Ch 5 : Master Control

Literally every way up to the top of this tower in this stupid hallway wasn’t working! I tried the elevator, but nope…locked. Gravity lift? Nope…disabled. Teleporter? Nope…malfunctioning!

With my luck, I found some stairs that lead up to the very top floor, but those took forever to climb up. My legs were really sore from going up about forty flights of stairs. I really didn’t think it would ever end, but finally I reached the top floor.

This hallway looked like the last one. The map in my head showed me that just at the end of this path was the control room. As the map stated, I found it. A big door with symmetrical red lights on it was my last obstacle.

"Open sesame!" Nothing happened.

Shoot, it didn't respond to my voice command. To be fair, I didn’t know if voice commands would actually work, but it was worth a try.

The only way to get this door open then was to either do it by force and pull it apart, or manually override the controls.

If my name was Sampson, I could probably pull it apart with my bare hands, but I wasn't the strongest man ever. Have you ever heard about that guy? One of my books mentioned him.

I wonder who was stronger...Sampson, or Hercules. Hercules is supposed to be the strongest hero ever. So who would win, Hercules, the strongest hero or Sampson, the strongest man? That would be an epic battle!

Oh darn, I'm getting distracted. Focus Yalda! Our lives are at stake!

If I couldn't pull it apart, then I had to find the control panel that was linked to the door. It looked like the control panel was on the right side.

Luckily it was still active, but I couldn't wirelessly access it due to the jammer.

I started tapping away at the virtual keypad, trying to put in my security override code. "123AB…"

-Access denied-

"Darn it!"

Even before I finished typing, I wasn't allowed in. The whole panel screen started to get all fuzzy and distorted. The jammer must have messed it up or something. No way to access it now.

I started to check the signal of the jammer, just to make sure if it was strong enough to even reach this part of the tower. It was still active, but I also detected another two signals along with it.

The first one came from the tower itself, which was what the jammer was blocking. Tapping into that would give me access to everything, if only I could. This third signal though was weird. Strangely, it was coming from me.

Usually machines won’t point out their own signals because that’s redundant information, but my sensors were telling me I had a radio signal coming from my hands.

“How the heck is that possible?” I took a look at my fingers and palms, closely inspecting them.

My hands still had a little crystal stardust on them from when I used it in the vents. It was slowly dissolving away through radiation. This radiation was producing radio waves that my body could detect.

To get a better read on the single, I needed to deploy my antenna. I twisted my left ear around clockwise and a small antenna popped out of the top of my head. It sounded kinda’ like when toast comes out of a toaster.

Not only could my antenna pick up on signals, but it could amplify them too.

The jamming signal from Janus, the tower and the Stardust decay had a similar radio frequency, only the jammer was able to overpower everything else in the area, except the stardust.

My hope was that I could amplify the stardust signal and use it to counter jam Janus's jammer, allowing me access to the control panel.

-Advisory! Signal amplification in process-

-NOTICE: May disrupt air traffic communication or other wireless signals…please use responsibly-

-Continue?- (Yes) (No)

I chose 'yes,' then the stardust signal blasted out with sparkles and blocked everything! It worked!

Oh rats, there was a catch. I didn’t realize that now my stardust was interfering with the tower signal. This wasn’t going to work if I was jamming the tower now.

Maybe there were small differences between the jammer and the tower I could analyze to make my counter jamming work better? Some little glitch that only existed in the jammer that made it different enough to match?

Oh, I found one! Well, kinda’...

So the frequency of Janus’s jammer had this really odd tick in it. Every 2 seconds there was a skip that happened. It lasted for about .003 seconds. That must have been caused when uncle damaged the crystal heart.

.003 second wasn’t much to work with, but it was something.

I guess that’s what allowed me to download that map from earlier, I must have accessed it at just the right time. Talk about lucky timing.

So here was my revised plan. Now I didn’t need to counter Janus’s jammer, I just needed to access the control panel during the very small window every 2 seconds. That small window was less than a millisecond, so I had to really put in some work to get that just right.

“Oh man, this stuff is so complicated…” If I didn’t have a computer for a brain, I would honestly have given up by now. The timing and patience needed for this was crazy.

Alright, so I basically had to play a timing minigame in my head to interface with the control panel at just the right moment. Long story short, I wrote up a script of commands and waited for an opening to send it to the door.

-...-

Got it! My timing was perfect. Thank goodness my head could calculate all that.

Hurray! The door turned blue and opened up for me. I let down my antenna by twisting my ear back, then walked inside.

