Chapter 8: Narrow Escape

Allie felt numb; she couldn’t believe that she might never hear from her best friend Ally again. Charles had been working on Ally’s circuits for over 2 hours; he’d almost had to shut part of Cici’s circuits off. He’d been begging Charles to save Ally. Charles had been through its systems almost twice, though he’d replaced close to half of the system’s major circuits, he still had no idea why Ally still wasn’t active. From what he’d seen, the bypass had absorbed 90% of the overload, so if anything, Ally should still be half-active. Charles had stopped the Time Raider, not sure that he could maneuver the ship close enough to the capital planet for them to use the MTM to set down in the empire city.

Cici was finally quiet; it seemed it, too, was to the point where it was numb. Another 5 hours, and Charles had finally repaired everything that had burned out. Flipping the last of the circuits on, they all waited.

“Ally?” Alatem said, “Can you hear me?”

For a moment, Charles thought he might have forgotten something. Then there was a massive feedback signal, and then they heard a voice.

“Beginning primary start-up, loading all parameters, now initiating, loading of all security programs, working,” came a very mechanical voice.

“Charles!! What happened to my Ally?” Alatem said as she rushed to his side.

“I warned you, I wasn’t sure I could get this much of her back. I still need to load another program or we are in trouble,” Charles replied. Alatem just nodded as she watched Charles work.

A moment later, they heard, “Accepting primary protocol, Princess Alatem, is primary, Charles Ricksome is primary, secondary. As per all directives, no living entity is allowed on board without permission of either. The AI Cici is allowed access to all base systems, including navigation, time slip protocol, MTM operation. All protocols loaded, awaiting commands.”

Alatem turned away, hiding her face in her hands. Her sobs ripped at Charles’ heart. With all he’d done, he still hadn’t found where Ally’s personality circuits were. Thinking for a minute, Charles tried to think of where in all these systems Ally actually was. If he could, then there might be a chance.

Thinking for a minute, Charles looked at Alatem.

“Allie, we need to inform your father that there was a problem on the ship, that you have a tech here, and you need the specs for the AI,” Charles said.

“No, that might arouse more suspicion from him. He is already close to guessing everything. I think we need to contact the techs themselves. It might be better in the end, although,” Alatem thought a moment, “they are fiercely loyal to Father.”

Within an hour, Charles had the plans, but then they had the Emperor to deal with. “Alatem, what happened?”

Sighing, Alatem knew that she had to deal with this sooner or later. Better now than then. “The ship was attacked by raiders. I barely escaped after Allie destroyed them, but Papa, Allie sustained damage.” Alatem started to cry, hiding her face. She almost whispered, “I may have lost her, Papa. The tech that is here managed to get the systems back on, but that’s it. Oh, Papa, I can’t lose her, I can’t.”

The Emperor sighed. He had never seen his daughter this heartbroken before. It almost killed him to see her like this. “Let me talk to the tech, Alatem,” drying her eyes but still sniffling, she motioned to Charles.

Charles had been prepared for this; Alatem had described in detail how the techs were. “Your Majesty, is this really necessary?” Charles said, a shimmer cloak around him.

“Yes, damn it,” the Emperor said exasperated, “Is there any chance to repair the Allie unit?”

“As I said, I don’t have time to talk if I am to save the best computer we have ever engineered,” Charles replied.

“As I already told the princess, I have already repaired the unit and all systems,” Charles said, trying to sound aloof. “The problem is either the AI was destroyed, in which case we can try to rebuild it, though it won’t be the same. The other scenario I have postulated is that the AI is trapped in a dead-end loop, and I don’t have a lot of time to find it before power to that section is lost and therefore it is also. Now then, no more interruptions!”

The Emperor sighed; he was going to have to do something about the techs; they were starting to get too cocky for their own good.

“I hope he can repair it, Alatem. I know you considered it to be your best friend. We can only hope,” the Emperor replied sadly.

