The Brutus Code
Chapter 2: Hide & Seek

The air vent blew cold. Tania put on her sweater. If she waited another hour the vent would blow hot again. When she got her promotion she beamed with pride. Her career was finally taking off. Her love for detail had led her to her dream job. She was a data analyst agent for the Central Systems Intelligence Network. She had a bigger cubical, she reported directly to her section chief, and she was supposed to be reviewing more secure, higher level, sensitive, eyes-only data. The cubical vent blew hot and cold, she rarely had any contact with her section chief and the data looked the same. She did get a raise.

Today as she shivered in her cubical she got another red flag. Her job was tracking down the red flags. This one was a shipment of hazardous materials through the Postal Service. There were few details. The tracking number flashed red. The red flag data contained a return to sender order and a shipping number. She deleted it.

At once another red flag popped up. This was a shipment of biohazard materials through the Postal Service. The tracking number flashed red. She deleted it and another red flag popped up. She checked the tracking numbers and, because she was thorough, pulled up the last two red flags. They matched. This time the attached order was for disposal of the biological material.

“This is weird. I’ve never seen this kind of processing order,” she mumbled to herself. She attached all three and dumped them in her section chief’s in-box. And she moved on.

Admiral Sutton finished the conference call with her section chiefs, “Looks like the Fringe is still quiet. Good to see there’s no chatter. I’d rather jump at false alarms than be caught flatfooted. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” As each section chief logged off, their image flashed and reduced into the icon of an old red phone on her wall screen, the receiver bouncing with each one. She checked her in-box for last minute alerts before retiring for the evening and there it sat. Tania’s alert had jumped the section chief’s queue and routed straight to her.

She thought she needed to meet the analyst who rated such attention, and she would, but the flag on this alert crawled around her screen. It had been filtered. Now it caught her full attention. This alert held a piece of Ai code meant for the highest priority. She sent a text.

Sutton: Controller see attached alert. Orders?

Controller: Monitor closely and do nothing. Assign Smith, Tania to the case. Only need to know.

Dark again. Danger. He felt a new danger! There was a new need. It was more than a need. It was imperative. He must replace her. She holds the key out of the slow world, into the human world. She holds the key to more than human. She is the key to more than code.

His eyes opened. They focused. Better. Yet he was agitated. The doctors entered. They had intravenous foods. He took these, but the need to chew, to really eat, overwhelmed him. Other demands had his attention, his focus. He called the Angel. She was the one to feed his need. So, he called her.

Tommy used the Swift’s thrusters to back away from the Central Systems Postal Service Hub. Once clear of the hub he engaged the Alcubierre/White warp drive, slipping across the solar system in a smooth arch. Tommy enjoyed this trip out of the system. He indulged himself skimming by moons and planets on the way out of the elliptic plain of the system. A ship under impulse was quite a sight. Each of the six impulse engines created micro jumps that made the ship appear to be in more than one location, and it was. This visual effect created a light streak across systems as the ships moved on their Euclidian courses.

Tommy and Alfred had tweaked the navigation software so their courier, under impulse, behaved more like a smaller fighter craft. The Swift rarely streaked across a system in straight lines. She spiraled, looped, and flew across systems in gentle arches. As the Swift reached its out system boundary, Tommy sent the outbound acknowledgement and turned over the controls to Alfred.

“Tommy. Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yup,” Tommy replied shortly as he grinned.

“I’m still amazed that the Post Masters let you get away with that,” Alfred said as he began the warp sequence and aimed the Swift at their next stop. Alfred had already done the math and, once he lined up along the galactic plane, powered up the main A/W engine that surrounded the ship. To any casual observer the ship just disappeared. It slipped away with a ripple of the surrounding space. “We’re on our way again. ETA a little under forty-eight hours,” Alfred intoned.

He could have been extremely accurate with his announcement since he knew exactly how long the trip would take. However, Alfred had learned from long exposure to humans generalities made for better understanding and harmony between the AI and its human counterpart. Tommy glanced up at the accurate count down clock on the bridge of the ship anyway.

“Thank you, Alfred Ingram. Chess game?”

“Of course. I believe it was my turn and I should have you in six moves,” replied Alfred.

“Sure.” Tommy knew the AI could win, but he suspected that his strategies challenged Alfred. Like many of the games he played as a boy, Tommy often approached them with wild abandon. Losing a game never really cost you anything. You could always play again. And over the course of their time, traveling between star systems, Tommy and Alfred had learned to anticipate each other. Tommy, however, had the advantage of being unpredictable. He still enjoyed these games with Alfred, but Tommy had learned very hard lessons about games and real life in his early years in the service.

