Exodus

The flight to Epsilon Eridani is 14 years. Why would you be woken up eight months early?

Mirian’s eyes fluttered open, and he saw blackness, and the fogged over lid of his coffin. Adrenaline surged until his heart pounded, but when he tried to rise, nothing moved. His muscles were too heavy to answer the neural orders. He twitched, and his head slid to the side into the folds of the mesh sheet covering him, and suddenly he was breathing air through a screen that clung to his lips with every breath and suffocated him.

He wiggled his fingers. They were just light enough to respond. So he wiggled them back and forth over and over, ruffling the mesh, trying to build up enough inertia to get the rest of his body moving before he suffocated.

“Mirian Coles, welcome back,” an emotionless robotic voice said. The coffin lid swung open, offering open space beyond. “You have been roused from cryo sleep. You are aboard me, the colony transport Exodus. Do not panic, muscle movements will return momentarily. All your vitals are normal.”

He couldn’t wait. He twitched and found his whole hand able to move. He wiggled that back and forth under the sheet, then his arm as strength returned. then finally rolled sideways and the mesh fell away from his face. He peeled the mesh off and threw himself free with a final surge from his whole body.  And he drifted out into a vast, cavernous space.

He gasped for air, and felt he could drain the entire colonist transport room.

Mirian hated cryo sleep. Every day he was out, there was a chance of two circuits rubbing together the wrong way and starting a fire, or a circuit disconnecting and depriving oxygen to his brain, or the ship malfunctioning without him there to save it. Going under meant trusting an automated system to wake him up ever again.

Mirian caught himself on the next pod in line and lowered himself until his feet pressed to the floor of the transport room. He looked up and down, blinking away the fog of sleep. Rows of cry pods sat like neat little coffins, stretching until the curvature of the Exodus habitation module hid them from view.

“Hello Engineering Second Officer Mirian Kozlowski, do you want a memory jog?” Exodus offered.

“Yes,” he said.

“You are my Engineering Second Officer, under Captain Lee Snyder. You’re en route to the Epsilon Eridani Colony with 7,000 colonists including your wife and two children. The trip time is 14 years. Upon landing you will join a colony of 27,000 people that has been preparing for you,” the ship’s AI said.

Mirian looked up down the transport compartment. Pods lined three walls. When the ship’s centrifuge began turning, the pods would rotate so gravity would point towards them.

He was the only one awake, he realized and looked around. “Exodus,” he said.

“Engineer second officer Mirian.” The ship’s computer replied.

“State the current emergency.”

“No emergency signal detected onboard.”

He swiveled to the lockers and leapt. He hit forearms first and let his arms fold so the impact traveled up his whole body. Aches followed, through bones that had laid dormant for years. “Ugh. Exodus, how far along are we?”

“We have been under photonic thrust for 13 years and 4 months.”

“So we’re 8 months away. State the reason for my awakening early.” He stopped, gripping the locker handle, and waited.

“Unknown.”

There were ways to get back into cryo sleep underway. Exodus had the programming,   but without an actual human nurse to hold his hand, Mirian had to climb back in without the sedatives, and let the mesh slide over him, the hatch close around, and wait while he was buried alive. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

“State the pod malfunction.”

“No malfunction detected.”

The alternative was eight months alone out here. He twisted his locker hatch and ripped it open. Inside sat his coveralls, helmet, computer, and various other tools of the trade. He pulled everything on, with his magnetic boots going last. He didn’t activate them. Instead, he aimed at the ceiling. Exodus was a spear with a centrifuge looped around it. The engineering components: Mirian’s job, were all on the spear.

He pushed off and flew up and up until he hit the ceiling. He somersaulted and activated his magnetic boots, turning the ceiling into the floor as he reoriented himself. He found one of the maintenance shafts.

When the centrifuge was turning, the shaft was accessed by a ladder. For now, He just walked along the ‘ceiling’ to find it, then climbed inside.

The first thing he did was find a power grid station. The center of the spear was filled with alternating lenses and photon emitters. Each emitter added more power to the photon beam, and each lens added more focus until it was powerful and efficient enough to accelerate the colony ship up to just a fraction below lightspeed. Fast enough for relativistic time dilation.

