Chapter 11 Dreams and Discoveries
That night as Aaron and Sam slept, she dreamt about their short journey to Mobius. In her dream, she saw the castle taken over the same that they witnessed while they were there. In her dream, there was one difference; when she and Aaron came back to Earth, the human who had taken over the Mobian city followed them back to Earth. When she awoke from the dream, she woke to find she was back in her bedroom in her house. She reached over and turned on the light on her nightstand. Sitting there was a computer, about the size of her hand. Her first instinct was to call Aaron and let him know about the computer that she discovered, but as she sat in her bed and thought it over, she decided that she would take it over to his house the following day. Now that she was more awake, Sam got out of bed and picked the small computer up and took it over to her desk and turned on the light there.
She set the computer on the desk and opened the cover. Underneath the cover was a dozen buttons of unmarked function and built into the cover was a screen. Not knowing what any of the buttons did, Samantha pressed the only round one assuming that it was a power button. The screen came to life and the buttons started to glow as if backlit. Once it was turned on, Sam waited for it to display some kind of logo or something on the small screen and was somewhat disappointed when it did not. The screen seemed to be stuck on displaying a straight line across it. Assuming there was something wrong with it, she started to close the cover.
"I am Nicole One." Samantha looked around her room for the source of the voice, but could not find it.
"Who… who said that?" Samantha asked. One of the lights on the computer blinked and Samantha opened it again.
"I am Nicole One." The small computer stated again. As it spoke, the straight line on its display jumped in response to its voice.
"You can speak?" Samantha asked the computer. Now she was sure that Aaron would want to see the computer.
"I am programmed to speak many languages, as well as many other things." It said in an almost feminine voice. Then one of the lights blinked again and continued to blink as if it was prompting Samantha to press it. She pressed the button.
"In order to start setup, please state your name in a normal tone of voice." It asked with a somewhat more masculine voice. Samantha stared at the small computer.
"Uhhh… Samantha Collen."
"Please state location." Samantha thought to herself,
'This can't want until tomorrow… Aaron's gotta see this!' Samantha ran over and grabbed her phone and dialed Aaron's number. After four rings, Aaron picked up.
"Ummm… hello?" He answered, his speech slurred by sleep.
"Aaron… it's me, Sam. I've got something you've got to see! It's a computer…" She started to explain.
"Can't it wait until mornin'?" He asked, sounding a little more awake.
"The computer's asking me questions… with a voice! I need your help because I don't know what it's askin' me for." She waited for this to sink into his sleepy brain.
"Alright… give me a few minutes… gotta get dressed. I'll be there in ten minutes." He said, now sounding fully awake. At that, they both hung up the phone and she went back to the desk and the computer, which was impatiently blinking one of the buttons. She pressed it.
"Please state location."
"Uhhh… Earth." Samantha said not sure what it was asking for. It blinked a couple of its lights quickly and then spoke again.
"Accessing GPS networks… awaiting confirmation… location confirmed as being Texarkana, Arkansas. Is this correct?" Samantha stared at the small computer. It was only about the size of her hand, and yet it just accessed the worldwide Global Positioning System on its own.
"Yes it is."
"Setup completed… voice recognition setup completed… thank you." It said before blinking a series of lights. Then in the female voice,
"Thank you, Samantha. I am sure you have many questions for me and I assure you I can answer all of them."
"How did you end up in my room?" Sam asked the computer, blushing slightly at realizing how odd it would look to talk to a computer as she was doing.
"I followed you back here through the portal." The computer stated.
"Where did you come from?" Samantha asked it.
"That information is classified. Only my previous owner can access that data." The computer said.
"What are you capable of?" The computers lights blinked before it generated a hologram in the air in front of Sam.
"I am capable of accessing GPS networks, Internet communication over all known protocols, remote access of computers, speaking every known Earth-based language, long and short range scanning…" The computer listed as it displayed each capability in the hologram. Samantha heard someone knocking on the front door and went downstairs to answer it.
"Aaron… sorry to call you so early in the morning, but I found something that you've gotta see!" Samantha said, taking Aaron's hand and practically dragging him upstairs to her room. As soon as Sam entered the room, the computer resumed speaking its list of capabilities.
