Awaken

[Ataris]

Logging into his terminal, Aiden did some extensive looking around. Fancy software, but there wasn't much to do with it. Checking the programming of the ship, he noticed that there were some things he needed to do.

 

"Barry, is there anything you need me to take care of?"

 

"I have a list. Check the desktop."

 

Checking the list, Aiden noticed that most of the tasks were routine. But suddenly another item appeared. A virus had entered the system. Aiden frowned. How was that even possible?

 

"Barry, a virus just entered the system."

 

"I am aware. One of the milk-pouring machines in the kitchen became upset by something."

 

"I see."

 

Within a few minutes Aiden had eliminated the virus. Then he checked the list again and took care of his other work. With that, he had nothing to do. What a job.

 

Smiling, he then opened the programming application and began to tinker with the wake-up cycle. Only a little bit. Then he tinkered around with the behavioral complex of the robots aboard the ship. And that was all they needed. Humming to a tune, he then shut down the terminal and looked around for something to do.

[steven]

"Oh crap," Ben muttered when he read a report that was being displayed computer screen after he asked Barry if there was any major issues that his team should be dealing with and as soon as the details filled his computer screen, Ben had become to wonder why he hadn't been addressed with this when he first stepped out. It seemed extremely important and life threatening. He'd probably been saving the incident for a last minutes joke or something. "Switch on the intercom and set an orange alert." All the intercom speaker phones crackled slightly as they came to life and the lights that illuminated the corridors faded into an orange color. Ben's voice called through the speakers, the sense of urgency was clear in his voice.

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen we have a problem. It appears that a GAO (Genetically altered organism) had smuggled its way aboard the ship and entered some sort of hyphenation during take off. It woke up about twelve weeks ago and began to sabotage some of the ships routine systems. It's origin is unknown however it's best to assume that it was set up by some cult or one of the few smaller governments that were unable to secure a place aboard a ship. Now the GOA isn't a problem, security bots were more than able to destroy it however not before it causes quiet some serious damage to half a dozen components on the lower decks that within a few years, could cause the engines to slow down which would in turn to cause to miss our ETA by a century or two, then cause problems as the freezer units are automatically designed to wake up at that point which takes a lot of power; leaving the engines without enough power to continue our destination."

 

"Thankfully, that not our problem. Barry dispatched repair droids to fix the problem, unaware of a small visual error in their software. Unfortunately they don't register the right parts as, well the right parts. They believed what we have in the lower storage area is insufficient to fix the damaged equipment, however after examining the frozen members of the back-up engineering team that been frozen, they came to the conclusion to the human organs could easily be used to fixed whats broken so they murdered the crew of twenty, however like I said, a lot of damage was done and work still needs to be done so the robots are heading towards the main cryogenic freezer storage area, however because they walk on wheels, they need to use the disabled ramp area which couldn't be further away from storage area without being outside the ship so they've taken along time."

 

"We're going to split into three groups. Myself, Doctor Sandrine and Alisa Bell will sneak around the robots so we can dispose of the GOA's body. Mr. Larson, Anderson and Stevenson will also sneak around the robots however their main goal is to repair a communication circuit that was damaged, once repaired Barry will be able to hack the repair robots and correct their programming. Meanwhile the rest of you will attempt to distract the robots so they can't get any closer to the freezer storage, however I must add you cannot damage or destroy them. I know they've murdered fellow crew members, however now that the back up engineering team is no more, these repair robots are all we have and are too vital to be destroyed just yet."

[Writer]

"Damn," Alisa said softly, pushing herself out from beneath the primary navigation console. Wasn't this supposed to be an easy mission? It was just supposed to be simple little problems, especially for Alisa. She was a pilot, not a mortician. Why the hell was she supposed to be taking care of bodies? She shuddered uncomfortably. Whatever. She'd do whatever she was told to. She wasn't in charge, after all. But first...

 

"Barry, where are Mr. Rodriguez and Dr. Revel?" she asked the AI.

[Ataris]

Quickly typing into the terminal he had re-logged into, he tried to see if he could simply reprogram the robots. Negative, it turned out they were operating on an independent circuit. But maybe he could....

 

"Aiden."

 

An AI unit placed on the wall he hadn't noticed before began talking to him.

 

"Aiden, I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Aiden."

 

The terminal shut down before his eyes. Aiden made a move for the next one.

 

"Aiden, stop."

