Crystal Escape Read online

  Crystal Escape

  Doug J. Cooper

  Books in The Crystal Series

  Crystal Deception (Book 1)

  Crystal Conquest (Book 2)

  Crystal Rebellion (Book 3)

  Crystal Escape (Book 4)

  Crystal Horizon (Short prequel & sampler)

  For info and updates, please visit: http://crystalseries.com

  Crystal Escape

  Copyright © 2018 by Doug J. Cooper

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Published by: Douglas Cooper Consulting

  The Crystal Series editor: Tammy Salyer

  Beta reviewer: Mark Mesler

  Book editor: Tammy Salyer

  Cover design: Damonza

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9899381-8-1

  ISBN-10: 0-9899381-8-2

  Author website: www.crystalseries.com

  ~~~

  For Nanny and Dora

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  About The Crystal Series

  Chapter 1

  Macalister “MacMac” MacFarlane started muttering the moment the order arrived. “She’s running an integrity test now?” He spoke to an empty room but his question was sincere.

  Integrity tests were live action; no simulations allowed. This one ordered a test of Chemstore, and that meant he’d have to spend the next two hours helping Hejmo fill the massive storage tanks in the cellar, row upon row holding oxygen, nitrogen, water, and the other huge-volume items required for isolated operation.

  And “she” was Aubrey Medina, Director of Vivo. Strict, demanding, watchful, and the person he needed to please to keep his job.

  Most days MacMac enjoyed his work. Having spent twenty-six years working as the engineer on a string of mining spaceships and orbiting factory platforms, he appreciated having a challenging job right here on Earth.

  Beyond the obvious benefit of letting him be near his family, the job had an artistic component that he enjoyed, that of Vivo’s weatherman. Guests got wet from his rain, blown by his wind, and hot from his sun. With a swipe and tap, he could roll in a fog or rumble some thunder. And it was all real, not the charade of projected images that made up so much of the guest experience.

  MacMac’s displays popped alive with colorful charts as the integrity test began. Stuffing the last cookie into his mouth, he clapped the crumbs from his hands, held his right hand in front of him palm up, and flexed his fingers in a “come here” motion. When he did, the vibrant images leapt forward and moved into his peripheral vision. The details of the integrity test would now be available to him as he moved about.

  A sturdy-framed Scotsman with reddish-brown curls atop a kind, clean-shaven face, MacMac stepped into the hall, crossed onto the lift, and began the descent from the office tower. As he rode down, he faced the rear of the lift cabin and looked out through the clear walls and into the domed world that was Vivo. Squinting, he tried to see all the way out to the ocean tankers anchored nearby, but the orange streaks of dusk projecting beneath the containment dome blocked his view.

  Tilting his head forward, he watched the gardens and narrow lanes at guest level rush toward him. Impact seemed certain, then with a quiet whoosh he was belowground, descending into the cavernous works beneath the surface of the artificial island.

  Industrial, chaotic, and loud, the cellar, as Aubrey called it, was a vast, mostly open space with a tall ceiling, hard deck, and muted lighting. The cellar housed a myriad of automated support operations that enabled Vivo to be a vacation paradise. And MacMac and his crew of ten Tech synbods labored in the subterranean space so the guests would never know that any of it existed.

  The lift slowed to a stop and when the door opened, he inhaled through his nose. A subconscious act, almost a reflex, he searched the familiar oily-metallic tang of the cellar for hints of smoke, chemical vapors, or anything else that shouldn’t be there. While his visual displays would have warned him of problems, his behavior was the result of decades of habit—habit he still trusted.

  The powerful thrum of the transfer pumps—huge machines moving material off the ocean ships and into Vivo’s giant storage tank—resonated in his chest as he walked the few steps to his crew cart. Reassuring at one level, they drowned out the familiar background symphony of devices that scrubbed the air, purified the water, readied consumables, recycled waste, and managed everything else running in the cellar so Vivo could operate as an independent, isolated environment.

  “Chemstore,” he said to the crew cart as his butt hit the seat. Mustard-colored and christened with the words Chief Engineer across the back in simple brown letters, the cart accelerated into the bowels beneath the island. Carrying him across the deck, it carved a gentle arc to avoid the Power House, a long, low building with gray walls and a flat roof that contained Vivo’s energy generation units.

  “We’re trending high on pump bank twelve,” said MacMac as the power draw ticked upward on his display. A green light in the image flipped red, confirming what he’d concluded on his own.

  “I see it,” Hejmo replied.

  “Don’t go above eighty percent until we understand what’s going on.”

  “Will Aubrey be unhappier if we fall behind schedule,” asked Hejmo, “or if we meet the deadline but melt a row of pumps?”

  MacMac’s crew cart emerged from the shadow of the recycling facility and glided to a stop at Chemstore’s ops panel. Placed in front of an expanse of house-sized silos holding the gases, liquids, and dry goods needed for long-term isolated operation, the panel enabled local control of Chemstore operations. Hejmo stood facing the display, unmoving, hands at his sides.

