On the trip back, Hoover set the 8-ball’s internal guidance program to keep a fair amount of distance between itself and the group. Freed from having to control it, Justine spent the trip back brainstorming with the A.I. on a matter that had been bothering her ever since the incident at the docking bay.

  “Those creatures,” she asked cautiously. “What are they?”

  During his time investigating the laboratory’s database, Hoover discovered some informative yet troubling data on the things which tried to attack Joseph and succeeded in throwing Foster across the engine room.

  “Originally, those entities were designed for maintenance duty on the reactor level. During the drawdown of station personnel, the machines began to provide basic security and station upkeep. Eventually, they were left alone between events. But over thousands of years, they evolved to the point where they could function without any biological management.”

  “They don’t seem that intelligent.” Justine replayed both encounters in her mind. “In fact, they seemed mostly reactive.”

  “They’re not the smartest things in the universe, Agent Rushing. Their security coding isn’t any more complicated than see a threat, eliminate a threat.”

  “So, they’re dumb?”

  “I would phrase their potential as limited. But what they lack in smarts, they more than make up for in determination and adaptability.”

  “Hoover…” Her hand kept finding reasons to unconsciously brush up against the holstered Slinger. “When I shot those things in the docking bay and the Popper drive, did I kill them?”

  “That depends on your definition of killed.”

  Justine hated when Hoover, or anyone for that matter, tried to talk in semantics to her. She was a straightforward girl, and she needed an honest answer. “Can’t you just tell me something definitive instead of your paranoid doublespeak?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Not the time, Hoover!” She wasn’t in the mood for any of his jokes either. “This is important!”

  “Fine,” Hoover loved pissing people off, especially when they had a temper like Justine’s. “Technically, the entity was reduced to its basest form by your plasma blast. The gun was set at level eight, so the process was quick. The only problem is these things are adaptable at the molecular level. So, what disassembled them the first time around might only serve to piss them off the next. If we run into them again, I would suggest vaporizing them completely.”

  “If they’re so adaptable, how am I supposed to accomplish that?”

  Unfortunately, the 8-ball had just ducked around a cubicle’s corner at that exact moment. Otherwise, the AI would have been able to see the look on the agent’s face as he spoke the next sentence.

  “Level ten, Agent Rushing. I’ve just unlocked level ten on your weapon.” At that moment, the brightly burning orb paled in comparison to the radiance of her smile. “I’m sure that will more than make up for my paranoid doublespeak.”

  “Really,” Justine retrieved the weapon and quickly thumbed the setting up to level ten. Instantly, the readout confirmed that this new lethal level of destruction was indeed available to her. But just as quickly, she thumbed the weapon back down to eight. “Thanks, Hoover. But I think I need to keep that card up my sleeve for a while longer.”

  “Probably a good idea, Agent Rushing. Level 10 is quite... powerful.”

  “Damn it, Hoover.” Justine’s thumb twitched slightly over the display, but she got it back under control before doing something she might regret. “I’m trying to be good here.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  Just beyond her bubble of happiness, Joseph extricated himself from thoughts of home long enough to catch a glimpse of Foster’s tablet. Underneath the man’s furious fingers, he noticed a very familiar picture featuring a very plain-looking stone pillar.

  “What’s that?” He asked.

  “This is the statue you were admiring earlier. You seemed enthralled by it, so I snapped some pictures of the edifice for later reference.” Not fully knowing Foster’s motives, Joseph eyed him suspiciously. “It’s not like that. I meant no offense. The thing just interested me.”

  On the screen, Foster zoomed in tightly on the mysterious symbols near the base, and with the assistance of a specialized program, he began attempting to decipher their meaning.

  “What are you doing?” Joseph asked.

  Foster twisted the tablet around, which allowed Joseph a better view of the unknown symbols. Overlaid with a set of matching red symbols, the decryption program contorted the doppelgangers into a plethora of different shapes every few seconds. “I’m trying to figure out what the inscription says?”

  “Good luck with that.” Joseph’s attention was drawn away by Agent Rushing’s spot-on imitation of the happy dance. He disapprovingly shook his head at the childish behavior. “Those symbols don’t match anything I’ve ever seen before. Not even anything I’ve seen on the terminals.”

  “Unfortunately, I think you might be right. I had Hoover run the symbols against every database we’ve come across, but so far nothing’s been a match. Unfortunately, his considerable skills at code breaking have fallen short in this instance.”

  “What about the numbers?”

  “Hoover ran every permutation he could think of.” Foster’s face elongated into a sad state of disappointment. “And as far as we can tell, they’re just numbers.”

