Box of Shadows

No Space for Family [Chapter 16]

Cabbel rushed past Plip and up to the very front of the cockpit to lean on the frame of the front window. “If my navigation box is dead, then there ain’t no way we’re getting out of this.”

“Your repurposed, but still malicious, AI box that is,” my dad corrected.

I shook my head. “A stop code just means that its code got interrupted.”

“My daughter here is right,” said my dad. “Whatever processes were running simply got interrupted. Apart from destroying its physical core, It’s quite hard to kill an AI. Even if it’s older, they’re designed to self-preserve, be it through programming or just low-level sentience. That being said, I won’t allow it back into our system.”

Cabbel turned around and stomped. “You say that. Look where we are.”

I climbed into the seat at the back of the cockpit at my station to get a better look outside. Our drop out of warp had ended us up in a field of wreckage. Floating about in the void there were sections of ships that were bigger than the Ora itself. Between them were countless bits of smaller junk; old panels, lengths of wire, and hunks of old machinery that were once part of something greater.

I always wondered how we never just ran into that sort of stuff while going through warp. Well, it turns out the field generated by a warp engine is pretty dense. Things get knocked away by the wake, like skipping a rock on water, before they even get close to our ship. Getting around big things though was more of a problem, which Cabbel’s AI box probably had been scanning for and handling.

My dad bit at his lips and surveyed the area. “Surely if we go through this carefully, we can get out.”

“Careful, careful,” Cabbel mimicked unflatteringly. He hunched down and yanked the cords out of our access port before flopping them across his pack and the little box of bad programming. “You might have been more careful when sending your AI to do your bidding against mine. Or better yet, you might have told me you had this AI of yours aboard in the first place.”

Dad glanced at me with an indifferent look before sighing at our guest. “I guess we both should have been more clear with each other. And it’s not as if we’re dead in the water. And if you can’t do something for us, we can figure it out.”

The scavenger shook his head. “Can you? Miss AI with your mighty core and drives all full of knowledge. How far did we travel since I hopped aboard?”

“That’s you, Aida,” Dad said.

“I get that,” Grandma responded. “I measure .38… and some change light-years.”

Cabbel held his arms up. “Not even half a light-year. Do you know what happens to a ship when it gets exploded into little bits and there’s no gravity to act upon it?”

“Oh, this is Newton’s first law,” I said proudly. “An object in motion—“

“Ain’t gonna stop!” Cabbel interjected. “I don’t know who this Newton person is, but I bet he would’ve loved to see this place! We’ve got scrap that’s been floating for decades in all directions across almost a sphere of about two lightyears. You’re free to worm your way through here under thruster power, blind as a mixie, but you better clear your schedule, Mr. Jeff.”

“You’re not leaving us Mr. Cabbel?” Asked my mom.

The scavenger shrugged. “Sorry, miss, but I can’t complete this journey with you. I’ve obliged as much of myself as I hoped to, but we’ve reached an impasse here.”

With a swing of his arm, Cabbel hefted the pack up onto his shoulder before making his way through us and out into the common room.

“My good man,” Plip interrupted, blocking him on his path around the table. “Would you allow me to come with you? I don’t feel safe being dragged about by the whims of this crew any longer.”

Cabbel held his palms in the air. “I too am sorry, Plip. I’ll have to forgo the enticing offer you graciously wrote up for me. Maybe sometime in the future, I can take you up on some other offer. Alas, there’s only space on my craft for one.”

Plip stepped back in the scavenger’s path. “A shame, but perhaps one of your colleagues, one with a more spacious craft can come by and allow me transport? I could include many more add-ons to your policy, even extend it. Even if it means paying for it myself out of my salary. Of course, the woman and children would love being saved as well.”

“I’m not going anywhere without the rest of my family,” I announced.

“Don’t worry, you won’t,” said my dad, hugging me by the shoulder. “Mr. Cabbel, hear me out. How do your colleagues manage to navigate this place? Surely you are not the sole person able to ferry travelers through this place?”

Cabbel stopped in place, hands on his hips. “Of course not. I cannot be at all points along the perimeter at all times. We have stations all about this region. I might say that helping travelers can be as lucrative as the scrap business. As long as they don’t meddle.”

“And their navigation?”

Cabbel patted the side of his pack. “My colleagues? What do you think? They have a nav box like this of their own, a copy of this AI you are so afraid of. Even this is a copy.”

“Copies,” Dad hissed. “I of all people should have known. But usually, you need an extremely specific parity algorithm to package and reassemble the AI kernel in a new container without breaking apart its neural matrices. And you said you found that AI just among the scrap. How did you manage to make copies without the original documentation?”

“Wouldn’t a spy-type AI be made to easily move from system to system?” I suggested.

Dad clicked his tongue. “Of course. Never let me underestimate you, Sola. Mr. Cabbel, if you allow us our own copy, we will need to bug you no longer. As you’ve seen, we have the power to make AI work for us in our own ways.”

The scavenger shook his head and turned about. “Not a chance. This is a business secret. Proprietary. One of a kind. And you all seem like nice people, but I would rather take my leave before you get desperate and try something that will haunt you.”

