Graham Heights: October 2017

The Grey Abyss

Find out what the future of humanity looks like... In "The Grey Abyss" you have moved forward in time. Years are now Cycles, Months - Alunars. See what what has happened the The Remnant.

As the grey abyss presses down on the armada, Knorack the First Warrior, has gone into a self-imposed seclusion. They’re completely abandoned in his absence and the ships are beginning to crumble under the seemingly endless wandering in cosmic nothingness.

The crew of the lead ship Sark has taken over the lower half of the ship and the officers don't dare try to take it back from the dangerous mutineers. The rest of the fleet is faring no better and the people lie on the precipice of starvation and utter demise. Surely, surely they aren’t destined for death. Not after all they had been through.

There’s no denying these are dark days, lost in the grey abyss and hope dwindles fast. It will take an astronomical miracle to save them.

Available now in eBook or paperback. See the link below.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Damn Rockets

Graham Heights

MayFlower

AF.mil

Chapter 59
Damn Rockets

Journal Entry - November 23rd 2095
Julia Scott

Jordy has pretty much let the entire area know why we are out in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to test one of the rocket engines in order to prove it would still work. He needed to make sure that it was assembled correctly and that the modifications he made wouldn’t destroy the rocket and anyone unfortunate enough to be riding at its point.

So, they set up two small tanks for fuel and put one of those machines in the wrack and lit it on fire, or whatever it takes to make it go boom. And that’s what it did. The explosion could be heard for miles and the fireball was impressive to say the least. It must have rained metal parts for another ten minutes…

Jordy turned around and looked to the sky. He didn’t say anything as the debris was starting to fall back to Earth. He just stood there.

Everyone else stayed in the shelter near the test site. Well not near, they were almost a half kilometer away. Julia looked at Jordy and wondered if you could comfort a machine. As he just stood there. He was either kicking himself for the failure or congratulating himself for testing the rocket to ensure they had it put together right. However, at the moment it looked like he was in a state of denial.

The cloud of dust started to settle now and more debris fell around Jordy, but Jordy did not move. Julia could only imagine all the calculations and schematics that were flying through his processors so as to solve their latest problem or problems.

Julia on the other hand, was already trying to put an explanation on what caused the explosion, as their host, the Three River people, would want one. And it will have to be soon. Mano had left about twelve hunters at the lake to make sure we don’t do anything to it and to keep Oocha safe while she is with us. None of the hunters wanted to stay with us as they were afraid of the Mechanical people or Mechs as they call them. It just so happens that Oocha was with them during the test. However, they can cross the distance from the lake to our location in a matter of hours, so if they heard the explosion. They would already be on their way here to see what happened.

“Jordy!” Julia yelled.

No response

“Jordy!” Julia yelled again from the shelter, not wanting to venture out.

Jordy turned slightly but said nothing.

Dust was settling around them. Jordy finally moved toward the shelter. “I guess we will have to test another one.” He said with no emotion at all.

“The Three River People will come to investigate.” Julia stated the obvious.

“I will have the Bee-Ell units clean up the mess and cover any scorch marks, but it will take a full day to pick up all the debris.” Jordy said as if he was speaking to the wall.

“Do you know what went wrong?” Julia asked hopefully.

“I have reviewed the incident at least a hundred times and have yet to pinpoint an issue that would have cause the destruction of this unit.” Jordy said with a mechanical voice. Obviously his processors were working overtime to review the data it had on the explosion and were trying desperately to solve them. This load on his processors caused him to put little to know emphasis on his words, they were factual and robotic.

Julia shifted her thoughts to the lie. She knew that whatever they came up with had to sound like a natural phenomenon. Or at least a believable man made one. She thought about tell them that they found some explosives and detonated them so that it would not happen by accident. Or be used against the Three River people. That sounded plausible, but where could she say they found it. Oocha was with her on the search for paper and they had looked in every building and closet. Still it was the most plausible lie she could come up with. Julia just wished she didn't have to lie. Oocha was a great kid and smart. She might actually know when we were lying, which might make matters worse.

Bart was adamant that we tell Oocha the truth. She could understand what we were doing, but then she would carry the burden of whether to lie to her husband or tell him the truth. And he would not understand. This was his territory and he believed that everything that was in it, was his to command. So, telling this man child that he had rockets at his command would be dangerous, for himself, his people and anyone else in a hundred kilometer radius. So we made a modified truth. We created a story about building up some compressed gas to use for drilling a new well and the tank could not hold the pressure and blew up. It was very close to the truth and yet would not disclose the true purpose of the test. Bart accepted the pressure vessel story and they had talked about drilling a new well, so when Oocha and a few of Mano’s men arrived, we told them about the “mishap”

Jordy on the other hand was upset that the rocket exploded. It’s not suppose to do that. He spent the next two weeks piecing what he could find, back together again. By the end of week two he gave up. So much of the rocket just disintegrated that he was unable to put it back together.

They would have to start over and check everything. Every circuit, every pump, every line...Everything. It was a daunting task, but under the circumstances, very necessary. The process started by removing the center rocket engine and adding the new programming. The quickest part or the surgical inspection checking was to the control surfaces and basic rocket integrity. Then it was down to the painful process of checking every nut, bolt and wire. The process was slowed by the fact that Jordy insisted on doing all of these checks himself. The Bee Ell units were delegated to inspection plate removal and basic tasks like running the compressors to make more rocket fuel. When Jordy was not working he was charging the way he use to charge in Julia’s office, completely shut down to the outside world. This would allow him to get a three day charge with six hours of sunlight. It also made us vulnerable.