“Without Ally, the Time Raider is useless. Without the Time Raider, the Empire is in trouble, father,” Alatem replied, keeping an eye on Charles. “We’ll come in as soon as we have enough control to move the ship, Papa.”

“Alright, Alatem, advise me as soon as you can start in,” he replied.

Clicking off, Alatem breathed a sigh of relief. Charles’s shimmer shield went off a moment later. “I can’t believe that we fooled Papa,” Alatem said. “I have found that when people are distracted, they tend to ignore the obvious or, in this case, the near obvious. You know he’ll call back soon, wondering why there is a tech on board when there wasn’t before,” Charles said.

Alatem sighed. As always, she knew he was right, though what she’d tell her father she wasn’t sure.

Pouring over the schematics, Charles finally found where the human-sounding Ally was. The problem was there were so many safeguards, firewalls, inner security, and hidden traps to break the loop, Charles wasn’t sure he could do it all without Ally. Three more hours of work had gotten him through all the firewalls, past all the safeguards; almost all the inner security was deactivated. Now to get past the traps, he should be okay. Another three hours, and he was finally at the first chamber where Ally was, or where he hoped she still was. Everything had locked down so tight he wasn’t sure now.

For another hour, Charles worked at the magnetic lock, carefully deactivating everything he came to. Finally, the pathways were open. Looking in, he saw there was only a fourth of the brain cells that were Ally’s. Charles couldn’t fault the techs that had built this; they were trying to be safe, yes, but this was almost paranoid, separated into four sections? Sighing, Charles finally released this section, though he knew it wasn’t the part they needed. At least it could help in the release of the others if they were still viable.

There was a soft crackle over the speakers, then a younger-sounding Ally spoke up, “Papa? Where are you, Papa?”

Alatem’s face lit up. “Ally? It’s me, Alatem. You do know me, don’t you?”

Ally was quiet for a moment. “I was with Papa. He was going hunting, but I fell when I got on the horse. When I woke up, I was here.”

“That happened many years ago. Let me explain, okay?” Alatem said.

For the next two hours, Alatem tried to explain what had happened, who was who, the family now. Charles had crawled back into the space, working his way toward the second chamber. Alatem explained what Charles was trying to do, asking the young Ally if she could help. “Sure,” she said with a little giggle, telling Alatem that they were pretty now that they were older. Alatem smiled, telling Charles that Ally was working on everything she could.

Charles sighed when he saw the AI trying, but unfortunately, it still didn’t have enough access to disarm everything. He was glad he went in prepared.

An hour later, Charles had reached the second chamber, sweating like someone had poured water on him; he had to be twice as careful as everything was slippery now. Finally getting it opened, he’d just released it into the mainframe when several alarms went off. An older version of Ally’s voice came out of the speakers, “I am detecting strange ships. I don’t recognize them.”

Charles came running, staring at the readings. He started to curse, turning, he was running for the engineering section.

“Ally,” he shouted as he ran, “activate all the shields, charge the plasma guns!”

“Activate the what? Charge the who?” Ally hesitantly said.

“Damn it! Bring up the shields, or those raiders are going to blow us out of existence!” Charles yelled as he raced deeper into engineering.

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place! Gee! You didn’t have to yell at me, really!” spat out Ally.

Charles was checking everything; he didn’t want another repeat of the last time, damn it! How in the heck had they found them so fast again? Running sensor readings all over the ship, he soon found three trackers on the outer hull. It figured; there was no way they could be inside, not with Ally.

Charles reached to activate the shields and plasma guns and received a huge shock. “Damn it! Why’d you do that?” Charles yelled, the charge knocking him across the room.

“I said I’d do it!” Ally said, “you don’t have to mess with my insides!”

Picking his half-numb body off the floor, Charles looked over to see Alatem snickering. “I could have warned you. I was the same way when I was a teen; Daddy said that was when I started rebelling.”

Charles could only stare at her for a moment. “Anything else I need to know before Ally kills me out of just plain principle?” Both Alatem and Allie were snickering.