A/N: Right, on to chapter 3. You might notice that the style has changed a
bit, but I did that on purpose (no, really!) because it's supposed to be
Harper's point of view, so I thought I'd write it more like I imagine he
would think.
Thanks a lot to those of you who reviewed, I appreciate it. Keep 'em coming!
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Interlude again.
As they say: the fun just kept on leaving. Just as things had started to look up, he found himself in the middle of an emergency. And that big, black guy seemed to be convinced that it was all his fault. Maybe he was right. Trouble had been known to follow him around.
Things were crashing down all over the place. Sparks flying from computer consoles. People shouting. It looked like there was a good chance that they might all die. Well, was death not what he had wanted only a couple of weeks ago? Mental note: be more careful what you wish for in the future.
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Chapter Three: Like a hole in the head.
Ok, so they won the fight. In the end. Shot the bastards down good, like a big firework, with a few well-aimed missiles. Hooray for them.
Harper was exhausted. He had spent the last hour bouncing around the engine room like a rubber ball welding circuits that kept shorting out just as soon as he was done. But it had paid off. Eventually he headed to the bridge to see what the reason was for the recent overtaxing of his genius.
"So, to who do we own the honour of having to spend a small fortune on spare parts this time?" he asked Dylan.
"We don't know who they were. The analysis of the wreckage didn't show up much. I think they must have come from Earth though."
Dylan was giving New Guy a strange look. Tyr looked like he was chewing a wasp. So, guess they weren't too happy about this. Bit of a shame if it should turn out the man was some kind of traitor. Or spy. It would've been cool to have someone else from Earth to talk to. And the guy seemed friendly enough. A little strange, but friendly.
They set course for a small planet where they could get the stuff needed for the repairs. Nothing too critical had been broken that Harper wasn't able to fix. Yeah, like there was anything aboard this whole glorious ship that he wasn't able to fix, given time and the proper tools.
While he completed some repairs on the bridge, he couldn't help but listen in on Dylan's conversation with the weird white one. Well, interrogation was maybe a more suitable phrase.
"And you say that you have no idea who these attackers were? Although everything points at them following us from the planet, just after we picked you up?"
The captain kept his calm, but he sounded doubtful.
"Look… I don't know who they are. I suppose it could have been the same people as the ones who kidnapped me, but that still doesn't mean that I know what they want with me!"
Dude sure sounded desperate. Who wouldn't with Tyr literally breathing down your neck like that? Sheesh, Harper was glad he wasn't in that guy's shoes. Actually, his shoes were weird too. Runners, pretty clean ones. Where on Earth would you get those? Well, the thing was; you wouldn't. Not anymore.
A couple of hours later, Harper felt that he'd put in more than a good day's work. Maybe it was time to do the proper meet and greet thing. There were lots of things he wanted to ask Milon, and who knew, with his winning personality Harper might just be the man to get some answers where the others had failed. Said and done, he dug deep in his secret stash of alcoholic beverages and eventually decided that parting with a beer might be worth it.
Milon looked surprised to see him as he opened the door.
"Greetings!" Harper said, handing him the bottle, "This is what we here on board the good ship Andromeda like to call a quarter-warming gift. It might not be up to old Earth standards, but it beats the hell out of the urine recyke you had earlier..." Harper laughed at Milon's shocked look, "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!"
"Oh. Ok then. Thanks."
He took the bottle and twisted the cap off. Tasted the stuff without hesitation. Anybody who accepts a beer from someone they don't even know can't be all that sneaky, can they?
"I don't know if we were even properly introduced. I'm Seamus Harper, engineer and all-round god of all things tech. If there's anything you need fixing, well, get in line, 'coz there's already a thousand and one things that fight amongst themselves as to which one gets to fill my busy day and… well, even a god can only be in one place at the time. Actually… that might not be true for those all-seeing, all hearing types, but I am after all only one man on a mission to whip this ship back into the perfection that is her true state of being."
"Should I make with the traditional 'Are you human' comment then?"
"No. I mean yes, I am. Aside from the god bit, that was kinda an in joke between… myself."
"Yeah, I see what you're doing there. If you don't mind me asking, what's that on your neck?"
