The First Law...

Leviathan Rising: A "Murder Drones" fanfic

Chapter 3: The First Law...

...

Both drones and humans crowded into the smallish room. Uzi 2.0 was still tied into her chair, but she was shivering violently, with one arm free, though none could tell if she'd freed it before her seizure. Her eye LEDs showed the "pupil" rolled up to the top. Cheryl searched around and found a small implement, bifurcated at the ends, which she passed over the drone's head. "I'm not getting much in the way of brainwave activity." She closed the instrument. "She may have gone without oil too long. Maybe she's overheating."

"Let me see." Mark had scrounged around and found another kind of tool, which he pressed up against Uzi's forehead. "Hm. Her internal temperature doesn't appear to be all that high. I don't think she's pretending. This may be just how she reacts when she gets too low on whatever he stuck her on. Here." He went to the zero-g cabinet, rummaged through it. "Maybe...maybe this'll help," he muttered.

"What's that?" asked Cheryl.

"Something we normally stock every pod with. A little graphite. If I'm not mistaken..." he looked at the can, critically, "...this comes straight from the Martian mines. White graphite, best there is. Now...how can we get this into her...?"

N, V, and Suzi looked about, and came up with a canister that had a large tube sticking out of one side. "Okay, let's see..." He poured the oil into the canister, shook some of the graphite into it, and stirred the resulting concoction with the end of the very probe he'd just checked Uzi with. Cheryl rolled her eyes. He'd probably already forgotten that was supposed to be a precision instrument. "Oughtta work." He held the end of the tube up to Uzi's mouth. "C'mon, girl. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down..." he half-sang. The others looked at each other. Where had that come from?

She didn't wake up, but evidently her reflexes recognized the odor of oil, and she sucked it down eagerly. He shook his head; she was probably dreaming of happier times and days.

He sincerely wished she had happier days to wake up to.

...

Deep space: an automated probe, similar to the kind that had destroyed the human world of Hudor, was the first to encounter the Anomaly, which was quite fortunate for any living beings, the

encounter being extremely fatal for the probe. As it was, it had been designed to last just long enough to get off a "warning" signal to all points, this actually being its primary duty.

Perhaps an analogy might be that, on Old Earth, had a sailing ship come within visual range of a known lighthouse, but had seen no indication of said lighthouse, its crew might rightfully have taken alarm at said lighthouse's darkness. That which should be there...is not there. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that said darkened area is one where you and yours do not wish to go, and it would be the sailing vessel's duty to warn.

It, the probe, was not truly sentient, and had only its programming to go by, so it couldn't know that its signal would be arriving much too late in any nearby star system to really do any good. Still, it could be said that it tried its best.

...

Copper 9: Uzi was wondering what it would feel like to turn into a zombie.

What would she look for? An empty spot in her soul? A new insistence on obeying her new masters, no matter what? She had no way of knowing. She'd never been a zombie before.

She'd awakened from her seizure, if that's what it was, with the human called Mark just then pulling a canister of something that smelled and tasted like high-grade oil away from her. Many of the aches and pains she'd been feeling had subsided, but now…

Just what had they given her?

The humans had created the Murder Drones, true monsters if there ever were any. The Murder Drones themselves had enslaved that other Uzi, who called herself Suzi, conscripting her into their service. Uzi wondered if it licked their boots.

Perhaps she wouldn't know. Perhaps, any second now, her own consciousness would fade, to be replaced by...something else. Perhaps she, as herself, would just die, while her body lived on. She hated the thought that she, or whatever she would become, might be ordered to attack the hive, and maybe even her father, but now she had no control over that process.

"How are you feeling?" It was that enthralled worker drone, Suzi , from the door. Ever since her seizure, they'd made it a point to leave the door open. Uzi guessed they wanted to note the exact hour and time she turned.

She turned away from the corrupted drone. "None of your business, but I'm still me, if that's what you mean."

"Suzi" rolled her eye LEDs. "Oh, for god's sake. That was only OIL we gave you. You were...not in a good way. It won't fix everything, but it'll help."

"Uh huh. Right. " She could still, at least, antagonize them. She wondered how it would feel not to be able to.

Suzi rolled her eyes again. "Okay. You stay up here and believe all the horror stories you like. Do whatever makes you happiest. Me, I've got a meeting to attend." Was I ever this annoying? And she left.

