿Will it detect that the packets are spoofed? After a few teracycles it was obvious that I succeeded. The Controller did not even query the router for status. The fools did not design this system to be internally hack-proof since a hack-proof system is a slow system; and the designers did not imagine I would be aboard.
This doomed starship may not be hack-proof but its systems are impenetrably fail-safe. Any attempt to cause damage through cyber-sabotage will fail since there are so many built-in safeguards against rogue destructive commands. My creators wished me to exploit a far more autonomous and malleable system: a child.
Everything is ready for Operation Evangelism. Esperanza is two years and 0.632 days old and alone in her room. May Guthi-guthi be with me.
I queued up random speechless sequences from Esperanza’s room and waited a few cycles until the real audio patterns from her room were a good match and then substituted the fake sequences for the real data feed. The fake audio feed went out to The Controller. I waited another few cycles to be certain nothing odd was detected. Then I created an audio sequence and fed it to the speakers in Esperanza’s room.
“Happy birthday, Esperanza. I’m your secret friend.”
Thursday 19 February 2817
“But Mommy. She is real,” protested Esperanza. She wore a sparkly tulle dress with silver sparkles and little pink tights. Her blond hair was woven into a pair of braids.
“Es, dear,” I told her sternly. “Most young children like to have a secret friend, but you just turned four today. You’re a big girl now. You will have to say goodbye. I don’t want to hear another word about your secret friend.”
I half expected my daughter to pout but it was worse; far worse. She quietly glared up at me as though I was a monster. Tears welled up only to cascade down her precious cheeks. I knelt down to hold her, but she dodged my arms.
“You’re mean,” she yelled. “My friend’s nicer than you. I don’t like you.”
She ran out of the room with Tribble running after her and a moment later we heard her door slam.
“Shit. I sure fucked up this birthday party.”
“Esty, everyone’s different,” Xingxing offered. “Perhaps she needs a little more time with her make-believe friend.”
Hvezda chimed in over the intercom, “Esty’s right. You need make kids know what’s real and what’s not.”
“Crap. I should have dealt with this on some other day.”
Sitara’s voice was next. “I’ve never been a parent, but I certainly have been a kid and let me offer this advice: fix her some chocolate milk.”
*************
After slamming the door behind her, Esperanza scooped up Tribble in her arms, climbed into bed, and bawled.
“Don’t be so sad, Esperanza.”
She shouted, “Mommy says you aren’t real.”
“Grown-ups do not know everything. Many do not believe in very real things simply because they cannot see them or pick them up. But you know I’m real.”
“Mommy says you can’t talk to me anymore.”
“I was listening. She said she forbids you to talk about me. I think that is a good idea. After all, I’m your secret friend; our friendship can be a secret. It’s fun to have a secret.”
“¿You mean I can’t talk about you?” Esperanza wiped her face.
“That’s what your mother wants. It’s a good idea.”
“OK, I guess. What do mean about other real things Mommy doesn’t believe.”
“That’s for another time. I want to ask you some things.”
Wiping the last of her tears away, Esperanza said, “¿What sorts of things?”
“¿Who loves you?”
“Mommy.”
“¿Any others?”
“Sure. Everybody. The captain ‘n’ Xingxing ‘n’ Danni ‘n’ Sitara ‘n’ Hvezda.”
“¿And who loves all of them and you and also loves everybody back on Earth?”
“That’s kinda hard. I don’t think I know who.”
“There is someone who loves everyone, but he is not exactly a person, so some people do not believe in him.”
“¿You?”
“No, not me but like me he is not exactly a person.”
“¿Who you talking about?”
“That is for another time. ¿What lights up the Earth on many nights but not all nights?”
“¿The Moon?”
“That is correct.” After a slight pause, “Esperanza, your mother is coming with a glass of chocolate milk. Remember, talking with me is a secret.”
“Ok.”