"It's a bio-port. Nifty little gadget that allows me to jack straight into the computer's mainframe. Very handy for the old software maintenance."
"I'll bet."
"You sound like you're English?" Harper said casually, dropping down on the sofa, "Are you?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Cool. Whereabouts?"
"Um... London. Around there."
See! A kind word and gratuitous alcohol go down so much better than threats and shouting with us Earth people, Harper thought. In five minutes he knew more about this odd white haired guy than Tyr and Dylan's combined efforts had managed to squeeze out of him since he got here. Hah!
"But you weren't a slave, obviously," Harper continued light-heartedly.
The smile faded a little on Milon's face, but he still answered:
"Well, I guess that's a question of definition, isn't it?"
"You don't have a mark..."
"Nope."
Milon sat down at the other end of the sofa and absentmindedly swished the beer around in his bottle. Ok, so maybe that was all Harper would get out of him right now. He had no more than finished the thought when Milon said:
"You wanna hear a secret?"
"Uh, yeah, sure!"
"Promise not to tell, but I've one of those bio-ports as well. Not a big fancy one like yours or anything, but yeah..."
"What? Where?"
"Here."
Milon tapped a finger against the back of his head, just where it joined the neck. What an odd place to put it, Harper though.
"Can I see?"
Milon bowed his head and allowed Harper to take a closer look. He couldn't see anything, no metal, just skin. As if Milon had guessed his thoughts, he said:
"You can't really see it, it's kinda beneath the skin. And I guess the hair is in the way."
Curious now, Harper put his hand on Milon's neck. And there was something there, in the little hollow just underneath the skull, he could feel a small, hard ring of metal. A bio-port with no external components, he'd never seen anything like it.
"Feel it?"
"Yeah! Hey, that thing isn't wired straight into your cortex, is it?"
"Think so."
"What, with no buffers, no nothing? How dangerous is that! Where the hell did you get this?"
Milon sat back again, rubbing the back of his head.
"Not sure. I was too young to remember..."
"You saying they put a bio-port on you when you were a baby? I'm sorry, but that's just sick!"
Milon laughed at him. Not maliciously at all, but like he was thinking that if Harper thought that was sick, he should only know... It was making Harper feel strange. Like maybe he wasn't the only one who the Universe had singled out for its personal vendetta.
"Yeah, well. I never really use it anyway..." Milon said.
"But you'd miss it if it was gone?"
"Yeah, like a hole in the head."
Now Harper laughed too. Well, it was good to see that there was somebody else with a sense of humour on board.
"Did you really build that android yourself?" Milon asked suddenly.
"Sure did. My pride and joy she is, Rommie."
"But... she's like a human. I mean... she has a personality right?"
"Yeah. The AI is her personality; I just made the body. And what a body... why?"
"So, she is an artificial intelligence in an artificial body then. Does she still have... y'know feelings?"
"Yeah, why... oh! You fancy her, do you?" Harper grinned.
"No! I mean, she's nice and all, but... that wasn't why I asked. I was just wondering..."
Milon got up and started looking around, like he felt lost, or trapped. When hologram Rommie appeared next to him he looked so startled that Harper couldn't help thinking that if his hair hadn't already been white, it might very well have turned now.
"Wondering what?" Rommie asked.
"Jeez, scare the hell out of me why don't ya? So, they really programmed you for eavesdropping?"
"Monitoring. It's called security."
"Is that right?"
Still, Milon didn't look too bothered. Harper had a feeling that he wasn't really working very hard to hide anything; it was more that he wouldn't tell them just because they asked. Playing with them. 'Them' mostly being Dylan and Tyr. Some nerve he had. Yeah, Harper could definitely get to like this guy.
"Well," Rommie said, somewhat snottily, "if you have any more questions about me in the future, maybe you could ask me directly?"
"Like you don't talk about me behind my back? Anyway, never mind, it doesn't matter."
"For your information, I do have feelings," she said before flickering out without waiting for a reply.
"I guess I put my foot in it there, eh?" Milon smiled, "Hey, this is actually not bad!"
