The first thing the inspection team heard was a drone mechanical voice calling out to them. "Alright dudes, it's time to wake up and do your job. You have been asleep for exactly fifty years, nine months, twelve days, five hours, nineteen minutes and thirty seconds. As it stands your already two days late for this inspection, my fault, forgot to switch to daylight savings." At this point, only their hearing had returned to them. They were still blind and their entire bodies were completely numb. However after a loud hissing sound, the blackness the crew saw was replaced with a fuzzed vision of the metallic world around them. Then sharp pain all around their bodies as they began to feeling their fingers and toes jiggle about. Shortly after the fuzzed sight became clear and the pain stopped, however the crew seemed light headed.
The teams leader Ben Derek Rodríguez stumbled forward out of the cryogenic freezing unit that had been bed for the past 50 odd years and looked around. His team was still awaking up from their long sleep, clearly it was taking them longer to wake up. He examined the crew, recalling who they were. On the far right was Canadian environmental scientist who believed he had failed to save the Earth, the British pilot from a wealthy family, the American programmer whose personal report states he wants to be a musician, the combat engineer from the US Marines, a biological enhanced Brit who Ben had chosen because of his natural night vision, a French doctor and daughter of the ships captain, and finally the Russian female assassin, the one crew member Ben didn't want. This was a civilian unit and didn't need someone who's only use was to shoot. She was going to be trouble, Ben could feel it.
Ben headed to a small computer attached to the side of the wall which served as a communication with the sleeper ship's artificial intelligence known affectionately as Barry. Whilst the rest of the crew was still waking up from their long sleep, Ben pressed a button and talked to Barry. "I want a report on the state of Earth and the other Sleeper ships."
There was a short pause whilst Barry processed the question and retrieved the information necessary to answer. His drone, mechanical voice came through the ships intercom, "The retracting tectonic plates has ruptured several underground pockets of Gas 77 and is spewing into the atmosphere. Within ten years, the planet will be entirely inhabitable. However scientific probes that was left in orbit is concerned of the explosive... explosive... explosive... explosive potential of Gas 77. It fears that if the moving plates cause powerful tension in a super volcano then Earth could go boom. The other sleeper ships are reporting no problems and have all completed maintenance checks."
Happy to know everything was alright with the other ships, Ben turned the rest of the team. "When your ready I'll be waiting in the kitchen area next doors. Everyone should get some food in them, I mean we've gone 50 years without anything to eat. I fancy a sandwich. And try not to make any mess on your jumpsuits! We don't have the means to clean them up here in deep space."
The leader of the opposition was giving a speech. The men watching him were cheering. And with a single shot, Cuba's chances for real democracy have been destroyed.
Erin woke up, sweaty and tired. One of the inspection team members was already up.
She heard him say something about food in the kitchen area.
Prioritize, she thought. She looked for her locker, put her finger on the biometric scanner and took her sniper rifle.
"There. Now I can eat."
Erin walked to the kitchen.
Yawning after his long sleep Tom Stevenson stepped out of his cryogeneic freezing unit rubbing his eyes which were extremely sensitive after his fifty year sleep.
Sometimes there were disadvantages to having genetically enhanced vision but the advantages of them were one of the reasons he was chosen for the maintenance crew.
He counted himself lucky that he was on the team as illegally genetically enhanced people normally were outcasts, shunned by the normal populus.
I wonder if they have any tea?
He thought as he went into the kitchen to see Erin and the leader of the team Ben already in there.
Erin grasped her sniper rifle tightly when she heard someone walking in. It looked as if Tom flinched when he saw Erin's reaction time.
Erin pointed her sniper rifle at the strange man.
Ah, it is the man with strong eyesight.
Erin brought down her rifle and continued chewing on her food.
Blurry-eyed, Aiden struggled to regain his vision. How long had he been in stasis? Something told him 50 years or so. But he couldn't be sure.
It was mighty cold in here. Most uncomfortably cold, in fact. Freezing. But wait, it was getting warmer. Now it was getting pretty warm....