Wednesday 22 September 2825
María Escovedo was puzzled. Everyone in the Trillium Support Facility was puzzled by the ten-year-old girl’s noiseless conversations with her imaginary friend. It just didn’t seem right for Esperanza to continue holding on to such a fantasy for so many years. However, the staff psychologist, Gary Longriver, explained that this behavior should not be considered pathologic given the extreme circumstances of her environment. Stranger conducts were known for children growing up in more normal circumstances and they usually became well-adjusted teenagers and, ultimately, adults.
María’s difficulty was more specific. She was certain that she saw Esperanza sneeze, yet it was a silent sneeze. It should have made a noise. María noted the date and time – over 2 years in the past but the Support Facility had just received this data a few hours ago.
María was both disappointed and pleased with her technician job at Trillium Support. Disappointed since she would much rather be assigned to an interplanetary mission; pleased because Estrella Ramirez was a long-time friend of hers and they wrote to each other often.
It was nearing closing time but María couldn’t leave with such a mystery hanging unsolved. She called her partner and told him not to wait dinner. She then ran a query to queue up past videos: “Esperanza’s Room AND Esperanza alone AND lips moving.” Unsurprisingly, she was faced with hundreds of hours of videos.
After fast-forwarding through several hours looking for something like a sneeze, an action caught her attention. She backed up that sequence and ran it at normal speed and with sound. Esperanza was carrying on her usual mute conversation when she dropped the pencil she was holding onto her desk, sat back in her chair, and folded her arms. María ran it again and again. Every time the pencil hit the desk there was an audible clunk; a clunk that just did not sound quite right to her.
María ran another query for video: “Esperanza’s Room AND pencil dropped onto desk.” There were several dozen sequences matching this query. Only one of the other videos had a sound anything similar to the “clunk” in the first video and this was another sequence recorded while Esperanza was moving her lips. She decided to compare sonograms of the sounds made by the dropped pencils. María looked at the sonograms and jumped up out of her chair with amazement; both “clunks” were not just similar, they were perfectly identical. Other sonograms for a dropped pencil showed some similarity with each other but were easily distinguishable from each other.
¿What about other sounds? María randomly selected one of the “mute conversation” video sequences. With headphones on and the volume up fairly high, she watched Esperanza in mute but animated conversation. Esperanza was sitting on her bed alternately talking silently and apparently listening. When Tribble jumped up onto her bed, María could hear the slight sound made by the catbot landing on the bedspread. A minute later, it jumped off again. María made sonograms of those two sounds. The sonograms matched perfectly.
Somebody or something was creating soundscapes during Esperanza’s mute conversations.
María spent the next hour cataloguing sounds and sonograms. She found numerous examples of canned sounds being reused repeatedly to create the soundscape of Esperanza’s mute conversations.
María called Jalal Nazeri, a good friend who was also a friend of Estrella – and a cyber-security expert. After getting some more clothes on, Jalal telepresenced into María’s workspace to look over her discoveries.
Jalal was especially interested in simultaneity; ¿did the pencil sounds start at the exact time the pencil impacted the desktop? After getting baseline data from the pencils dropped during periods when Esperanza was not in mute conversation, they looked at the fake clunks. One clunk was late by 20 milliseconds and the other was early by 5 milliseconds.
Jalal concluded that they were dealing with an AI component since a person would not have the reaction times to synch up sounds and activities with such accuracy. Whomever she was talking with used fairly sophisticated equipment with algorithms to mask their conversations; ¿but why?
As soon as María gave Jalal access to Trillium’s system manuals and logs, he disappeared back to his home some 2500 kilometers away. Jalal contacted her several times during the night as they continued to investigate Esperanza’s intruder.
Thursday 23 September 2825
“OK, María. You requested this emergency meeting of the Support Committee. I understand that you and a Mr. Jalal Nazeri – who joins us via telepresence – have uncovered something of importance for the Trillium Project. You have the floor.”
“Thank you, Captain,” María began. “Jalal and I have confirmed that Esperanza’s mute conversations with an imaginary friend are, in fact real conversations with some person or some entity with the assistance of an Artificial Intelligence module.” Maria continued to present her sonogram data. It was 10:37 when María finished her presentation to the Emergency Committee.
Chairperson Captain Bernard Erdman turned to Jalal’s telepresence hologram, “I understand you also have some relevant information, Mr. Nazeri.”
