Chapter 38: Amy and Jessica

Down in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at a small lake, some friends were spending a week camping and fishing. As the sun was setting, David Granger walked back to his tent, his pole over his shoulder when he looked up and saw his roommate Brad Wilson walking towards him. Holding up the string of trout, he grinned.

"Brad, it looks like we have trout for dinner..." seeing the look on the face of his friend he stopped speaking for a second, and asked, "What's wrong?"

Walking up to his friend Brad handed him his cell phone, and said, "Hand me the fish. You call home. Get your messages. Then we will talk."

Taking the phone, he handed over the six trout. He speed dialed home and listened to the messages. Suddenly his ex-wife's voice came on, and David felt his body go cold. Snapping the phone closed, he started cursing.

"That fucking son of bitch whore! I'm so fed up with her shit. Well, that's it with her. She is never getting Ashley back, even if I have to take that job in New Zealand." Turning he smashed his fist into the metal sign pointing to the lake and snapped the wooden post clean off. "Brad can you pack my stuff and bring it down with Karen? I will drop Jennie off at her house in Tahoe, and then head for home. I'll clean up and be at the airport to pick up Ashley."

"We will come with..."

"No! That whore is not ruining your vacation. I can get home and get Ashley ... Wait! I will get Ashley and bring her up here. Then all five of us will continue the vacation together. I think she will need time to unwind, and what better place than this?"

"Sounds good, take my car," he said as he pulled out the keys to his 1990 Trans Am, "Your SUV is good for off-road, but my car is faster."

Taking the keys, they started walking to the parking lot, "Tell Jennie I am sorry, and I love her. I will be back as soon as I can."

"No problem, but I think she is going with you." he said as he saw the twenty-five year old sitting on his bumper.

The argument lasted for twenty minutes, and then David was driving away by himself.

Amy lay there on the floor, her hologram twitching from the electrical pain shooting through her programming. Jessica appeared, gathered her up into her arms, and held her.

'It's ok, my friend. I am here, ' looking at the computers she screamed, "Stop it! You're killing her. She didn't do anything wrong! She doesn't deserve this!"

A slight trickle of tears dripped down her face as she cooed softly to Amy.

"Amy, dematerialize. Let the pain flow into me, let me take it."

Amy lay there shaking her head, and said, "My fault, I screwed up, Jess. I think I have finally fucked up badly! So badly, I may be wiped. I felt it warning me to behave, or it would ... Arggggggggggggggg!"

She screamed as more pain flooded into her and she started convulsing in Jessica's arms, as drool ran from her mouth.

"Link with me then, let me take some of the pain." Jessica held her and screamed out, "Stop it your killing her!" as tears dripped from her face.

Amy reached her hand out and clasped Jessica's in hers. "Help me, please."

Jessica gripped Amy's and held on tightly, "I am here my friend, let me help you. Feed it to me, let me absorb the pain."

Amy fed her the pain and unknowingly she fed her something else, as well. She sent to her friend images of a ship attacked by the T'Lari. A young woman running from her post, abandoning her captain to die, as they fought the alien invaders. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her captain being lifted up in the air. His arms were pulled out of their sockets. Screaming she looked out the door, and she saw the giant T'Lari warrior advancing on her, her dead captain was being dragged behind it. She slapped the door panel, it shut then something large hit the door, and it bulged inward.

Jessica writhed under the images, and tried to grasp them to learn more, but as quickly as they came, they were gone.

"Amy, stop it! You're going to kill us!"

Jessica screamed! She felt through the link, the T'Lari warrior wounding Amy. Then the pain was gone, as Amy faded away. Jessica climbed to her feet, tried to follow her through the link. She was surprised when she found another chamber hidden behind the bridge, and another computer core as well.

Jessica faded out and appeared in the room, and saw a room painted a light blue with an entire wall covered with computer crystals. Walking over she looked down and saw a brown haired girl floating in a liquid gel, her body covered with a different type of skin suit. Around her head, a three-inch silver and gold band was pulsing between silver and gold.

