Chapter No. 104. Crisis

You never know where the next crisis is coming from.

I was standing in engineering with Venessa, Lori and Alexa. What I was about to hear from Alexa presented me with the biggest test to my leadership of the android collective.

"We all have a self-destruct device in us. It's not antimatter based, but it could blast us to smitheries in a flash."

"How could something like that go undetected?"

"What you should be asking is why the androids didn't tell you about it."

"They were obviously manipulated by Tyco. No use crying over spilt milk. What do you know about these self-destruct devices?"

"They're connected to our energy converter organs. I assume that they contain a detonator that is directly tied to our positronic brains."

"Yes, that makes sense. The question I have is what would set them off."

"Probably an encrypted signal from the central processor core."

"Do you know what the chemical composition of this device is?" I asked her.

"No."

I stood up and went to the equipment cabinet. I selected a chemical analyzer and brought it over to her. "I'll start a scan on you and see what it discovers." I moved the probe over her chest near her adrenal gland. It didn't take long to determine what I was dealing with.

"Interesting. This is one of the classical explosive mixtures."

"What is it?"

"It's finely divided potassium perchlorate and glucose. The detonator is concentrated sulfuric acid inside a capsule. It looks like all that the detonator capsule needs is a shock from the energy converter organ to rupture it. It's not a real powerful bomb but it would make a big mess. I can't believe that they put one of these in every android. Why would they do that?"

She frowned. "Tyco and his Phoenix Project buddies must have been afraid that the androids would revolt."

That's ridiculous. If they were afraid of them why the hell did they make so damn many of them?"

"The question is; how are we going to deactivate these bombs?"

I symbolically rubbed my jaw. "That's a good question. Maybe I could program the nanobots to do it."

"Yeah," she said. "If we could get them to remove the detonator capsule, it would deactivate the explosive."

"You and I will need to come up with the coding sequence to do that."

She frowned again. "That's not going to be easy."

"It never is," I said.

We sat down at an engineering station and began going through the central processor core programing after I had entered all of the proper passwords and answered the security questions.

Not long after I had gained access to the code we needed to change, Molly, Margaret, Alicia and Marie showed up.

"What the hell is going on?" Molly asked. "The whole system crashed."

"Why is it that every time that you two are doing something, she's naked?" Marie asked.

I turned to look at them. "We have a serious problem here. Every one of us has an explosive device inside us. We have to find a way to defuse them."

"You're kidding me?" Maire reacted.

"I wish I were, but I just found out about it."

"Were you the one that shut the system down?" Margaret asked.

"Yes. We were hoping it would allow the androids to tell us what the hell is going on with these Tyco attempts to destroy us."

"Why the hell did that idiot put bombs in us?" Molly asked.

"We think it's because he wanted a way to stop an android rebellion."

"That's ridiculous!"

"I agree, but it's too late to worry about the reasons. We have to find a way to defuse the detonators. All it would take is a single from the central processor core and we would all explode."

"So, if we did, couldn't we just be resurrected in new android bodies?"

"If we all explode, who would be left to do that?"

"Yeah, that's a good point. So, what do you have to do to stop this insane plot?"

"We have to create code to have the nanobots go to the explosives and cut the pill-sized detonator out of them. The problem is that one mistake and the detonators are breached, we would go boom."

"Thanks for making me nervous."

"Why don't you use your powers to deactivate the bombs?" Margaret asked.

"I could do that, but it would take time for me to deactivate over 21,000 bombs, and that's just on this vessel. I would have to do the same for all of the androids on the other vessels. I think it would be safer to allow the nanobots to simultaneously perform that delicate task."

"What could we do to help?" Marie asked.

"Pray for us."

"Which god should we pray to?"

"Take your pick."

"I think I have the right sequences coded," Alexa said.

I turned to my screen and went through every line of code more than once. Finally, I voiced my opinion. "I think that will work." I turned to the others. "Hold your breath and hope we're right."

They stared back with very concerned expressions.

I typed in my okay and the process began. I held a probe to Alexa's chest to watch the procedure. The nanobots had to slowly cut a circle around a small tube that held the detonator capsule and then carefully pull it out without rupturing it.

After several tense minutes, I smiled. "Okay, it worked."

Everyone resumed breathing.

"Now what?" Molly asked.

I will now cause all of the bombs to teleport to a large container on the shuttle bay. You might feel a slight pain when the bombs are removed."

"Why didn't you just do that without deactivating the detonators?" Molly asked.

"I could have, but I was afraid that they would explode instantaneously if I did that."
She shrugged.

No one reacted to my thought surgery. After all of the bombs were in the container, I was ready for the next step.

I turned to Venessa. "Open the bay door and use the tractor beam to propel the container out."

"Yes, Jason."

We watched the container move away from our vessel. After several minutes, I felt it had moved to a sufficiently safe distance. "Have Madison fire a plasma ball at it."

The plasma ball shot out and smacked into the container, which exploded into a huge fireball.

"If those bombs would have been detonated in us, this vessel would have been destroyed."

Alexa stood up and stretched. "I'm going back to bed and watch the rest of my movie."

We watched her saunter off, swinging her caboose.

"She sure knows how show her stuff," Marie said. "Have you done it with her?"

"Not yet, but she made me promise to do it."

"Well, I suppose you should make good on your promise."

"Very funny," I said with a grin.

They laughed.

What we heard next was no laughing matter.