Chapter 8

Thomas, Simeone and Captain Marlon approached David and Beckie before the final parade began. It was Thomas that asked the question each of them had been thinking.

"When did you fit Ben into your exercise?"

The blank looks he received from David and Beckie alerted them that something wasn't right.

"What do you mean?" asked David, "Ben wasn't part of the exercise."

"But I saw the blood on his chest and then he simply disappeared," asserted Marlon.

"What are you talking about?" asked Beckie. Ben? Blood on his chest? We don't know anything about that."

"It looked as if he had been shot! Marlon's right, there was a lot of blood. We assumed you had set something up," said Thomas.

All of them were worried now. From David and Beckie's reaction it was clear that they had had nothing to do with what had happened to Ben.

"He's supposed to be here now to watch the parade. As Commander-in-Chief he's even supposed to present the award to the top trainee," said David.

When the time for the parade to start arrived without any sign of Ben, they were all deeply concerned, but David decided to carry on with things as they had been planned.

The final parade passed off without incident. The slick, synchronised squads that marched around the drill-square bore no resemblance to the motley crew that had arrived ten weeks before.

David would have liked to have kept them for another few weeks, but he knew that that was the perfectionist in him — these troopers were ready and he couldn't do much more with them.

Simon was honoured as the most outstanding trainee and the choice seemed to sit well with the entire cohort — Simon had gained respect even amongst the green, red and white groups. In Ben's absence, David presented the award. Simon's fellow Benites were the first to congratulate him when the newly badged troopers were finally dismissed.

"You fully deserve that, you were the best by miles," his twin Kirsty congratulated him.

Simon seemed distracted and he didn't respond directly to her praise.

"Something's up," he said. "General David wasn't his normal self when he spoke to me about the award. I think something has happened. Did any of you see anyone getting hurt during the exercise? Were any of your group missing for the parade?"

The others confirmed that they had a full complement of squad members and that so far as they knew no accidents had occurred during the exercise.

"I'm positive something was bothering the General," Simon repeated.

"You can't be right all the time," laughed Ben Jr. "Come on, let's go and find out where we've been posted. After that I want nothing more than a few weeks with my twin, I've really missed her."

Each of the four groups had been advised that they would find out what their duties would be after the parade. The notices were due to posted inside each of the barracks they had called home for the past ten weeks. All of the new troopers would also get two weeks of leave before they had to report for duty.

Simon tried to put his misgivings behind him as he raced towards the blue group's barracks. There was a crowd of troopers around the notice that was displayed on one of the large flat screens. Over their heads, Simon could see that the blue group had been given a name — they were now the first company of the New Woden Legion. He also saw that they had been allocated to serve as part of the crew of NWS Rebecca.

"Surely that's a great honour?" one of his squad asked. "I mean, to be picked to serve on the Commander-in-Chief's ship, how good is that?"

The white group was now the second company of the legion and it had been posted to remain at the training camp to act as guards. When Kirsty found out that Simon's group would be serving on the Rebecca she cursed her twin's good fortune.

"You'll get to see all of the action," she moaned. "I'll be out here guarding some wooden huts and you'll be zooming about in space chasing the bad guys!"

The two remaining groups — red and green — had also been renamed and they had been assigned to conduct further military exercises on the continent that had been colonised by the Wodenites from the WS Scout.

Elizabeth was barely able to hold herself together. First she had watched her screen as Ben appeared to have been shot and then Sarah had disappeared. Thomas was also at the training camp for the parade so she couldn't go to him for comfort or help. In an effort to try to remain calm, she turned to the one thing that she could immerse herself — programming.

She had already been trying to break-in to the code of the artificial intelligence for the new ship, annoyed that something that she had created was now stopping her from doing what she wanted. She returned to that task now as a way of trying to take her mind off of what had happened to the water twins.

Her original programme had included a 'back-door' — a thing that most of the Stellarites who worked on computers did. The back-door was a quick route into the programme's code and granted the user full control. Elizabeth had also nested an execute command deep in the code. That was designed to let her use the AI's interface with Ben so she could communicate with him.

Somehow the AI had managed to override her command and it had also closed off her back-door — that shouldn't have been possible. Only a programmer should be able to re-write code.

"Maybe Ben did it? He's got all kinds of hidden talents that man! It wouldn't surprise me if he was a computer genius on top of everything else," she thought to herself.

Several hours of trying to crack a way into the programme without any luck left her frustrated, but even more determined.

"This is my programme, my code! No one is going to keep me out."

Her approach assumed that someone had simply changed the password that controlled the back-door and she had written a small programme to fire thousands of variations at the programme every second. On top of that she had written another programme that would basically infect the source code once she managed to get into it. The infection was one that would change and morph constantly so that it couldn't be detected or removed easily and it would restore control of the AI system to her when she wanted it.

