Hello friends, welcome back to the Atlas.
I wrote this chapter quite a while ago, but that was long before I realised there were some quite profound pacing and logistical problems with act 1 as a whole. In order for this scene to work, I needed to make sure the chess board was lined up properly.
The metaphor of chess is apt for this, as Lysander, often the person who likes to play the game, has unwittingly stumbled into one. There are opponents all around him, and he doesn’t yet understand the full extent of it.
I am glad I delayed the release of this chapter to make sure all the pieces I wanted were in play. I hope you enjoy this next chapter of ‘The Strings Of Us’.
P.s. This is a direct continuation of Chapter 004 which you can read here, or go all the way to the start to refresh yourself:
Lysander - Human - Male: Testimonial 002
Our capsule glided into a station that was seamlessly integrated into a robust structure built at the mountain’s edge. The facility was strategically positioned at the foot of the glacier to harness its pristine meltwater. The air that greeted me as the doors hissed open was cooler, carrying the crisp tang of mountain air and the faint, distant roar of rushing water. Dr. Áine Farrell, a woman with intelligent, focused eyes, and an air of no nonsense capability, stood ready to meet us. Her attire was a practical, durable, insulated coverall suited to the potentially harsh climate up here. Her dark hair was tied back in a tight knot.
“General Tanner, Dr Hedghe, honoured guests,” she said, her voice clear and direct, audible over the low hum of the station and the muted thunder of the glacial river somewhere beyond the station walls. “Welcome to the Arcturian Glacier water reclamation facility.”
Our group, with Dr. Hedghe still exuding an air of profound satisfaction at the state of the tour thus far, moved with her from the transit platform towards the entrance to the main facility. I fell into step beside Lieutenant General Kaspa. Scanning the group, my eyes slid over a smudge of grease on a technician’s uniform but her face was too clean.
‘Odd’
But before I could look into it any further a new member of my team bundled over and made her introductions.
“Rez! Head of the emergency coordination and damage control squad, Sir! And a pleasure to finally meet you if you don’t mind me saying. We were all just about getting sick of old Kaspa here, weren’t we Hec”. She boisterously winked at Hec’ten who deftly appeared to not notice, his rabbit senses instead taking in the subtle atmospheric changes, his nose twitching at the sudden humidity. Kaspa huffed.
“General, if you wondered what most of your paperwork will involve, it will be fifty percent tidying up after this one’s mess” He gave Rez a twinkled look. She stuck out her tongue and then sighed loudly at the now awkward silence.
“Riiiight, well, I had best get on. There is a lotta experimentin going on in there now this new sister AI is in charge, and they need someone with big arms like me to make sure they’re all safe.” She slapped a big hand on Kaspa’s shoulder. “Ain’t that right old Kaspy.”
Kaspa watched Rez jog into the facility and then turned to me despairingly, before his face worked through the decision to let it go, and instead returned back to how he had been on the tour. His voice still reflecting a measure of the awe from the trip through the biomes.
“Quite the leap of faith, wouldn’t you say, sir? To hand over the reins of all that to an AI,” he gestured hopefully towards the direction of the water facility and the ship biomes beyond the mag-lev rails, as if his arm could convey the millions of different ways within which Sister now held all their lives in her non-existent palm. “Handing it over so completely. It takes a profound level of trust in one’s creation wouldn’t you say.”
My gaze was fixed on the entrance to the reclamation facility ahead, gliding feet keeping perfect time as I walked, following the tour inwards.
“Trust, Lieutenant,” I replied, my voice even, “is a resource like any other, its value is determined by its judicious application, especially when the stakes are high.” Kaspa considered this for a moment, his enthusiastic posture deflating a touch.
“Indeed, sir.”
We passed through a heavy doorway marked ‘water reclamation - primary processing.’ As it slid open, the environment changed. The cool, almost natural ambience of the transit station gave way to a more industrial, yet still impeccably clean, functional space. Gleaming pipes of varying thicknesses webbed the walls and ceilings of this warehouse sized room, interspersed with multi levelled complex machinery that emitted an orchestra of sounds. Hums, ticks, clanks, whirrs and buzzes were all present. The air here carried the faint, clean tang of granite and purified water. Dr. Farrell waited for them all to get in through the doors to start her tour.
“Everything you see here represents some of the most original, and yet most well built aspects of this ship’s construction. From near the start of this entire project, every drop that sustains us and our various onboard ecosystems has been processed and cleaned right here, starting with the raw glacial melt. If you follow me, we can begin with the primary filtration and sterilisation cycles.”
Dr. Farrell pulled us through the facility towards her first destination. As she walked she described the various junctions in the system, the variety of ways in which they were managed. Our small crowd could see this particular sector was much older. The young grease stained woman whom I had noticed previously, spoke up and asked about the age of the machines processing all their water. My eyes flicked to her instantly. She was wearing a standard engineer’s uniform, slightly ill-fitting, with a deliberate-looking smear of grease high on her cheekbone. Careless, I noted. Or overworked. She looked wide-eyed, playing the part of the eager student a little too well.
