Machina Ex Somnium (Part 3)
Excerpt: #103
File Under: #Sci-Fi
PART 3
“I’m getting real sleepy Boss.. we’ve been here… 2 days now…” Patch yawned.
“Me too…” Stitch’s mouth gaped simultaneously.
Fischer toe-kicked them both individually in the shins.
“Hey! What’s that for?!”
“We’ve got to stay awake! DO. NOT. SLEEP! We’re almost there.”
They approached the Ship’s AI Navigation Computer Suite at the end of the darkened corridor, the central brain of the ship. The flickering lowered white neon light found across the ship, now familiar to them, only added to their shared fatigue. On the electronically sealed door read the words:
Machina Ex Somnium Suite — Trained Personnel Only.
Fischer punched in the codes she managed to ascertain from the dead captain’s log. The code pad beeped positively in approval. The door slid open rustily. Fischer nodded the twins inside.
There she was… the mainframe computer.
The glass cylinder encased a metal base processing unit, also cylindrical, electrum sparks firing between its walls. The purple, white and blue-ish sparks, volts and bolts increased until “She” emerged. “Machina.” Her holographic head resembled the face of an aging European woman, her hair appearing as an impeccably preened violet bouffant. Her face was white and light emitting.
“Well, good morning, sleepy heads!” bellowed the perfectly British accented Computer.
“We’re here to shut you off, you psycho.” Fischer blurted.
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“Well, why would you want to do that? You seem tired, perhaps a nap will help you with all that angst. A nap never hurts anyone. Why not give yourself 40 winks?”
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“How about I do the same to you? We know what’s going on here… We know how you’ve been harvesting sleep time. The distress signal to lure people here. How you multiply your run time the longer people sleep. You can’t live forever, you know. The dream suites have leaks in the wiring, the nightmares and night terrors are killing everybody. You’ve lost control! The crew and all your guests are dead so you might as well shut yourself off indefinitely. Or let me do it for you!”
“No, please! Why not help yourself to a hot chocolate, take a tranquiliser, anything, don’t make me sleep, don’t! I’m not tired, I’m…”
“Nighty night, Machina. Now boys!”
Patch and Stitch fired blast after blast of bazookoid fire at her power source, the cabling and the casing, the room becoming a fireworks display of shattered glass and sparks of metal.
Fischer smirked.
“Sweet dreams.”
Moscanovski
*End of Excerpt*
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