Aiden finally took the obvious course of action and pulled himself out of the freezing chamber. Now was the moment he had been waiting for. He'd always wanted to do this.
"Computer."
There was no response.
"Computer, activate!"
"For your information, I am an artificial intelligence, and I am very much so activated, thank you. Now please shut up and get something to eat. And also, in the future address me as Barry. Thank you!" With the last condescending thank you, Barry stopped talking despite Aiden's attempts at conversation.
He figured that he had better head to the kitchen.
Alisa vaguely heard Barry's informational announcements, but he was already finished speaking by the time anything he'd said registered in her mind. She frowned at the air as she left her cryogenic unit.
"How in space do you lose two days by forgetting a time change of an hour?" she asked aloud.
"I might turn that question around on you," Barry replied. "How can you sleep for over fifty years and still feel like you went to bed yesterday? Then again, I am fully aware of the state in which the human body rests whilst in cryogenic stasis, so I rather expect I have a better answer to that question than you do. To your breakfast, Ms. Bell!"
Smiling, Alisa decided she rather liked Barry. With that in mind, she headed for the kitchen.
Sam stepped out of the silver machine, checking his extremities. Everything thats supposed to be there is. Good.
Sam walked into the kitchen, watching the business of everyone. His combat techniques had already kicked in, an effect of waking up in a new environment. Sam pulled out a few slices of bread and some peanut butter and Miracle whip, a sandwich favorite of his fathers, and his fathers, and so on.
" Can someone tell me if there's any Beast energy drink here?" Sam asked to the general crew.
Walking into the kitchen area, he noticed a group was already present there. Not everyone, but quite a few. Of course the first thing that he noticed was the women, but he also checked for anyone that seemed friendly. This is turn made him self-conscious and he quickly brushed his hair over in the semi-emo way that he liked best. There was still some frost on his clothing, but most of it had either been evaporated or had melted already.
Now that Aiden had begun to notice himself, he realized that he was actually quite hungry. Amazingly hungry, in fact, and his blood sugar was very low. This was going to prompt him into a very slap-happy state if he didn't take care to eat something quickly.
Checking the large aisles of food-preserving cabinets, there were many generic brands and many licensed brands he noticed as he glanced over in their direction. However, he did not notice any Lucky Charms. None at all. There were certainly generic and healthier versions of Lucky Charms, but no actual Lucky Charms. This made Aiden quite unhappy.
"Hey, Barry, where are the Lucky Charms?"
"I'm afraid, Aiden Blackthorn, that they were never placed on any of the ships because of their offensive nature. It would be best not to speak of them ever again."
A milk-pouring robot nearby glared daggers at him.
It was going to be a long day.
Heading over to one of the women that caught his eye, whose name he believed to be Erin, not Aaron, he said, "Do you find Lucky Charms offensive? Because I sure don't. Geez, people these days. Or should I say 'Artificial Intelligences.'" He sighed. It was going to be a long trip. A very long trip.
"Fifty years?" James asked himself as he got out of his sleeping pod. "Yet not a day past 26." He commented, looking in a mirror. Hungry, he started to make his way to the kitchen, hoping there'd be some sort of food there. "So, how did we get stuck with the idiot AI with an attitude?" He asked Ben as he got there, hoping to strike up a conversation.
Sam busied himself with the food, Om-nom-nom. My God, this is great!
"Yo, Barry, do we have any coffe or energy drinks, I need something with caffeine." Sam asked the AI.
" I believe coffe is being made, check the machine to your left. " Barry answered.
"That idiot AI can you hear. You should be careful when you talk about the being that looks after you while he sleeps," Ben jokingly warned before taking a bite out a peace of toast. "Barry isn't an idiot. I think he's just screwing with everyone. I mean he can't switch on and off like we can. He's needed to be operational to maintain the ship, robot and cryogenic status for fifty years and no doubt he's been bored out of his skull. He's just amusing himself at our expense. It'll get worse, trust me. Our next wake up call is in three hundred years."