“An average age of fourty years.” Dr. Farrell confirmed. “However, it would be more accurate to describe it as a constant work in progress. The materials used in this facility, due to the water’s ability to react with metal surfaces, causes lots of oxygenation. They are under constant supervision and are continuously replaced.”
It was certainly clear that the whole station was much more hands on in its approach. There were many more engineers buzzing over the great machine, like worker bees in a large metal hive. For me, this represented an interesting counter to Dr Hedghe’s complete trust in sister, but whether that was a good thing would remain to be seen.
Thoughts on all the potential weak points of this system began to pervade my mind. Certainly the human and rabbit cost of maintaining this particular system offered up many points of corruption given its large workforce. For a system as vital as water, this did concern me. I had already started to look at some of the personnel files, wondering how I might gain a bit more insight into the potential human and rabbit factor risks. The same woman’s voice reached through my pondering.
“-With a system as vital as water, is there a plan to modernise this plant and integrate sister more fully?” Dr. Farrell’s expression soured. It was subtle, but Hedghe’s smug grin glowed as he let the questions implied meaning massage his ego.
“The water station pre-dates sister by a considerable margin, and so at the moment her impact within the walls of this station is limited. We are upgrading a lot of this technology and working with a much older version of sisters base model to carve a path towards her integration. The biggest challenge is simply that much of the processes are still relatively mechanical, and therefore prone to potentially not responding as expected. In that sense, when we do eventually introduce Sister more fully. I have been designing a programme that will allow messages to be conveyed to my engineers so that there can be a physical response team available when things inevitably go wrong.”
I found myself warming to Dr. Farrell. She was shrewd and careful. Not inclined to immediately trust things without testing them first. The woman with all the questions popped up once again, her voice pitched high with innocent curiosity.
“Isn’t the point of introducing Sister to make sure things don’t go wrong in the first place? To remove the infallibility of human and rabbit error?”
Dr Farrell looked at her piercingly. This woman was asking some pertinent questions, but she had a fatal flaw. The questions belied a lack of respect in Dr Farrell’s ability to do her job properly and safely. The tension this was causing was palpable, and I started to suspect the questions weren’t being asked for curiosity’s sake.
I studied the grease-stained woman again. The questions were too perfect. Too well-timed to tee up Hedghe’s philosophy. She’s a plant, I concluded. Hedghe has placed actors in the crowd to make himself look better. He dismissed her as a threat, just another ego-stroke for the Doctor.
Dr Farrell relaxed into it however, this was clearly not her first rodeo. -
“Yes, well that is of course the guiding principle of sister, but until she is able to manifest for herself a physical body to accomplish these tasks for herself. Then the parameters of a physical machine will need physical input out of necessity. In short, this facility will require a human and rabbit presence for the day to day running of it, regardless of how good Sister may be”.
As Farrell finished, Hedghe’s smile tightened, the muscles in his jaw bunching. He looked away from her, his dismissal a physical act. I made a mental note to check in with these two and learn more about their relationship. Ideological differences aside, discord between such high ranking civilians would need to be subtly managed.
“I will give you an example, at this very moment a team of our engineers are replacing some motors that will allow Sister to take over a complex valve system. However, the part of the water recycling plant in question is one of the oldest on the ship. New technologies have to be specially adapted to function properly with the old. Testing is underway with the base sister model to ascertain its probable functionality, if you will follow me”.
“If you will excuse me,” Dr. Hedghe rhymed. “I will be heading up to the control room yonder -” he pointed up towards a small window higher up in the rock and ice wall that lined the industrial complex that blended the building into the glacial mountainside. “- There are some important developments happening with these experiments concerning Sister, and I would like to follow up on some conversations. I will re-join you at the end of the tour.” He turned to Farrell, his entire demeanor softening. “Dr Farrell, I beg your leave.” She nodded, almost deferentially. As he walked away, the tour group’s eyes followed him, transfixed. I watched the subtle, unearned influence. ‘Dangerous,’ I thought.
Our group followed Dr. Farrell deeper into the complex, passageways began to shrink and a maze-like quality started to become the norm. The sounds of more vigorous activity ahead became more pronounced until eventually we found ourselves as a group on an upper gangway. Slatted steel underfoot revealed a series of huge pipes riddled with a complex exo skeleton of smaller pipes, dials, valves and all manner of other controls. The tang of oil was more clear here, and in the darkness below them there was a lot of activity from the engineers working on the infrastructure. Their buzzing flight packs were just discernible over the more general background noise of their work, the machines humming, and the vague rumbles and cascades of water passing through the complex.
One of the bee-like engineers seemed to stop for a moment and held up their wrist to their ear, listening intently to a message. Looking up at us, the engineer flew up to the gangway to greet us. Dr Farrell introduced this younger woman and explained how her team were testing a new upgrade with the old sister model currently. Feeding a copy of the old Sister model very specific commands to make sure the newly installed automations worked as expected.
