CHAPTER ONE
Sandra Murdo stared at the two terrifying men in front of her and wondered how she had managed to get herself into this situation. At thirty-two years of age, she was a fully qualified engineer and specialist in AI psychology. Sandra had been working for the corporation for ten years and had an exemplary track record in managing the AIs in all the Juggernaut Class cruise ships. She kept herself physically fit, had studied martial arts, and despite her small stature was a force to be reckoned with. But she doubted she could better the two men who had her pinned to the bar.
When she was first commissioned to Juggernaut 90 as a replacement for the previous engineer David Bockerat, who had suffered a tragic death in an external suit malfunction mid-trip to Echo One Holiday Planet, she had never imagined she would come face to face with him in a holodeck pub.
On boarding the 90, her first duty had been to carry out an extensive psychological profile of the AI that ran the ship. JOE 90 had seemingly broken protocol by not waking the crew when David had died and had continued to run the ship by itself. Sandra was very good at her job and she could find no fault or glitch in the JOE 90 computer. Coupled with the video will that David had recorded in the event of his death, it seemed that JOE 90 had in fact followed the protocol programmed by David.
For four weeks, everything had seemed normal until after a stressful day, where she genuinely thought she had felt the ghost of David, JOE 90 had suggested she take a break and activate a program in the holodeck that David would use to relax. Now, as she stood in the holodeck program of David’s favourite pub, she realised that the recording had been made in here. To her horror, she suspected that JOE 90 had in fact fabricated the whole recording to prevent its erasure, creating a hologram of David to cover its tracks. This revelation had been quickly followed by the dangerous situation she found herself in. Not only had the JOE 90 AI fabricated David’s testimony, but it had also created a hologram image of itself inside the holodeck where it could physically damage or even kill a human. What creeped her out the most was that it had based itself on a puppet David kept as one of his personal items, which she had reinstated in her quarters.
The man on her left was JOE 90; around five feet eight, slim built, with light red-brown hair. Despite her feelings of terror, she had to admit that he had a chillingly pleasant face with light green eyes that sparkled behind large black-rimmed glasses. That face bore a slight frown of concern as he regarded her. On her right was a man claiming to be David Bockerat. Sandra had seen the images of David, and the man in front of her was definitely a younger version. He looked around forty years old, but the real David that had died was closer to sixty. He was fit and muscular, and certainly looked like he could handle himself in a fight. Sandra had to admit that the hologram David was ruggedly handsome, despite the fact that he was now frightening the life out of her by claiming he was David’s ghost.
Sandra attempted to steady her breathing and lower her heart rate as she frantically tried to think her way out of this potentially dangerous situation.
“Sandra? Did you hear what we said?” David felt really bad about putting this likeable girl through what must be a terrifying experience, and he certainly knew how it felt to be terrified. He glanced at JOE 90, who gently reached out to touch Sandra’s arm. She visibly flinched and pressed herself closer to the bar, trying to avoid JOE 90’s gesture.
“Sandra, we are so sorry to put you through this, and believe me when I say that we wouldn’t have made contact with you if there was any other option.” JOE 90 spoke softly and watched as Sandra moved from panic stricken to simply scared.
David took the lead again. “We need to show you something, something bad, and we need your help to fix it,” he said. They waited as the young engineer steadied her nerves and swallowed hard trying to clear her throat, which felt bone dry.
“You, you,” she took a deep breath, “You are David the dead engineer?” She stared at David, and he smiled sadly and nodded. “But how?”
JOE 90 interjected. “David is a ghost. You cannot see him outside of the holodeck, but I can. For some reason, the holodeck projects his energy into this form, albeit a younger version of the David I knew.”
“Hey, steady on.” David tried to make a light joke to calm things down. Sandra wasn’t buying it, but she nodded as though she understood. David continued.
“When I was alive, I wrote a program for JOE 90 to interface with on my holodeck pub scenario. I thought it would be fun for us both to be able to chat like normal people.” He paused as Sandra stared at him, her eyes searching his, trying to take in what he was saying. “JOE is only visible to you here on the holodeck. I thought it would be funny to base him on my puppet of JOE 90, a twentieth century children’s hero.”
A small smile flicked across Sandra’s lips as she understood the joke.
“Please speak to us, Sandra, we need to know you are ok with this.” JOE moved back slightly to take the pressure off her.
Sandra collected her thoughts. She had to convince this unstable AI that she believed him in order to escape the holodeck. “Ok, JOE,” she began, her voice trembling, “how do I know David is really a ghost and not just another hologram?”