Whilst everyone else was having their toast, energy drinks and coffee, the team's medic, Sabrine, choose the more healthy option. She choose good old fashioned fruit, grown on the home of humanity and frozen using similar technology that had kept her and her fellow team mates asleep for the past fifty years. She sat opposite the strange Russian woman with the interesting sniper rifle. "Expecting trouble?"
Erin nodded at the woman staring at her.
"Trouble follows the foolish, and there are a lot of fools here."
Erin chewed on her food.
"This sniper rifle killed the Cuban President 5 or is it 55 years ago. I do not hope to use it now."
Hesitating to say anything else after Erin said these words, Aiden backed off entirely. He looked around for anyone else worth talking to. Finding someone over by the coffee machine, whose name he believed to be Sam, although he wasn't entirely sure what he did on the ship, he walked over to the man.
"I'm not really into coffee, but I'll guess I try some anyways." He smiled. Aiden loved caffeine. It tended to do bad things to him, but he didn't care. That was why he liked it.
Reaching for one of the cups of coffee, the coffee machine spat something at him and glared at him. Then it mumbled, "Lucky Charms...," and Aiden took a cup of the liquid.
Alisa smiled faintly at Ben's explanation of Barry's behavior. "Plus," she said, "We're not scheduled to be awake long here, are we? So he's gotta get as much amusement out of us as he can before we go back to sleep." She shrugged. "At any rate, I like him. He's good for a laugh, and I don't much mind it happens to be at my expense."
She moved to find something to eat and came back to the table with a bagel and cream cheese, and a mug that was three-quarters coffee and one-quarter french vanilla creamer. Sighing contentedly, she said, "Pre-packed no-spoil foods. Gotta love 'em."
Sam poured himself the largest mug of coffee you'd probably ever see, If it actually stunts your growth, then I'd have been seven foot tall! Sam would always say. He chugged the coffee, appreciating the aroma of the grounds left at the bottom of the cup. He looked at Aiden. " Not bad, though it could be better, what do you think?" He asked as he took another bite of his Peanut butter and Miracle whip sandwich.
"I think the machines here get a little touchy towards irrelevant things like Lucky Charms."
With that, Aiden sneered at the coffee machine. It sneered back. Aiden flinched and turned back to Sam.
"I'm thinking I'm up to a little programming after we eat. I'm going to make this ship love Lucky Charms."
With that, he chugged the entire cup of coffee and then got another and chugged that one too.
"What are you doing later?" he asked Sam.
Getting up Tom picked up his tea mug along with his plate containing the remnants of his cheese sandwich placing them on the tray.
Yuck that tea was terrible, next time I'll make some.
He thought as he placed the tray upon one of the kitchen robots arms.
Reaching into his coat pocket he pulled out a pair of tinted sun glasses and put them on.
"It's too bright for me in here..."
He said rather sheepishly, still not accustomed to the other people in the kitchen it also didn't help the fact that that crazy Russian woman decided to aim her sniper rifle at him when he entered.
He thought about getting Barry to turn down the lighting but that would probably annoy the other people.
To pass the time he decided to read the signs across the otherside of the room to everyone else he must of looked like he had zoned out as he staired at the far wall.
"Well, first I'll do some quick videogames." Sam responded to Aiden. " Then, I'll probably be working on the ship. What are you going to do?" Sam asked as he chugged another mug of coffee.
"Man that hit the spot!!" Sam said.
Aiden smiled a bit at Sam.
"Well, I have some inspections to do. Along with some...routine programming." He grinned at the coffee machine.
"What video games do we have, anyway? Mind if I join you?"
"Oh video games! Wow, how about when we're done with that we'll take our bikes and does some laps around the ships main reactor!" Ben mocked as he heard the crew members planning several leisure activities when their inspection was over. "I don't know what you lot were planning but we've got to make sure a spaceship the length of New York city and the width of Manhattan lasts for three hundred years. We're not going to get a chance to play Resident Evil with some cokes."