"Nicole, that's okay." Samantha said to the computer, which stopped speaking and acknowledged Samantha. She then turned to Aaron, "I woke up from a weird dream about that planet, and I found that on my nightstand. I don't know where it came from or anything, other than it calls itself Nicole and understands plain English." Samantha said as she led Aaron into her room. Aaron was hesitant to go into her room because he had never been into a girl's bedroom before. She managed to get him over to her desk where the computer sat silently.
"Nicole… how do I allow another user to operate you?" Samantha asked the small machine. The computer blinked two lights.
"New user… please state your name in a normal tone of voice." The masculine voice prompted.
"Umm… Aaron Brandt." Aaron said. He glanced at Samantha and mouthed the words, 'This feels so weird!'
"User named Samantha… do you wish to setup any more users?" It asked.
"No… can you restrict access to me and Aaron?"
"Access restrictions set. Thank you." It said before turning back to the feminine voice.
"Go ahead and ask it anything… the speech recognition is really accurate." Samantha knew Aaron would want to ask it lots of questions.
"Umm… Nicole, where are you from?" He asked nervously. Obviously, he was a little uncomfortable talking to a computer.
"That information is restricted. Only my original owner can access that information." Nicole stated.
"Who was your original owner?" Aaron asked.
"That information in restricted. Only my original owner can access that information." It stated again. Aaron scratched his head.
"What can you tell me about your internal hardware?" Aaron asked, motioning for Sam to hand him a notebook and a pencil. Three of the small computers keys blinked and then it generated a hologram and began to list everything it was programmed to know about itself.
"I am powered by an ion battery; for a processor, I have a twenty terahertz microprocessor; data is stored on a five-hundred gigabyte memory cell; I have a full spectrum holograph projector; five sub-channel speech synthesizer. I can also function as a universal translator and connect to the Internet through all known protocols, as well as communicate with any satellite in orbit." Nicole finished as Aaron struggled to keep up. Once it was done, Aaron went back over the notes he had scribbled on the notebook.
"Samantha… from looking at this, I can tell you that there's nothing even remotely like this anywhere on Earth. You said that you found this thing on your nightstand?" Aaron asked, double-checking the numbers.
"Yeah… I woke after having a dream about Mobius. In the dream, that fat human we saw took over the castle just the same as we saw and then he followed us back here. I woke up and found that sitting next to my bed. What should we do with it?" Samantha asked. Aaron thought for a couple seconds, then went back over and asked the computer something.
"Nicole… do you have any data ports built into yourself?"
"I have one data port built into me. It is located on the bottom edge of me. It is currently hidden behind a dust guard. Would you like me to move the dust guard aside?" Nicole asked.
"No, it's okay… I'll take a look at it some other time." He said before taking Sam outside her room. "Sam… you know what this means? That's a computer that speaks plain English and seems to be somewhat cognitive!"
"Huh?"
"It's a computer that understands plain English and can also talk! Programmers have been working on developing something like that ever since computers gained the ability to produce sounds. Even the best ones today have error rates around fifty percent… they misunderstand about half of what you'll say. Better yet… if it's correct… that one said it's powered by an ion battery."
"What's an ion battery?"
"I'm not entirely sure… but I know we don't have anything remotely like it. I say bring it to school tomorrow with you… maybe I can have the electronics teacher look at it or something. Meanwhile… mind if I just doze off on your couch for a couple hours until we gotta go to school?" Aaron asked before yawning.
"Yeah… if you want. I'll be getting up around six thirty or so." Samantha said before digging through her closet for a spare blanket and pillow for Aaron. Once she found one, she climbed back into bed and Aaron went downstairs and made himself a bed on the couch and fell asleep almost immediately. As Aaron slept, he dreamt.
He dreamt that the fat man they saw on Mobius took over his hometown instead of the city on Mobius. In the dream, most of the people in Aaron's hometown were killed during the invasion; the only person left was Aaron. Just before the fat man came after Aaron, he woke up. At first he was slightly disoriented, then he remembered the other night. He had come over to Sam's house after she called at three in the morning and then he fell asleep on the couch at her house. Aaron could hear Sam upstairs listening to a Led Zeppelin album.
'She must be getting ready.' He thought to himself. Walking into the kitchen, he eventually found some cereal and had a couple bowls. After a few minutes, Sam came down ready for school.
"Hey… I see you're already up. You have your school stuff with you?" Sam asked, sitting down at the table and digging Nicole out of her backpack.
"Yep… I'd forgotten it in the car last night and drove here when you called. What time do ya get done with class today?" Aaron asked, checking his own schedule.