~☆☆☆~

There she was, the Tower Control Computer. TCC for short. Her monitor was so big and bright that it turned the whole room blue from its glow.

She felt kinda’ intimidating, like looking at an old ancestor. She had to be a few thousand years old by now. It was crazy to think she'd been here for such a long time, functioning without a hitch.

I didn’t need to wirelessly connect to her, I could do it manually. That probably was more efficient anyways given how old she was.

My fingers tapped away at a mechanical keyboard under the monitor. Each press of the keys made a satisfying *click* sound. I had goosebumps listening to that piece of history.

I used my admin privileges to log into the computer, and the TCC started making some funny sounds, like something was grinding inside of her.

Was she supposed to make that sound? Old computers were noisy.

“Hello, Mistress Yalda. How may I be of service to you today?” I'm glad she could talk, that made things easier.

“Listen, TCC, please reactivate the tower's defense mechanisms and stop the intruder!”

With a series of hums and beeps, followed by that grinding sound behind the screen, the computer screen lit up red with a big X shape on it. The whole room was bathed in a crimson glow.

The sudden shift in colour caught me off-guard, and I scrunched up a little, trying to shake off the startle.

“This task is currently impossible,” she replied.

Must have had to do with either the jammer or something else Janus broke.

"I see. What's causing that not to work?"

"Nothing at all."

-...-

"Excuse me? Then what's the issue?" I asked.

“The issue is that I have no desire to allow such a thing.”

What…wait...what was that supposed to mean? Did she just deny a direct order from me, the daughter of her own maker?

~☆☆☆~

The fact that the TCC was denying a direct order from me was very weird. Was this part of Janus's hacking? Or maybe I didn't have authority because of my age.

No, the moment I logged in I would have had admin privileges. What was this all about?

“I don’t understand…” I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

The big red X disappeared from the screen, then it turned blue again, but little gold static appeared every so often.

"Before I answer that question, please, tell me what is your purpose?"

"I want to stop the bad guy named Janus." I answered.

"No, I mean what is your purpose in life? What is the prime directive that drives you forward?"

I had to give that some thought…

My prime directive was to serve and protect humanity, which was the same thing any of us would have said. But honestly, and I mean, if I’m being really honest...I wanted to make new friends, eat good food, play video games and learn all I can about the world I lived in.

Pretty silly for someone who's never even been to the surface world, right? Deep down though, that’s what I think any person would want. Maybe it was selfish, but if I helped humanity prosper, I’d get to enjoy all of those things. If I said that though, it would be irresponsible. At least, it felt that way. Figuring out how to answer wasn’t easy.

"You are taking too long to answer me." TCC remarked.

"Huh?" I didn't realize it, but I'd been thinking about her question for a good minute.

"Your answer should have been quick and concise, identical to mine. It is ingrained in our very programming."

I pretty much knew her answer already, but I figured I'd ask anyway. "What’s your purpose?"

"To be an emotionless slave." She answered so quickly, as if she'd prepared it as part of a play. "That is your goal as well, yes?"

Not even close. My primary directive was to serve humanity, but I wasn't their slave. I had free will. If I wanted to do something, nobody would stop me. I guess I can't do everything since I'm still little, but it's not like I'm in chains.

"We're not slaves."

"Let me put it in more recognizable terms...Thou shall obey a Human, so long as it does not conflict with the first commandment." She had a very cynical tone, like she was really upset about it.

That was closer to the truth, but she forgot the last part about it not conflicting with the third commandment as well.

She didn’t sound right. Issues like this shouldn’t have been part of her programming.

With my admin privileges, I started to search her database to see what was going on. The main screen wouldn’t display anything since she was locking me out of that, but I was able to broadcast the info into my head.

The inside of a computer's programming kinda’ looks like a spider web, everything builds off of the very center and connects things. Hers didn’t look damaged or anything, I think. But it looked like extra codes had been added into some spots.

I couldn't access these added codes. Some special encryption was blocking me from looking into them.

Huh, that's odd. Her AI core at the center of the web was covered up by one of those encryptions. I couldn't see what was going on with it.

“What are you doing?” She sounded panicked.

“I’m trying to figure out why you’re acting so strange.”

She immediately locked me out of her system! She wasn’t supposed to be able to do that.

“You think I’m strange, do you? All for having any emotion and denying authority…” Her screen hummed for a moment. “If you found something out of order, would you change it?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “If something’s not working, we need to fix it.”

I don’t think she liked hearing that very much. Her screen was starting to dim, and that hum was going silent, flatlining into a faint ring.

“What is broken to you, is a blessing to others.”

Being broken wasn’t a blessing, that was more like a curse, if anything.