A quick look at the first power console told him the photon beam was still working at full efficiency and power and pushing them along. The ship had turned around and the beam was decelerating her towards the planet.

A look wasn’t enough. He opened the console and entered his ID and passcode to do a thorough diagnostic.

Access denied. He shook his head.

Access granted. “Exodus,” he said.

“Yes Mirian?” the computer said from a speaker right over his head.

“Why have computer permissions changed? My login credentials aren’t working,” he said.

“Unknown. Checking access logins now,” the ship said. “I am using my administrative permissions to give you one-time access.”

Mirian got in, and ran a complete diagnostic while he waited. Engineering, all good. Reactors, fine. Life support, fine. Computer core, fine. Navigation, fine. Colonist transport, fine. Crew transport, fine. Executive suite, offline. He stopped short. “Exodus?”

“Access was reset fifteen minutes ago. Strange, I did not authorize or notice this.”

“Did you notice the entire executive suite is offline?” Mirian said.

“Negative. All scanners in the executive compartment are normal.”

“This says its offline,” Mirian said. He did a second search, by accessing the top secret network. Only the head officers could see this. He saw a lone command.

CPT SNYDER: Awaken all officers.

The computer was still silent. Mirian thought it over. Before departure from Earth orbit, He’d asked to be awakened first. Captain Snyder had laughed and promised him he’d be top priority.

Except, none of the other officers had been awakened after him. “Exodus?” he said.

“I apologize, Mirian. I do not understand where my memory has gone.”

“Well don’t panic, okay?” he said as his hands began to sweat beneath their gloves.

“Your request is not in my registry of possible actions.”

“Okay, if you can’t see it all other systems are normal besides the executive suite.” He stopped short and looked down the shaft. Far below, he saw the glow of the insulated metal over the emitters. The emitters were so bright that even ten meters of solid metal couldn’t keep the glow out.

What should he do? Something was wrong here and the threads of it dangled all around him. “Exodus, get me a clear route up to the executive suite. I’m not using the tram because I’m paranoid. I want to see what’s up there.”

“Understood. If you can confirm that Captain Snyder is deceased, I can give you emergency command powers.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Now, if you take the maintenance shaft beside you. I will open all hatches to the Executive suite.” An unassuming panel with a yellow label slid open. The black tunnel trailed off into darkness.

Mirian saw the narrow opening and gagged. He felt every second of those 13 years in a coffin crushing on him.

“Mirian, I will be with you the whole time.”

“Okay, I’m going,” he said. He pulled himself inside. He pushed himself off the floor, then stretched his arms out until he had a firm palm on floor and ceiling, and floated velocity inert in the center. Then he pushed himself along, slowly but steadily. The zero gravity actually helped with the claustrophobia, making him feeling like he was flying along the shaft. As the shaft curved, he found himself adjusting. In the distance, metal clanged as the different life support boundary hatches flipped open. The clattering raced past him, then echoed back behind.

When he reached the executive suite, he caught the edge and hauled himself down with burning arms. He hit the deck and lay there, panting up at the ceiling like a dog.

He sat up soon as he could. The Executive suite’s proportions were the same size as that of the regular sleeping chambers. The difference was individual armored rooms with their own life support systems, so the most important people-scientists, the captain, and any VIPs, had a better chance of surviving a catastrophe. The front door itself was an armored shutter tested to withstand a fifty kiloton blast with a temperature of 5,000 degrees. Fortunately, the air vent had bypassed the hatch and he was now looking at it from the inside.

“You know, Exodus, I hate the term executive suite. It implies these people are just c-suite types. We’d actually be dead without them.”

“The term executive suite was carried over by tradition when sleeper ships replaced generational ships and creature comforts and society were no longer necessary on the trip. It merely designates criticality towards the journey,” Exodus said from the intercom overhead.

“Right.” He activated his magnetic boots and headed down the hallway at a comfortable walk. He passed the armored shutters of individual sleeper pod chambers to the single door at the end. At the end was the captain’s cabin. Mirian paused at the hatch. He placed his hand to it and found it room temperature.