He held up the beer bottle, reading the label. Since the label was in a non-terrestrial language, Harper guessed it left him none the wiser. At least the man had the taste to appreciate life's tiny pleasures.
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Thanks a lot to those of you who reviewed, I appreciate it. Keep 'em coming!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------
Interlude again.
As they say: the fun just kept on leaving. Just as things had started to look up, he found himself in the middle of an emergency. And that big, black guy seemed to be convinced that it was all his fault. Maybe he was right. Trouble had been known to follow him around.
Things were crashing down all over the place. Sparks flying from computer consoles. People shouting. It looked like there was a good chance that they might all die. Well, was death not what he had wanted only a couple of weeks ago? Mental note: be more careful what you wish for in the future.
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Chapter Three: Like a hole in the head.
Ok, so they won the fight. In the end. Shot the bastards down good, like a big firework, with a few well-aimed missiles. Hooray for them.
Harper was exhausted. He had spent the last hour bouncing around the engine room like a rubber ball welding circuits that kept shorting out just as soon as he was done. But it had paid off. Eventually he headed to the bridge to see what the reason was for the recent overtaxing of his genius.
"So, to who do we own the honour of having to spend a small fortune on spare parts this time?" he asked Dylan.
"We don't know who they were. The analysis of the wreckage didn't show up much. I think they must have come from Earth though."
Dylan was giving New Guy a strange look. Tyr looked like he was chewing a wasp. So, guess they weren't too happy about this. Bit of a shame if it should turn out the man was some kind of traitor. Or spy. It would've been cool to have someone else from Earth to talk to. And the guy seemed friendly enough. A little strange, but friendly.
They set course for a small planet where they could get the stuff needed for the repairs. Nothing too critical had been broken that Harper wasn't able to fix. Yeah, like there was anything aboard this whole glorious ship that he wasn't able to fix, given time and the proper tools.
While he completed some repairs on the bridge, he couldn't help but listen in on Dylan's conversation with the weird white one. Well, interrogation was maybe a more suitable phrase.
"And you say that you have no idea who these attackers were? Although everything points at them following us from the planet, just after we picked you up?"
The captain kept his calm, but he sounded doubtful.
"Look… I don't know who they are. I suppose it could have been the same people as the ones who kidnapped me, but that still doesn't mean that I know what they want with me!"
Dude sure sounded desperate. Who wouldn't with Tyr literally breathing down your neck like that? Sheesh, Harper was glad he wasn't in that guy's shoes. Actually, his shoes were weird too. Runners, pretty clean ones. Where on Earth would you get those? Well, the thing was; you wouldn't. Not anymore.
A couple of hours later, Harper felt that he'd put in more than a good day's work. Maybe it was time to do the proper meet and greet thing. There were lots of things he wanted to ask Milon, and who knew, with his winning personality Harper might just be the man to get some answers where the others had failed. Said and done, he dug deep in his secret stash of alcoholic beverages and eventually decided that parting with a beer might be worth it.
Milon looked surprised to see him as he opened the door.
"Greetings!" Harper said, handing him the bottle, "This is what we here on board the good ship Andromeda like to call a quarter-warming gift. It might not be up to old Earth standards, but it beats the hell out of the urine recyke you had earlier..." Harper laughed at Milon's shocked look, "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!"
"Oh. Ok then. Thanks."
He took the bottle and twisted the cap off. Tasted the stuff without hesitation. Anybody who accepts a beer from someone they don't even know can't be all that sneaky, can they?
"I don't know if we were even properly introduced. I'm Seamus Harper, engineer and all-round god of all things tech. If there's anything you need fixing, well, get in line, 'coz there's already a thousand and one things that fight amongst themselves as to which one gets to fill my busy day and… well, even a god can only be in one place at the time. Actually… that might not be true for those all-seeing, all hearing types, but I am after all only one man on a mission to whip this ship back into the perfection that is her true state of being."
"Should I make with the traditional 'Are you human' comment then?"
"No. I mean yes, I am. Aside from the god bit, that was kinda an in joke between… myself."
"Yeah, I see what you're doing there. If you don't mind me asking, what's that on your neck?"
"It's a bio-port. Nifty little gadget that allows me to jack straight into the computer's mainframe. Very handy for the old software maintenance."