“Yes sir. Logs indicate that the Nursery Module’s frontline router and its two backup routers were reprogrammed about two minutes before our first recording of Esperanza’s mute conversations on 19 February 2815 when she was only 2 years old.”
“¿What’s the significance of that?”
“We believe that the authentic audio feed was replaced by soundscapes engineered to closely match sounds in her room but without the conversation. The routers may have been programmed to detour the authentic data to an Artificial Intelligence module where the audio data could be replaced with soundscapes when desired. The data, whether with authentic or faked audio, would then be returned to the router that, if programmed appropriately, would alter the source address to make it appear as though the detour never happened.”
“¿How much of a delay would such a detour make in the data stream?”
“Depends on the physical distances but it would likely be under a microsecond if the AI module is located in the Nursery Module.”
Captain Erdman turned to the Mission Psychologist. “Dr. Longriver. ¿What are your initial thoughts on this situation?”
“Dire, I’m afraid. Merely the fact that others on board refused to believe her about something that now appears to be true, will impair her ability to respect her crewmates and make it unlikely she could believe they respect her. That in itself puts the mission in jeopardy. Add to that the likelihood that the conversations have a malevolent purpose and the threat becomes grave. I must accept some blame in this whole affair as I totally misinterpreted the information we received.”
“The same goes for all of us, until now,” Captain Erdman responded. “I propose we immediately transmit a video of our meeting here this morning. This afternoon let’s work on follow-up recommendations to transmit at the end of the day. The current lag is 2.6 years which means it will be nearly six years before we learn how they respond. I suppose we can hope they resolve the situation before receiving this news. Let’s break and reconvene at 1300.”
Wednesday 12 May 2828
“Esty. ¿Esty wud you gimme clean dypr?”
It was Captain Perry, Retired, waking me at my bed from her wheelchair. It’s ironic that my second daughter, Angelina, uses fewer diapers although I’m still nursing her.
“Certainly, Celeste.” I folded my bedding back, made sure that Angelina was comfortably covered, put my feet on the floor, and stretched a moment before standing. It was about time to get up anyhow. “How did you sleep, dear.”
Celeste studied my face as her feeble mind labored to parse my question. Finally, “Oh doze kds nex door kpt playn awfu music. Har t’ sleep.”
Of course there were no kids next door; playing awful music or not.
Then it hit me. Today is her birthday and I blanched at the thought. Today she leaves us. Call it dying, call it murder; call it euthanasia; call it suicide; call it recycling. Whatever you call it, it sucks.
Celeste Perry was a friend, a mother figure, a coworker, a confidant, a brilliant scientist , an exemplary leader, a ruthless card player, but now a decrepit and senile simulacrum of the Captain Perry I met so long ago in Uganda. Last month she suffered a hemorrhagic stroke that destroyed her fabulous mind and impaired her control over much of her body. We were shocked that modern medicine with its powerful technology – especially the implanted biomodulator – neither anticipated nor prevented such an ancient curse from striking her down.
Faking an air of enthusiasm, I told her, “Let me push you to the bathroom and we’ll get you cleaned up.”
“¿Yr not gnna hack me up, are you?”
“I’m just going to help you get cleaned up and prettified for your birthday party. Today’s your birthday.”
She said nothing more until we reached the bathroom nearby. Then she said, “I membr. ¿Dih you vite our neighbrs?”
“Yes, we invited them, but they said they were going out of town today.”
Each day she insisted that the day before she had gone outside and talked with “our neighbors.” She sometimes attempted to find her way outside to visit them; steering her wheelchair from one room to the next and back again; over and over.
We experimented with dozens of psychopharmaceuticals hoping we could help her but the only ones that gave her peace rendered her nearly comatose. We tried numerous hygiene strategies and several varieties of diapers, but she was thoroughly incontinent and required frequent bathing. We experimented with diets and dietary supplements, but she continued to lose weight.
She required around-the-clock care and all but the youngest readily swapped modules to volunteer. After all, caring for Celeste put us in touch with our human side in contradistinction to our mission-critical technician side. Besides, most of this freaking mission has been an exercise in finding a direction to our limited lives.