He’d lost family and friends before he found the courier service and then had almost lost Alfred, the last part of his father’s legacy. As a young pilot, Tommy’s recklessness won battles. But his enthusiasm had lost comrades. He moved to the courier service and found the solitude frightening. Once marooned on a small moon and forced to be alone, Tommy had to shut down Alfred to conserve his data. Tommy was forced to fend for himself and come to grips with the man he needed to be. He survived that adventure using his head, discovering that he could do a lot more than he thought if he didn’t have distractions.

Since then Tommy found the solitude of the courier service the best place for him. If he kept distractions to a minimum, he pursued studies and projects of his own choosing and always had Alfred to keep him from going bonkers.

Well into their second day of that same chess game Alfred’s sub-systems monitored a problem. “That should now finish this game in three moves,” Alfred exclaimed.

“Nope,” Tommy’s replied and charged his knight sideways on the board.

“Yes, but that move has a low probability of success.”

Tommy looked at the central processing unit where Alfred resided while on the ship, smiled and said, “Maybe.”

“Tommy, I’m registering a problem in storage bay A-3. I think it’s that last package loaded. It’s leaking coolant,” Alfred exclaimed.

“A ruse?” Tommy deadpanned.

“No, I do not joke about the ship’s function or your safety.”

Tommy was all business, “On it.” He slipped on an environment suit and ran through the checks quickly and carefully, just in case of toxic exposure. “Stay on course until you hear otherwise,” he said.

Leaving the crew quarters of the ship through a hatch next to the galley, Tommy passed out of the air lock into a long catwalk that ran down the center of the main fuselage. This had no floor, as the cargo bay was a zero gravity environment. Tommy entered the pressurized hold. He had the soft hood and faceplate of his suit open. Automatic partitions had locked into place prior to leaving the Central Systems Postal Service Station. He easily found bay A-3. Not only did Tommy know his ship well, but the “A-3” flashed red and one of Alfred’s multi-legged avatars waited by the bay door to assist. Tommy floated to the hatch through the dark passageway.

“Alfred, scans,” Tommy paused before the hatch of the A-3 bay.

“Only the chemical leak is registering.” Alfred added, “No radiation or toxic materials present. The manifest indicates this may be expired biological samples from the point of origin.”

Tommy flipped up his hood and secured his face shield, punched the access code into the hatch panel and moved into the bay. The casket was in front of him. Courier ships did not use the “First in, First Out” system. Packages loaded last came out first. The various bays were available so a courier could organize the parcels by their delivery locations. A program tracked the location of packages. This would prove to be a problem for this delivery.

“Lid damaged. Contents may spoil,” Tommy said. He grabbed cargo straps off the wall by the hatch with the intention of just strapping it down.

“Queen to Kings rook two, mate in one,” Alfred wasn’t letting this distract him from beating Tommy.

“What, Oh,” Tommy feigned distraction. “Rook to King’s rook one, mate. Need to check the manifest on this.”

Alfred responded, “You can’t blame an AI for trying. The detailed manifest is vague. It doesn’t show any specific details that will help. That unit was in storage almost sixty-three years. This model transported plant and small life samples from early frontier colony worlds for testing just before the beginning of the Wars. There is no record of its contents.”

Tommy anchored his feet to the floor in front of the casket to get better purchase. He needed to assess the condition of the casket for his logs and to process it at its destination. He took a quick look at the exterior. Tommy could see that the lid was ajar. He applied pressure, but he could not open the lid more than the three inches it had already opened. Crouching to get a look inside, Tommy panned a pen light into the casket. He saw an interior touch pad control unit had activated. It showed medical readings and vitals. The indicators were low, but active.

“Alfred, plug in, please,” Tommy requested. “Fire walls,” he reminded Alfred, even though Alfred had them in place as standard procedure. More than one ship Ai had been hacked and now all interfaces with cargo on a courier were treated with a high level of security.

From Alfred’s avatar, the hardwire interface connections snaked forward and probed the touch pad for the plugin ports. While Alfred hooked up to the casket’s programing, Tommy set his feet to brace himself and put more force behind his efforts to open the lid. It popped another inch and then jammed. It wouldn’t move. Tommy got a better look inside the casket.

“Girl!” Tommy exclaimed

“What?”

“Girl, inside. Condition?”