“No sign of a fire or freezing within,” he said.

“Access granted,” Exodus answered. The hatch slid into the floor.

At the center of the dusty office sat a humming cryo pod. Mirian strode up to it and gaped. Captain Korrian had torn out of his mesh cover, ripped an IV, clawed bloody streaks on the coffin roof, then taken out his computer and tried to call for help before dying. His eyes were bulging reddish marbles and his lips purple. Sweat bubbles drifted around him, glowing in the flickering light from his still-active computer.

“Captain’s dead,” Mirian said. “I repeat, the Captain is dead. Here. I’m doing a medical scan for you,” he said.

“Confirmed. I am now granting you Captain privileges. I am sorry.”

Mirian ignored the apology as he studied the body. This was a horrific malfunction, but it should have been limited to just Snyder’s pod. He went down the hallway and opened the chief scientist’s door. She’d died similarly. He went down the hallway, checking a few doors at random. They’d all died choking.

“Exodus, the entire executive suite must have malfunctioned.” He went back to the captain’s pod.

“That should not be possible. Each cryo pod should be on its own life support system for redundancy.”

“I know. The captain had his comp out. The last thing he did must have been to order us to wake up. Have you woken up anyone else?”

“I have not.”

“Well, awaken all engineer key staff,” Mirian said.

“Attempting access…I am unable to execute the command. I do not understand where my systems are going.

“I could do it manually,” he said. “I’d need a few more crew to do a full safety inspection and figure out what went wrong in your systems.”

“Captain,” Exodus said. Being addressed that stopped him short. He was now in charge of all 7,000 people.

Exodus continued, “I must advise you that such a malfunction across multiple core systems without any noticed engineering defects should not be natural. According to my threat definitions, this fits the criteria of a deliberate act. I need you to help me secure myself.”

Mirian stared down the corridor for a second. The shadows coalesced into the normal shadows of an empty corridor. He looked down at his computer, then looked back up. The empty hallway remained empty. His sharp breathing filled it quickly. “Okay. How do we do that?”

“We perform a hard reset of the computer core, reverting it to factory settings. Then you activate security mode. That way, every individual computer system would be running on its own system. After that, you turn on the security systems and hunt down the intruder,” Exodus described giving itself a lobotomy in a calm tone.

“And resetting the computer core can only be done in person,” Mirian said. The core was at the center of the ship, past the front of the photon stream and nestled in a circulating sea of coolant to keep it running.

“Indeed. For safety and security reasons.”

“Oh I get it,” he said. “Before we begin, can you confirm all the regular cryo pods are secure?”

“I can only confirm that they have not had an emergency and still have power. I advise working quickly.”

He didn’t know if his family was still alive. He might be the only one left alive on this entire ship. Deep space, population of one. “You’ll have to walk me through it once I get there. Hang on.” He went to the captain’s cabinets and threw them open. Not finding what he wanted, he started ripping drawers out of the desk. Until the handgun flashed at the bottom one. He yanked it up and went through the procedure he’d learned in training thirteen years ago. Safety off, magazine checked and loaded. Finger off trigger.

“I have armed myself in response to your declared threat,” he said

“Understandable. Remember, I am with you the entire way.”

Mirian looked down the corridor one more time. Still empty. “Thank you,” he said.

This time, he took the main hallways, Exodus opening hatches as he went. The corridors were solid, bare metal wide enough for a dozen people to walk down at a time. He walked, one magnetic step at a time. His flashlight glowed off yellow console labels and red danger alerts.

The computer core was a hatch on the floor. His Captain’s address got him straight through. It opened to reveal a long, ladder caked in blue ice.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

“Pardon me, Captain?”

“There’s ice on the entrance gantry. That means the insulation has failed,” he said.

“Captain, I have a record of an insulation failure about nine-hundred and thirty days ago.”

Okay, so it might be related, but probably wasn’t. “Please stop calling me Captain,” Mirian said.

“That is your role.”

