CH13

“What the hell!?” I heard myself shouting.

“I’m terribly sorry for that outburst. I must admit, the feeling of being online once again got me confused for a moment,” the voice answered. “I hope everything is alright with you? It would be of immense shame for me if you had suffered any harm in my first minute of service. Please, accept my most sincere apology.”

Apology my ass! Literally. I may have broken something down there.

“Are you the AI of this ship?”

“Well, but of course. What is more – I am the ship.”

Ok, that was a stupid question. Before I could say anything more Ilmine recovered. She stood up, but her legs seemed still a bit shaky.

“Uh, AI… report your status,” she ordered weakly. “Oh, and generate your avatar. I don’t like to talk with bare walls.”

“As you wish, my dear Ilminerelitore.”

The lights on the bridge flashed again, but this time it was not so violent. I did not even have to close my eyes. We were making progress, it appeared.

Unfortunately, I could not avoid my dose of shock. Again.

“Is this form acceptable or should I look for something else?” asked a man standing right between me and Ilmine.

He was dressed in a black suit, something taken straight from twentieth century. The guy himself looked like a middle age butler. The only difference, I never heard of butlers appearing out of nowhere on an alien spaceship!

“Please, do not feel afraid,” the newcomer must have noticed my surprise. “This is merely a simple avatar. You can treat it as holo projection, if that sounds more familiar.”

“Holo? That’s what you call a holo?! Bullshit! I’ve seen enough holos in my life and none of this level! You look as if you were really here for god’s sake! That’s not how a normal holo looks like!”

He was nothing like a holo image from Earth. No shimmering, no transparency. It looked as if the guy was really there!

“Oh, I shall take it as a compliment,” the butler avatar smiled. “But, if I may correct you, the data you are operating on is highly insufficient to make such claims. As far as I understand, you come from a society that has yet to develop in terms of proper technological advancement. Indeed, I find your presence aboard this fine vessel nothing but fascinating!”

Yeah, whatever you say old man, I thought, whatever you say.

“Ares!” my brother shouted sprinting into the bridge, weapon in hand. “Are you ok? I saw the light…”

“Relax, I’m fine,” I assured him. “Is Blaze with you?”

“She is,” my sister stepped in. “And who the fuck is that?”

Ah, yes, that was a very good question. Blaze stared at the butler standing right next to me. It must have been hell of a surprise for both of them.

“This is the AI we just restored. But he didn’t introduce himself yet.” I looked at the avatar expectedly, urging him to fix that mistake.

“Well, this may be problematic…” the hologram froze for a moment. “I checked my data logs. Unfortunately, there is almost zero data stored on them. The designation I had had before you restarted me is nowhere to be found. I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, but there is nothing I can do about it. If you want, though, I shall be more than happy to assign myself a new one. Is that what you want me to do?”

I was about to say “yes” right away, but something felt wrong in what this AI had just said. Almost zero data? Oh, that is not what I was expecting, but maybe we could end it all without much trouble.

“So you do have some of your previous data? What about those Earth’s coordinates? Do you still have them?!”

I had guessed the answer before I even asked the last question. The butler’s face was as sad and apologetic as a holo could be.

“I am really sorry. All information I currently have is the input from the ship’s passive sensors from the time I was functioning in my, let’s call it, sleep mode and the data Ilminerelitore stored as her back-up. I must say, I am impressed. The level of security you applied is truly astounding, especially the way you used my garbage data to hide—“

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Draco interfered and I was grateful he did. “Alien? Could you explain?”

I never heard my brother using Ilmine’s name, even the shortened version. It was kind of petty, especially when we wanted to establish a professional and mutually beneficial relationship. Well, his choice; Ilmine seemed unaffected.

I looked in those red eyes of hers. I hoped the girl did not try anything stupid. It would be a true shame to loose someone so valuable. But sometimes sacrifices were necessary.

“It has nothing to with you,” she tried to stay indifferent but her body betrayed her. She was nervous. “It was just a copy of my research. Nothing special. It’s just… Sa’der wouldn’t tell me anything about the project we were part of, not even who our employers were. You think I’m stupid? I wanted to have something I could defend myself with if this turned out to be something worse than it looked. That’s all, I swear.”

I wanted to believe her. I really wanted.

“If I may interject,” our butler AI said. “What Ilminerelitore did may have been the greatest blessing for all of us. If not for the data she had hidden I would not have been able to communicate with you at all. The language I am currently using, the appearance you see… It is based solely on that data. Thus, I am grateful for that and, as far as I understand the situation we are facing right now, so should you my dearest crew members.”

That would explain why he chose this avatar – a human – for itself. However, it did not explain the butler-style image, but that was secondary. Maybe he liked detective stories, just like Nun? Or maybe he was into those silly cartoons like Chingis? Huh, I would like to see their faces when they hear we were kidnapped by alien spaceship. I was curious how the UG would explain that.

One day.

In this world or another, I knew that one day I would see them all again.

“What are we going to do now?” Draco’s voice cut through my thoughts.

“What options do we have?” I answered him with my own question. “We will have to wait and see. From what I understand this guy here won’t be much of a helper, will you?”

“All of my resources, however modest, are at your disposal,” the avatar made a very butler like bow.

What a boot licker.

“So, can you tell me what is this?” Blaze took something out of her pocket.

The thing looked like a box for a wedding ring, small and grey. It was a perfect cube.

Where did she get that?

“That’s a memory dice! Where did you get that from?!” Apparently Ilmine was no less curious.

“Found it in one of the cabins. Thought it may be important,” my sister shrugged.

I raised my eyebrow.

Really? The last time something caught Blaze’s eye… when was it? Probably that time when we had to kill governor… What-was-his-name… Achorn? Achter? Never mind. He had had a very nice wife for a pedophile from what I remembered. And very well mannered. She did not even scream when I cut her husband’s throat.

Anyway, the old perv had a full stash of old weapons in his manor. A collector, that one. I was never into antiques but hell, he had some really nice stuff there. We all took a souvenir or two, but Blaze…

Have you ever tried to convince a guard in some rich fucker’s palace that carrying a century year old flamethrower on your back, in the middle of the night, is completely normal and unsuspicious? I still could not believe she pulled it off.

“They built something like an altar around it,” my sis added when she noticed my interested gaze on her. “It was hard to miss.”

I turned back to Ilmine.

“Any idea what that is?”

“Actually, yes!” the girl sounded excited. “I told you that Sa’der worship words! If what she said is true there must be an important document saved on this memory dice! Something like a religious text or something even more personal like… like…”

“Like what?” I asked impatiently.

“Like Teo’s contract! And if this is it, then we can find out who'd hired him!”