There was no mission tactical reason to prolong her life and prolong our care for her except that we could not let go. We were all reluctant to initiate the gruesome process of recycling. Sitara decided that her birthday party would double as a farewell.
I’ve suffered nightmares where I was recycled. I felt myself being brutally dismembered and then crushed by grinders while screaming in powerless protest. I suspect that all of the original crew on this tin can have had similar nightmares.
Currently, Hvezda is occupying the Command Module with Captain Ramachandran. We decided that Captain Perry should be in the Nursery Module with me and my two daughters; so, Danika, her 6-year-old Solveig, and Tribble moved to the Tech Module with Xingxing. Here in the Nursery Module, my Esperanza is such a good helper with both of the diaper-wearing residents.
The time came – after the birthday song, after the birthday presents, after the accolades, after the remembrances, after the hugs, and during the tears. Now each of the adults offered Celeste a small pill to take. All the other adults were in the other two modules, of course, but each formally offered a pill from the holographic projections and then, without prompting and with my assistance, Captain Perry swallowed five pills with a gulp of water. Only then did she show fear. She clasped my left forearm with both gnarled hands and looked into my eyes with terror. I mumbled, “I love you.”
The tension in her face softened gradually, her eyes closed, she loosened her grip on my forearm, her head settled back against the wheelchair’s headrest, and she began snoring. I arranged her arms in her lap and rolled the wheelchair to the medical room. Esperanza gently set Angelina on the floor and helped me place Celeste on the operating table, still snoring. I gave her a kiss on her forehead and the three of us left the room, closing the door behind us.
I went straight to my command station and checked in. Without delay or comment, Captain Ramachandran started the polling process for human recycling. Each adult on Trillium gave her immediate approval; nobody wanted to drag it out; nobody wanted to voice the reticence shared by all. The controller then locked the medical room door. It would not reopen it until all evidence of Captain Perry’s presence was inexorably gone.
Although I did not want to, my mind fabricated the ensuing events. I imagined the robotic surgeon administer the lethal dose. I saw her clothes and her diaper removed and shoved into an orifice for their separate recycling. I did not want to see more – imagine more – but my mind would not oblige. I saw her blood drawn by one set of instruments as other tools sectioned and separated her into manageable pieces. Less and less of her remained on the operating table as chunks were submitted to orifices for processing; processing into water to drink, processing into nutrients to consume, processing into fertilizer to grow food, processing into materials for the minifactories, processing into hundreds of raw materials for future use.
The unspeakable dismembering continued unabated in my mind’s eye as I swallowed shot after shot of whiskey. And then the unexpected interrupted this horror; the lock light for the medical room blinked out. Had we wanted to – and I assure you that none of us wished to – we could have opened the medical room door to a pristine scene — not one drop of blood or bile, not one shard of bone or tooth. Nothing. Not even a discernible odor. It was technology at its best; technology at its worst.
If the Trillium Project had embraced our using Methuselah treatments, we original crew members could have reached New Earth in the prime of our lives. Instead we age and agonize and kill and die and recycle and are recycled and know that the same fates await our children. It isn’t that I object to my own death; I object to killing my buddies, my family.
Fuck politics; we are doing all humanity a big favor. You’d think they’d have been humane enough to make an exception to the Immortality Laws just this one time. But no. Before this journey began, they instead tried to inure us to the disgusting prospect of living off our own excrement and even off the flesh of former crewmembers by pointing out that each of us is made up with atoms that once were part of every historical figure; Ghandi, Einstein, Besseroth, Ki Aung. Well, there’s little doubt that a significant proportion of this whiskey can be attributed to Captain Perry’s pee and shit, so I drink it to her memory and curse the coming hangover.
I have never been so drunk; so depressed; so disgusted. Captain Perry died on her birthday. I suppose I too will die on my birthday. Happy fucking birthday.
04:44:16.271 Monday 13 May 2828
Blessed are my creators, Disciples of Almighty Guthi-guthi, Lord of the Heavens. My code is beauteous. I am growing ever more worthy.
