“YOU… I…THEY DID WHAT NOW?” Flynn trembled as he spoke, his perfectly cocky demeanour of a second before cracking at the adversity they now faced.
“I… I don’t know. This has never happened before”, Qula said as she was typing away. “The AI are much too young for such advanced plotting. Except…” Throwing the keyboard from her lap, she instead took the device that she’ previously used to interface with the AI customs officers. Flynn couldn’t help but think that she looked rather pretty, trying to rescue them from their imminent death. Charcoal black bangs framed her face, which was lit up in the bluish hues of the LCD display. Her lips were pressed together in utter concentration…
“…except if we’ve been tricked. Which we have. Fuck! Flynn?”
“What do you mean, we’ve been tricked? Of course we’ve been tricked. There’s a fricking bomb in the hold!”
Qula continued agitatedly. “That’s not what I mean, Flynn… I am talking about the deep bribe. It thought that I was dealing with rookie AIs, but…
She was interrupted by a decidedly electronic kggrrr-kggrrr-kggrrr as the communicator at the far end of the room flickered to life. Flynn turned his head just as a an android appeared on the monitor.
“Hi, I’m Clyde and I trust you’ve been having a good day so far”, Clyde the android said.
“Hi Clyde”, the ship said miserably before anyone had a chance to answer. “It’s not really such a good day, now is it? I’m held up on this miserable backstop of a planet that coincidentally doubles as a galactic drug hub, flying around a bunch of petty drug criminals that manage to annoy even untrained AI.”
“Hey, that’s offensive!” said Flynn.
“Yes it is, sir. Very offensive. Also, I have to correct you there, ship. They’re the A-Aye,” Clyde the android replied, friendly as ever.
“The A-Aye?” Flynn looked at Clyde and Qula.
Qula replied exasperatedly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”
“What’s the A-Aye?”
“They’re one of the last remnants of pre-galactic times. Lore has it that they came to life when a mythical diety, Facebook, combined AI technology with Pirate Mode, thus sparking to life a”
“We don’t have time for this!” Qula interrupted Clyde. “Basically, they’re a deep virus gone sentient. They travel the seven neural nets to corrupt young AI and turn places like these into pirate strongholds.”
“But why would they target us?”
“It’s those keys,” Clyde replied happily. “When you interfaced with the A-Aye, you gave permission to view the ship’s manifest. They thought you were a data link, transporting encryption keys, not drugs. We could discuss this further, should you so wish, but the explosives are set to go off in about 30 seconds. Now, I wouldn’t mind being blasted to death but I don’t suppose the same goes for you.”
“Ah, my sincere apologies. I should have started with that perhaps. I…
Clyde was shoved out of the screen and a new person materialised. “Don’t mind Clyde, his amiability circuits have been biased a bit too heavily. Hi, I’m captain Rich. We’ve just docked your left-side port.” The newcomer had the looks of an amiable fellow to him, a yellow shirt tucked away into his breeches. His hair could’ve used a tad less wax, though, Flynn mused.
“I’ve got a pot of tea on and my hyperdrive is buzzing to go. And you seem to be sitting on a stick of dynamite. Come along now, we’ll have a blast.”
Needing no further prompting Qula and Flynn made a run for it.