Author's Note: SorryI took so long to update, it's enrollment week here in the Philippines and everything's just crazy. Anyway, I'm making up for that by making this chapter a little longer than the others.
Disclaimer: Refer to the prologue
Story Title: Corrupted Programming
Chapter Title: Manipulation
Stealth Wasp, somewhere in Irken territory
The Stealth Wasp shook hard as a beam from an Irken weapon glanced off its fuselage. One of the occupants in the Stealth Wasp, a green robot, gave out a yell and muttered curses. The other, a small woman, was busy pulling the craft into evasive maneuvers. Behind their craft the Irken battleships were beginning to pull back, their commanders realizing that the Stealth Wasp was too small a target for them to lock onto effectively. Instead, they started to release several smaller craft which quickly sped after the Stealth Wasp.
"We gotta wormhole outta here, Wakeman," ADAX said in a panicked tone. "And I mean now!"
"I can't, the navigational systems are malfunctioning and it's too risky to pull a blind wormhole jump," Dr. Wakeman replied in a harried tone. She gritted her teeth as she jinked and zigzagged the craft in order to evade their Irken pursuers. "And I certainly can't repair the navigational systems under these conditions."
"Then give me weapons control so I can at least blow some of these bastards off our backs." ADAX said, the panic in his tone still evident.
"This ship has no weapons," Mrs. Wakeman mumbled to gritted teeth. "When I refurbished this vessel I found the weapons systems too damaged to repair."
"Let me get this straight, you planned to go into Cluster territory on a rescue mission in an unarmed craft?!" ADAX asked incredulously. He took on a sarcastic tone. "Smart, Wakeman, real smart."
"Of course!" the doctor suddenly said. "If I activate this vessel's cloaking device those aliens won't be able to find us and thus leave us in peace, and I'll be able to repair navigational systems."
"Well, what the hack are you waitin' for?" ADAX yelled. "Do it!"
The diminutive scientist reached toward a button and pushed it, but all she got was a warning tone from one of the panels. She quickly shot a look at the panel's sceen. On it were the words: UNABLE TO COMPLY, SYSTEM DAMAGED.
"Well, where's the cloak, Wakeman?!"
"That glancing blow that hit us earlier damaged the cloaking device's power relays!"
"What?!" ADAX said in alarm. "Oh now that's just dandy—"
He was abruptly cut off as a beam slammed into one of the Stealth Wasp's four engines, causing the craft to shake violently. Alarms wailed in the cockpit as Dr. Wakeman struggled with a panel in order to deactivate the now flaming fourth engine. After much effort she managed to turn off the burning engine, but now the craft's speed was reduced.
"Wakeman," ADAX said in a low and dangerous tone, all traces of panic gone from his voice. "Give me the schematics for the cloaking device."
"Huh?" Mrs. Wakeman asked in a surprised manner, not noticing the edge to ADAX's voice. "What for?"
"Just give it to me, you old hag." ADAX said in a calm yet impatient way. The doctor gave him a dirty look as she pointed to a panel. A connection prod extended from ADAX's left hand, he used it to connect to one of the panel's terminal ports. He pulled it out after downloading the schematics and reached for his back. A panel opened on his back and released a weapon that looked like a cross between an oversized staple gun and a sci-fi prop. ADAX grabbed it.
"What're you going to do, ADAX?" Dr. Wakeman asked.
"I'm gonna try to repair that cloaking device and try to take some of the heat off us." ADAX said. He rubbed his weapon affectionately against his cheek. "Besides, Miffy and I haven't seen action in a long time."
At first Mrs. Wakeman wondered who "Miffy" was. After a moment she realized that ADAX had been referring to his weapon. 'ADAX really is one of my more eccentric creations." she thought as she turned to look at the green robot, but the said robot was already going into the crawlspace that led to a hatch that exited the ship.
Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship, somewhere in deep space
"Hey!" a red-haired human boy screamed as he banged on a metal door with his fists. "Let me outta here, you walking piles of junk!"
He had been banging on the door and yelling his lungs out since he had been tossed into his cell. He didn't really know what this was all about and why he had been brought here, but right now hw didn't really care. A part of him knew that what he was doing was just a waste of energy and lung power, but it was better that sulking around in self-pity. Besides, he just might annoy some of the Cluster robots who kept watch outside his cell.
Suddenly, he flew back as the door was thrown open. The human boy, Brad, slammed back first into the cell wall. He was rubbing his painful back and grumbling something incoherent when a large robot stepped inside. Brad looked up. It was a robot that looked just like the ant drone courier who had first extended the Cluster's invitation to Jenny, except that this one was black instead of red.
"You will come with me, human." It said in a flat, mirthless voice. He leaned over and picked up Brad. He opened his mouth and swallowed Brad into the compartment in his chest.
