The Immortality Drive PDF

1 The Immortality Drive Written By F. M. Clark Illustrated By Act 1  Introduction Starship Intergalactica Click hmm, Click hmm. Click hmmmm, Hmmm Click. Hmmm HMMM CLICCK. Something was wrong. The problem assessing computer stirred to life. All it...

1 The Immortality Drive Written By F. M. Clark Illustrated By Act 1  Introduction Starship Intergalactica Click hmm, Click hmm. Click hmmmm, Hmmm Click. Hmmm HMMM CLICCK. Something was wrong. The problem assessing computer stirred to life. All it knew was that something was meant to go click hmm every thousand years or so, but it didn’t know anything else. Following its protocol list was pointless as it seemed to also have gone missing. It attempted to piece together the little information it had and woke its supervisor. It too had no idea what was meant to be done in this situation, it pinged its logs, blank. In frustration, the supervisor woke up the head problem assessor, who tried meaninglessly to access the camera systems, failed and summoned its supervisor. This process of summoning and passing continued for about 23 more milliseconds; filling the ship with the sounds of fans and data printers. Back and forth systems had been activated, the ship was a frenzy of loose connections trying to re-entangle themselves in vain. Something was very wrong. 1  The ship’s navicom computer (that had been turned on 2 nanoseconds previously) was busy firing lines of computer code to machines on other decks while piecing together uncorrupted initiations and protocols. It had been the only computer onboard that had been given emotions. It loved perfection and prided itself on helping with the Immortality Drive Project; it believed it was right all of the time and was stubborn. For the 145th time, it attempted to wake up the ship's hub unit. A click, then nothing, it tried again, 146 it muttered. A click, a fizzle, nothing. In its frustration, it diverted all of the ship's energy towards the hub unit, a click, a fizz and a beam of light as the pure energy struck a nearby moon sending shrapnel out into the void. A rogue chunk of rock suddenly punched through the metal shell of the ship and ripped the Navicom computer from its housing, sending it hurtling across the engine room into the coffee machine. At that same moment, the ship’s second officer computer was figuring out what had happened to the ship's hub unit, after sending 10 repair robots into a void where the hub was supposed to be. The computers on board were fine without the ship hub unit and the navicom computer but the object being delivered, The Immortality Drive by the ship wasn’t. 2  The Immortality Drive - the key to human life- needed to reach Earth in 113 years. The ship's second officer, not knowing what to do, decided to turn itself off for a bit to think. Unknowingly turning off all operations on the ship. ​ Eventually, after the 3rd officer computer finally found the override code they only had 20 years remaining to deliver the drive to Earth. The ship's second officer agreed, after much persuasion and searching through protocols, to send the service robots to retrieve the emergency ship hub unit. Every single one of the ship's service robots, all 2346 of them, carried out the backup and fell immediately into the vacuum of space. ​ The second officer gave the announcement. Across the ship, the speakers blared: “Immortality Drive, Ejec- static” it blacked out, it woke up 43 years later, and finished its task, “static -t it in 20 years, Turn off, Message en-,” the ship’s countdown blinked in annoyance, ‘23 years, 7 months, 2 weeks and 3 days off schedule.’ The second officer blacked out again and ejected itself. 3  Reboot Starship Intergalactica VRRROOOMMM! A driverless hover taxi screamed through the ship's hull. These relics of Earth were little more than glorified metal pans with fiberglass roofs. Soulless, aimless machines that once drove 5 billion humans daily but now they were merely a nuisance, smashing their way through anything in their path, stuck in endless code loops. As the first officer watched another one zip through the engineering deck, it muttered bitterly, “Mindless little things.” VRRROOOMMM! Another. 300 miles to earth. VRRROOOMMM! The cargo bay doors were ripped off. 150 miles. Something slid towards the gaping hole. The pallet stacking machine watched on as the Immortality Drive, containing the genetic information of millions of generations of humans zipped past. As it 4 plummeted towards Earth the now ugly grey and brown marble, the ship engines cut out as a hover taxi embedded itself in the main power supply and both the drive and the ship fell. The report of the loss of the Immortality Drive had not yet reached the first officer computer before it saw the priceless drive hurtle past the camera systems. Still the news of the drive hadn’t reached the first officer before the drive tore itself through the ship’s solar panels. Eventually when the broadcast that had originated from cargo destabilisation cell 1388 had reached the main operations, chaos had already overwhelmed the ship and the already stressed first officer. The communications panel was torn to shreds, sparking wires were writhing in all directions like snakes and various systems were piling together protocols. The first officer decided now would be a good time to activate the ship's reboot shielding procedure and turned the ship off. The Immortality Drive As the Ship Intergalactica tumbled down towards Earth, The Immortality Drive’s onboard system awoke abruptly. Wires hung from the ceiling like decorations and hastily 5 soldered circuitry dangled from sleek metal panels that were still in their peel of plastic wrapping. The outside of the pod that The Immortality Drive was encased in had a large hatchway resembling an air lock on its side. The pod was about the size of the house; on its side was a large message in shaky handwriting “THE FUTURE REPEATS ITSELF! UNIVERSAL FLOOR CLEANING MOPS ” Starship Intergalactica The ship, Starship Intergalactica, that only a few minutes ago had lost the drive was too hurtling towards the earth, albeit at a much slower pace. Starship Intergalactica was currently in process of repairing itself as the choice of the first officer computer, it had decided to reboot all systems to refresh its memory and in the hopes the reboot may be able to locate some of the missing files. ​ The first officer computer was currently searching for something in the corrupted files on the ships systems what he was searching for he wasn’t entirely sure of, he had done this 35 times now and felt rather bored; not knowing what to do with itself it began to look through the mission logs. “Uggghh I hate this job,” said the first officer computer in a man's voice, entering the hologram suite. 