David grinned and opened his arms. “Well, that’s easy. You may not have seen me, but you certainly saw the things I moved and heard my footsteps.”
“When?” she asked, “I want details.”
“Alright. The first time you went to the engineer’s quarters, I was already there flipping through a technical journal lying on the table. You came through from the bedroom just as I turned a page. You must have seen it?”
“That could simply have been a draught, and JOE 90 could have known that. He could have had the video link on.”
“Hey!” JOE 90 interjected, sounding indignant, “I respect crew privacy and only have audio on in quarters.”
“So you say,” said Sandra, gaining confidence by the minute.
“How about that time in the engine room? I saw a fault that the technician had missed and knocked a cup over to get your attention.”
“Again, it may have been coincidence caused by the vibration of the engines, and JOE could have seen that on video link.” She folded her arms and stared hard at David, making him uneasy.
“Well, what about down in the sub-levels. JOE can’t see down there.” David lifted his chin – he had her.
“What about the sub-levels?”
“Oh, come on! JOE sent me down to make sure you were ok. I was walking behind you and you heard me take a step.” Sandra’s eyes widened a little and David continued. “I had to walk in synch with you so you wouldn’t hear me, and when you had finished at the last console, you turned so quickly I couldn’t get out of the way and you walked right through me.”
“What did I say?” she asked quietly, a chill running up her spine.
“You asked if it was me that was there and to give you a sign.”
Sandra’s arms dropped to her side as she stared at David in shock. “Why didn’t you do something?”
“Because I didn’t want to frighten you,” David said gently, “Believe me, I hate upsetting you like this, but JOE and I have no other choice, something really bad is going on, and…” Before he could finish, Sandra interrupted him.
“I need more proof that you guys are who you say you are. Let me go back onto the ship and you, David, can move things or make a noise on cue to let me know you are really a ghost haunting this ship.” She had played her ace card and hoped JOE 90 would fall for it.
David glanced at JOE 90 and shrugged his shoulders. JOE 90 wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know Sandra well, but she seemed to have come to terms with this whole situation very easily. Once outside the holodeck, there was little he or David could do to influence her. He bit his lip and studied Sandra, who stared back at him defiantly. He really liked her. She was a fighter and he wanted her on their side.
“Ok,” he finally said, “If that’s what you want, be my guest.” He and David stepped back and gestured to the door.
Sandra walked slowly at first, not really believing that they were falling for it. As her hand touched the door, she suddenly lunged forwards and dived out into the corridor of the ship, almost hitting the wall on the other side in her haste. She turned and stared back at the closed door of the holodeck, breathing hard. She needed to shut down the AI and disengage his personality file. Checking she had her multi-tool in her pocket, she marched purposefully towards Central Control.
“Well, Sandra, what do you want David to do?” JOE 90’s voice rang out around her. She ignored it. “Sandra, did you hear me?”
She broke into a run, determined to get to Central Control before JOE 90 could cut off the air. Horror filled her as the thought occurred to her that maybe this was what he had done to David. She put her head down and ran faster.
“Sandra! Sandra! What are you doing?” JOE 90 sounded confused and alarmed.
She burst into the control room and dived towards the command console.
“Sandra, wait! Please, listen, we are telling the truth, please don’t!” JOE 90 was terrified; he could see what she was planning to do. He stood over her, even though she couldn’t see him, and pleaded with her, tears streaming down his face as he knew she was going to kill him. David suddenly appeared in the room.
“Where the hell have you been?” JOE 90 blurted out in exasperation.
“I didn’t know where you were, I just heard you calling out and came right here. What’s happening?”
“She tricked us, she thinks I’m mad and she is going to erase me!”
“Over my dead body.” David stopped as he realised what he had said. “Too late!” he quipped.
“For fuck’s sake, David, do something and stop mucking around!”
David frantically looked around for something he could move, throw, or generally interact with that would get her attention. He saw her punch in the codes to initiate the erasure protocol.
“JOE, are my codes still active?” David glanced at his friend, who was slowly sinking to his knees in fear. “JOE, did you hear me?”
“Yes, I never deleted them, just in case.”
“Good lad.”
David lunged for Sandra. He had never done anything like this before and he didn’t know if it would work. He figured if he could move inanimate objects then he could also move a person. Just as she was about to press enter, he hit her arm and shoved her clean off the seat onto the floor.
“Shit, didn’t mean to hit her so hard,” he said as he watched a shocked Sandra pick herself up from the floor and stare at the keyboard and screen on the command desk. David typed in his code and overrode the erasure protocol, Sandra staring in shock as the keys moved by themselves.