  Joseph looked at the screen and the long line of digits displayed there. “That’s a lot of numbers.”

  “Maybe,” Foster tapped a button and the tablet’s screen went blank. “But that all depends on the context. If it’s an equation, then that’s not a lot of numbers. But if it’s a total, then that really is a lot of numbers.”

  “Oh well, it’s just another mystery about this place that can’t be solved,” Joseph said, trying an unsteady hand at being reassuring. “The universe is full of them.”

  For someone with an innate need to solve problems, Joseph’s statement was like throwing chum into an ocean full of sharks. “That’s what scares me.”

  For a few more minutes, all three of them drudged back along their initial path without saying much of anything. Each one was consumed by either happiness, regret or the unknown. And it wasn’t until they began to draw closer to the exit that someone spoke.

  “My feet are killing me.” Foster bent down and attempted to take off one of his shoes.

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  “What,” Justine smiled at the scientist with the fervor of a maniacal gym coach meeting a new recruit. “Didn’t get a lot of exercise at Wilson?”

  “No,” he said, trying his best to balance himself against a console while also maintaining a death grip on his precious satchel and tablet. “Cardiovascular health was near the top of the mental health priority list.”

  Again, he tried to take off one of his shoes, but the swaying satchel made it difficult.

  “Foster,” Justine offered him an empty hand. “I could hold it for a second.”

  Looking like someone asked a first-time mom to hold their newborn baby, Foster recoiled back from her genuine offer of help. Then, after thinking about it for a second, he stuffed the tablet and phone inside the satchel and reluctantly handed over the rest of his precious toys to a crazy woman. “Just for a second.”

  Smiling like a devil who just got back from the crossroads, Justine stared down at the canvas bag with all the self-control of a heroin junkie on payday. She was practically drooling with evil thoughts.

  “No peeking, Agent Rushing.” Foster warned her after seeing the agent’s face shift from nice to ‘give me all your toys, science boy’. “Besides, the satchel has a biometric lock on it.”

  “A what?” the young agent’s face instantly became crestfallen.

  “A biometric lock,” it was Foster’s turn to smile. “It’s coded to my specific DNA. If I’m not physically touching the bag, the flap won’t disengage from the body of the satchel.” As if to prove what he said was true, he motioned for her to give it a try.

  Never one to back down from a challenge, Justine yanked up on the flap a little too hard just to open it. Shockingly, the piece of black canvas stayed firmly in place. She tried once more to be sure and again the satchel remained firmly closed.

  “That’s not fair,” she looked back up at Foster who was knocking something out from the bottom of his shoe. He smiled that stupid grin again. Starting to get annoyed, she looked at the bag, then at him. Bag. Him. After a couple of seconds, an idea started to take root.

  “Wait a minute. You just need to be physically touching the bag to activate the lock?”

  Suddenly, a horrible feeling washed over Foster’s being which was quickly confirmed by his digital friend. “Uh oh. I think she’s got your number, buddy.”

  Before the shell-shocked scientist could respond to her diabolical plan, she decided to let him off the hook. “Don’t worry, Foster.” She slung the bag over her shoulder and waited for him to put his shoe back on. “I won’t try and open it without your permission.”

  “I wasn’t worried.” His words said one thing while his face said the total opposite.

  “Yes, he was.”

  A second of silence passed between them before Foster finally admitted, “Yes, I was.”

  To that confession, they both had to laugh.

  “Well,” Joseph walked a few more steps in the direction of the exit. In the distance, the light from the alien prayer room began to slowly bleed into their line of sight. He sounded relieved as he said, “another level done.”

  “Thank God.” Justine also sounded thankful as she spotted the same sight. Foster, on the other hand, saw something more subdued and mysterious just below the light from the exit.

  “What is that?” He said, pointing to a large cluster of brightly lit desks that very quickly became recognizable to the young scientist. After all, they were the first set of learning machines they had come across on this level. The very first they had turned on.

  “What’s what?” Justine asked just as the eightball’s light spilled across a dark shadow emerging from beneath one of the activated computer stations. “Oh, I see.”

  Without hesitating, she stepped in between the two men and rapidly evolving shadow. Soon, the thing took the shape of one of the engineers from the 3rd level. But as she watched, the creature continued to morph until it took on the characteristics of what she’d seen on the docking level.

  “Guys,” She placed the Slinger on leven nine out of an abundance of caution. “I’m going to need you to back up about twenty feet.”

  “What?” Foster began to say. But then, he too saw what the shadowy form had changed into as it slowly moved in their direction. “Is that one of those engineers?”

  “No,” Justine noticed a glint of red in the creature’s shifting eyes and her suspicions were confirmed. “I think it’s a whole lot more dangerous than that.”

