Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #11 February 2015 | Page 28

“And you just handed it to her.”
John Kirkpatrick stood up and dusted himself off.
“It’s not that simple.” He began.
“Really?” Holly Star replied sarcastically. “Why don’t
you explain it to me then?”
“In order for the project to work, a quantum computer
needed an organic brain to assist in the human-computer interactions, a standard AI just wouldn’t cut it,
it’s not like the old digital ones that integrated well with
conventional AI.”
The single drop of sweat rolled down the balding forehead of the Scientist, it touched the cool metal of the
laser pistol that was pressed hard against his skin. The
woman who held it was desperate to get off his ship of
death.
“You told me that thing was safe.” She growled, pissed
off at the doctor, why the hell had they put a homicidal
maniac in charge? Let alone two homicidal maniacs,
one who stood before her, and the other encased in the
computer core, running the ship.
“We thought she was!” he stammered, his voice choking on panic and fear. “How could we know she would
go haywire like that?”
Commander Star scowled at Dr Kirkpatrick.
“You were fools to think that you could use a human
in place of a computer core for a starship, what the hell
possessed you to use a death-row psychopathic murderer?”
She pulled the weapon away from his scalp, the skin
marked by the pressure she’d applied, and pointed it
at the glowing tube where the woman was suspended
within a bio-organic liquid. “She controls everything,
the mechanic arms, gravity, thrusters, engines, environmental systems.” She returned her attention to the
man.

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He moved closer to the tube and placed a hand upon
the glass, almost lovingly looking up at the thin woman, her body covered in umbilicals keeping her alive.
“It… she deserved better than to just be a single minded machine, so I allowed some of her personality to
come out, I fell in love with her.” He smiled at the face
of the murderer encased within.
Star came up behind him. “You’ve gotten everyone on
this ship killed you bastard! Good people died because
you were selfish.”
He turned to her, his eyes shining with a deranged
light.
“No, they were not good people. Connors and Henderson were having an affair, Lo was on chems, Amundsen was selling information to the Corp behind our
backs, and you, you were plotting to kill the captain
and take the ship for yourself.”
Star looked at him in shock.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked him
incredulously.
Kirkpatrick looked at her.
“She told me, she tells me everything…” he whispered,
he turned his gaze back to the tube.