Hec’ten whispered to Lys jovially, “Look at her just hovering there in mid-air. It’s not natural sir don’t you think? If God had intended humans to fly, he would have given them wings. Just like he did with us rabbits.” Hec gave him a little wink and hovered a little himself, tugging on his heart string, for just a moment to emphasise the punch line. I was surprised by how close the joke was to my earlier musings on the way in. I was already conjuring up a witty repartee when, with a ferocious lurch, the gangway shrieked in chorus with a significant boom, followed by two sharp thuds below that sounded to me hauntingly like the sound of bodies being flung against a hard surface. Clouds of steam billowed up around us and alarms started to sound, flashing red, overwhelming our senses.
The gathered started to scream and grip the gangway rails. I leapt into action and bellowed into my com, “Kaspa, Rez, coordinate! We need a safe and calm evacuation of this area immediately.” I looked to Dr. Farrell. “If you can assist?”
Dr. Farrell was leaning over the edge of the railing, her face taught and pale, but still managing to shout instructions to her assistant who had already flown back down to assess any damage. She turned to me and shouted over the noise.
“I am staying here, I need to coordinate my crew. There are people injured and unconscious down there!” The gangway we stood upon was precarious, especially now it was being swiftly but clumsily evacuated. Farrell followed my gesture towards a much safer observation deck where already some of the group were forming. The platform extended outwards in a hard concrete balcony that protruded from the granite mountain wall at the opposite end from the control room.
“You can coordinate from over here, this area is no longer safe”. She caught my glance over her shoulder and noticed the deck where the group were beginning to form. For a moment she looked defiant. This was her domain.
“Move, now!” I demanded. Her legs spurred into action. I followed behind, careful to distribute my weight evenly to stop the walkway from swaying too much. Hec’ten in the meanwhile was now flying in that unnatural rabbit way and followed me in mid-air.
“Sir, permission to go and ascertain the nature of the crisis?” I nodded in confirmation, and in the blink of an eye Hec had zipped down, weaving between plumes of steam. As I caught up to the observation deck, Farrell’s apprentice sat by the railings, her hover pack was badly disfigured from the heat of the steam. She was briefing Farrell on what had transpired.
“There are still two people down there. They got thrown once the pressure blew. We tried to stop the pressure building, but none of us could reach the pressure release, our hover suits were too big, and the pipe was too hot to touch”.
I barged in. “How bad is it,” I demanded. They both looked up to me, flustered at the disruption to their briefing. Dr Farrell was the first to reply.
“Sister needs to be disengaged, but at the same time, she is probably the only thing managing the pressure in this area of the facility. If we relinquish her, we won’t have long to shut it down manually”.
“Why can’t we shut it down while she’s still in control?” I asked, shouting up at the control room window where I could see Dr. Hedghe’s silhouette.
A voice crackled over the station’s loudspeakers, cold and precise. It was Hedghe. “She doesn’t think like a human General, things like heat and physical space don’t matter to her, how do you propose you would get to the override through that?”
Dr Farrell nodded in agreement. From the platform the view was extreme, and they were both right. Steam plumes were everywhere as Sister tried to vent the remaining pressure. If she didn’t stop, there would be no getting down there to help the injured people, let alone turn off a valve.
“How much time would I have to shut it down once Sister is turned off?” A long pause, punctuated by plumes of steam.
“You can’t, the risk of an explosion...” Dr Farrell said. Dr. Hedghe’s voice suddenly interrupted her as it came through the intercom. “You would need to be quick. Two minutes tops, it’s a huge risk”.
Just then, Hec’ten reappeared. “Sir, I found two people down there, one of them badly injured and badly burnt, unconscious. The other is awake and aware but has a broken leg, she explained that they had been working on a conduit, and that we need to release a valve manually, one that Sister can’t yet affect on her own”.
“I know,” I interjected, “can you turn it off yourself?”
“No sir, I tried, the wheel is too tight, I don’t have the strength but I know where to locate it. If we can get a heat-proof suit then maybe someone...”
“Good thinking but there isn’t enough time for that, if someone down there is badly burnt we need to get them to a care unit immediately. Hedghe -” I shouted, “I need you to turn Sister off, and Hec” I said turning to the rabbit still floating in mid air, - “I need you to take me to that valve. Farrell, are you ready to help evacuate these people?” She was still rooted to the spot blinking, and then as if snapping out of a trance. “I can’t let you do this, turn Sister off I mean, the risk is too great”.
“Farrell”, my voice was hard as rock.
“But... if you don’t get there in time.” She pleaded.
“Hedghe - do it!
Author’s Note: I was not too familiar with choreographing an action scene, and getting the logic right was a surprisingly hard challenge. I knew I wanted to put Lysander between a rock and a hard place, but to set up the variables where that made sense, that was the trickiest part. Hopefully I have been successful.
I love how you foreshadowed this happening, and yet I still didn't expect it! It was super exciting and I am concerned for how Lys is going to manage to shut it off, but also love that he is apparently strong and brave enough to do it 😏