"The Three Tinkerers" - Part Three

 

Part Three

            There was massive electrical discharge within Discovery One’s flight deck area. Strange lightning danced along the control panels, briefly disrupting their primary functions – not enough to derail the entire ship but quick enough to create a fleeting blackout in the deck itself. It formed a circular opening in midair – a sphere of energy. To anyone who would’ve witnessed its formation, they would’ve perceived a figure within the sphere before it fizzled out with an explosive thunderclap.

            Knelt exactly where the sphere emerged was a black man in his twenties, powerfully built. He stood to his full substantial height, his face devoid of emotions, impassively surveying his surroundings. He quickly took notice of the fact that he was aboard a ship in deep space – a sea of twinkling stars beyond the window of the flight deck. Undeterred, he proceeded to leave the flight deck and make his way elsewhere aboard Discovery One.

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            Craig couldn’t have pictured a better adventure than the one he found himself on with Rania, meeting two of her other incarnations – one from her past and one from her future. While the future incarnation was a bit on the flirty side (apparently fully knowing who Craig was), the past one was a very stern man who kept to himself while his female counterparts bonded. Craig stood between the two parties in the centrifuge hub, a section of Discovery One where the laws of gravity were topsy-turvy; what was up was down, what was left was right. So, when he stood between Skeeta and his female counterparts, Craig was standing below or above them.

            Regardless of the peculiar spacing, Skeeta was alone in his workspace, whereas Rania and Mireya shared theirs as they reflected on old collective memories.

            It didn’t feel right to Craig for Skeeta to be alone, so he did the sensible thing and joined him at his station. The 10-year-old wasn’t exactly sure about the type of work Skeeta was up to, only that it involved removing a wall panel, exposing an array of wires and lights blinking like a Christmas tree. It looked as pretty as it was confusing.

            “Can I help?” he asked Skeeta on approach.

            Skeeta gave the boy half a glance, staying more attentive to his work on the exposed guts of the machine. “No, son, I’m fine,” he said in a way that wasn’t rude to Craig, yet his tone was cold. In spite of this, Craig didn’t leave his side; he remained standing there, smiling eagerly. Curious of this emotional response, Skeeta conceded, “Actually, you can help me out, son.”

            Craig beamed. “Really? What do you need?”

            Skeeta admired such loyal enthusiasm. “Can you tell me who those girls are?” He nodded upwards to Rania and Mireya. They were directly above them, close enough to prompt Skeeta into keeping his voice down to a whisper. “I couldn’t find my counterpart anywhere in that TARDIS y’all arrived in. Is he even here aboard this spaceship? Or were you youngin’s sent by him?”

            Craig didn’t know how to answer any of his questions. He knew that Rania and Mireya had plenty of opportunities to tell Skeeta that they were both his future selves, but they opted not to, for whatever reason. He wasn’t sure if it was even his place to tell him. For an entire minute, he struggled to say something.

            And then he felt a calm hand come over his uneasy shoulder.

            Looking up, he saw that it was Rania, whose gaze was fixed on Skeeta as she asked, “Does HAL know that there are logs missing from his databanks, including those on a missing EVA pod?”

            “I asked about that pod before you kids arrived, but I didn’t know about the other missing logs,” Skeeta replied. His strict brown eyes then searched upward, looking to the ever-present A.I. machine. “HAL? I’m sure you have a reasonable explanation. Would you care to share?”

            “Of course, Skeeta,” HAL responded. “The EVA pods each contain their own individual logs. They are isolated from Discovery One’s databanks, unless they are inputted after docking. Because Dave and Frank failed to return with their EVA pod, those logs are therefore missing.”

            Skeeta displayed a reassured smile to his future counterparts and Craig. “See? Reasonable explanation.”

            “Yeah, ‘reasonable’,” Mireya scoffed. “The whole thing seems weird.”

            “I thought the same as you, young lady,” Skeeta told her. “But, the more I consider the logistics of it, the less disconcerting it sounds.” Seeing the lack of faith in the faces of Rania and Mireya, he went on to suggest, “If it’ll ease your concerns, we can dig deeper into the mystery by connecting HAL up to the mainframe of my TARDIS’s computer.”