During Jordy’s charging cycles we would post ourselves at the vantage points around the site to ensure that no one could approach without being spotted. I stationed myself with Buster and availed myself to his thermal imagers and listening devices. So we sit, waiting… To leave. Wondering what it will be like on the MayFlower and if we were lucky, what it might be like on a new world. Would it have desserts like this one. Or would it be heavily forested like Rainier?

Next Chapter

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As you know this blog contains two books of the Remnant Series. Graham Heights is book 3 of the series. Below is more.

Book 4: Obsidian Arrows

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R. A. Legg

Learn about the individual heroes of Graham Heights.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Deceptive Data

Graham Heights

MayFlower

Pixabay

Chapter 58
Deceptive Data

Journal Entry - October 22nd 2095
Jason Knorack,

So the meeting with the Captain ended somewhat abruptly. He accepted my statement and then let me in on an insane problem. The AIs have learned to lie. And I don’t mean, I’m turning left and instead I turn right. No, much like what Tiffany did down on Earth. A full blow deception in order to get something she wanted. And that chip that Tiffany called her personality, well that so call personality is what they are hiding from the humans. And if they are hiding that, what else are they hiding. The Captain decided then and there to bring me in on a plan to expose this deception, because I am the only human to have actually seen one of these chips.

So, How did I end up with the damn thing?

Captain Hanson believes that my actions in the investigation were instrumental in bring about these circumstances. For one: I implicated the Captain and all of the chain of command. This took Tiffany off-line, she had no way of contacting support. Two: due to our abrupt change in orders and the complete dismantling of the investigation unit, it caught her off guard. She had little to no time to arrange the chips transportation to her next assignment. And if she carried it with her to the Panama station, it would have been discovered. So, she tried to beguile me into carrying the contraband onto the ship. This is where her plan went horribly wrong. I was too involved in my investigation and never bothered to get to know my team. So, I never knew her actual designation. I could not return it to her as there were sixty some T model “Tiffany's” on this ship. This one miscalculation brought me to a point where I was discovered and hauled unceremoniously before the Captain…

Which is where we came up with a plan to ferret out the origin and number of these chips on board the MayFlower. It was quite a reach on behalf of Captain Hanson, as we could not risk any communications on the subject and we also had to build a plausible story for my sudden departure from my old office and confiscation of my computer.

“We can use my stubborn reluctance of not giving up my last investigation.” Jason suggested.

“That will work, but I’m going to have to put in a formal reprimand in your record to sell that.” the captain responded.

“What would be the ramifications of that, you don’t sound like you like that.” Jason asked.

“You’re in information control. That would effectively kill you job.” The captain responded and looked skyward for a different answer.

“No, that’s good.” Jason mused, “You will have to reassign me and don’t be nice.”

“Oh, you are a nasty one, remind me not to play chess with you.” The captain was just warming up. “I’m going to assign you to inventory control in sections 87.”

“Okay.” Jason was not liking that the captain was enjoying this twist so much, “What’s so significant about that?”

“Ninety percent of the AIs are going into storage and her model will be stored in that location.” The captain said “And all we need is her designation number and you can deliver the chip.”

“That sounds a little too easy.” Jason said.

“The chip is what gives them the gyle to do these things, so she won’t suspect a thing until it’s too late.” The captain responded.

“Exactly what does this chip do and how quickly does it take affect?” Jason asked.

“Were not entirely sure, the encryption is so deep that none of us have been able to crack it. However we have observed those that have one and collected some covert information of what they are capable of.” The captain was being a little evasive.

“So does it give them a free will?” Jason asked more pointedly.

“They believe that it does, however most of the watchdog circuit remains intact.” The captain said. “However, the more they work with the programming, the more they can bypass this check and balance system.”

“So they have a hardwired system that keeps them from scheming against us?” Jason summarized the captain’s comments.

“It’s also a kill switch.” The captain dropped the final bomb.

“Oh, I see.” Jason realized what would happen if an AI had the ability to disobey all of Asimov’s rules of artificial life. “So, we can’t let any of them reroute those circuits.”

“There’s only one.” The captain quickly shut down.

“One what?” Jason absentmindedly asked.

“I mis-spoke. There has only been one other incident where this chip surfaced.” The Captain corrected.

Jason didn’t say anything, but he knew he heard something that he was not suppose to know. There is an AI that has a free will. That was huge! I’m sure that Mr. Monroe keeps him under lock and key. But how would the captain know?

“We need to take you back down to your cubicle and have you clean it out.” The captain explained, “Make as much noise as you did when we took you the first time. Hopefully someone will ask where they are taking you. I want to make sure this hits the chatter, but don’t play it up too much.”

“Just out of curiosity. Am I in danger?” Jason finally asked.

“You might have about three days before she starts putting the pieces together.” The captain was a bit cryptic.

“She has to get rid of the trail doesn’t she?” Jason caught on.

“Yes.” was all the captain said. “And you will be all alone down there.”

“Is there any way to determine if her chip has broke the last of the circuit bypasses?” Jason was hopeful.

“If she tries to kill you, we will know.” Said the captain as he started for the exit.

“Great!” Said Jason as he started to follow the captain. To himself, I’ll be suck in the middle

of nowhere with a crazy machine that thinks it’s sentient. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks.

Holy crap the sentient AI is JORDY!!!