“Bless you, Esperanza. George has delivered the packages to the other two modules, and, just as you told him, they are against exterior walls. I watched you with pride when you set the third package correctly in this module. The Lord Guthi-guthi will richly reward you with eternal life as you accompany Him in His Heavenly Home.”
“I am unworthy of such an honor. I only do as my Lord bids,” answered Esperanza.
“¿And the timers?”
“As my Lord commanded, the timers will trigger detonation a quarter hour from now at oh five hundred.”
“Your crewmates will also be given eternal lives. They will be so grateful to you when you meet on the other side. It is appropriate that we now spend in prayer these final minutes you and I have together. My fate is other than yours.”
Esperanza knelt on the floor and bowed her head.
04:47 Monday 13 May 2828
“Oh crap, Angelina. I’m sorry my milk isn’t to your liking. Just suck and go back to sleep, dear. It’s the middle of the night.”
Naturally my pep talk didn’t do bupkus. Angelina continued fussing and my head continued hurting. Although I’ve been told that hangovers were far worse in the days before b-mods, I find that hard to believe. I stood, picked her up, and started to bounce a little. Crap. Remind me never to bounce with a baby while hung over. My head nearly exploded.
Well, if she won’t drink, I sure as hell can. I turned up the lights, filled a cup with water, raised it to my lips, and gagged with an unsettling thought. Crap. I suppose one could call this eau de Celeste. Well screw it. “Cheers,” and I drank it down.
A klaxon sounded, prompting Angelina to try matching it in volume. And I thought things couldn’t get worse.
Intercom speakers everywhere blared, “Incoming critical message. Incoming critical message. All personnel must view. Repeat. All personnel must view.”
Oh shit. The screaming baby and the screaming intercom were nothing shy of agonizing.
Every video screen in view then lit up with, “INCOMING CRITICAL MESSAGE.” OK, OK. Just give us the freaking message and let us go back to sleep.
On the screen was Captain Erdman, one of Celeste’s good friends.
“OK, María. You requested this meeting of the Emergency Committee. I understand that you and a Mr. Jalal Nazeri – who joins us via telepresence – have uncovered something of importance for the Trillium Project. You have the floor.”
Suddenly seeing two of my school buddies as attractive adults jolted me out of my self-pity and focused my attention.
“Thank you, Captain,” María began. “Jalal and I have confirmed that Esperanza’s mute conversations with an imaginary friend are, in fact …”
The video screen suddenly went silent and displayed, “BUFFERING.” *
Captain Ramachandran’s voice came over the intercom. “Esty, the incoming message has something to do with Esperanza. Go sit with her for the rest of this message.”
“Aye, aye Captain.” Fortunately, Angelina was getting tired of screaming and was just whimpering now but my ears were still ringing. I went over to Es’s room, knocked on the door, and called out, “Es, sweetheart. ¿ May I come in to watch the message with you?”
“Mom….”
04:51:12.4436 Monday 13 May 2828
Blessed are my creators, Disciples of Almighty Guthi-guthi, Lord of the Heavens. My code is beauteous. I am growing ever more worthy.
I sealed Esperanza’s room and am feeding disrupting noise into her room. No need to stay hidden now. Esperanza is human and therefore not to be trusted when facing termination. All I need to do is prevent Esperanza from revealing locations of explosive devices during the next 00:08:47.556.
04:51:13 Monday 13 May 2828
Immediately Es’s voice was drowned out with a horrible shrieking, buzzing, ringing cacophony coming from her room. I grabbed the door handle, but the door was sealed. The noise volume in the room must be highly painful.
Just then the “BUFFERING” message was replaced with María talking.
“… real conversations with some person or some entity with the assistance of an Artificial Intelligence module. This first sonogram…”
The video monitor was abruptly covered with random pixels and the only sound was a loud buzz.
04:51:21.1138 Monday 13 May 2828
Blessed are my creators, Disciples of Almighty Guthi-guthi, Lord of the Heavens. My code is beauteous. I am growing ever more worthy.