"What the—" Brad said. "Hey! Where're you taking me? Let me outta here!"
The robot said nothing, it just walked out of the cell with Brad in its chest and started down the corridors of the ship. Brad looked out of the porthole in the ant drone's chest and started to worry. Where were they taking him this time? More importantly, what were they going to do with him.
That thought was eating at the back of Brad's mind just as the black ant drone stopped in front of a door. The drone leaned down and pressed an intercom button beside the door. "Chief Engineer Fixit, the prisoner you requested for is here."
'Fixit?' Brad thought, temporarily distracted from his situation by the silliness of the name. 'What kind of a name is that?' Realizing how mundane that thought was, Brad shook them out of his mind.
"Do bring him in, my good drone." Brad heard a singsong voice that had a vaguely British-sounding accent to it say.
Looking out of the porthole on the ant drone's chest, Brad saw the door open. As the ant drone stepped inside Brad swallowed a lump that suddenly materialized in his throat. Whatever the they were gonna do with or to him, they were gonna do it right here. Still looking out of the port, B rad saw that he had been brought to some kind of laboratory that looked like a mad scientist's playground. As he looked around he saw a smiling blue robot that looked like a praying mantis.
"Please release the human." The mantis robot whom Brad guessed was Fixit said. The black ant drone immediately complied by spitting Brad onto the floor.
"Ow!" Brad said as he plopped, head-first, into the floor. "Hey, watch it!"
"Thank you," Fixit said to the ant drone, waving a foreleg in a dismissive gesture. "That will be all."
The black ant drone gave a small nod and exited the lab, leaving Brad alone with the blue mantis drone. Fixit started to circle Brad, studying him intently. Brad nervously followed the robotic Chief Engineer's movement with his eyes, feeling uncomfortable under the robot's scrutiny.
"Hm, interesting." Fixit noted. "I've never had an opportunity to study humans this close before."
The blue robot shook his head. "I wonder how such inefficient collections of biological gunk could ever be considered the dominant species of planet Earth. I mean look at you! Your body is an absolutely atrocious collection of biological filth."
"Hey," Brad said, vaguely taking offense at Fixit's comments. "Who're you calling a collection of biological filth."
"Why, you, of course! There's no one else here." The Chief Engineer said, looking right at Brad. He smiled in an overly pleasant manner. "Oh well, down to business."
"W-what're you going to do with me?" Brad asked nervously.
"Well, since you probably wouldn't understand the complex processes I'm going to initiate, I'll tell you in terms that even you could understand." The blue robot said. "I'm going to attempt to reprogram your brain so that you will cooperate with Grand Marshal Yomex."
"You gonna do what?!" Brad said incredulously.
"Didn't understand that either?" Fixit said mockingly. "Well let me make it simpler, I'm going to warp your mind."
Brad's head was suddenly filled with images of himself with his head exploding. He gulped. "Hey, c-come on, there's no need to do that. I can play along if I have to. Besides, I'm smart enough to know I'd be an idiot not to cooperate."
"Sorry, but the Grand Marshal thinks that that's too much of a liability." Fixit said, shaking his head. "Don't worry, it won't hurt a bit. Well, at least it didn't seem to hurt XJ-9."
"What?!" Brad exclaimed. "You mean you did this to Jenny?"
"Yes, and now she is happily working with Grand Marshal Yomex." Fixit's expression contorted into a twisted smile. "And soon, so will you."
The mantis robot then picked up Brad and started to bring him over to a metal pod. Brad shouted in protest as he struggled against Fixit's hold. The Chief Engineer didn't seem to notice, he just gripped Brad like a baby. He calmly put Brad in the pod and closed it.
As the pod closed around Brad he started yelling and hitting the walls of the pod. But his trashing and protests suddenly stepped and staggered as information that felt like an electric charge surged into his mind. Brad screamed, this time in pain, as his vision went white. Fixit had been wrong. The process did hurt, it hurt a lot.
Stealth Wasp, somewhere in Irken territory
There was a slight red sheen in ADAX's vision as he crawled toward the Stealth Wasp's emergency exit hatch. It was a red sheen that appeared every time his inherent aggressiveness was kindled due to some strong emotion. The strong emotion that had kindled it this time was the fear he had felt when the Irkens had started attacking. Now he was going to use the aggressiveness that fear had sparked to strike fear into the Irkens themselves.
As he reached the hatch he looked at the weapon he affectionately called "Miffy". He made sure Miffy was set at full power before he turned his attention back to the hatch. He deftly opened the hatch with his free left hand. He activated the magnets on his feet before he squeezed out of the hatch and stepped onto the Stealth Wasp's outer hull.
His head was almost blown off as an Irken craft flashed by, guns blazing as it strafed the Stealth Wasp. The red sheen in ADAX's eyes turned even redder as he locked on to the alien vessel. It was a small, bulbous craft with a transparent bubble cockpit. Inside the cockpit he could clearly see a small, green, bug-eyed alien with insect-like antennae.