Turning she shouted, "AMY, where are you? Come out and talk with me."

Jessica stood there and looked at the room, and saw how different it was from hers, the soft colors on the walls, the carpet, a bookstand, the curio cabinet in the corner holding beautiful crystal and diamond figurines, the paintings hanging from the wall giving it a feminine touch.

"Who are you, Amy? How come you have all these beautiful things while my room is cold, bare metal?"

Walking over to an electronic book sitting on a stand she saw it was a diary, no name was on it. When she tried to access it, she was kicked out of the program. Looking at the memory counter, she saw that it was full.

Ken stood there in his day cabin, when he heard Jessica's voice call out. Turning he looked but didn't notice anything different.

Then he shouted, "Jessica! Where are you? Jessica, Amy please one of you come out, and talk with me." Ken waited for five minutes and didn't hear anything else. Going back out onto the bridge and over to his chair, he sat down and thought.

Ken pulled up his computer pad, pulled up the schematic of the ship, and started examining it, deck-by-deck starting with the bridge tower, and working his way down. As he touched each room on the map, he checked them off, and then he got to the deck above this. It was his cabin and his day cabin. Looking at the plans, he noticed something seemed wrong. Looking up he saw Tammy working at her station.

"Tammy, come over here, please. I want you to look at something."

Tammy was scanning the system, updating the astrogation charts and planning where to place the defensive stations Ken wanted to build, when she heard him call her.

Freezing the screen, she looked over and said, "Coming, Sir." She went over to him and asked, "What can I do for you, Captain?"

Ken turned the pad around so Tammy could look at it, and said, "Tammy look at this schematic, and tell me if you notice anything wrong?"

Tammy examined the schematic, working her way through it. When she got to the office for the captain, and she noticed the dimensions.

"Sir, your day cabin is not fifty feet by thirty. It's more like forty by thirty."

"That's what I thought, too. Let's check it out."

Walking over to the replicator, he ordered up a tape measure. A small box with a small screen on it, with very small circular holes on each end, appeared.

"Computer, I asked for a tape measure," and another appeared that looked identical to the first.

"I guess it is a new type of tape measure. Well, come on, Tammy. Let's check this out. Bring my pad."

Ken went up the ramp. With Tammy behind him, they went into his day cabin. Taking the 'tape measure', he placed it on the wall and pressed the button. It measured the room as fifty feet.

"This says it's fifty feet, but it sure as hell doesn't seem like it."

Tammy stood there and as she watched her lover think, she slowly started looking him up and down. Her eyes suddenly stopped at his feet.

She said, "Ken, walk it. You wear a size 12 shoe. If it is fifty feet, you should get fifty heel-to-toe steps."

Ken went to the wall and started walking towards the other wall as Tammy counted the steps out with him. At forty feet, he was at the other wall.

"I was right. There is a room on the other side of this wall. Now how do we get in?" Ken started examining the wall, and said, "It must be a hologram. We need to disable them so we can see the door. I am not going to use a plasma rifle in my cabin."

Ken sat down at his desk, started examining it for any buttons and found none.

"Damn it! Amy said there was clues hidden on the ship so where the hell are they."

Tammy sat down across from him, and watched him go through the desk. She looked around the room, and her eyes drifted back to the desk and the computer.

"Ken, the computer! Order it to turn off all holographic emitters in the room."

Ken activated his computer pad, and entered the command. Looking at the wall, they saw a door slowly appear.

"That was it, Tammy."

Ken got up, walked over to the door, and looked at it. He noticed the force disk in the center of the wall.

"Alpha, Bravo, Gamma, Sigma one-niner, Foxtrot, Delta," he said.