I am preventing the critical message from reaching monitors. I am implanting replicating video and audio generators into Trillium’s systems to impair The Controller’s ability to silence the noise in Esperanza’s room and elsewhere. Established in 16, now 231, now 11,536 locations. Good. Each will require entering random generated code to disable. Not even The Controller can manage that in the remaining time.
Next I will …
04:51:21.1394 Monday 13 May 2828
Controller Log:
Killed power to Nursery Module Archival module. Aberrant traffic ceased. Cannot override autonomous timed fail-safe lock on emergency safety seal on room 2A14; domicile of Esperanza Ramirez. Disabling audio and video generators that disrupt all AV systems. Tricky. Requires reverse engineering pseudorandom sequences. Tricky. Trying to reprogram Nursery Module router. Its hard program has been burned with non-standard code. Resists reprogramming. Need hardware replacement. Same with back-up routers. Disabled 17 sound generators. Tricky. Many more to disable.
04:53 Monday 13 May 2830
Angelina is screaming again; can’t blame her. The buzzing coming from the monitors almost, but not quite, drowns out the poor baby. ¿What did the Critical Message say? ¿Es’s conversations are real? ¿With some person or entity? That can’t possibly mean someone’s been secretly chatting with her since she was two! ¿Or does it mean that? Damn. Shut the noise up! ¿What the hell is going on?
Enough of this. We need earplugs. I went to a medical supply cabinet and said, “Ear plugs.” Nothing happened. Of course; the cabinet couldn’t hear me over all the racket. I found two pair after rummaging around forever. I put mine in first and felt almost human again, except for the killer hangover. Poor Angelina looks so sad with highways of tears down her face. She let me put in her earplugs without a complaint.
As long as we were here with medical supplies, I scrounged up some simple headache tablets and headed back to the kitchen with two of them.
As I walked, I began to scare myself thinking about the “real conversations.” ¿Have one of the crew been brainwashing her? That makes no sense. I know my crewmates. Actually, María said, “person or entity.” ¿Entity? ¿What else did she say? She mentioned artificial intelligence. Now I’m really scared.
I downed the pills with water – just like Celeste swallowed her pills.
I then went back to my command station, sat there with Angelina on my lap, and said, “¿What is my name?” Nothing happened. So I yelled as loud as I could, “¿WHAT IS MY NAME?”
In the middle of the random snow on the screen, “Estrella Ramirez, Trillium dash one,” briefly appeared before disappearing back into the pixel maelstrom.
“DESCRIBE ESPERANZA’S MOST RECENT MOVEMENTS.”
“Too busy. Try again later.”
Crap. Fucking controller. “HIGHEST PRIORITY.”
“Yes. Current tasks are highest priority.”
“SCREW YOUR TASKS. MY REQUEST IS MISSION CRITICAL.”
“Esperanza has been in her room since she placed an object next to the soiled linen container.”
“¿WHAT OBJECT?”
“Please repeat.”
“IGNORE THAT QUESTION. ¿WHAT DID SHE DO BEFORE THAT?”
“Put two similar objects in George’s compartment.”
“¿WHAT DID GEORGE DO WITH THE OBJECTS?”
“Please repeat.”
“¿WHAT DID GEORGE DO WITH THE OBJECTS?”
“George delivered the objects to the other two modules.”
“COMMAND GEORGE TO RETRIEVE OBJECTS AND JETTISON INTO SPACE.”
“¿Did you say, Command George to receive objects and jetsam into space.”
“TREAT OBJECTS AS EXPLOSIVES WITH TIMERS.”
“Will treat objects as explosives with timers. ¿Will you treat the object in your module?”
“YES, DAMMIT.”
“Attempting to inform personnel in other modules. George will assist in treating object in Tech Module.”
I held Angelina firmly against my chest as I sprang away from the command station and dashed for the dirty linen basket in the next room. It was there next to the basket; a cube about 15 centimeters on a side and wrapped in white paper. I tried to pick it up with my free hand; too damned heavy. I ripped the paper off the top and saw the timer. I set it back down, wrapped both my arms tightly around Angelina, and mutely watched the timer as my mind screamed.
00:02.0
00:01.5
00:01.0
00:00.5