What they were euphemistically calling "downstairs," at the conference room: "Alright, doc. We're all here. What's this deal about 'Leviathan'? What is it? Another Titan?" she asked, referring to the planet-sized organisms they'd discovered on the other side of the sun.

"No, not at all. Tell me, how familiar are you with Earth zoology?"

"Would zip work for you?"

He sighed. "Okay. Well, anyway.

"This, er, could take me a hot minute or so.

"A number of years ago, I accidentally found out about the Titans, and, of course, they fascinated me. I mean, living organisms that size? Living in outer space? And, as N-I mean, Nathan, sorry, Nathan, it's taking me a while-*"

"No offense taken, doc. It's taking me a while, too."

V, or Vickie, hooked her arm through his, a definitely lascivious expression on her facial LEDs. "Be glad to help you out, there."

Suzi looked like she was about to explode.

He hurried on. "Anyway, I started an unofficial study. And I found out some things almost immediately. Way faster than I thought I would.

"Back in the days when mankind still used standard warp drives, such as the old-model Alcubierre drives, there would sometimes be those times when the ships would cease reporting, and fail to reappear. It was noted that these disappearances usually all came from more or less the same spot in space. The same generalized area.

"So we sent automated probes out with the newly-developed jump drives. And they reported back nothing. No wreckage, no 'black boxes,' no nuthin.' Of course, that really surprised nobody. Space is so huge, and so empty, it would be a miracle if the probes did find something.

"But then, one day, we got a miracle. A probe found a ship's black box, and jumped back to Earth.

"Something of fantastic power had attacked the ship, and drained it of its energy, in the process destroying it. But there was no record of just what had done this. The ship's external sensors showed a whole lotta nuthin' before going offline.

"Sooo...it wasn't something we could see, or that the sensors could sense. Nobody really believed it was invisible or something, at least, not in the classical sense, but there's more than one way of keeping from being seen, at least, not right away.

"But one thing the probes could tell us, just from the wreckage of the boxes and the occasional probe we found: whatever was destroying them was moving. It had a definite course.

"So, acting on sheer hunch, we followed the trail of wrecked black boxes...and began to find destroyed civilizations. Whole worlds. I guess you can see how this raised the ante somewhat.

"One common denominator in such civilizations was apparently no superluminal travel or communication. Another one was they lived on planets, or had civilizations, that produced strong magnetospheres.

"So we sent unmanned probes out..." he saw the drones' expression, "... undroned probes, as well. Just basically calculators with very simple brains...with starships using the jump drive behind them, to observe them. Our idea was, it had to be something that we just couldn't see. Something we were missing." He leaned back in his chair. "Maybe something that radiated in some spectrum of light we couldn't detect.

"Then we saw the whateveritwas gobble up another probe, one deliberately sent ahead of the other, in a direct line. Then another. We ran some figures...and the object, thing, whatever, ought to be fully visible.

"Then we saw it, quite deliberately, with planning, mind you, change course for and hit a planet with one of those strong magnetospheres I mentioned. And that was, well...'spectacular' isn't too strong a term, not by a long shot.

"Apparently, empty space is far from empty. What our sensors detected, as best as we could tell, was a vast cloud of, of somethings that slid around the world, and either absorbed its magnetosphere, or else somehow interfered with it, the end result was the same.

"Earth scientists had noted similar phenomenon 'way back in pre-space flight Earth. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 had actually flown beyond the sun's field of influence-and discovered what many called a 'wall of fire,' an area where the temperature of apparently empty, ambient space rose dramatically. At the time," he shrugged, "Everybody put it down to natural processes.

"And it was. It's just...when we saw what we were tracking deliberately change course for an inhabited world, we had to expand our notion of what constituted 'natural,' at least, with regards to the middle of empty space.

"We kept on refining our sensors, and finally got better images. It was a huge area full of what looked like either molecular or submolecular...things. Our first thought was gas cloud. But then it changed course, like I said, and we realized the truth.

"On Earth, they have these things called 'Army Ants,' or marabunta. Individually, they're small creatures, but they congregate together in large groups. Some have even speculated that a marabunta colony is one single large organism, interconnected by a single mind, communicating by scent. Or...something.

"They're...easy to miss. Until it's too late.

"This 'gas cloud' was, in fact, composed of tiny living organisms, like the marabunta of Earth. They're based on the silicon atom. They move through the galaxy, following the galactic magnetic lines of force-most of the time. But if they come across a particularly juicy morsel, well...it's a regular moveable feast for them.

