Living Under Ice

Under Ice 18

Under Ice 18
Tralv

Tralv was bored to say the least.  He hadn’t even wanted to come on this trip in the first place.  His parents had dragged him along.  What could there possibly be on another planet that he couldn’t see on VR?  At least that was what he thought then.  That was when his VR was hooked to the net and was virtually unlimited.  Now he was stuck forever with just the VR programs carried by the ship.  Sure, there were a lot of them, but many were redundant or in a category that was just BOOring!  Usually he kept to himself.  That was what he was used to doing.  His parents never seemed to notice and that was fine with him.

He had just gotten through doing his favorite VR program for the fourth time.  He used to have a standing rule:  See it once.  He’d had to throw that out the window.  Virtual reality, he finally decided, didn’t have much to offer him.  It was time to look into the “real” world.  Naturally, he decided to start from his own bedroom.  He didn’t want to get too extreme.

“I need to speak to the A.I.” he said.

“My NAME is Timothy,” the A.I. grumbled back.

“Sorry, Timothy.  I need your help,” Tralv said.

“What V.R. program would you like this time?” Timothy asked. He knew Tralv well even if Tralv had never bothered to learn his name before.

“I don’t want any VR program this time.  I want information.  Please fill me in on the events on this ball of ice we have landed on.”

“Could you be more specific?”  I calculate it would take me more than a century to give you audio of all my memory bank since we entered the colony.”

“I don’t need every detail.  Just give me a quick summary.  The headline news including who is also here with me.”

Timothy proceeded to do just what Tralv asked.  Tralv stopped him when he told the story of the artifact.  He also let it slip that the teens who discovered it were now calling it the mind stone.  He had discovered that accidentally when he overheard part of their conversation he wasn’t supposed to listen to.  O.K. So A.I.’s weren’t perfect either and sometimes they were curious too.  At least Timothy was.

Tralv became interested immediately and started to research the other teenagers.  He found out they were the same general age as he was.   He was fifteen.  Now he had a new obsession.  He was going to find out all he could about these potential new friends.  He had never had many friends.  He hadn’t needed them he thought, but now he felt he had missed something.  He was going to find out all he could about them and then he was going to meet them in person.  At least he told himself he would do it one day.  He had already seen some of them performing the play.  He had kept to the back-ground.

Timothy couldn’t tell him everything.  He had confidentiality rules.  Some records were public, however like anything they had done for credits...

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Tablitha went into her studio and shut the door.  She asked Timothy to give her privacy.  Then she started working.  She was going to make the best replica of the artifact that she could.  The only problem was that the artifact changed colors when it was given any energy at all.  That included the light that Timothy shined on it in order to perform video monitoring.  As she looked at the panorama she saw no pattern at all. No problem.  She would have Johan insert some electronic magic and a battery.  It couldn’t be much harder than making something like a party light.  It might not fool Timothy forever, but it would buy them some time.  Maybe she would ask him to make it computer controlled so the pattern would be more complex. 

She began sculpting the hard silicone in front of her.  It had multiple facets like a jewel, but there were also irregular surfaces, rough surfaces and some rounded surfaces.  It was very complex.  There were also a few indentations of varying depths.  One was a perfect hexagon.  She had never seen anything like it before.  It was as beautiful as it was mysterious.  She couldn’t wait to have the real thing again.

After two days of work, Tablitha called in Johan.  He had to hollow the stone out from the bottom.  The cameras didn’t show that part of the stone.  After watching the video multiple times and taking some measurements, he went off to make the electronic component for it.  It was going to be a challenge.  He would need light changing diodes, a circuit for control and a very complex program.  He would get Eliza to do the programming while he built the hardware.  Soon everything would be ready.  He took the sculpture of the mind stone with him.  This would be a fun challenge.

Kindra couldn’t wait.  She had to see each step of the progress towards making the fake mind stone.  The final result was fabulous.  It looked real to her.  They decided to wait until Saturday when everyone had the entire day off.  They would gather in Johan’s room where they normally met.  A simple switch with the human QT magic would allow them to have the real thing.  Everyone had agreed that she would be the first to touch it after they charged it with extra energy.  She had to admit that she was just a little bit nervous.  Her parents had no idea what she was about to do.  That made her feel guilty, too.  Still, she was determined.  She wondered what she should wear. 

Friday, Talon caught Hans lurking around again.  He decided to confront him and ask what he was doing, but Hans ran when he approached him.  Talon thought it was strange, but everything about that family seemed strange to him now.  He had the feeling they would have to be really careful or they would be found out before their plans even got off the ground. 

Talon went to his room and accessed Timothy.  He did a public records search to find out more about what Hans and Bob had been up to.  He found they had not been keeping up their normal work schedules.  He also found out they had been accessing the public records of all of them except Kindra.  This was serious.  He would have to tell the others.

After contacting everyone, he went and got Tablitha.  They had to endure snide remarks from Jacob about how much time they spent with their “little group” as he called it.  Tablitha replied that he shouldn’t talk considering how much time he was spending with Sharah.  He just mumbled something under his breath about “young kids”.  They quickly left before he could say anything else.

They had a heated discussion at their meeting.  Talon and Eliza wanted to do the transfer right away, but Kindra argued that they would not have time to use it.  She had strict instructions to be home early tonight from her parents who had complained about all her “late nights”.  Finally, they decided one more night of waiting wouldn’t hurt.  They would meet in the morning.  They decided to meet at 9 in the morning.  They didn’t want it to look unusual.  None of them were known as early birds, after all.

The next morning would be remembered in the history of the colony although the ones involved could only guess that would be the case.  Not everything goes as planned in life and that morning was no exception.  The group of five gathered together in Johan’s room.  They looked at the shelf.  On it sat the replica.  Tablitha insisted that they turn it on and watch it to see how realistic it was. 

Johan told them to turn out the lights as he switched it on.  Now there was only natural light.  Then he turned on a light above it to mimic Timothy’s optic sensor lighting.  It slowly started to glow with increasing colors.  It was quite impressive although not quite as impressive as the real thing.  Nevertheless, to a casual observation, it was a great replica.  It was worthy of being in the museum, Talon declared.  They turned the light back on and watched it continue to glow.  I actually put in photovoltaics that extend the battery life.  It should last up to one year even without that, but it will last indefinitely if it gets enough light.

They got into a semi-circle again and got ready to transport the original stone back to their room.  They would immediately transport the replica back.  Hopefully, Timothy would not notice.  He was not omniscient, after all.  It worked.  In a flash the real mind stone appeared and they sent the replica back.  Just then they heard a knock at the door!  Everyone jumped.  No one was expecting that.  Johan jumped up to hide the stone, but he was too late.  The door was already opening.  This could not be good.

A/N Please vote.  I appreciate the nimber of votes considering how few have read this so far.  Supposedly the votes help others find the story.  Hope you are enjoying it.  If you are, leave a comment.  I have one more chapter ready.  Hopefully it and this will upload.  I have very primitive internet through my cell phone only.