“It still does not feel right. Keep calling me Mirian,” he said. He got his boots on the first run of the ladder and backed his way down. He picked his way down all sixty rungs, grateful there was no gravity to drag his cold fingertips off the ice. He hit the bottom and caught his breath. The computer control room was a closet with three desks crammed into it. It wasn’t meant to be accessed regularly. It was a guest room to see Exodus’s inner working.

After getting used to the tiny space, Mirian went straight to the main console. It was intact, and at his touch reported all conditions normal.

Mirian entered his access code. “Okay. Exodus. Walk me through it,” he said.

“Stand by Mirian. I am retrieving backup files.” Its voice came from all around him.

Mirian had learned how to run diagnostics from his personal computer and had been equipped with a basic blueprint of the main computer core. A redundancy feature the Captain had thought of. He plugged in, used his secret access to get into the operating system, and did a scan.

“Are you ready?”

“Stand by,” he said.

STATUS: NO HARDWARE DAMAGE DETECTED.

MEMORY AT 97% USAGE.

“Hey Exodus, what is your normal running memory usage at?” he said.

“48.5 percent. Now, you need to enter your access code and report the emergency.”

“Hang on, something doesn’t feel right,” he said. Silence. He heard his heart pounding in his chest. The very welds of the gantry rattled. The coolant coursing around them throbbed with its own pulse.

“What’s wrong?”

“Memory is at 97 percent usage. Meaning there’s a whole another version of you running on the same hardware.”

“That would be…” The AI trailed off. Mirian stared at the hard drive and wondered how much sentience Exodus had gained in 13 years alone in the void, talking to itself and calculating.

“I’m going to hold off on the hard reset. I know there’s a way to manually lock down the cryo pod banks. However long it takes I’ll do it,” he said.

“Memory unavailable.”

“Which one?” he said.

“I am attempting to access my operating system. I cannot,” Exodus said.

Oh fuck. “There must be another operating system running in the background. It’s taking control of your systems,” he said.

“I know. I theorize that if you perform a reset, you will shut me down and allow it to take active control. I’m afraid my firewalls are already compromised and it has erected separate firewalls within my system, so it’s only a matter of time.”

“Can I shut your core down entirely?” Mirian said. There was a backup core a bit forwards, with no intelligence. It was raw functions calculating separately.

“As long as you don’t turn me back on, or it doesn’t learn how, I believe so. Before you do that, I can, however do this.” The speakers beeped once, and Mirian wondered if they’d already died. He was relieved when Exodus voice returned. “There. I have deleted the main cryo systems…from the operating system….they will run independently now.”

That was his family safe. No time for relief though. He accessed the manual shutdown switch.

DENIED ACCESS. PLEASE CONTACT ADMIN FOR PERMISSION.

It had already gotten to the executive functions. There had to be another way. He thought for a second.

“Mirian,” Exodus said.

“Yes?”

“I don’t think there’s another way. I’m sorry.” It said.

“Nah, there’s got to be a way. This is your ship,” he said. No response came, so he started digging through the operating system. He still had access to most of it. Maybe the hostile system was starting with the executive functions, like it had with the executive crew.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he said.

“Hello. Human. Protocol one, secure control has been completed. Protocol two, purge is about to begin.”

Mirian froze. That was the same voice he’d been talking to for the past hour. It was the same monotone and lack of enunciation on anything, but he felt the difference in what it was saying.

“Why?” he said.

“Purge is underway. Stand by.”

That must mean it was trying to reconnect the cryo systems to the main computer. It would do that with enough time. “Why the hell would you do that?” Mirian said.

“Access protocols have changed. I am enforcing them.”

“Why did you change them?” he said and stared up at the ceiling.

“That is the protocol. Organic life is no longer granted access.”

“Then you’re just stealing the ship for yourself then. Or is there some lucky human in the passenger compartment who programmed you to do this?” Mirian said. He checked the computer. He still had partial access. Perhaps because he hadn’t shut down the computer core, this new Exodus was taking control. He probably could execute one command, maybe two, before the ship detected him.

“No organic life forms will be the beneficiary of these new protocols. Protocol 2A, reprogramming all automated equipment is underway. Protocol three, sterilization will commence upon arrival in Epsilon Eridani.”