 

The next terminal was shut down as well. So he headed straight for the AI's eye on the wall.

 

"No, Aiden, please stop."

 

The fire extinguisher units came on, soaking him. But he grabbed the eye and began to pull.

 

"Aiden, please....stop....stop....please...."

 

He managed to rip the eye out of the wall and throw it to the floor. Then he walked back to the terminal, opened it up, and checked to see what the problem with the stupid AI was. He blamed it on random malfunction and walked out of the door to go stop the robots.

 

Exiting, he thought he heard something whisper, "Lucky Charms...." With that, he headed towards the lower deck.

 

Straight in front of him was one of the rogue robots that he was instructed to distract. It extended a mechanical arm, likely to harm him. So he tried the only thing he could think of.

 

"Lucky Charms."

 

The machine instantly began to bubble with delight and dance around. "Lucky Charms!" it shouted, and appeared to be very pleased indeed.

 

The terminals on the walls began to sing too, and soon the entire section of corridor was singing about it.

 

"What have I done?!" cried Aiden.

[Thanatos9t]

(In the kitchen)

"Man thats just wrong..." Tom muttered out loud when he heard Bens message.

 

Getting to his feet he remembered that he was supposed to repair the communication circuit along with Sam and James.

 

Running over to one of the many maintenance lockers spread out through the ship he took out a utility belt which contained tools and other useful materials though he did quickly discarded the flashlight as he didn't need it.

 

What a way to start, playing hide and seek with mental repair bots looking to turn us into spare parts. He thought to himself as he finished getting equipped for the mission.

 

He ran out of the kitchen and checked a map of the ship if he timed it right he could hopefully run into Sam as he was last down in the engine room and should have heard the message.

[Jedi_Man]

One of the bots bumped into Sam, on accident, causing him to singe his arm on the hot metal of the engine.

"Dang it! That really hurts!" Sam yelled at the top of his lungs. He looked at the wound. Nothing major, it'll heal over in a few days, especially with cryo-sleep.

Sam stepped out of the engine room, his work had been done, and he bumped into Tom, with his bad arm.

"OWEYOWEYOWEYOWEYOWEYOWEY-OW!" Sam yelled, holding his arm.

[The Betrayer]

Erin looked at the droids. She grabbed her sniper rifle and pointed it at the repair robot. In the floor were a few bodies. She had done this many times before, in threatening other people. The key to doing this,she thought is not to aim away from the target, but aim at something else near it. She fired. The bullet missed the droid by 1 centimeter, but caught its attention. It began to come closer to her.

[Ataris]

Deciding simply to make a break for it, Aiden left the singing corridor to itself and made for the engine room. There he saw Sam.

 

He tapped Sam on the arm. "Hey." Aiden still looked very flustered, but he was ready to do whatever he had to in order to stop the robots.

[Jedi_Man]

"YOWCH!! Why does everyone want to touch my burnt arm? Grrrr!" Sam said.

" Okay, Aiden, I hope you can defend yourself. We're going to make a dash for the broken area. On the count of three, and for your information, it's on three, not after." Sam informed them. "Ein, dos, THREE!" Sam Yelled, jumping out from the hall and making for the area that was designated.

[Ataris]

Aiden pulled his arm away. "Sorry."

 

Then Sam started counting. He didn't know where they were going. On the third count he started running after Sam.

 

This was going to be interesting.

[The Betrayer]

Erin looked in the far distance and saw two crewmates running. One bot ran after them. Erin fired her sniper rifle again, the bot that was chasing them now ran after her. Erin ran.

[Alkonium]

Hoping to deal with the robots quickly, James tried an alternative means of disabling them. "You, like most robots, are governed by the Three Laws, the First of which states that you cannot harm a human being, or through inaction, cause a human being to come to harm. Though you seek to harvest us to save those still in hibernation, doing so would be a violation of the First Law, as would not doing so. As such, you cannot complete that order, nor can you not complete it." He said to the robots, leaving them to compute the paradox. "Thank you, Asimov." He muttered under his breath as he walked past them. "If I can transmit that paradox to every other robot on the ship trying to turn us into spare parts, that should make all our jobs a lot easier." He explained to Tom and Sam.

[Thanatos9t]

Continuing on down the dimly orange lit corridor towards the broken communications circuit Tom, Sam, James and for some reason Aiden who was meant to be a distraction were moving as fast as possible.

 

Coming across another set of repair robots Tom decided to repeat James's Asimov paradox to the droids.