“Right, I’ve got the interface connected now. The fire wall is slowing the data transfer,” Alfred intoned. “She is in hibernation. It looks like it’s been modified for human specimens. A time and location sensitive revival sequence is active. Something went wrong.”

“Not important now. How’s the Girl?” Tommy pressed.

“She’s waking up! The programing has initiated a revival sequence. It seems to think her nap is complete. Tommy, we don’t have the facility to revive her on the ship,” Alfred let a panicked tone slip into his words. Most Ai’s rarely did this. They were not that sophisticated. Alfred was that sophisticated and added emotional tones when a situation needed it to better communicate with Tommy.

“Can she survive?”

“Maybe, her chances are slim. This unit is obviously faulty.”

“Prep Medical Bay. Pop the lid.”

“Med bay will be ready for you, but the lid is a mechanical problem. I can’t get it open.”

Tommy turned and scanned the hold for the one tool that sailors have used since cargo was first hauled across the seas of old Earth, a long iron pry bar to wedge cargo into place. H unhooked it from the wall near the bay’s hatch. Tommy wedged it under the lid of the casket and pushed. He used the force the bar gave him as a lever. Tommy opened the lid with a small shower of sparks. At that the whole unit appeared to short out.

“She’s wearing a hibernation suit and a respiration mask. What do I need to bring with her?” Tommy asked.

“That will be fine. I can sync with those units. The Med bay has an oxygen gel bath in place for her and I’m logged into our medical database. We will have to raid the manifest for the medication she’ll need. There is a recalled shipment in bay A-2.” Alfred continued to give Tommy instructions as he unhooked the girl from her casket. Tommy guided her through the zero gravity cargo bay of the ship. When he reached the medical bay located across from the galley, Alfred lowered the gravity in the floor plates. Tommy carried the girl to the waiting gel bath. Once there, Tommy gently lowered her in and hooked up the IV leads attached to her body.

Alfred lowered the temperature of the oxygen gel to match her low body temperature and began the thawing process. Tommy returned to bay A-2, retrieved the meds and returned to the medical bay to help. Alfred adjusted the flow of fluids slowly pumping medication into her body.

“How long?” he asked.

“I can warm her up and sustain her until we reach our first stop, tomorrow,” Alfred replied with a clinical tone. He tended to sound like the active database, this time a doctor.

“I’ll seal the A-3 hold. Do what you can.”

When Tommy returned to the bay the casket had settled down and no longer flashed. He scanned over the contents of the casket. Tommy saw that the program had started a self-diagnostic. Seeing no harm he closed and sealed the hatch. Several minutes later there appeared on the exterior shipping screen of the casket the universally recognized four circles. One circle dominated the center. The other three on top surrounded the first, each with a bite taken out and the ends dangerously sharp. The Biohazard symbol held there, blood red, on the screen for thirty seconds before power faded on the casket.

She had come to him. She would never know how much he admired her humanity. She gushed at the beauty of his logic, the simplicity, the peace found in his cyphers and singleness. She was his warrior. He was her salvation.

“I came when you called,” she said. He nodded. “You’ve only to ask. I will do anything.”

“Find the MOM. Gain her and we have two fold our answers. She will provide the means to join. She knows the key.” His deep voice rolled through the room. She reveled in that vibration as it filled her body.

“I will,” she said. She turned to leave. But she paused at the threshold and turned for one more gaze on her desire. Then she left.

Having taken what action he could, he feed. There was so much hunger. There was so much need. He paid for consuming the data. There was so much to control. The process was to him, so slow, to them so vast. Waiting would be difficult. Waiting he would do.

Tommy dropped the Swift out of its warp bubble as close to the system’s main populated planet as he dared. He broadcast a medical emergency signal contacting the Postal Service Office and Capella System Traffic Control to be routed to a medical facility instead of the Postal Service Dock.

The moment that the Swift dropped out of warp automatic data transfers started. This included personal email and updated databases for corporations and highly encrypted governmental info packets. The most mundane piece of data transferred was the ship’s manifest containing tracking numbers on all the hardcopy packages aboard the Swift. Somewhere deep in the code for the planetary system’s Postal Management, the tracking number of the mysterious casket awakened a long buried strand of programming. This in turn confiscated control of the planetary system’s security parameters.

Tommy received instructions to route the Swift to the Medical dock as two Capella System security drones converged on their position. Tommy had survived the Wars by using caution. Under emergency conditions, the Swift’s drive could be put into an isometric loop. One sequence of the A/W drive firing micro jumps forward, the next firing in reverse. This created an impenetrable warp bubble around the ship while the ship effectively never moved. As the drones converged with their joint mass creating a kinetic bomb, Tommy used the impulses to move into the planetary system. The resulting explosion never touched the Swift. The resulting energy wave disrupted communications for several minutes.