            “Heck no!” Mireya blurted.

            “Absolutely not!” Rania negated.

            Skeeta frowned on their immediate objections. “Last I checked, it was my ship…my design…my operation! I can do whatever I please with it – not what my counterpart’s assistants say I should or shouldn’t do.” On that note, he walked out of the centrifuge hub to carry out the endeavor.

            Mireya’s fists clenched in a show of immense restraint on her rage. “Never had I wanted to kick my own butt more than I do right now!”

            “I don’t get why you both can’t tell him that you’re him,” Craig said. “He’d take y’all a lot more seriously.”

            Rania and Mireya exchanged a brief glance, nodding to each other.

            “Craig, how ‘bout you go and help Skeeta,” Rania recommended. “Mireya and I will be in the pod bay.”

            Craig had no issue whatsoever with her suggestion, leaving the centrifuge hub straightaway. Rania and Mireya followed soon thereafter, neither of them saying another word as they headed straight to the pod bay where Rania’s TARDIS was still docked in the space meant for the missing EVA pod. Once inside her ship, Rania gazed up and shouted, “HAL, this is Rania! Can you hear me?!”

            No response.

            Following her action, Mireya looked up and yelled, “HAL, I’m about to take a shower! You’re more than welcome to watch!” Again, no response. Satisfied, Mireya told Rania, “I don’t think he can see or hear us in here. He’s not answering.”

            “I wouldn’t either, after what you said!” Rania griped. “Nonetheless, we’re protected in this space. And I think we both agree that computer’s fed us some malarkey about what happened in this space station.”

            “No doubt,” Mireya concurred. “You think HAL is responsible for what happened to Dave and Frank?”

            Rania nodded. “And we aren’t going to have much luck convincing Skeeta otherwise. We had serious trust issues with organics at the time. Our only friends were machines…machines like HAL.”

            “But we know better now, especially after the Cyber War,” Mireya stated.

            Rania grimaced at her reference. “The war Neas always brings up? What involvement do we have in it?”

            Mireya knew she said too much already. “You’ll find out,” she told Rania.

            Taking her word for it, Rania continued, “Well, anyway, we’ll allow Mr. Jenkins to go through with the connection, but at the same time, we’re going to set up a firewall box from my TARDIS to lock HAL into.”

            “You’re thinking of hacking into Skeeta’s TARDIS, aren’t you?” Mireya smirked.

            Rania smirked right back. “Ohh, yeah. With HAL locked where we can keep an eye on him, we’ll be able to get some real answers to the mystery of this place.” She wasted no time in getting started on the hack, moving to the control console and typing away at a keyboard interfaced with the mainframe of her own TARDIS computer. With very little effort, she synced it with that of her distant predecessor’s TARDIS computer, which was essentially all the same to the programming.

            Mireya watched her work until she heard movement coming from outside the ship. Opting not to disrupt Rania’s flow, Mireya walked out alone to investigate the disturbance. She didn’t see anyone in the pod bay area at first, but there then emerged a black man.

            Suddenly, with lightning-fast reflexes, the man lunged at Mireya, snatching her by the throat. He lifted her off her feet and threw her across the pod bay area. Her body thudded against a compartment board, opening multiple slots that contained various equipment and tools, from wrenches to lug nuts. Some of them struck Mireya’s back, adding further bruising, but she was otherwise still able to move.

            Her attacker advanced for another assault, all while he demanded in a monotone, “Tell me where Craig Williams is!”

            “Craig?!” Mireya rasped. Why would he be after Craig?! Unless…

            Her hand instinctively went to one of the wrenches littered near her – the biggest, heaviest one she could find. If this man was what she thought he was, then her next move would be less gruesome than she pictured in her mind. With all her might, she whacked the man across his face and body, several times, until the wrench was coated with his flesh and blood.

            But the man remained standing, battered and bloodied.

            As it turned out, he was not a man at all.

            Some of the flesh of its body tore away to expose parts of a metal endoskeleton.

            Just as I thought – he’s a Terminator!