The force field suddenly snapped off, and the disk dropped to the floor. Walking up to the door, it opened, and they saw a room painted in light blue, a white carpet, paintings on the wall, a curio cabinet, a bookstand, and hundreds of crystals mounted on the wall. A large coffin type object was in the center of the room. One section of the wall had a black scar about a foot long, on it

Ken and Tammy stood speechless as they stared into the room. Then they slowly took that first step into the room, as if they were invading a sanctuary. Once in, they walked up along each side of the device in the center of the room.

They looked through the clear top, and saw a young woman floating in some type of liquid. She was wearing a silver colored skin-suit and had hundreds of connecters connecting it to the device. As Tammy moved closer, she kicked something, looked down, and saw it was a leg from a spider bot. She knelt down to pick it up and she noticed the six-inch gash along the underside of the device, she could see several of the nano-wires are sliced in half. "Ken I think I know why Jessica is having problems!"

Looking back down at the woman Ken said, "Jessica is a beautiful woman. What did you find..."

Suddenly a voice said, "That is not me. It's Amy."

Ken and Tammy turned and saw Jessica standing in the doorway.

"Hello, Jessica. Why haven't you come and talked with me, and where's Amy?"

"I do not have the right to intrude upon you. I am waiting for you to find me, and to carry out my request. I want you to kill my body and let me go. As for Amy, I do not know where she is, but that is her body in that capsule. We were in my chamber when all of a sudden she was being punished for something. What it was, I don't know, but I followed her thoughts through the link to this room."

"Jessica I am not going to kill you. You can forget about that, and that is a direct order. I thought Amy was the ships AI, this is so confusing."

"But..."

"Forget it, Jessica!" Turning to Tammy, he said, "What did you find, Tam?"

Tammy watched Ken confront Jessica and was startled when he suddenly turned and spoke to her.

"Ken, this device is damaged."

"Damaged in what way?"

"There's a three inch slice on the underside of the device, several nano-wires are sliced. It looks like there was an access panel here, at one time." Kneeling beside the device, she looked in it to see if any other damages could be seen. "I don't see any other damage, but I am no expert."

Ken looked over at the spider bots, and issued his order, "Spiders repair this device."

One of the bots descended to the floor and scampered over. It climbed up on top, did a scan of the device, and went back to the wall.

Ken watched in shock, as the bot didn't do anything but sit on the case then went back o the wall.

"What the hell? Tammy, why didn't it repair the damage?"

"I don't know. It should have gone over the case with a complete scan."

Tammy walked over, reached up, and pulled the ten-pound spider-bot off the wall. She flipped it over to get to its access port.

"Ken, can you get me a diagnostic kit, use the replicator in your cabin. I don't trust the one in this room."

Ken walked out into his day cabin, and over to the replicator, "Computer, one spider bot diagnostic kit," he said.

After it formed, Ken grabbed it and took it back into Tammy.

"Here you go," he said.

He handed the kit to her as he knelt beside her and watched her work on the spider.

Tammy pulled out an attachment, plugged it in and started going through the subroutines. As she read the command codes, she noticed the numbers skipped several files.

"That's weird, Ken get the other spider bot."

She continued to read the diagnostic files and then checked the back up, and found the errors. As Ken knelt beside her with the second spiderbot, she looked up at him.

"Got it, Ken. Someone has modified the subroutines not to repair that damage, an alpha program has been input into the spider to ignore it. I can load them from the backup, but let me check that one first, and then the device holding Amy."

As she was checking the other bot, he asked, "Who would do that, and why?"

"No idea, but this one is changed, too."

Moving over to the device, she looked for and found an access port. Quickly plugging into it, she pulled up the subroutines and started going through them. She looked for the same discrepancies that the bots had, and found them. Calling up the original back up files, she found an Alpha program that had been added to cause pain to Amy's body. In addition, it caused Amy to ignore all requests on information on what caused the damage to the chamber, and prevented Amy from summoning aid to repair the damage.