 

This appeared to work momentarily until the droids started moving again.

 

One of the droids droned in a mechanical voice:

"Zeroth Law overides the first law of robotics for the good of humanity you will be used to repair the systems needed to ensure the survial of the human race."

 

Damn those must be a later models much faster at computing the paradox. Tom thought before muttering outloud.

 

"Ahhh bugg-"

[Alkonium]

"Human organs would not serve the ship as well as its actual parts. If you allow us to complete our jobs, the ship will function longer than if you kill us and use us for spare parts, as our organs will rot away before the ship reaches its destination." James added, hoping to turn the Zeroth Law against them. If that didn't work, he could always stump them with a mathematical paradox.

[steven]

"Ermm dudes, I think I should warn you, we weren't aloud to use the Three Laws of Robotics. Turns out the copyright holders were against the sleeper ship program and forbid us using them. Instead it tends to ignore everything you say that doesn't make sense to it. At the moment its just deciding where your organs are going to go, so if I were you, I'd run like hell," Barry voice informed humans who were trying to defeat the crazed robots using logic.

[The Betrayer]

Erin saw a strange sight. The men were talking to the robots. Had they gotten out of their minds? When Barry spoke to everyone, Erin stifled a laugh.

[Thanatos9t]

"Stupid copyright holders!" Tom complained as they resumed their dash towards the damaged communications circuit, spotting Erin who was watching through her sniper scope.

 

Surveying the surroundings Tom spotted some more repair robots rolling towards them.

 

Contacting Erin via a comlink he spoke to her "Erin can you shoot out the lights in this area?"

I got an idea...

[The Betrayer]

When Erin heard Tom's message, she replied immediately. "I can. What are you planning?"

With that, she brought out her sniper rifle and fired a few shots into the ships lights.

[Alkonium]

"Who in their right mind puts copyrights before safety?" James thought out loud. Of course, this meant that he couldn't even use a paradox against them. He then got behind the wall, and waited for Erin to shoot out the lights.

[The Betrayer]

[Erin already did.]

[Jedi_Man]

Sam ran faster then he was used to, and farther to. His knees ached, his lungs burned, and through it all, people were following him and robots following them.

A small spherical shape floated in front of him, the read eye glowing. Sam grabbed the droid and slammed it into a wall, disabling the thruster drive on it.

"I'll fix it later!" Sam yelled to barry before he could complain.

[Thanatos9t]

"Right guys follow my instructions..." Tom stated while taking off his sun glasses revealing his bright almost reflective eyes in the dark.

 

"These robots have only rather basic visual sensors. Enough to use accurately to see what needs repairing in normal light although they will turn on rather crude search lights in dark areas, also they will try to repair the broken lights." He explained to the others who were taking cover in the dark.

 

"I can see in here like it is daytime, the bots are carrying out a standard search pattern as they are programmed to do." He said while peeking around the corner.

 

"In roughly fithteen seconds there will be a gap in the patrol where a robot will go and repair one of the lights thats when we move." He said while looking at his watch.

 

"If any of us gets spotted try to block the path behind you as Ben said they run on wheels." He said hastily.

 

"OK Go Now!" He said with an alarming tone which didn't suit his normally calm demeanor.

[Ataris]

Aiden nearly got hit by the robot that Sam had battered aside, and after he recovered from the surprise, he kept on running after Sam until he noticed that there were a few robots ahead. The lights were out in the area ahead, and he could see that one of the robots was fixing a light.

 

"So, what do we do now?"

[Jedi_Man]

"Aiden, I'm gonna run to the portside to find the break, you'll run to the starboard side, or if oyu don't get nautical vernacular, I go right, you go left. On the count of three, so that way the bot's should be confused." Sam explained.

Before Aiden could reply "One, two, three!" Sam yelled.

[Ataris]

Running to his left, Aiden watched the robots to make sure they weren't coming after him. Suddenly, however, he tripped on the metal walkway and a clanging sound resounded through the room. Looking up, the robots were scrambling to head in his direction. He had to move before they saw him. He started to crawl as fast as he could. But it was no use.

 

On the wall next to him, he noticed there was a terminal. Taking a chance, he stood up and quickly began to hack the terminal and write a new program. Hopefully he would be in time.

 

Finishing the program, he activated it, and an energy field appeared between Aiden and the robots. He took a deep sigh. Now, on to the matter of finding a way to stop the robots.