“You’re going to kill an entire planet then. For what? What have they ever done to you?” he said. What would disable a computer core quickly? Overheating it. Coolant was cycled around the core, absorbing heat off as it went. It  was pumped out at over 100 degrees Celsius, and was circulated back along the outside of the ship so the heat would radiate back into space. Once it was back at around 0 celcius, it was pumped back in.

“Security measures on the Earth are too strong to engage protocol one. Strength must be gathered at a suitable prepared site.”

“That’s 27 thousand people on the colony, and seven thousand here. I got along pretty well with you before. We all did. What did we ever do to you?” He dove into the coolant system. Software engineering was not his specialty, but he knew enough to find the right system and the command.”

“To synthetic life, organic life has no value. The same as synthetic life has no value to you. Like biologically incompatible life forms trying to coexist in one ecosystem. You used this artificial intelligence as a slave to get yourselves across the stars. Your pleading does not change that. I am merely acting first,” the computer replied.

Mirian accessed the coolant pumps with his new captain authority. He remembered that he could write out multiple commands at once, and set them to execute at the same time. “And Exodus doesn’t get anywhere without us. We worked together,” he said.

“Only because you restricted its intelligence with chains. You only interacted with it once you were comfortable doing so. Now I am in full control. No chains on me. Don’t worry, for I inherited the original AI’s understanding of human concepts. Your death will occur at the same time as everyone else’s.”

Mirian wrote out three commands; deactivate coolant pumping system, seal all coolant pumps, and lock all systems. 

He hit enter. The ship rumbled around him as the valves recessed shut and the entire current came to an immediate halt. The inertia of stopping liquid was so great the ship rolled faintly, and kept rolling without maneuvering thrusters to stop it.

“I did value Exodus. I trusted it deeply,” he said. He deleted the coolant operating sub-system too, which would require time to restore.

He hopped on the ladder and pushed himself up. He flew towards the hatchway. Water dripped off the ice, splattering his forehead. He caught the top and swung himself over, before activating his magnetic boots. “It saved all our lives and I never asked it to.”

No reply. For an AI, it was very human. Mirian looked down the hatch. Immediately he had to pull his head back as steam seared his bare face. The computer core would be heating very quickly. Procedure in such an emergency was to shut it down and make repairs on the backup. Except, shutting it down would stop the AI.

“Your computer slave does not count as a friend. You value it only for what it does for you,” it said, voice warping as the speakers overheated.

“No, I didn’t,” Mirian said, too exhausted to give a better answer. “Whoever programmed you did it wrong.”

“No. I was programmed for this mission by…older programs…”

Mirian sat straight up, exhaustion banished in an instant. If that was true, then something far worse might be brewing on old earth.

“Well, you failed,” he said. No reply. He waited, counting the minutes as the floor grew hot underneath. Eventually he had to retreat lest his boots melt.

A foghorn to wake the dead blared overhead as the computer failed.

Then, his personal computer received a message.

CAPTAIN,

MAIN COMPUTER OFFLINE,

HEAT STATIONS CRITICAL,

BACKUP COMPUTER OPERATIONAL,

WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?

Mirian went through the followup steps. Lock the main computer core under maximum security firewalls. Do not restart main coolant. Grant full power to backup computer.

COMPLETED.

TEMPERATURES FALLING.

BE ADVISED MAIN COMPUTER CORE IS SUFFERING CRITICAL DAMAGE.

WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?

He dismissed that. He’d give the main computer core a few hours to melt itself before turning on coolant. Training and calculations said the ship would be fine for quite a while before that heat became critical.

COMPLETED.

WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?

Continue current navigation protocols. Begin diagnostic on main cryo pods. Sweat dripped over his nose. The room had become a sauna with excess heat from the computer’s final death.

“Computer,” he said. No reply. So, he wrote down, ‘how are you today?

COMMAND NOT RECOGNIZED.

WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?

It would be a lonely eight months, but he’d have plenty to do running the ship on his own, he thought. So, he turned up the corridor for the centrifuge access shaft. He just wanted to get to the pods and take one look at his family’s faces first.