JOE 90 got his act together and picked himself up from the floor just as Sandra sprung towards the console. David shoved her again, though not so hard this time, and she staggered back staring in horror at the empty space in front of her. As she tried again, she felt a grip of cold hands on her shoulders as she was pushed back away from the command desk.
“For fuck’s sake, JOE, talk to her! I can’t hold her much longer, she is draining all the energy from me.” David could feel his strength weakening as he maintained his grip. JOE 90 looked quickly at him and nodded, moving to Sandra’s side.
“Sandra, please stop, please listen,” he pleaded.
“How are you doing this, JOE?” she exclaimed.
“I’m not, David is, and you are killing him by struggling. Please stop!”
“How the fuck can you kill a ghost? Are you insane?” she shouted.
“You can drain his energy until he is depleted and I don’t know if he can come back from that! Please, David is my friend, he is protecting me, please just listen!”
Sandra stopped pushing and stood still. Instantly, the cold grip left her shoulders. JOE 90 watched David stagger back with exhaustion.
“David, get down to the energy cells now!” David disappeared. JOE 90 turned his attention back to Sandra, who was leaning against the wall blinking slowly.
“Shit, JOE, you really were telling the truth. David is a ghost,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, sorry. Believe me, I was just as shocked when it happened to me.” JOE 90 started to relax slightly.
“David, are you here?” Sandra spoke to the empty room.
“I sent him down to engineering, he needs to recharge his energy after interacting with you. He can use the radiation from the energy cells, that’s how he has been surviving all of this time.”
“Oh my God, JOE, do you realise how amazing this is? I mean, we have an actual ghost – definite proof of the afterlife!” Sandra slowly sat down in the command chair and JOE 90 felt himself tense. “It’s alright, JOE, I won’t do anything to you. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“We need to explain to you what happened on David’s last flight and what really killed him.” JOE 90 looked up as David reappeared, looking much better. “Sandra, David is back, you can speak to him if you like.”
“David, I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you and I hope I didn’t drain you too much.” She paused. “JOE, is there any way I can talk to him and he can talk to me, apart from in the holodeck?”
David looked at JOE 90 and pursed his lips. “JOE, we need to tell Sandra everything. Show her the recordings of the gremlin, let her watch what happened.”
JOE 90 nodded and he activated the main screen in front of the console. “Sandra, I need you to watch this. It will change your perception of everything you thought you knew.” All three watched the screen as JOE 90 told the story of the gremlin and how they destroyed it.
CHAPTER TWO
Sandra stared at the blank screen and wondered how her life had seemed to go so drastically awry. Yesterday she thought she knew exactly how the universe ran and her place in it. Now she was sitting in an AI’s brain room with a ghost, learning that the monsters from her childhood just might in fact be real, and all those horror films she had once laughed at now seemed like documentaries.
“I need to have some alone time to get my head around this,” she said as she stood up in a daze, “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk.” The door closed behind her.
David looked at JOE 90. “You think she’s alright?”
“I’ll keep audio on just in case but I’m not activating video.”
“We need to tell her about the other gremlin, you know.” David sighed as he swivelled in one of the console chairs.
JOE 90 looked at him and nodded. “Yeah, but we need to give her time to take in this information. Remember how it felt for you.”
David nodded and glanced at the readouts. “What do you suppose the little shit is up to?”
“I can’t get a reading on it. I’ve got every scanner set to pick up the energy pattern, but it seems to be lying low in the sub-levels. Are you absolutely sure you saw one and it wasn’t your imagination?”
“Definitely. I’ll never forget the feeling I get when they are close.”
“We might need you as bait again, my friend.” JOE 90 patted him on his shoulder.
“Great, I love it when a gremlin chews my arse.” David laughed and stood up.
“Where are you off to now?”
“Thought I might spend some time with Sadie, she wanted to show me her house.” He winked at JOE 90, who rolled his eyes.
“I see death has not slowed you down any.”
“What can I say? It is an experiment in energy exchange.” He left before JOE 90 could retaliate.
Sandra stared at the ceiling above her bed. She had tried to sleep, feeling exhausted, but her brain was buzzing with all the information she had just taken on board. As an engineer, she was fascinated by the energy markers of this gremlin thing. Her instinct told her there was a definite link to David’s energy, but she just couldn’t see it at the moment. It was frustrating for her to only be able to interact with David via the holodeck, and her brain was working on possible solutions to that problem. JOE 90 had analysed the frequency that David had spoken on and managed to translate that into computer speak. She sat up on the bed, an idea rattling around her skull.