  As MacMac approached, Hejmo animated and MacMac answered his question. “She expects us to meet the deadline—and will be unforgiving if we melt a row of pumps and don’t get everything transferred in time.”

  As Hejmo nodded in agreement, a jarring clunk echoed across the cellar from the direction of the pumps on the far side of the tank farm. The sounds near Chemstore transitioned from a throaty roar to a fading whine as equipment with giant rotating parts began winding down.

  “We just lost the row,” said Hejmo as he acted to isolate the problem. “It’s causing a trip down the line.”

  His hands flew as he worked the panel, struggling to get in front of the problem. His efforts were rewarded when pumps whirred back to life, the sound level rising as they climbed to full effort.

  “Split bank eight,” said MacMac, pointing to the image of a row of pumps on one side of the display. “Run the fresh water through the back half.”

  The next hour weighed on MacMac as he and Hejmo tended the equip
ment, struggling to regain lost time without losing any more vital components. As the deadline approached, he stopped watching the transfer details and started watching the clock timing this exercise.

  Damn, he thought when the clock reached zero, flipped to red, and started counting up.

  “We’re over,” said Hejmo.

  “I see.” MacMac watched the count grow past one minute. When it approached the two-minute mark, he asked for confirmation. “We should be done at seven minutes over?”

  “Yes. Seven minutes and a few seconds.”

  “That’s not bad for a first go, lad.”

  “I believe Aubrey expected us to be on time.”

  MacMac’s com chimed and he felt his neck tense when he checked the message. “She wants to see me.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Of course,” said Hejmo with a knowing nod. “When this is done, I’ll empty the tanks and run the cleaning cycle.”

  MacMac stepped into his cart and slumped back in the seat. “Let me know if the pumps failed because we screwed up. I’m betting they came defective from the manufacturer.”

  Engaging the cart, he followed the same course in reverse, rounding the recycling facility and arcing across the expansive deck back to the lift. As he whirred past the Power House, he saw one of his Tech crew carts, distinguished by its forest-green color, parked at the door.

  Curious, he tapped the air in front of him to launch his security interface. From there he accessed the link that would let him watch the action inside the building. But instead of seeing an interior view, he saw a “Link Failure” message. His teeth clenched in annoyance.

  “Why can’t I see inside the Power House?” he asked Hejmo, using the private channel that connected him to his Supervisor synbod, aptly named because MacMac supervised Hejmo, and Hejmo supervised the ten Tech synbods—each a synthetic humanoid with a three-gen AI crystal inside—that comprised MacMac’s work crew.

  “The supplier shipped a secure-shield building by mistake,” Hejmo replied. “It’s a premium product that meets our other specs, so I accepted delivery at the original contract price. We stay on schedule this way. I just need to upgrade the link so we can see into the building.”

  “It looks like the upgrade is being installed right now.”

  “No, I haven’t ordered anything yet. If you’re talking about the Tech that’s there now, he’s working on a mod for Aubrey.”

  Hearing this, MacMac gestured with his hand, causing his cart to swerve back toward the Power House. His upper body tipped to the side as the vehicle completed its turn, then swayed forward as it whirred to a stop in the space next to the Tech’s crew cart.

  She knows to include me on all her requests to my crew, he thought, trying to decide if he should go on the offensive about her constant meddling if she hassled him on the integrity test time overrun.

  He stepped into the Power House, and when the door closed behind him, the sounds echoing out in the cavernous cellar quieted, replaced by silence inside the building except for a gentle clanking from the far side of a row of cabinets.

  MacMac stepped forward until he saw the Tech squatting in front of an open access panel. The synbod rose to attention, and MacMac stood in front of him, scanning him up and down like a military officer appraising a recruit.

  Mister perfect. MacMac had the same thought every time he studied one up close. They all had thick, clean hair, unblemished skin, and a pleasing symmetrical face, presumably to make them appear more human. But that perfection was their flaw from MacMac’s perspective.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m performing a cooling management upgrade,” replied the humanoid. “Would you like me to show you?”

  MacMac didn’t respond. While the AI inside the Tech was capable of addressing quite sophisticated problems, three-gen crystals were too simple to be sentient. MacMac knew the synbod was aware of his annoyance and would be interested in placating him, but he also knew it wouldn’t feel anything about it one way or another.

  Dismissing the Tech like he was another piece of equipment, MacMac turned and started down the walkway, two parallel yellow lines marked on the floor along the length of the building. Like many warehouses, the inside of the Power House was largely open space. In this one, though, six sheds, each about as tall as he could reach, stood in a row down the middle of the floor.

  Made of a silver-gray material, each shed housed an ultra-high-energy generator. While any two of them were enough to run Vivo and all of its operations with capacity to spare, Aubrey had insisted on this excessive redundancy “for the good of the guests.”