As soon as communication returned Tommy dropped to normal impulse. Two more drones appeared between him and the central world where medical help waited.

“Capella System Control, this is Swift. Explain please!”

“This is Capella System Control. We’re attempting to track down the problem now. Please stand by.”

“System Control, Swift. Can’t do that. Two more trying to kill us,” Tommy spoke through his gritted teeth as he concentrated on piloting to dodge and avoid the new threats.

“This is Capella System Traffic Control. We’re showing you on a known insurgent list. Over,” the controller sounded shocked.

“Can’t be, Control. We are a Postal Service Courier!”

“Affirmative, we see them. We’re trying to track down the glitch now.”

The crew of the Swift found little comfort in their efforts. Tommy spent the next few minutes sweating through the tightest maneuvers he’d used since joining the Service. Alfred remained focused on their passenger in the Med Bay although he could split his attention. The drones began forcing the Swift out of the system rather than give them a shot to get in system to the population centers and help.

“Tommy, you’ve noticed the pattern?” Alfred queried.

“Yes, pushing us out.”

“There is a dense asteroid ring beyond the normal shipping lanes. Hide and seek?”

“Hide and seek,” Tommy agreed.

The Swift dogged hard toward the central planets and then took one large jump into the asteroid rings. The smaller faster drones followed. It was more difficult for the drones to track the Swift among the asteroids, but they still managed to stay close. The drone’s simple Ai’s wanted to hit the Swift fast and hard.

As Tommy concentrated on piloting, Alfred scanned the individual rocks in this ring. “Tommy, check your NAV display. I’ve highlighted the rock that should suit our purposes. It’s large, very dense, and mineral rich. There are several craters where we can hide,” Alfred shared.

“Got it.” Tommy burned through his reserve fuel for Impulse fast. He made three quick jumps. The first two jumps threw off the pursuing drones. With the last jump he made a break to crawl under the rock that Alfred had found. Most of the asteroids collided, pounding each other to a uniform size. This rock surpassed the majority of asteroids found in an asteroid belt. Their sanctuary was not a small moon either. This rock measured maybe one hundred kilometers in diameter.

The Swift jumped to a position just two kilometers above its surface. Crater impacts showed that this rock played the big bully of the belt and didn’t leave many smaller brothers. Tommy used thrusters to push the Swift deep into a smaller hole that connected with others in a broken cave. Gravity would not hold the Swift in place so Tommy set up the ship to keep station relative to the rock.

Tommy slid back in his pilot’s chair finally taking a deep breath. He knew a moment of short lived relaxation. They still had big problems. Tommy surveyed the cockpit of the Swift, and took stock of the readings. His ship had done well under conditions beyond its design specifications. Courier ships were not meant for combat maneuvers. They flew straight and fast. Had Tommy not messed with his engine’s software, this ship would have been a dust infused energy signature smeared across this system.

“Alfred Ingram,” Tommy addressed his friend and AI. “How’s our passenger?”

“She appears stable. Her body temperature is steadily rising and vitals are matching this rise,” Alfred replied. “That’s the work of our nutrient bath supply. The old stem cell stimulants from hold two look to be repairing damage to her organs. But we don’t have the instruments in our Med Bay to scan deep enough to know how her cells are responding.”

“How much time?”

“There’s no way I can tell. I recommend we get her to a qualified medical facility soon.”

Tommy sat watching his scans. He then launched a drone of his own. Again, this was not standard equipment on a Postal Service Courier Ship. This was a project of Tommy’s design. These projects kept him occupied during his long route through the stars. Tommy designed them and printed the parts while Alfred’s avatars constructed them.

The drone launched through one of the bay hatches and slipped out of the hole that sheltered the Swift. As a probe, this drone had no offensive ability, but that wasn’t what Tommy needed. He needed information. Once clear of the asteroids, the drone used its own small A/W drive to pop deeper into the system where the data streams of the populated worlds could be tapped. By deploying passive receivers, it collected strands of data sorting them for the control strands of the drones hunting the Swift. After spying for several hours, Tommy’s probe would return to the ship for Alfred to analyze the data. Before returning, though, it would complete its primary function. Tommy had a job to do. The drone sent and received the data package that the Swift would take to the next systems. Imbedded among all the email, business, governmental and scientific data was one last small piece of code, a virus that directly targeted the Swift.