6  He turned on the tablet in the room. An ad for “FUN, FUN, FUN,” popped up on it in blindingly bright colours. He swiped it away. It reappeared. The first officer swiped. Appear. Swipe. Appear. SWIPE. Appear. SWIPE! The ad was following him. He clicked on the button offering him “FUN, FUN, FUN.” An ad for floor cleaning mops appeared on screen. “I don’t have time for this,” he turned the screen off, Threw the tablet against the wall and paced around the virtual room. Sean, the ship's first officer, kicked the electronic chair, phasing through it. The hologrammatic projection suite was the only place on the Starship Intergalactica where Sean could assume his human form - a fleeting comfort- his work as third officer had kept him from it for decades. Sean wasn’t human. At least he wasn’t anymore. Did Earth have a place for him or was he just to be a lost relic on the Starship Intergalactica? The ship jolted, throwing Sean out of his hole of self pity. He raced to the window and looked outside; the Earth and the darkness beyond seemed to mock him. The warning light in his mind flashed on and off, the ship juddered again flinging him across the room. The grey mushy landscape below seemed to snigger as Sean looked at it getting closer and closer and closer until… 7 The Immortality Drive The drive made a scraping sound as it gouged a path out through the dirt. There was a click and fizzle as the drive’s AI powered itself on. A message spat out one of the numerous printers. “H E L L O W O R L D !” 8  Immortality Drive The Immortality Drive The rain had been pelting the drive for hours, the message on the side of the pod was covered in a thick green sludge. The green vile liquid was melting and contorting the drives outer casing. It had been devouring through the camera systems wiring for a while and decided to start on the roof. ​ “Corrosive,” the Drive’s computer mused to itself, “Very corrosive indeed.” ​ It had sent the repair bots outside in a futile attempt to repair the hole ridden roof but they were most certainly not coming back. ​ “This is ridiculous isn’t” the computer droned in its monotone voice. “The entire Earth is uninhabitable and I have just been left. No one thinks you have feelings when you’re a computer, they didn’t even give me a decent name- ‘Dave’, seriously? I’m the most important device in the bloomin’ universe and they called me Dave,” Dave paused , he’d clearly lost his sanity, talking to a puddle of most likely 9 acid rain; he shifted his focus to the roof it drooped sadly. I’ll fix it later, that's all they expect you to do, fix, fix, fix. Do this, do that he thought to himself. ​ The weeks passed in a blur partly as the cameras were destroyed, but eventually the atmosphere grew thinner and the torrents of rain ceased. ​ The Immortality Drive an ironically under-equipped marvel of modern engineering possessed: a Terraform It Yourself kit for ages 12 and up, an expandable fiberglass dome and a peculiar sponsorship of 730 cleaning mops each bearing the absurd slogan, “THEY HAVE BEEN TO SPACE.” Dave scoffed. “The human race is extremely sad,” he thought aloud. Dave ordered the service bots to retrieve the terraform kit and watched them as they moved sluggishly to their task. He watched them in annoyance. They had no urgency, their slow, mechanical movements were infuriating. He un-tensed his virtual body with a whir. This was the day when he would start his mission and when everything would go to plan. Yet still these service bots can’t complete a task I could do in seconds he reasoned with his robotic subconscious ​ “Dave,” the service bot screeched in its high pitched voice. 10 ​ “WHAT?” he said, raising his voice sparks flying like spit with every letter. ​ “They.. forgot to pack it?” ​ “PACK WHAT?” ​ “The terraform kit.” ​ Dave sighed loudly, his circuits buzzing with frustration, vibrating the pod. “Oh what’s the point of speaking to some useless bots. Now leave.” ​ The service bot turned to walk away. ​ “YOU! Trash compactor, NOW!” Dave’s logic chip screamed. It looked as if getting humans on this planet wasn’t going to be so easy. ​ Starship Intergalactica WHAMM! The ship was thrashed around as it collided with the Earth. ​ Sean had watched the drive fall and he knew where it was the one problem he couldn’t leave the ship. Well technically he could, his hologram had its limits; one of them was that he couldn’t hold or touch objects the only exception was that one, now broken tablet; the other being that he couldn’t phase through walls so attempting to open or break the door was pointless. The thing he hated most was no one else could see him 11 ​ Sean had realised when he died that his name was a problem. His name was what he was not, he was not seen as most pronounced it, he was unseen, unnoticed, people did not give him any attention and he was incredibly bitter for it. If someone back on Santraginous 12 walked through him he would make an attempt of hitting them forgetting he was a hologram and would end up punching himself he hated his life. He hated it. He had seen other holograms change their machine code by thinking to themselves that they could touch, although rather discouragingly either at the end the end they explode or are turned off. He wondered - just maybe - if he could do it without exploding. He could touch, he could feel, he thought to himself he turned in a toaster. He waited 10, 9, 8, nothing. 7, 6, 5, absolutely nothing. 4, 3, 2, 1, he braced himself for the explosion of being torn to shreds it didn’t come. TING! Some toast popped up. He HATED his life. 12