AL Clark by Jonathan G. Meyer (digital e reader .txt) 📕

“Why would they build a machine that is so complicated?” Chris asked.

“These machines have to maintain a person, in all aspects, for many years on very little power. It's a miracle they could build them at all.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Chris admitted.

Chris said he was hungry, so they each grabbed a manual and made their way to the mess hall to get some lunch and digest the information contained in the books.

THE MANUALS WERE VERY extensive and detailed. After they finished eating a quick lunch, they went back to their quarters to dig in and continue processing the information contained in the manuals.

Chris said, “I miss my comp pad a lot. If I had my pad, we could listen to music. Music helps me when I study.” He smiled and added, “We could probably even get a step-by-step procedure on how to wake someone from a hibernation pod off the net.”

Although Al had no memory of his past, he knew of the portable electronic devices used for so many things. “When we wake your mother, I think she might be able to restore the computers. I’m sure they have a music database of some kind on a colony ship, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they had some personal data pads stashed around here somewhere.”

“That would be great,” admitted Chris, “For now, I’ll just have to learn without music.”

While reading through the different sections of the manual, Al was struck with a feeling of déjà vu. He had heard or read this material before. Sometime in his life, he had been familiar with this book or one very much like it. The more he read, the stronger the feeling became, and in time, he became sure he knew how to revive someone from hibernation. What he didn’t know, was the meaning of the steady red light on Elizabeth’s inner control panel.

The books they found were basic operational manuals; written so that any ship member could follow the procedures when all indicator lights were green. The manual stressed the all-green conditions, and emergency procedures had not been included. There was nothing about what to do if something went wrong. The subject could encounter falling blood pressure, increased heart rate, brain damage, breathing problems, and so on. Any of these could cripple or kill the occupant. There was no information on the tiny red light in the manuals they had, and it concerned Al.

“I think we might need a technician,” suggested Al. “Your mom’s pod has that red light, and I don’t know what it means. Did you find any mention of it?”

“No, and I’ve looked everywhere,” Chris admitted.

“Let’s look in the code book,” Al suggested. “Let’s see if we can find a hiber-pod technician that has all green lights on the pod controls. I think I can wake the technician if the lights are all green, and then the technician can wake your mother.”

Chris liked Al’s idea and immediately stood to get the code book. He was gone only a minute and came back with a pen, a fresh pad of paper, and the precious book.

He held up the pen and pad and with a wink said, “Old tech.”

Al laughed and shook his head, “I do remember those.”

Before long, Chris had a list of twelve names with the higher ranks arranged at the top.

“This is all there is. I only added the ones that said they were hibernation specialists.”

Chris handed the list to Al, who took a quick look and said, “This will do nicely. Are you ready to go back?”

“I can’t wait.”

They did not run, but it wasn’t far from it. When the two castaways arrived at the airlock leading to the spoke lift, and were opening the hatch, Al heard a distant whine coming their way—and getting louder fast. He asked, “Do you hear that?”

Chris looked at Al with surprise and listened. “Hear what?” Oh,...that? What is that?”

The approaching whine became a scream, and grew increasingly louder with the corridor amplifying the sound; propelling it down the passageway until....

“It’s a robot—look out!” Chris cried.

It was indeed a robot. A small, three-foot tall mechanoid, rolling on a single ball and coming full blast towards them. It seemed intent on going as fast as possible in a forward direction—in their direction. Right down the middle of the corridor. Both impending victims wasted no time moving from the center of the passageway.

Al realized that if the robot hit the door, as fast as it was going, it could damage the door and possibly make it unusable. They might lose the use of the one reliable lift to the rest of the ship.

“Quick, jump over here Chris!” Al yelled. Chris leaped to join Al, and just as the robot went past them, Al braced his back against the wall and kicked. The little mechanical assassin ricocheted off the wall next to the door, leaving a deep dent, and then the wall across from them to go struggling back the way it came. They could hear the screech of motors as it attempted to return to its suicidal run. Luckily, it only traveled ten feet or so before it started wobbling like a drunken sailor, made a few slow, erratic circles, and fell to the floor.

Chris stood there stunned. When he could finally speak, he asked, “What was that all about?”

“I have no idea.”

“How did you do that?”

Al was dismissive. “What...Oh, I don’t know. It just kind of happened. I was afraid it might damage the door.”