"I'll bet."
"You sound like you're English?" Harper said casually, dropping down on the sofa, "Are you?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Cool. Whereabouts?"
"Um... London. Around there."
See! A kind word and gratuitous alcohol go down so much better than threats and shouting with us Earth people, Harper thought. In five minutes he knew more about this odd white haired guy than Tyr and Dylan's combined efforts had managed to squeeze out of him since he got here. Hah!
"But you weren't a slave, obviously," Harper continued light-heartedly.
The smile faded a little on Milon's face, but he still answered:
"Well, I guess that's a question of definition, isn't it?"
"You don't have a mark..."
"Nope."
Milon sat down at the other end of the sofa and absentmindedly swished the beer around in his bottle. Ok, so maybe that was all Harper would get out of him right now. He had no more than finished the thought when Milon said:
"You wanna hear a secret?"
"Uh, yeah, sure!"
"Promise not to tell, but I've one of those bio-ports as well. Not a big fancy one like yours or anything, but yeah..."
"What? Where?"
"Here."
Milon tapped a finger against the back of his head, just where it joined the neck. What an odd place to put it, Harper though.
"Can I see?"
Milon bowed his head and allowed Harper to take a closer look. He couldn't see anything, no metal, just skin. As if Milon had guessed his thoughts, he said:
"You can't really see it, it's kinda beneath the skin. And I guess the hair is in the way."
Curious now, Harper put his hand on Milon's neck. And there was something there, in the little hollow just underneath the skull, he could feel a small, hard ring of metal. A bio-port with no external components, he'd never seen anything like it.
"Feel it?"
"Yeah! Hey, that thing isn't wired straight into your cortex, is it?"
"Think so."
"What, with no buffers, no nothing? How dangerous is that! Where the hell did you get this?"
Milon sat back again, rubbing the back of his head.
"Not sure. I was too young to remember..."
"You saying they put a bio-port on you when you were a baby? I'm sorry, but that's just sick!"
Milon laughed at him. Not maliciously at all, but like he was thinking that if Harper thought that was sick, he should only know... It was making Harper feel strange. Like maybe he wasn't the only one who the Universe had singled out for its personal vendetta.
"Yeah, well. I never really use it anyway..." Milon said.
"But you'd miss it if it was gone?"
"Yeah, like a hole in the head."
Now Harper laughed too. Well, it was good to see that there was somebody else with a sense of humour on board.
"Did you really build that android yourself?" Milon asked suddenly.
"Sure did. My pride and joy she is, Rommie."
"But... she's like a human. I mean... she has a personality right?"
"Yeah. The AI is her personality; I just made the body. And what a body... why?"
"So, she is an artificial intelligence in an artificial body then. Does she still have... y'know feelings?"
"Yeah, why... oh! You fancy her, do you?" Harper grinned.
"No! I mean, she's nice and all, but... that wasn't why I asked. I was just wondering..."
Milon got up and started looking around, like he felt lost, or trapped. When hologram Rommie appeared next to him he looked so startled that Harper couldn't help thinking that if his hair hadn't already been white, it might very well have turned now.
"Wondering what?" Rommie asked.
"Jeez, scare the hell out of me why don't ya? So, they really programmed you for eavesdropping?"
"Monitoring. It's called security."
"Is that right?"
Still, Milon didn't look too bothered. Harper had a feeling that he wasn't really working very hard to hide anything; it was more that he wouldn't tell them just because they asked. Playing with them. 'Them' mostly being Dylan and Tyr. Some nerve he had. Yeah, Harper could definitely get to like this guy.
"Well," Rommie said, somewhat snottily, "if you have any more questions about me in the future, maybe you could ask me directly?"
"Like you don't talk about me behind my back? Anyway, never mind, it doesn't matter."
"For your information, I do have feelings," she said before flickering out without waiting for a reply.
"I guess I put my foot in it there, eh?" Milon smiled, "Hey, this is actually not bad!"
He held up the beer bottle, reading the label. Since the label was in a non-terrestrial language, Harper guessed it left him none the wiser. At least the man had the taste to appreciate life's tiny pleasures.
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