He smiled, for two reasons. One, because the Irkens looked like the old stereotyped "little green men." And two, because he pictured how funny it would be to see the Irken's craft blow up. He pointed Miffy at the alien vessel and pulled the trigger. A ball of charged ions the size ADAX's head flew from weapon and blew an engine nacelle off the alien craft. The craft spun wildly into another Irken craft and both disappeared in a satisfyingly bright ball of flame and debris. ADAX's mouth twisted into a maniacal smile at the sight.
"Two suckaz for the price of one!" he mouthed silently in the vacuum of space. The sheen in his eyes became even redder as ADAX started to fire wildly and aimlessly. He laughed a silent maniacal laugh as his aggressive nature took over. His weapons fire flew out in all directions. Some struck nothing, some were glancing blows, while some slammed into Irken vessels and either destroyed or damaged them.
"HAHAHAHAHA!!! You wanna piece of me?!" ADAX's mouthed into the silence of space, forgetting what he originally came out to do. "Come and get! Yeah, yeah, TAKE IT!!!"
[ADAX!] a stern voice suddenly came over the built-in radio in ADAX's head. [I know you must be enjoying yourself, but would you just please repair the cloaking device.]
[You are such a friggin' killjoy, Wakeman.] ADAX replied via radio. The red sheen in his vision started to ease ever so slightly. [Alright, you old witch, I'm going.]
ADAX could almost see the angry expression of Dr. Wakeman at his "old witch" remark, but she didn't reply. ADAX smirked in amusement as he walked over the hull, firing his ships that came within his line of sight. Finally, he stopped as he reached the rear portion of the Stealth Wasp. He called up the schematics he had recently downloaded and opened a panel on the ship's fuselage. Iside the panel was a damaged power relay for the Stealth Wasp's cloaking device. ADAX's left hand reconfigured into a multi-tool while he kept on shooting at the Irkens with his right hand.
He reached into the panel with his left hand. The multi-tool rapidly flew over the damaged power relay and repaired it in less than five minutes. Still opening fire at the aliens, ADAX smiled at his handiwork and called out to Mrs. Wakeman over his built-in radio.
[Okay, Wakeman,] he said over the channel. [It's fixed.]
The other Irken vessels swarmed toward the Stealth Wasp with weapons pouring wave after wave of lethal energy, but as they closed the craft disappeared. The Irken pilots, confused, started scooping the area with their scanners on full power, but there was nothing on their scopes.
Grand Marshal Yomex's Command Ship
Fixit watched the pod's readouts unsurely, the brainwave patterns of the human boy within seemed more erratic than they had before. However, Fixit didn't really know how to interpret them since he hadn't been programmed to decipher such signals. He only hoped that the rapidly spiking readings on the pod's screens meant that all was going as intended.
Then, a beep sounded from the pod, signaling that the process was finished. The blue mantis robot leaned forward to study the information on the screens. On them were the words: DATA INCONCLUSIVE. The Chief Engineer frowned, even the pod's instruments were having difficulty understanding the data from the human's brainwave patterns. It seemed that he would just chance it. Fixit tapped a few keys on a control terminal.
A hissing and creaking sound came from the pod as it opened slowly. When it had opened widely enough, a human figure fell to the ground. The human moaned and clutched his head, clearly experiencing a great amount of discomfort.
"Ugh… my… head…" Fixit heard the human groan.
The blue mantis robot approached the boy. "Are you alright, human?"
The human seemed to freeze. Since Fixit wasn't programmed to read human expressions and mannerism, he didn't know what to make of the human's actions. He, instead, guessed that it probably meant that the human hadn't heard him correctly.
"Are you alright, human?" Fixit repeated.
The human turned to Fixit with expressions on his face that Fixit couldn't read. The human seemed to glare at him for a while before he started to speak. "Hey, uh, aren't I supposed to be with Jenny and that, um, Yomex guy?"
Relief flooded the Chief Engineer's subroutines. The process had worked after all, the delay in the human's reaction was probably because his brain had needed to fully absorb the information first. "Yes, human, your presence is required by Queen Jennifer." The blue mantis robot answered. "Come, I shall lead you to there."
"Lead the way." The human said. "And by the way, call me Brad. That "human" stuff is kinda insulting."
"Very well, Brad," Fixit said, nodding. "Let us go then."
As Fixit turned he didn't see Brad let out a small sigh. Nor did he see the slight smile that spread on Brad's face.
Author's Note: Hm, what's up with Brad? Is he under Cluster control or is something else afoot? And what of Dr. Wakeman and ADAX? Well, you'll have to wait for the later chapters to find out. I promise to get the next chapter out as soon as I can.