“Holy mackerel! I have never seen reflexes so fast. You sure put the hurt to it. I might have to start calling you, ‘Al, the robot killer.’ Ha—you are the robot killer that killed a killer robot.”

Al didn’t find it quite as funny as Chris apparently did.

They walked over to take a closer look at this crazy little machine. After a short inspection, they agreed the broken robot was likely to be one of the ship’s service units.

“It was probably designed to clean and maintain the ring,” suggested Al.

Maybe half as wide as it was tall, it was cylindrical and moved about on a basketball sized sphere with a rough surface that protruded from the bottom. Three spindly, extendable arms, equipped with various tools and pincers, lay crumpled against its body. Its pale blue paint was scratched up and splotchy. On its torso was a faded red number nine.

The poor thing was not ‘dead.’ It was, however, banged up pretty good. Al became aware of a muffled whisper coming from a speaker simulating a mouth, and knelt down to hear...Sorry, being repeated over and over. He asked Chris to bend down and listen, so he could join Al in wondering why this robot would attack them, and then be sorry for it.

They left the broken robot, picked up the manual and their list they dropped during the rampage, and rode the lift up to the hub. From there, they made their way to the hiber-pod bay.

The robot episode they left behind, to be replaced by the problem at hand. How to wake someone safely from a long hibernation.

After a thorough search, there was only one hiber-pod technician with all green lights from the list of twelve. Only one lacked the troubling red light under the door to the control panel. The lucky person’s name was Anastasia Kossalowski.

“She’s young,” Al said to Chris.

“And she’s cute,” Chris said with a grin.

“Yeah, but can she help us?”

“The list says she is a hiber-pod technician. She’s the only one with all green lights and our only real chance. We have to wake her up,” Chris pointed out.

Al reluctantly agreed.

The standard restoration procedure was not all that difficult if you knew a few things. Once activated, most of the revival process is automatically performed by the pod. A person just had to know which buttons to press, when to push those buttons, and how to set the timer.

They worked together, Al pushed the buttons and Chris double-checked him with the manual. When it came to setting the timer, they discussed it and decided to use the recommended six hour time table for maximum safety. If they adjusted the timer for less, it naturally raised the risk of something going wrong. They weren’t in that big a hurry.

When Al pressed the last switch, a digital timer appeared, and steadily began counting down from six hours. The glow brightened inside the pod, making the girl’s face look all the more angelic as the light flooded her features, and reflected off the backs of the pods before her. Deep inside the unit, a soft, steady, ticking began.

They decided to leave her for an hour. The risk was very low in the beginning, so they ran back to their quarters, cleaned up, grabbed a little something to eat and drink, and ran back. When they passed the place where the robot attacked them, they noticed the strange mechanical creature was missing, with no sign of it having been there—except the dent beside the door. Chris grabbed a blanket and a bottle of water for the girl in the pod, and Al grabbed some clothes for her, water for them, and some food packs. They went back to get comfortable and wait for her to wake up from her long slumber.

While they waited, they talked. Chris was nervous and did most of the talking, while Al mostly listened.

“How old do you think she is?”

“About your age?”

“Yeah, she looks about eighteen—maybe nineteen. Does she look old enough to be a technician? What if she can’t wake my mother?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

“You will like my mom—everybody does. She’s a great engineer that loves her work. My dad cried when we left. It was the first time I’d ever seen that.” Chris hesitated, his face sad, and added, “I’m gonna miss him. Should we check the pod again?”

“If you want, I just checked it, though.”

“Any idea why that crazy robot acted like that? It could have killed us.”

“It was crazy—wasn’t it,” Al admitted.

Chris continued to rattle on, “Where do you think we are?”

Al chuckled, “We could be anywhere. We know we’re in a ship, that’s a beginning.”

The humor went right over his head, and Chris continued, “I haven’t seen an observation area yet, have you? Maybe there’s one past the bridge door. If I had designed this ship, I would put the windows in front of the ring, so you’d have an unobstructed view of what’s in front of you. Do you think your keys will help open the bridge door?”

“I didn’t see a place for a key, but I didn’t look all that closely,” Al replied while thinking, this is going to be a long five hours.

Thirty minutes before the timer reached zero, there was the sound of a whining motor, and the front of the pod slid down into the floor. The mist inside disappeared, and they got their first good look at Anastasia.

She was dressed in a tight-fitting silver suit and was so short and petite she reminded Al of a china doll—a fragile doll at that. Her hair was short and brown, parted in the middle, and her