Chapter 8: Cheeseburger in Paradise

The next morning, I woke early and exercised for an hour before my shower and breakfast. Then, Ohmu and I packed a drop pod full of gear and positioned it in the hanger pressure hull next to Habu. If Otto reported favorable news we were going to fly in after dark and set up a temporary shelter for the aircraft and spend the next few days on the island. This would serve a dual purpose. It would give Ohmu a chance to investigate any remaining equipment or units left on the island and it would give me a bit of shore leave away from the boat.

After we departed from this place, our course would take us around the Cape of Good Hope and up the eastern edge of Madagascar. There were more small islands in that area where we would next make landfall. But, getting that far would be a long, long slog underwater and I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful island here while I could.

One of the new items of the gear surprised me. It was a small black case that contained a pistol, extra magazines, and a holster.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“I anticipate the possibility of small game which will most likely not have any fear of humans. From my analysis of Jonathan’s flight, I have detected the signs of small omnivores living on the island. The most likely candidate would be wild pigs or some other related species. The weapon is to discourage such animals.” Ohmu said.

I extracted the pistol and inspected it. It had an ultralight polymer frame and a long carbon fiber barrel. The barrel was smooth without grooves but there seemed to be spiral conductors embedded in the translucent barrel. The top sight was an integrated zero power optical night sight. Ohmu explained that the sight would work manually but it also transmitted a magnified image to my goggles if I had them on. The A.I. presence could also see what the sight saw and would alter the ammunition to suit the needs of the target.

Hearing that, I picked up one of the magazines and inspected a round. It was a large slug, almost the size of a shotgun slug. There was no casing though, just the bullet. The magazine itself was heavy and I learned that each magazine held a series of high-power ultra-capacitors. There was one for each slug and would fire the slug using the superconducting lining of the barrel. I learned that the A.I. could alter the velocity of the slug in real time depending upon the needs of the target. This would allow the slugs to stun or kill.

The slugs could also be set to explode with enough power to damage whatever it hit or at a lower power to fragment the slug before it hit the target. A final setting would detonate the explosive in the slug in such a way to form a shaped explosion that would turn the metal tip into a jet of molten metal giving it some armor-penetrating capability. Hearing this, I looked at the slugs dubiously. OK ... I’d have to see that before I believed it.

There were four magazines, and each contained twenty-two slugs in a side-by-side arrangement. At first, I was glad this body’s hands were big enough to comfortably hold the grip but then I realized that the gun was probably designed around these exact hands and was glad I had not mentioned it. The holster could be attached to any of my shirts, shorts or trousers using the familiar seam and pocket sealing technology.

The rest of the gear was basic camping stuff along with an electric cooler-freezer-cooker unit. I wondered about the power that would take until I remembered we would have about forty megawatts parked nearby in the form of Habu. The drop pod carried an assortment of telescoping poles and camo netting. Ohmu told me that the netting would work against thermal detection too so we could have a small campfire if we wished.

Packing all that made me hope that Otto’s report came back favorable, as I really wanted to go camping now. We finished getting the drop pod ready and attached to Habu by a long harness. This would allow the aircraft to deploy to the deck and take off. Then, while it was hovering, the drop pod would be brought into position by another lift arm and Habu would be free to carry it away. The pod was around three meters long and less than a meter in diameter.

When we brought it back we would reverse the process by first detaching the pod on the deck and waiting until the arm had stowed it in the front of the hangar hull. Then, we’d land ourselves. If we were in a hurry we’d just deep-six the pod on the way back to the aircraft. It would sink and release a fast-acting corrosive while at the bottom of the sea. All the gear was easily fabricated by the equipment on board Nautilus using the seawater extracted minerals so it’s loss would not reduce our supplies in any way.

I returned to the salon before noon and relaxed after eating a sandwich for lunch. The scene on the viewing walls and ceiling was one of frozen tundra. I swear Naomi had lowered the temperature a bit for effect as I felt chills. I wondered if the A.I. was teasing me with the possibility of time on a sunny beach looming. It was early afternoon when Otto reported in. The otter had swum out, linked up with the waiting aquatic mobile unit and downloaded its data to Naomi via the underwater fiber-optic link we had left last night.