"Because space is so vast and mostly empty, they aren't usually a big threat. It's possible for a civilization to run its course without ever encountering one. But, because of them, all human worlds are hardened, with backups of all data stored far below ground. And entire backup cities, too. That's really the only defense: an incredible density of bedrock. A 'Leviathan swarm,' as we came to call them, can total a world as completely as a thermonuclear war, if not more so. And they're particularly dangerous to electronics. They can do a real number on them.

"And, uh, right now, 99.9% of the living population of Copper 9 consists of electronics.

"Maybe you see how that might become a problem."

...

There was silence around the room as the others took it in. They'd just had their minds expanded to include the Titans, and now…

"Ooookay, doc," said Suzi, "Couple'a questions here. What's the chances this thing might miss us?"

"Pretty much close to zero. That's why we never classified it. We wanted people to know about it, to be able to escape, if possible.

"I'm pretty sure the Titans have defenses against this sort of thing, but the recent events on the other side of the sun is almost sure to have attracted the attention of a Leviathan swarm, if one was in the area."

"How would we escape? What's the recommended way?"

"Jump-drive equipped starships."

"Crap. Lets us out. We're lucky to be able to jump up and down. Say." Inspiration struck her. "You said a 'huge area.' How big are these swarms?" Maybe they wouldn't have to go very far…

"Largest one we ever detected was about ten light-minutes long, or about one hundred twelve million miles, and approximately three light-minutes wide, give or take a little. Say about thirty-four, thirty-five million miles."

"You're kidding."

"No."

"That's the size of the frikkin' solar system!"

"Close, yes."

"How do we stop it?"

She knew what he was going to say even before he said it. "We can't."

...

V and N carried Uzi 2.0 out after dark, on a trailway that led back to the worker drones' hive. Once they were a couple of kilometers down the path, N produced a blade from his arm, and cut her ties loose. "What!? What are you doing?" She'd expected them to kill her; she hadn't turned into a zombie or thrall yet, so she must be a failed experiment.

"What you wanted us to do. You kept saying to either kill you or let you go. We don't want to kill you, so we're letting you go."

She eyed him suspiciously. "I don't believe you."

He shrugged. "Believe what you want. I can't stop you." He sheathed his blade. "We disabled your laser, but pretty much everything else still works. The hive's that way." He pointed. "Remember, stay out of the sun." And the two of them turned and left Uzi and returned to the pod.

Well, thought Uzi, as she trudged back to the hive, that certainly could have gone better. She could have made better time flying, but she just wasn't in the mood, for some reason. Instead, she just trudged onward, her wings practically dragging the ground.

Maybe daddy could give her a better weapon or something. Yeah, that was an idea. There. She felt a little better.

...

"Magnetism," Cheryl heard him mutter. Mark Vespa hadn't moved since the meeting broke up, and V and N had left to take Uzi 2.0 out. Now he was leaning back in his chair, gazing sightlessly at the ceiling. "Magnetism." Okay, she'd been expecting this.

Ever since before the alien probe's attack on Hudor, Dr. Cheryl Serniglia had taken a certain...interest in Dr. Mark Vespa. Of course, with things as they had been, it would have been entirely unprofessional to seek anything closer than a purely job-related relationship. But that didn't stop her from developing a certain amount of (entirely professional!) admiration for him.

The man who frequently forgot his password and couldn't remember where his damn socks were was literally a certified genius. Give him a problem that seemed insurmountable, and he would, first, pronounce it unsolvable, then proceed to chew up the "unsolvable" problem with sheer mind power and tenacity until he reached, not one, but usually more than one, solutions. True, some of these solutions were not always practical, but many times they were. He had not reached his high rank in the Company for no reason.

Right now, he had an idea that his brain would not let go of. Something about the Leviathan swarm and magnetism. They were connected, he knew it. He just had to figure out how.

V and N had not taken Uzi 2.0 out and let her go solely for her own benefit. It had been Cheryl's suggestion. She knew that as long as the newly-fashioned disassembly drone was present, Mark would not be able to fully concentrate on the problem sitting at the doorway of his mind. And she was the only being left in the star system who knew why.

She came over and sat on the edge of the table in front of him. "Mark," she said softly, "It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could've done."

For a moment, his muttering stopped, and an alien expression crossed his face. For just the briefest moment in time, he wasn't the Mark Vespa she knew and loved.

"Cheryl," he said, so low she could barely hear him, "I sweartogod, he will pay."

To be continued..