My dad stomped his foot loudly before Cabbel could exit the common room. “We’ll remove the malware and give you a clean fresh copy so this same thing won’t have to happen again.”

I heard the little man huff. He relaxed his shoulders and slipped the pack onto the ground. “You lot are too smart for your own good.”

Caddel plopped his pack down next to the core. The lights glowed and faded in a regular pattern. “This won’t mess with the copy here in my kit, will it?”

“This will be a one-way operation,” said Dad, marching up to the core. He ran his finger across the smooth metal. “Aida, we’re going to plug straight into the core so this AI has to go through you before it reaches any of your data. Or the ship’s systems again.”

“I don’t have to tell you how I feel about that, Jeff,” said Grandma. “Let’s hope this is quick.”

“Such a fussy AI,” Caddel noted, looking over the core and its connections about the room.

“Fussy?” Grandma shot back. “I’ll show you fussy. I’ll make sure that door out back into your ship will never open again. At least not before you help out my family like promised.”

“Easy, Aida,” said my mom. “This will be quick, right Jeff? I don’t want to be out here adrift longer than we need to be.”

Dad sighed. “Depends on the complexity of this box’s defenses.”

“And how… temperamental your… system here is, apparently,” the scavenger added. “I’ve never seen an AI so… personable. Not that I’ve seen that many.”

“Might have to do with why this load is so valuable,” Plip suggested, watching from the doorway.

Dad hunched down and opened the data port on the floor just in front of the core. “Well, let’s just get things connected. Aida, do you understand what we have to do?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, first step is to stop the malicious parts of the code from invading your processes. Which shouldn’t be too hard, considering you have plenty more processing power. Just look for anything that’s try to feed back into itself, like you felt before.”

“I’m going to need so much therapy after this,” Grandma sighed.

“Therapy for an AI, now that’s something,” Caddel chuckled.

“I assure you, just that’s how she jokes. A bit of her programming that we all love,” said Dad, hiding his grimace. “So again, Aida, once you have the invasive bits under control, find and isolate the map of the scrap field. We’ll definitely need that. Then there must be some special algorithm in there to navigate through it while avoiding any unstable cores, right?”

“Aye,” Caddel nodded.

“Figured so. Look through our ship’s documentation for Dijkstra’s algorithm, Aida,” continued my dad. “The one from the box is probably similar. Anything else of importance, Caddel?”

The scavenger tapped away at his chin. “Hmm. The map should also include a database of warp decay readings. Like I was sayin’, for any of the cores we can’t avoid, we have to control and modulate your engines to avoid a wake that would disturb them.”

Dad nodded. “Got all that?”

The lights on the core began blinking slightly faster. They didn’t stop even as grandma responded. “I understand.”

Dad knelt down and handled the length of wire heading from the box. He lined its contacts up with those on the ground. “Okay then, I’m going to plug into your core here.”

It might have been me blinking, but I swear the core’s strobing lights paused for a half second before starting up again. “I feel it.”

Dad stood and stepped back, wiping his hands on his thighs. “And now we wait.”

“And I do all the work,” Grandma responded. “Let’s see, yes, it’s trying the same thing as before. I guess I can’t stop it all at once like I tried the first time.”

“You’ve got this Aida,” said my mom.

The main lights in the storage bay flickered. This time, I was sure it wasn’t my eyes. They flashed a few more times. The little fans inside the room’s modules began to run loudly, and I’m pretty sure I felt myself start to sweat a little.

A garbled message sounded out from somewhere else in the ship. “…ething… weir… flashi…” It was Terren from the cockpit.

“Amelia,” said my dad.

My mom nodded before hoofing it back to the front of the Ora. I held my breath a little and I realized my hands were stuck in tight balls. My dad marched to the wall to access the status readout for the core system.

“It’s all froze up here. What’s going on, Aida? Status report.”

“Holding back… the bad stuff… is more work than expected.”

“Try putting it into a logic loop,” I said, tapping my foot. “Keep it busy. A logical paradox! Tell it… this statement is false! Don’t think about it too much, just put it into its brain.”

“Thank you Sola,” groaned Dad. “But maybe let’s not. That can definitely work with older AIs, but let’s not see whether or not Aida will fall for it.”

“Ignore what I said before!” I shouted, nodding.”

The fans sped up even more. Caddel took several steps back, fanning his neck with his hand. Plip was in the hall, leaning around the open door.

There was more flickering from the compartment’s lights. Suddenly, they went off entirely.

“What is going on?” Dad huffed, pacing around the core and finally placing his hand on it. “Too much power? It’s not too hot here. We may need to…” he began to mumble, looking at the ground.

“Hey now!” Caddel stomped. “You must know better than to disconnect a device during a transfter like this.”

“What would you dare risk more? The copy of your little AI or your—“

“It is complete,” interrupted Grandma. The lights returned to normal and the hum of the fans died down. “I have put the unmodified AI to rest and stored a more docile copy into my memory with everything you asked for.”