Soon, I was sitting in my recliner watching point-of-view video from the little otter as it swam up and down the beaches and poked around on the shorelines. The later videos showed the critter traveling quite a distance ashore. It moved carefully as though fearful of both predators and electronic enemies. Otto’s eyes were modified to see well in the dark so much of the video was taken at night.

Some of the data was collected this morning, though, and the otter managed to snag shots of the pigs Naomi had theorized. I thought about having gear made that would allow me to hunt one up but I quickly decided that I was fine letting them be and enjoying the provisions I had already packed. I had an early supper and packed a small bag with my hygiene kit and a change of clothing. My last tasks on Nautilus were to spend time in the head followed by a long hot shower.

It was early twilight when Naomi surfaced Nautilus and began the aircraft deployment sequence. The A.I. had announced that we had a ninety-five-minute window of ‘unlikely’ orbital surveillance. Nautilus had moved westward around the island a bit where the waves were less so to reduce the deck motion and spray to a minimum. Soon, I was airborne in Habu with Ohmu and a small aerial drone packed in her bomb bay storage area and the drop pod with our gear dangling below.

Habu stayed low as we approached one of the beaches near the northeast end of the island. This spot was chosen as it had a nice clearing close to a stand of trees which would provide cover for our camping and scouting invasion. We went feet dry a few minutes later and soon were hovering over the clearing. I hoped the noise of our lift fans would scare any critters to the other end of the island. The A.I. set the drop pod down twenty meters from the edge of the forest and then followed by setting Habu down much closer.

I let the machine land because it had much finer control than I did, and we wanted to be as close to cover as possible. I smiled as moments before Habu reached the ground the storage bay doors opened and Ohmu dropped to the ground carrying the stowed aerial drone. The little black unit quickly jogged away before the aircraft landed on top of her. I was glad that the humanoid robot was lit up in my goggles as I’d have never seen her black coloring otherwise.

Once the aircraft was down and the fans stopped, I exited the craft with my bag of gear. Naomi started folding the aircraft down to its stowed configuration so we’d need to deploy less camouflage canopy. Ohmu was already returning from the drop pod with the poles and netting. I saw the aerial drone flying off behind her.

I learned that it was heading to a nearby rocky pinnacle where it was going to land and act as a short-range communication relay. While we were here, Nautilus was keeping a small radio buoy above the surface as it sat on the bottom waiting. The small drone acting as a relay would allow Habu and Ohmu to have full access to all the processing power onboard the submersible.

Ohmu and I had no problem getting Habu under cover and our camp set up. I had the night vision goggles and Ohmu had ... well, whatever the black unit had allowed it to see in the dark quite well. I later learned it had many sensors providing it data. Optical, low light, thermal, sound, pressure ... you name it. I was surprised that it even relied on the view from my goggles. I guessed that meant there would be no hide and seek games with Ohmu.

An hour later I was sitting by a small campfire under a thermal canopy sipping a smokey smooth glass of a damned good copy of Glenlivet 14. Well, how the hell was I to remember what that tasted like, so I just imagined it was a good single malt. Naomi assured me that it was a good copy so who was I to doubt her. My small tent was pitched nearby, and the air mattress and blanket were ready and waiting. The night was perfect. Warm and calm and I could see plenty of stars near the horizon under the lip of the thermal canopy.

I felt calm and at peace. Ohmu must have been trying to provide companionship or something as the obsidian humanoid mobile unit was sitting on another log near mine also facing the fire.

“Ohmu, this is paradise. I wish I could spend the rest of my days here.”

—Understood, Joan, commencing terminal countdown to Nautilus scuttling charge detonation. I wish you the best. Good luck and goodbye— Naomi said in my head.

What the hell? Shit! I jumped up spilling most of my scotch.

Ohmu collapsed off the back of her log, its face covered with an illuminated animation of laughing. Next, she began to roll around in the sand.

God dammit! “Very funny you assholes!” I shouted across the whole clearing.

After a bit, I calmed down and sat back down on my log. Naomi and Ohmu remained silent letting me calm down. Soon, I started chuckling and even got the giggles. Ohmu stood up and dusted the sand off her small obsidian body.

