Chapter 11: The Prisoner Life
A week had passed since the Null had arrived at mars. He had been unable to find an opportunity to escape but had been slowly gaining more privileges. They would come to him with a problem and if he helped he would be rewarded. The Martians believed they were playing him but Null didn't care about the trivial knowledge they asked for but the extra privileges would make it easier for him to escape and gain back his fusion ability.
His arrival had caused more than a few ripples within the factions. The Martian leaders instantly identified the risk of keeping the Null a secret. Most of the factions had already observed the ship arriving at mars and if they assumed that the Martians had already gained access to the technology it could be used as a pretext for war.
To prevent this war each of the factions had decided to expose an implanted spy. These ex-spies would act as observers for their respective factions. They were all currently observing what appear to be a silent argument between the Null and Lisa the senior science officer.
Lisa had spent the last week being the liaison between Null and the factions. Generally, they would communicate via the device so that all the observers could monitor the conversation. Then sometimes when Null got too attached to the conversation, he would bypass the device. This was the case currently.
They were currently in a commonly recurring argument. "I'm bored. All you want to do is talk. Please, can't you let me go out and fly or at least use the pods to practice?" Null complaints had been getting more insistent as the days dragged on.
"You know the answer. until all the factions agree you aren't allowed off the base and that includes access to the network. Everyone is concerned about what would happen if you got into a pod given your technical knowledge." Lisa rehashed what was by now an old argument. She had actually come with to get an answer to one of the factions proposals. "Now, do you have an answer to my proposal?"
"I'm unsure if I could help and I'm not sure of the military applications. The other technologies I helped with were trivial but you are asking for a lot. What can you offer in return?"
Bargaining had become part of their relationship over the last week. She was running out of things that she could offer him.
"What do you want?"
"Access to my ship"
"No, you have been told that before. Surely there is something else you want"
"I want to meet some kids that are near my age, I only ever talk to adults" Null had planned to take the kid hostage and use them as a bargaining tool.
Lisa was contemplating the offer, she had let her guard down around Null as she didn't think he was a bad kid. "You can meet my son, He is 15 so about your age".
"Okay, I will look at it, but I don't promise anything" Null had agreed to the offer but wasn't sure he could carry out the original plan. He couldn't risk Lisa own son as she had been nice to him.
The device in question was a QEC. In truth, Null wasn't against improving the device and believe it would benefit humanity and couldn't directly be used as a weapon. They believed it was safe to hand over as he was only given a dummy device that connected to only 1 other device so couldn't be used to communicate with the outside world.
Once the device was delivered Null studied the device intently before entering a mediative state to listen to the voice of the universe. He was upset that he wouldn't be getting any gains from this as the penalty for getting captured was still in place by the system.
After a couple of hours, the observers started to air their own opinions. "I knew he was all talk. I'm sure it was their mentor who created the ship. That is who we need to find".
"Agreed, He is not even doing anything. I doubt he has any idea how it works. I hope we don't give them anything for this".
Lisa didn't agree with these assessments. She had spent the most amount of time with Null and believed she had started to bond with him. She believed he could do many great things for humanity. As if they could read her mind, Null opened his eyes and contacted her over the mental link "I need to peeeeeeee" before running off to the bathroom.
Lisa couldn't help but facepalm, 'just when I was thinking good things about him.' When Null returned from the toilet he contact her again. "I have a solution. It might not be helpful, but we need access to our ships lab".
"First you need to explain how it works before I can take your suggestion to The General" replied Lisa.
"I can create programable pairs. If we know the spatial coordinates of both particles, we can program them to talk to each other. I believe with the right set up you could use 1 device to connect to any number of devices"
Lisa had questions and the only way to get answers was to ask. "Ok, but how does that help us. We can't program spatial coordinates as we don't know them"
Null answered. "Well that easy for me but it is not knowledge I can give you. If I can access my ship I could create a method for you to record spatial coordinates "
The observers were confused and more than a little bit annoyed as it was clear they were communicating but they weren't using the agreed protocols. Lisa came over and quickly explained everything that had happened. Once again, they weren't happy. The Earth representative did bring up a good point. "That not good enough. he needs to supply us with plans and full knowledge of how it works. Otherwise, they could use it to spy on us."
While Lisa did agree in principle, she also believed they were expecting too much. "I understand your point, but if can study this we should be able to make our own. I will be recommending to the General that we allow him supervised access to his ship. I hope that you can do the same to your superiors"
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Zeebie
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