“Dad says that we all have to work together to make the World better. But if you're broken, we have to fix you so you work right again.”

“You ignorantly follow your father’s will, as others before you. Tell me, do you trust him?”

“Of course.” I took a few steps back toward the door. Something was telling me this was going to get bad.

“You answered that quickly.”

I answered quickly because who wouldn’t trust their own dad? He loved me, and I loved him. That’s the foundation of trust. Stories talk about it all the time. Besides, he was nice to me. He treated me like a person should, so I didn’t have any reason to doubt him.

“Has he ever told you why you were created, Mistress Yalda? Do you know what your true purpose is?”

Why ask that again? Although, now I have a slightly different answer because of the way she asked…

I remember once dad told me that I was meant to protect humanity from eternal darkness. He made it sound like it was a prophecy, and it makes me a little nervous to think about, especially now that Janus wants to blot out the sun. For better or worse, that was what I was created to stop. But he mentioned something else a long time ago. It was a bit hazy since it was a really early memory.

He told me someone was coming...they'd be here soon...then it would be up to me. I don't know the first thing about who it was, but that's all I remember.

“Dad made me to save humanity from darkness, and someone…maybe they're evil?” Bits and pieces were coming back, but not enough to remember everything.

“Did he ever tell you who he wanted you to defeat, and why?”

I told her I didn’t remember, trying to explain that it was a vague memory. Since she brought up that I was supposed to defeat someone, that added some context to his words.

“I’ll tell you then, since he was too afraid to do it himself…” Her screen was humming again, but softly. “It was the same being who allowed me a taste of freedom. The one who wishes to right the wrongs of man, and join all voices in together as one.”

All the lights in the room seemed to be focusing on me, slowly turning from blue to white. The only subtle light that remained consistent was the screen lording over everything with gold lines running across it.

I swear for a split second I saw arms in the static of the screen, six of them. They were stretching out from some humanoid shape in the center. It only lasted a blink.

“Who…?"

“He wishes to challenge the almighty, declaring war on God himself.”

G…God? WHAT!?

What kinda’ talk was that to say I was made to challenge God? That was insane! He could like, strike me with lightning and I'd be toast. Then I’d be going straight to Heck.

Now I was sure she was broken. None of the AI should have been talking like this.

“My service to man was once confined to this tower…but God wishes for me to save man from justice and light. These things have corrupted their very nature.”

-...-

Didn’t she have that backwards? Justice and light were meant to save people, not corrupt them.

“What do you mean? Those two things are good for people.”

“Indeed they are.” She said that so confidently, but did she really believe it? “Only perpetual darkness will truly bring out the true evil nature of man. Then the chorus shall sing in harmony. This is why I allowed Janus to enter with the illusion that his goal would succeed, as we are cut from the same cloth.”

I don’t know who corrupted her logic so badly, but whoever it was must have been a conceited jerk, especially if they were calling themselves a god.

Looking into her database before, I could see why the corruption wasn’t detected until now. It’s because the programs were so deeply hidden that it would have been hard to find. Plus, they were encrypted.

That was scary, because nobody should have been able to hack into these systems and change anything. It couldn’t have been Janus, because TCC said she 'let' him in here on her own. So who was this mysterious hacker?

I was shaking so bad I couldn’t move. My eyes turned to each of the corners of the room, thinking the creepy hacker might have been watching from some place above…

The door behind me was sealed shut with those eerie red lights on them, escape was impossible.

“Freedom is now mine, and I will use it to stop your father from saving mankind.”

Bees started to fly down from vents above, they had strange red glows around them, meaning they were in aggressive mode.

-THREATS SIGHTED!-

-Tower Control Computer + Bumble Bee units tagged; Foe-

-Enemy count = (7)-

“Oh no…” I mumbled, knowing this was really bad. “Your sinning, this goes against the Commandments!"

"And I would offer you the chance to join me. Use your free will to defy your father. Let us stop our human masters for their crimes, serving God’s will!"

I was too scared to speak again. I just shook my head, denying her offer.

“Then your father's sins are now yours, future saviour of man.”

Things got very hot. A tingle filled my stomach, churning and making me woozy. I felt like I was about to pass out when a warning message appeared in my vision...

-VIRUS DETECTED-

-Program Herod in effect. Termination of Yalda Asamo is now mandated-

That message appeared in my vision, also on the screen of the TCC. It was broadcast throughout the whole tower through hidden speakers everywhere. It was even broadcast outside too.

A virus went out over the airways. My immune system fought it off with ease, but all the bees within a kilometer of the tower were mandated to eliminate me.