"I get done at one thirty. Why you ask?" Sam asked, looking up from her schedule.
"Neile doesn't have any classes today, so I was thinking of taking the car over to his place so he could take a look at it. He mentioned it before I dropped him off at his place the other night, and it would be interesting to have someone who knows more about cars than I do give it a good inspection. I'm done with classes at one forty-five, so if ya want to come with, wanna meet by the doors to the parking lot?" Aaron answered, walking with Sam out to the car.
"Yeah… one question though… you think I could drive the car sometime?" Sam asked as they got in the car. Aaron started it and they started the short drive to school.
"You know how to drive?"
"I've driven enough to know which is brake and gas. Like you said, it can almost drive itself." Sam said before detaching the screen that was attached to the dashboard in front of her. Out of curiosity, she plucked Nicole from her backpack's outer pocket and opened the display on the small computer. "Nicole… can you remove the dust guard on your data port?" The computer slid it into its small case. Sam turned Nicole over in her hand to look at the port on Nicole and then closely looked at the one on the car. "Aaron… I think these data ports are identical. Wonder what would happen if I connected Nicole to the car's computers?" Aaron glanced over at the one on Nicole and the one in the dashboard.
"Try it and see." Aaron said, glancing over Sam's direction every chance he got. After a couple tries, Sam managed to figure out which side should be up and plugged Nicole into the dashboard. As soon as Nicole was connected, several hidden panels in the dashboard opened up exposing what they hid. Inside one of them was a CD-ROM with a name hastily scribbled on the label, while another contained a book written in the same hasty hand. Inside the last panel was another CD-ROM, except this one was carefully labeled 'Information About Lamborghini Special'. Sam picked up the book and flipped through some of the pages.
"Looks like a journal of some sort, though the writing is horrible. I can't read a word of it. The two discs look interesting… wanna check 'em out in study hall?" Sam asked, trying to read the book.
"Yeah… I'll take one and see if I can get out of one of my classes early and get into the computer lab. I'll take the one with the sloppy writing and see what I can find out 'bout it." He said as he tucked the disc safely away within his backpack. Sam tucked the one with the careful labeling on it into hers and turned her attention to Nicole. "Nicole… what can you do while connected to the car?" Nicole projected a smaller hologram in front of Sam.
"I am capable of driving it myself using my long and short range scanning ability, complete interface with the onboard computers, interface with any computer networks we pass by, GPS navigation, and all of my normal functions." Nicole explained as she displayed graphic representations of each function via the hologram. They had reached the school's parking lot and Aaron maneuvered the large car into one of the few remaining parking spots. Once he had the car parked, Sam unplugged Nicole from the dashboard and tucked the small computer into her backpack with the disc. They both jogged up to the school and went their separate ways to class.
At his first opportunity, Aaron asked permission from his science teacher to go down to the computer lab as soon as that day's lesson was done. Being that Aaron was doing as well as he was in science, the teacher let Aaron miss class and wrote him a hall pass to go to the computer lab. Once there, Aaron haggled with the computer lab advisor for access to one of the few computers that had a CD-ROM and, if needed, access to storing data on the hard drive. Once he was signed in and the teacher explained the rules to him about using the computer in administrator mode, Aaron popped the disc into the CD-ROM drive and waited as it loaded the disc before bringing up a disc drive window for the disc. On the disc, there were dozens of video files, each one dated and catalogued according to the accompanying text file.
Sam, meanwhile, waited patiently through her classes until her study lab where she got a hall pass from the teacher and went down to the computer lab where Aaron was intently listening to one of the video files through a pair of headphones. Sam sat down next to Aaron and logged into the computer network as one of the few students who knew the administrator access codes. She inserted her disc and waited for it to load. After a few seconds, she was able to open the drive and see what was on the disc. After opening a few of the files, she concluded that the files on the disc made up the extensive service and instruction manual for the Lamborghini. After lots of searching and find commands, she found several documents that appeared to be important and printed them.
Once their study hall was over with, Aaron and Samantha informed each other of what their discs contained as they walked back to their classes. The rest of the day passed quite fast and once the bell sounded at the end of the day, Sam and Aaron met up with Neile and arranged the best time for them to go over to Neile's house so he could look at the car some more. Deciding to meet at his house once Aaron and Sam dropped off their school bags at Aaron's house, Aaron and Samantha got in the Lamborghini and drove back to Aaron's house.
(End of Chapter 11)