  Looping around behind the last shed in the row, he started back up the walkway on the other side of the building. “Show me her modification request,” he said to Hejmo as he walked.

  A two-sentence note projected in front of him. The first sentence requested an upgrade to a slide circuit to improve the capabilities of the cooling management system—the system that ensured everything from the atmosphere under the dome to the devices in the cellar all operated at their proper temperatures. The second sentence identified the particular slide circuit to be replaced.

  “We have an entire ocean around us to provide cooling, for heaven’s sake,” MacMac said to himself. “What’s there to upgrade?”

  Hejmo, a Supervisor synbod designed to interface between humans and a traditional synbod workforce, didn’t answer. Supers were constructed with twin three-gen AI crystals, so while also not self-aware, Hejmo did a credible job of appearing to be.

  As MacMac exited the Power House and stepped back into his cart, he continued grumbling to his Super. “Her constant micromanaging pisses me off.”

  Resuming his journey to meet with Aubrey, he noticed lights shining in the Structures building off to his right, something he didn’t see very often. On impulse, he swerved the vehicle in that direction.

  “You shouldn’t make her wait,” said Hejmo through their private channel.

  MacMac ignored him and, after a brief ride, pulled to a stop outside a one-room office building with the word Structures on the clear door. Leaning to the side, he peered inside and saw Mondo sitting at the tech bench studying a schematic diagram projected above its glass-like surface. Mondo’s lips moved and his hands gestured, which meant he was talking to someone who wasn’t in the room.

  MacMac glimpsed the floating image for a fraction of a second, then blinked his eyes because what he saw didn’t make sense. Climbing out of the crew cart, he stepped inside the Structures office.

  Mondo stood and faced him. As he did, the schematic diagram disappeared. “Aubrey is waiting for you.”

  “What do you have going on there?” MacMac motioned toward the bench surface where the diagram had been. Mondo was Aubrey’s Super, so MacMac got the answer he expected.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” said Mondo. “May I suggest that you ask Aubrey when you see her?”

  A projected image of Aubrey, vivid in its lifelike reality, appeared standing next to Mondo. A woman in her late thirties, tall, chestnut-haired, piercing blue eyes, and dressed in the same cream-white suit worn by her Admin synbods, Aubrey said, “We have lots to discuss and I have a full schedule. I’d prefer to do this in person. Will you come up?”

  She sounded almost solicitous and that worked for MacMac. “Okay.”

  The projected image of Aubrey disappeared and MacMac looked at Mondo, forcing himself not to let his eyes drift to the place where the schematic diagram had been. Without a word, he returned to his cart and made for the lift. Along the way, he accessed his security interface, spun through the record, and found an image of himself from a few moments earlier. He watched himself approach the office, and over his own shoulder, he peered through the door.

  “There you go,” he muttered aloud as he stabilized the display. Zooming, he focused on the diagram floating above the tech bench in front of Mondo.

  Schematic diagrams are common in the engineering trade
and MacMac knew how to read them. This one depicted Vivo’s subdeck. Full of beams and girders, the substructure beneath the cellar supported the artificial island above the ocean waves.

  Shown in the subdeck schematic were giant damping pistons for stability during earthquakes, and complex lift plates that protected against the winds of a hurricane. MacMac didn’t know much about either technology and was glad Aubrey had hired an outside firm to install the items.

  But he’d worked as the engineer on some very big space vessels over the course of his career. He’d led the team that guided Aurora, the largest deep-space platform ever built, out to a mineral rich segment of the asteroid belt orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.

  So he knew what a spaceship drive pod looked like. They’d used two of them to move Aurora.

  A prickle flashed up both arms and met behind his neck. Why does the schematic show four drive pods mounted beneath Vivo?

  Chapter 2

  Sid signaled the nav on his space runner to approach Sisyphus from behind. Though he’d visited the massive space barge before, this was the first time his awe focused on something other than the sheer enormity of what looked from a distance to be a gigantic floating potato pulling a long, skinny string.

  Made from lunar rock, the main body of the barge had the smoothish, slightly irregular exterior one might expect if a pile of dirt and stone the size of Mount Everest were molded and fused together like potter’s clay. The tail, called the “tether,” was a cross-woven cable that trailed so far behind the rock mass that the end disappeared from sight. Hook-up stations were spaced along the length of the tail, and from a distance they looked more like decorative bows than the vessel connects used by customers being towed.

  The behemoth drifted in a lazy oval, looping around behind the moon, then back around Earth, and out to the moon again, completing the journey and starting anew every six days. Customers who “hooked the tether” on the barge’s extended tail as it passed by one of these worlds received an inexpensive, albeit slow, tow ride to the other.