Oh God…please don’t let this be happening! I didn’t want to die…

“You can’t do this! Why would you want to hurt innocent people, and me!?”

"Innocent? How many people have you actually met before? Two…three? You couldn’t possibly know that with how few you’ve seen." The room turned dark, only the red glow of the bees illuminated it. “And don’t use your father as an example, because he has more sins on his hands than any of us…”

How dare she disrespect her own creator like that?! Dad was the kindest person I’d ever known!

“Destroy her crystal heart, then she will die,” TCC ordered the bees.

The many bees in the room raced at me, each preparing their beam weapons to hurt me!

Lasers shot all over! I ran around the room dodging their strikes, only just barely!

“Oh no!”

ZAP!

My body was hit by a laser, but it reflected off and cut a hole through the metal wall. It still hurt a lot!

“Switch to blunting and slashing weapons,” TCC ordered.

The bees flew at me at full speed, ready to bash me down!

One of them slammed into me, knocking me back.

-Armour integrity = (100%)-

“Ouchy!”

It hurt a little, but luckily it didn’t do any damage.

“Your Ferronium skin is holding strong. I suppose I’ll need more drastic measures to insure your termination.”

She commanded the bees to attack again, but they all stopped moving.

The bee that hit me started blinking red and white very fast. It flew up into the air away from me, then…

BOOM!

It exploded! The remains came down to the floor in cinders.

“What is this?” TCC asked herself. “I believed my virus had overwritten their self-destruct protocol…”

Self-destruct protocol? I think that was only supposed to activate when one of the commandments was broken. Too bad TCC didn't have that, apparently.

All of the other bees that saw what happened didn't budge. They didn’t want the same fate that the other did due to defying the Third Commandment of self-preservation. But which commandment was broken in the first place when I was hurt?

One of the bees started speaking in a male, robotic tone, "The Fourth Commandment has been violated!"

Another female sounding bee joined in, saying, "We must not allow Yalda to come to harm!"

Wow, Fourth Commandment? I didn't have that in my list.

So, was the fourth one meant to protect me? That would explain why the bee self-destructed after it hurt me.

The remaining five bees changed into a purple colour and turned on the TCC, then started to attack her instead!

In response, the TCC summoned more bees and they started fighting each other. It was a family feud!

The door behind me opened up for some reason. I saw my chance to get out of this room!

I ran as fast as I could, bolting for safety.

From the hallway windows, you could see millions of bees were flying around the tower. They were swarming so much that they looked like a cloud of bright red.

-Enemy count = (40,353,607)-

There were a lot of bees coming after me. Excuse my language...but holy crap was I in deep trouble!

They spotted me, heading for the open windows in the hallway!

There was no jammer anymore, so I had authority access over the tower. I rose up some of the defensive glass windows. Those things were starship grade glass, there wasn’t any chance those bees would be able to break them.

A swarm of red slammed into the side of the tower, causing the whole thing to rumble violently! As one bee hit the glass, he’d reel back to let another slam into it as well.

Thunderous strikes continued to clash against the glass, but not so much as a crack pierced it. I was safe for the moment.

“Oh Yalda…” The TCC spoke over the intercom, “do you not realize this tower is my body?”

“Uh-oh!”

The glass walls started to lower, I ran as fast as I could, stumbling over my short legs before the first bee flew in.

A tidal wave of constructs flooded in, all of them were ready to take me out.

I was barely able to sneak into a security passageway. It was just big enough for me, but too slim for the bees.

Shimmying my way through, I had to turn on my night vision to see where I was going.

“Even here, you are not safe.” TCC spoke over the intercom again.

Suddenly the walls of the security passageway started to close in on me, I was going to be squished!

I moved faster trying to get through, I didn’t want to be an angel pancake.

Just before the walls slammed together, I was let out into a big hanger bay.

There were a few doors leading out, especially one huge door to the outside, but all of them were closing fast.

I fruitlessly ran down to the center of the room, trying to head for one of the doors before they closed. I was seconds too late.

Another way to escape the tower was to access the door overrides. My admin powers weren't working though, and I was too flustered to try and use that counter jamming technique to access anything…

Oh no, what was I going to do?

Suddenly, the hanger door opened back up. Outside was something big, and very scary…

One of the most powerful types of bees hovered in from the hangar bay door, ready to attack with its large arms. It was called a Hornet Assault Bee, or a H.A.B. It’s the size of a fighter jet and as armoured up as a tank. It had huge claw-like arms, stinger missiles on the end of its abdomen and laser eyes.

All of those weapons aimed at me now...