—I am sorry, Joan, but pranks and the practice of ‘giving each other shit’ are a normal part of crew interactions during long nautical journeys.—

“Yep, you got me good,” I said after finally getting over the giggles.

I grew quiet as I thought about ways of getting my revenge, if I even could get revenge on the machine. Ohmu found the bottle of single malt in the supply cache to top off my glass and I was able to finish it in peace.

The next morning, I awoke to a real dawn as the tent wall grew bright and warm. Ohmu had been busy last night as the camp was tidy and there was a larger area of camouflage netting suspended over the area. She had been on sentry duty all night and reported that none of the island wildlife had attempted to breach her perimeter.

After checking if any satellites were overhead I found that a thirty-minute window remained before the next one was due to pass over the island so I put on a pair of swim shoes and ran down to the nearby cove for a quick swim. As I passed the covered aircraft, I saw Otto laying under the fuselage with a dish of nutrient solution. He would be returning with us when we were done with our expedition.

The water was perfect, and I did a quick lap up and down the cove before returning to the campsite twenty minutes later. Ohmu had used the machinery on Habu to produce a decent supply of fresh water and I was able to wash the salt off my body. My hair was coming in and was now an unmanageable whole centimeter long! Still, I gave it a quick lather and rinsed my furry scalp off. Breakfast was hot cereal from the cooker and orange juice. When that was done I dressed in my exploring gear which consisted of rugged shorts, hiking boots and a shirt with pockets. The last step was to attach the holster with the loaded pistol to my right hip. I placed a spare magazine in the left thigh pocket.

I had to keep to the trees for much of the hike but with Ohmu’s help I was able to remain under cover and make it to the location where Jonathan had spotted the old drop pod. At the clearing, Ohmu and I waited in the trees until no satellites were overhead and then deployed a camouflage canopy over much of the area in which the pod lay. We then surveyed the area noting that there was an old rusted mobile unit near the pod. Ohmu had been wearing a small backpack which I learned was a portable power unit when she pulled a lead from it and inserted it into a power port in the old unit she had exposed. She also stuck her finger into another port as the rusted unit started making grinding and machine noises.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I possess something similar to the crystal data module hardwired into the tip of one of my digits, Joan. I will thus be able to force any hardware I am physically connected to into override mode and render it safe. If I do not do so there is a chance the unit could attempt to send signals to other units or even activate a self-destruct system.”

While the humanoid unit worked I casually backed up a few steps. Eventually, Ohmu gave up on the finger probe and retrieved a short metal pry bar from her small pack. I started chuckling when the little unit started whaling away at the old chassis with the bar. She eventually forced the old unit’s casing open and dug around inside until she removed a hunk of something looking like a piece of circuit board. She then held the piece very close to her blank face and poked at it with another of her fingers. This finger had sprouted a tangle of fine, hair-like tendrils which probed around the circuitry from the old unit.

“Accessing long term memory ... processing.” She said.

After about ten seconds she tossed the fragment away and stood up.

“I have accessed enough data to determine what the drop pod was sent here to do. This unit along with two aerial drones had landed here nearly three centuries ago to survey the island for any lingering presences of the nano-plague. It found and sterilized two mostly decayed delivery capsule pods and then deactivated itself.”

“The nano-plague made it out to this island? I did not see any signs of a crater?” I asked.

“Yes, the plague was seeded to this island.” Ohmu said. She hesitated a bit before turning to face me.

“This island would have been an ideal place for humans to seek shelter during the initial attacks. The surrounding ocean would have moderated the temperature fluctuations. The island’s higher ground levels would have resisted the tsunamis. Also, its distance from the mainland would have kept the island isolated from hordes of scavengers. For these reasons, the various nearby field bases in Brazil would have sent multiple waves of airborne delivery drones to disperse the nano-plague to this and other similar islands,” Ohmu said and then waited.

I digested what she had said. She had just revealed to me what must have been a major reason for the existence of the field bases. It explained why there were so many bases but relatively few aliens to man them. It also explained why so few humans were sheltered in the bases. Their main purpose was to kill humans, not to save them. I had to sit down. Ohmu continued to just stand there, waiting me out.