Where Nothing Ill Can Dwell

Chapter 1- A.R.I.E.L.

An alarm roused me from hibernation mode. I analyzed the code. It was not one with which I was familiar. Normally, the code would tell me why the alarm had sounded, along with instructions on how to diffuse the matter. In the instance of a storm, I would ensure all the compound's windows were secure and lock the doors to prevent my young mistress, Miranda, from leaving. My name stood for Advanced Response Intelligence Engineered Lifeform, and I was programmed to learn from my environment. But this code simply instructed me to alert my creator, Dr. Maria Prospero.

I rose from my recharging port and flew to my creator's sleeping chambers. Unlike her daughter, Dr. Prospero's sleep schedule did not follow the course of the sun or moons. She worked until she was exhausted and slept until she was recharged. One of my primary commands was to protect Miranda while my creator slept, and I began to wonder if the alarm had something to do with my young mistress.

The room was cool and dark, and the resonant rumble of my creator's snores echoed off the metal walls. Dr. Prospero was one of the galaxy's most brilliant minds, but an observer would never guess that from the way she appeared now. A line of liquid seeped from her open mouth, and her short gray hair stuck out in every direction. She lay crooked on the bed, one hand dangling over the edge.

I paused to calculate the most suitable appearance to take when waking her. My exterior was nothing more than a metal sphere, but my hologram generator allowed me to appear in whatever form was required. When Miranda was a child, I often took the legend-based likeness of an Earth sprite, but I came to the conclusion that the urgency of the alarm designated only one suitable form now.

Dr. Prospero's mother.

I filed through my stored images until I found her and generated the appropriate likeness. A sound bite guided my speech tone and patterns. I stood, my hands on my hips, and yelled, "Maria, wake up!"

Dr. Prospero jerked in a spastic manner, and she tumbled out of the bed. Her extremities passed through my holographic projection. My features flickered, so I hovered back to maintain them.

"Stop dawdling!" I ordered, based on the memories my creator had programmed into my hard drive. "Get up!"

Dr. Prospero turned her sleepy gaze towards me and blinked several times. The initial panic in her expression eased when she realized that I was not her mother. "Damn it, ARIEL. Haven't I warned you not to access my mother's files unless there is an urgent need?"

"There is." I turned off the hologram, and my voice shifted back to the flat monotone of my initial programming. "Alarm 6521-A has been triggered."

"Alarm 6521-A?" she muttered. Although her tone was distant, her brain was already searching for the meaning of the code. When she discovered it, her eyes widened, and she drew in a deep breath. "Finally!"

Before I could inquire about the significance of the alarm, she dashed past me toward the command center of the compound. I considered checking on Miranda, whose sleeping chamber was in the opposite direction, but determined that Dr. Prospero's attitude required more immediate attention. I whizzed after her and found her typing with a frantic speed I had only witnessed once in my memory.

"I've waited for this day for almost fifteen years," she stated without looking back at me. "Now I will make Alonso suffer as I have suffered."

I analyzed her words to decipher their meaning and realized their intent.

Revenge.

It was an emotion I was not programmed to understand or feel. But I had witnessed it in the words and actions of Caliban, the sentient lifeform my creator had enslaved. Dr. Prospero had explained that revenge was a base emotion, a primitive instinct an enlightened lifeform should be beyond experiencing or acting upon.

Which was why her words troubled me.

"Should I warn you of the potential for personality regression implicit in your desired actions?" I asked.

"No, you should not." The image of a large spaceship appeared on the screen that encompassed an entire wall in command central. Dr. Prospero crossed her arms and watched the ship with a cold smile. "I knew he'd wander to my part of the galaxy one day."

I searched through my database for this Alonso and found a match.

Admiral Alonso Santos, Leader of the Nebula Alliance Planetary and Lifeform Exploration Spacestation, or NAPLES. One of the men instrumental in my creator's exile to this planet.

I could finally comprehend the source of her heightened emotions, but I still did not understand her need to make him "suffer."

She rocked back and forth in her chair before typing again. "I'm sending you new orders, ARIEL."

A transmitter relayed her commands, and I marveled at the complexity of her plan. Fourteen years was an extensive segment of time to plot revenge, and it seemed my mistress had thought long and hard about what she wanted to do to the leader of NAPLES.

My first command was to take over the ship's navigation system, something easily done since Dr. Prospero had programmed their system before her exile from MILAN. The next step was far more complicated.

Dr. Prospero had ordered me to trigger a solar storm.