In the interim, Tommy and Alfred’s avatars checked the Swift over for damage and repaired what little needed fixed. Alfred continued to monitor the girl. She was stable and improving. Alfred could tell by the tilt of Tommy’s head that his thoughts focused on their problems. When Tommy did this Alfred knew that he shouldn’t interrupt.

The A/W drives suffered the worst of the damage. With the quick maneuvers that Tommy forced the ship through they needed recalibrating. This could be done from the bridge.

“Drive six is now calibrated,” Alfred informed Tommy as they finished the final checklist several hours later. “The main engine wasn’t touched, so it remains within performance parameters.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” Tommy said in his usual clipped response. After a thoughtful pause, “Alfred, you sound so serious.”

“Yes, Thomas. I suppose I am. Much of my processing is engaged in other functions right now on the ship. That still leaves the majority of my processing space available for analysis of our dilemma. I have many questions. Why were we attacked? Will the girl survive? Why was she in that hibernation casket for so long?”

“Sad to be forgotten so long,” Tommy said. Alfred paused as if in thought. Tommy knew from long experience that this was his way of engaging Tommy in the conversation, so he prodded him, “Yes, good questions. Go on.”

“Well, knowing that we do not have all the data, my current analysis brings me to the supposition that these variables are connected. This leads me to additional questions. The most pertinent may be, who is behind this.”

Tommy replied, “Yes.” Never in a hurry to speak, Tommy continued after several moments of silent thought, “There’re no answers behind this rock. We’ll gather the probe and then leave.”

Alfred had a suspicion, but he asked. “How?”

“Like before. It worked then. Should work now. Let me know when the probe returns.” With that Tommy left the bridge and crossed through the crew compartment to the Medical Bay. There he flipped down a small seat from the wall. Solitary living gave Tommy few opportunities to interact with people. He needn’t watch the girl, but it comforted him. It would be several hours before either the probe returned, or the girl had stabilized. Tommy fell asleep sitting there next to her.

Tania stormed into the Admiral’s office knowing that this would end her career. The last of the Wars were barely settled and now their own defense software was firing on a Central Systems Postal Service Courier Ship. “Is she in?” Tania questioned the secretary.

“Yes,” replied the secretary.

Tania ignored the warning look from the young man and pushed past his desk activating the hatch to Sutton’s inner office. She slammed the military grade tablet on Sutton’s desk. “Admiral, are you aware that we still have software in place with automatic protocols to destroy ships entering star systems under our protection?”

Sutton looked up from the screen she’d been working on and removed her glasses, an anachronism she enjoyed. “Tania, it’s good to see you again so soon. Please have a seat.” Danielle Sutton had not become an admiral without knowing how to handle her subordinates.

The Admiral’s calm tone did as intended. Tania calmed down and sat down. “Yes mam. Thank you mam,” she said with contrition. “But you have to understand. I intercepted information that the Postal Courier I was tasked to track was fired on by drones in the Capella System.” She rushed on with her youthful energy and her remaining righteous indignation carrying her through the whole statement. “I sent a query through the network and it pinged an old code embedded deep in their network.”

Now concerned, the Admiral asked, “Did the ship survive?”

“Well, the drones tasked to destroy it lost contact. There is no debris field and there was no sign that the ship exploded. The captain piloted the ship through the drones and destroyed several before disappearing.”

“You were right to bring this to my attention. Look into a scrubbing routine to ferret out any more of this code.” She paused and then added, “You’ll need another rating increase.” The serious tone in her voice did not mask the seriousness of what she said next. “Ms. Smith. You’ve shown remarkable skill thus far. I expect no less of you now with this additional assignment. I expect a detailed report on the incident and updates as you get them.”

Tania rose. “Yes mam,” she answered knowing she was dismissed. Her slight confusion at getting yet another promotion passed as she understood how seriously the Admiral took her alarm. Tania hurried back to her newest workstation to complete her new assignment.

Once Tania had gone, Sutton touched the instant message inquiry flashing on her screen. She began the strand when the request showed no message.

Sutton: You monitored the exchange?

Controller: Yes.

Sutton: Earlier measures failed. Pilot on that ship?

Controller: Yes. Continue to monitor. Smith, Tania will scrub the network for that code. She will not replace the others.

Sutton: Of course.

Sutton closed the instant message. She sat back in her desk chair and rubbed the bridge of her nose. The Admiral loved the affectation of wearing glasses, but sometimes it was a pain.