  As if on cue, the computer stations in the cluster of brightly lit desks began to shorten out one by one. In short order, only one monitor still gave off any signs of still being on. Then, it too shorted out. Except, it didn’t go out with a whimper. It went out with a large crash of metal and sparks.

  “That thing is not alone.” Joseph said, pointing to another shadow emerging from the same spot the first had appeared. “Foster? Are there anymore?”

  Not needing to be told, Hoover called for his program to activate the ping function on the 8-ball. Instantly, the two shadows crouched low to the ground and scanned their immediate vicinity for the source of the noise. But for some reason, they either didn’t notice or care about the ball of light floating twenty feet above their head.

  “No,” Hoover reported, after the scan completed. “There’s only two of them.”

  “Yippee!” Foster shout-whispered. “So, what do we do about them?”

  “I could try and override their programming.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Foster looked at the other members of his party and shrugged. “Six in one hand, or a half dozen in the other.”

  “Just do it.” Justine said, her decision-making skills had fully kicked in now. “I don’t like the idea of a fight, not with all this cover available to them.”

  “Not to mention it being so dark.” Joseph added. “Those things are slippery enough in the light of day. Plus, I don’t know what will happen to the possibly explodable machines if you open fire with your little pop gun in here.”

  “Agreed.” Foster turned back toward the quantum space bridge and the words ‘blow up the universe’ echoed in his mind. “Hoover, do your thing?”

  “On it.”

  For a couple of seconds, nothing happened. The creatures stood their ground, as the three explorers slowly ceded theirs. Then, the creature’s slightly red tinged eyes went full on crimson Murder Bot.

  “Agent Rushing,” Hoover’s voice sounded flustered. “You may want to try that new setting. Now.”

  “What happened?” Justine and Foster asked at the same time.

  “I guess they didn’t like me poking around inside their heads.”

  A couple of things happened all at once. First, Foster attempted to close the distance between himself and Justine. Seeing the situation deteriorating, he wanted to retrieve his satchel and get something from it right away. But before he could, the second thing happened.

  Justine tightened the bag’s strap across her shoulder like it was a parachute then took off at a dead sprint in the opposite direction.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Foster half blurted out, half screamed as the two creatures immediately took chase after the speeding FBI agent. He made it a few steps in her direction when she finally responded.

  “I’m drawing them away, Foster.” Her breath was surprisingly even and under control for someone sprinting headlong into darkness. “So, don’t do anything stupid like following me.”

  “Stupid?” Foster took another step in her direction then stopped. “You still have my satchel.”

  “Just give me a few minutes, Foster!”

  In the distance, he heard the rapport of the Slinger as she sent a couple of warning shots over her shoulder and at her pursuers. “Hoover,” he backed up to where Joseph had huddled behind another cluster of computer stations. “Keep an eye on her. I’m going to need about five minutes.”

  “Keep an eye on her? What good would that do?” Hoover shifted the 8-ball’s position, so it maintained line of sight with Justine and the squids. “This thing doesn’t have any offensive weapons.”

  “Again, tell me something I don’t know.” Foster grabbed the deputy’s shirt collar and yanked him to his feet. “Just keep pinging them. That should keep them distracted long enough for me to do something.”

  “Do what?”

  “Just get her to lure them back here in about five minutes.”

  “Those things might be dead in five minutes.”

  “If that happens, then don’t worry about coming back here.” Foster imagined Justine standing on a hill of dead squids and he somehow found a sense of relief in that image. “We’ll head to you.”

  “Fine,” Hoover said as the light disappeared in the distance after Justine. “Five minutes.”

  “What the hell are you going to do in five minutes?” Joseph tried to spot where she had gone, but the only thing he could see was the soft glow of plasma fire in the distance. “She has your satchel.”

  “Don’t fucking remind me!” Foster turned back toward the office cubicles and the three-dimensional printers that lay within. The plan that had been slowly taking shape in his mind crystalized in an instant. “We just need to find that one printer that worked.”

  “Printer?” Joseph followed the scientist’s gaze and immediately remembered the printer in question. After a second of blocking out the sounds of distant Slinger fire and overturning office furniture, he frowned. “That machine only had enough polymer for one printing.”

  “I know.” Foster motioned for the deputy to follow as he took off in what could only be described as a quickish pace. “And I’ll only need one printing for my plan to work.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “An idea is not a plan, Foster!” Joseph placed one foot in front of another until he was keeping up with his ‘breakneck pace’.

  “No,” Foster responded with that sly grin plastered across his face. “Hope is not a plan. But an idea? Especially one of mine, can be so much more.”