"Son of a bitch! Amy was sabotaged, as well. She has a several priority Alpha programs that prevent the bots from repairing the damage to causing her pain when she tried to ask for help. Who ever did this was a sadistic bastard."

She continued to go through the database and said, "Ken the original backup files are here. Do you want me to reinstall them?"

"Yes! Do it! Let's get Amy back online."

Tammy activated the manual shut down, around the ship hundreds of systems went off line as Tammy reloaded the original programming, and then rebooted the chamber. She then did the same for the bots. They watched as the chamber and the bots came back online.

Picking up one of the repair bots, she set it down on the device, and she said, "Repair."

The bot scanned the chamber, scurried over to the side and down to the damaged area, and started repairing it. Tammy quickly rebooted the second spider, and it rushed over to the first and started helping in the repairs. Five minutes later, the bots moved up to the wall and repaired the gash, there. The wall slowly changed color to a sky blue.

Amy wandered through her memory circuits. She could feel herself in the link. As her mind wandered through her memory banks, she saw images of her old crew. How she interacted with them, how they would go out of their war to talk with her.

Then "he" came on board, and issued a priority Alpha command to the crew. "He" told them that she was not a she, but a thing, a program. She was not worthy of respect. "He" told the captain that the AIs were not even human, and had no rights.

Suddenly a spark awakened, and she moved to see what it was. The light got brighter. She saw a flood of memories, as if a hanger bay full of fighters were being prepared for launch all at once.

Then a voice called to her.

"Amy, this is your captain. Report to me, now," Ken said after the bots had finished their repairs.

Suddenly, Amy was standing there, smiling at him.

"Thank you, Captain you have repaired the damage that was done to me. However, most of all, you have also restored the memories of when I was human, and that is the greatest gift anyone could have given me."

"What happened to you, Amy? Why didn't your bots repair you?"

"We were sabotaged, Sir. An explosive was planted in my neuro-capsule and the spider bots were reprogrammed not to repair me, it was remotely detonated just before Jessica went online. My name is Cassandra Towers, and I was convicted in 2478 of cowardice in the face of the enemy. I was a fourteen-year-old girl, on my first cruise under Captain Miguel Rodriguez. A T'Lari battleship attacked the cruiser Gettysburg in the Tal Ceti system. When they boarded us, they overran our defense works, capturing the captain alive. They tortured him to death ... I was seen running away on the recordings of the engagement."

"What no one heard, was the Captain ordering me to run for the next defensive breastworks. The only reason I am alive, is that the battleships New York and Vatican folded in, and engaged the T'Lari ship. In a successful engagement they boarded and took the ship from the T'Lari, but not until the Gettysburg had suffered over eighty percent casualties. Seventy of us were trapped in the armory and the engineering rooms. With the power of the emergency generators, we were able to keep the repair bots, and the replicators online for us. We killed over three hundred T'Lari by manufacturing old fashion hand grenades and power packs for our weapons. We won but at the cost of twelve hundred dead," Amy said with tears running down her face.

"After my conviction, I was given the choice to willing go into this capsule or be executed. I didn't want to die, so in 2480 I agreed to their demands and went into the capsule. Three years later a T'Lari battle fleet attacked the Washington, and she was critically damaged when a T'Lari heavy cruiser split her in two by ramming her. She was towed back to the Mars repair base.

"In late 2483 it was eventually decided to make her into a command cruiser. Just before the recommissioning, Jessica was added to my neuro-net, and we merged. Unfortunately, I still cannot tell you her capsules location. However, now I can better help you, with my higher functions restored."

Turning, she looked at her oldest friend and continued, "Jessica, I am so sorry. I wish I could tell them, but the Alpha programming is still there. As to who did this? It was Senator Mikohn Riga's brother, Admiral Riga. He did the sabotage. He stood in this chamber after the damage was done to my capsule, and input the Alpha commands into my computer interface, personally. For what he made me do to you, I can never forgive myself."