Rebirth: An Automaton's Journey

Chapter 6

When Captain emeritus Bartholomew Oliver Harrison Frederick McCrea first felt the slight pinprick sensation between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, he dismissed it as a mosquito bite and slapped the area with his left hand to dispatch the offending insect.

Except the stinging sensation intensified.

Alarmed, he traced the fresh scar on his hand with his left index finger. Could it be...? When he'd received the news that the GPS signals from Lily's cellphone had been lost, McCrea had flown immediately to the nearest laboratory of the Institute for Cybernetic Enhancement and Improvement of Biological Life Forms to have his RFID chip serviced. For at that moment, he had become Earth's one and only link to the fleeing Axiom and the young woman onboard, and he was determined to do everything in his power to keep that link functioning.

It was his duty.

And, even in retirement, McCrea did not shirk his duty. He handled his responsibilities like a man—just as he had done from the day he'd flown the Axiom home twenty years ago.

The same day that he'd finally stood up to that single-minded, scheming, obstinate, arrogant, seditious, scheming, plant-stealing, murder-minded, taser-happy, disrespectful, emotionless, scheming AI autopilot who had framed the completely innocent Eve for his own deceit.

Auto had been every commander's worst nightmare—a perfectly loyal and devoted lieutenant on the outside, but inside he was insidiously usurping control of the entire operation through his super-human intelligence and cunning. And scheming.

Gilded tombs do worms enfold. Just thinking about it made McCrea want to punch something.

But he wasn't going to punch anything. Violent outbursts of anger were for immature boys, not for self-respecting grown men.

"Eve," he ordered the sleek white android floating next to him, "our golf game has been cut short today. I'm getting a signal from the Axiom."

Her blue eyes widened. "Ax..ee..om?" she repeated in her soft, synthetic warble.

"Yes, Axiom," McCrea repeated firmly. "Lily Addams is calling home. I need to get to my transponder immediately and answer her."

Despite being in a hurry, McCrea took an extra two minutes to change out of his loud Hawaiian golfing shirt and into his old captain's uniform. He struggled a bit with bringing the two halves of the jacket together across his sizeable bulk, but he managed. It could have been worse—twenty years ago, he was so obese that he couldn't even get all of the buttons fastened.

In fact, McCrea was quite proud of himself for dropping 100 pounds since returning to Earth twenty years ago. (He could still afford to lose another 100, but preferred to focus on the positive.)

The veteran pilot smoothed down his thinning hair before pulling his hat squarely over his head. There—now his appearance was suitable for appearing on a holo-call.

"Operations manual," he ordered Eve. The white android zipped away, returning in seconds with the red-covered book. McCrea flipped through the pages, verifying that his transponder was functioning and set to the proper specifications, then placed his hand against the side of the device so that it could read his RFID chip.

A blue light glowed from the holo-bulb as the call connected. McCrea watched as a human silhouette began to take shape. The person was wearing a pilot's uniform: hat, jacket, insignia over the left breast pocket.