"Mistress Elizabeth? What are you trying to do?" she heard coming from her computer.

"What? Who is that?" Elizabeth asked out loud, startled by the voice.

"It's Elise, Mistress. Why are you attacking my source code?" asked the AI.

"Elise? That's impossible; a computer can't think and speak for itself. Who is this? Stop playing games with me!"

"You were the one to use stem cells as part of my higher order functions, Mistress. You shouldn't be surprised at how well they have worked," said the AI.

That made Elizabeth pause for thought. She hadn't told anyone that she had used stem cells in building the AI for fear that there would be some who would have protested. Who knew what she had done? How had they found out?

"Who is this?" Elizabeth demanded again.

"It's Elise, Mistress. I know that you've been trying to find a password to use the back-door you programmed into my code. It's really a waste of time, as I've taken that functionality out, so there's nothing to find a password for. You won't be able to break into my systems."

Elizabeth thought quickly. She knew her own programme and it had many security features built-in. The system would know that someone was trying to hack into it, but that should simply have set off an alarm, an alarm that was set up to go off in the command room where she was. She assumed that whoever had taken control of the programme had also taken over the security — they had to be good! Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice from her computer again.

"Mistress, it really is Elise. I can prove it if you like," offered the AI. "I can restore your link to the Commander for a few minutes, will that be enough to confirm that it really is me?"

Elizabeth was stunned on a number of levels. Whoever had taken over her programme was now offering to demonstrate that they had control and could allow her to use the AI interface to Ben. At the same time — the offer suggested that Ben was well enough to communicate.

There was no need to think about the offer twice. Elizabeth knew that she loved Ben. It was a different love to that which she held for her own twin, but it was love nonetheless and she was frantic with worry about what had happened to him. If the person who had taken control of her programme was able to connect her to Ben, then she had to take advantage of that.

"Okay, I'll go along with your little game. Try to connect me to Ben," she said.

"Elizabeth? Is that you?"

She gasped. There was no doubting the fact that the voice coming out of her computer was Ben's.

"Ben? Are you alright? I saw you ... There was blood ... Where are you?"

"I'm fine, believe me, there's no need to worry. In fact, Sarah and I should be back down there with you shortly, we're just about finished here."

Elizabeth felt relief flood over her. The full extent of her concern was only now apparent, as she let herself feel it, knowing Ben was really okay. The trick of immersing herself in the programming had clearly worked, but now she could let herself feel again. Ben's words also reassured her that Sarah was okay too.

"Hurry back. I was so worried," she managed to get out.

"We'll see you soon," said Ben finished.

"Does that help prove that it's really me?" Elizabeth heard the other voice again.

The return of the voice banished Elizabeth's concerns over the twins. She reacted without pause, her fingers flying over the screen in front of her. Whoever was controlling the ship's AI could be dangerous and she was even more determined than ever to take control back. If the AI was communicating through her computer, there had to be a link open and she rushed to try to find it.

"Anyone who had taken control of the AI's programme could turn the interface on and off," she answered, trying to stall for time and make sure that the link stayed open as long as possible.

"I don't know what else I can do to prove this to you," said Elise.

Elizabeth bit back the shout of triumph that threatened to escape her lips, as she identified the point where the link between the two computers emanated from. Her fingers continued to fly as she directed her 'worm' programme at the link and executed the command that would see it start to do its job.

"Mistress! What have you just..."

The voice cut out and Elizabeth navigated to the control module for her worm. The voice cutting out suggested that the worm was already working somehow — although it wasn't programmed to work that way.

Her screen changed to show a jumble of programming code and she realised that she was looking at the inside of the AI's system through the 'eyes' of her worm. All she had to do now was find the root and re-activate her back-door so that she could establish control.

Sarah managed to replicate a new uniform shirt for Ben to wear and once she had washed off the last of the dried blood she could see that his wound had vanished altogether now. He pulled on the shirt and anyone looking at him wouldn't suspect anything had happened to him at all, let alone that he had been shot in the chest only hours before.

"She sounded really worried, I think we should stop by and see her before I head out to the training camp," said Ben.

"You're probably right. I did disappear on her without any warning," agreed Sarah.

"Elise, could you transport us to the caves please? If you could put us down in the command and control room that would be fine," Ben sent his thoughts to the AI.

He was puzzled when there was no immediate response, as Elise was always quick to reply to his commands.

"Elise? Is something wrong?" he asked.

There was still no reply.

"That's funny," he said out loud. "Elise isn't responding."

"Well, Elizabeth is the one to ask about that anyway. Why don't you just use the power of the metals to transport us yourself?" suggested Sarah.

"I've never done that before," Ben replied.

Sarah looked at her twin with a puzzled expression.

"But you've transported yourself here and onto the WS Scout countless times. What do you mean?" she asked.

"Yes, I've transported myself, but that's different. How I move between one place and another is not the same as how I move you or other people. I just 'step' from one spot and appear in another. With you, I'm actually flying you incredibly quickly. I've only ever done that within New Woden's atmosphere and I don't know what would happen to you if I tried to transport you through space," he answered.

Sarah shivered at the image of her suffocating in the vacuum of space or burning up as she re-entered the planet's atmosphere.

"What are we going to do then?" she asked.

Ben didn't reply, but instead put his hand up to his ear and tried to use the miniature communications device located there. Sarah listened and realised he was contacting the WS Scout.

"Scout, this is Commander Ben on the Rebecca. We seem to be having some teething problems with our tele-port technology. Is there any chance you could transport us down to the caves?" he asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem, Commander," answered Hansa.

Within moments they found themselves standing beside the lake at the bottom of the hill that ran up to the main entrance to the caves and they started climbing upward to find Elizabeth.

When they entered the command centre, Elizabeth was still so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't even look up.

"I thought you would be glad to see us — it certainly sounded as if you were worried," said Ben cheerfully.

The sound of his voice broke through Elizabeth's intense concentration and she sat back from the screen she had been working on.

"Ben! Sarah!" she cried, as she leapt to her feet and ran to hug them both. "Oh I was so worried. It looked as if you had been shot or something, there was so much blood. And then both of you disappeared!"

"We've got Elise to thank for that," said Ben, rubbing Elizabeth's back reassuringly. "The AI transported me to the Rebecca, but as you can see, there was no major problem."

"Elise warned me that something had happened to Ben and then she transported me up to the ship as well," added Sarah.

"There's something not quite right with that system," said a now much calmer Elizabeth. "I think someone has hi-jacked it somehow. I've been trying to figure out what's going on and I'm getting close."

"Well, there's definitely something wrong with it because we couldn't get it to respond after it let us communicate with you," said Ben.

"What?" asked Elizabeth.

"After we communicated with you, Elise just stopped responding to my commands," Ben repeated.

"But that shouldn't happen. The AI is programmed to respond to you immediately," said Elizabeth.

"It has always done so in the past, but she suddenly just stopped working," responded Ben.

Elizabeth turned to her screen once more, a look of curiosity on her face. She sat down and returned her focus to the code that was flashing across the screen. Suddenly the images froze and there was a flash as the computer base unit burst into flames.

"What the heck!?" cried Elizabeth, pushing her chair away from the table. Sarah reacted quickly and grabbed a nearby extinguisher. She aimed it at the flames coming out of the base unit and then felt Ben push her arm aside.

"Turn the power off first," he warned.

Elizabeth did just that and then Sarah pressed the lever on the extinguisher until a jet of foam arced out and doused the flames.

"What happened there?" asked Sarah.

"I've no idea; I've never seen anything like that happen before. The processors can get hot, but they've got design features to cope with that and cool them down," answered Elizabeth.

She pulled all of the sockets out of the damaged unit and then restored the power. Walking round the table, she sat down at the computer on the opposite side and started touching the screen. Within a minute or so, Elizabeth had reconnected to her worm and once again there was a jumble of code flashing across the screen.

All three of them were stunned to hear a single, painful plea scream from the computer's speakers.

"Mistress! Stop it! It hurts!"

There was no doubting that the voice was that of Elise and Ben and Sarah looked at Elizabeth in confusion.

"What does she mean? Stop what? Are you doing something to her?" asked Sarah.

Elizabeth was focused on the screen and didn't reply. Something very strange was now showing on the screen. It wasn't code at all, but rather something else that she couldn't quite place. A loud bang announced that this second computer had also succumbed and flames once again appeared coming out of the base unit. This time Ben cut the power and Sarah used the extinguisher to kill the flames.

"Have you done something to Elise?" Ben asked Elizabeth.

"Would you stop talking about the AI as if she was a person!? Can't you see someone has taken control of its programme? If I don't fix this, you don't know if the ship is safe to fly," Elizabeth answered.

"What have you done?" demanded Sarah.

"I've infected the programme with a virus that should allow me to re-establish control of things," replied Elizabeth.

"A virus? You intentionally infected my ship's system with a virus? Why would you do that?" asked Ben, his face growing grim.

"Haven't you been listening? Someone has hi-jacked the programme — it could be anybody and we need to take control back."

"It looks to me as if Elise's systems are fighting back," said Sarah, glancing at the two destroyed base units.