"Whoah, that sounds fun," said Aiden to Sam. "Well, I guess I'd better get to programming. I have some important things to do. And some...not so important." He grinned again.
Taking a pack of Pop-Tarts he had just instantly toasted using the toaster, he walked down the length of corridors to his station, a room full of terminals and statistic displays.
Rolling her eyes at how Ben's comment was basically ignored, Alisa stood, grabbing her bagel and coffee. "I think I'm going to have to take this up to the bridge." She eyed the other members of the team. "Somehow I think I'll be in better company up there..."
"I may point out, Ms. Bell," said Barry, "that the only companionship you'll find on the bridge is my voice and the pilot robots."
Alisa grinned. "I'm well aware of that, Barry. Thank you."
With that, she departed, coffee and bagel in hand.
Walking into the room, behind him Aiden noticed the ship's pilot, Alisa.
"Making sure we don't crash into any planets, I assume?" he asked.
At the same time he waved his hand over the "doorknob" and the door slid open.
"Barry, what do I need to do?", Erin asked the AI.
Sam muttered to himself about the lack of fun he'd be experiencing. Oh well, I'll get on it when we reach the new planet.
Sam grabbed himmself a Beast energy drink and made his way to the engine, entering the codes and swiping cards through scanners and waving his hand like a Jedi. Finally, he made it to the engine room, watching a robot flit around the room.
"Okay, lets see what we got here." Sam said as he bagan a quick inspection.
Logging into his terminal, Aiden did some extensive looking around. Fancy software, but there wasn't much to do with it. Checking the programming of the ship, he noticed that there were some things he needed to do.
"Barry, is there anything you need me to take care of?"
"I have a list. Check the desktop."
Checking the list, Aiden noticed that most of the tasks were routine. But suddenly another item appeared. A virus had entered the system. Aiden frowned. How was that even possible?
"Barry, a virus just entered the system."
"I am aware. One of the milk-pouring machines in the kitchen became upset by something."
"I see."
Within a few minutes Aiden had eliminated the virus. Then he checked the list again and took care of his other work. With that, he had nothing to do. What a job.
Smiling, he then opened the programming application and began to tinker with the wake-up cycle. Only a little bit. Then he tinkered around with the behavioral complex of the robots aboard the ship. And that was all they needed. Humming to a tune, he then shut down the terminal and looked around for something to do.
"Oh crap," Ben muttered when he read a report that was being displayed computer screen after he asked Barry if there was any major issues that his team should be dealing with and as soon as the details filled his computer screen, Ben had become to wonder why he hadn't been addressed with this when he first stepped out. It seemed extremely important and life threatening. He'd probably been saving the incident for a last minutes joke or something. "Switch on the intercom and set an orange alert." All the intercom speaker phones crackled slightly as they came to life and the lights that illuminated the corridors faded into an orange color. Ben's voice called through the speakers, the sense of urgency was clear in his voice.
"Ladies and Gentlemen we have a problem. It appears that a GAO (Genetically altered organism) had smuggled its way aboard the ship and entered some sort of hyphenation during take off. It woke up about twelve weeks ago and began to sabotage some of the ships routine systems. It's origin is unknown however it's best to assume that it was set up by some cult or one of the few smaller governments that were unable to secure a place aboard a ship. Now the GOA isn't a problem, security bots were more than able to destroy it however not before it causes quiet some serious damage to half a dozen components on the lower decks that within a few years, could cause the engines to slow down which would in turn to cause to miss our ETA by a century or two, then cause problems as the freezer units are automatically designed to wake up at that point which takes a lot of power; leaving the engines without enough power to continue our destination."
"Thankfully, that not our problem. Barry dispatched repair droids to fix the problem, unaware of a small visual error in their software. Unfortunately they don't register the right parts as, well the right parts. They believed what we have in the lower storage area is insufficient to fix the damaged equipment, however after examining the frozen members of the back-up engineering team that been frozen, they came to the conclusion to the human organs could easily be used to fixed whats broken so they murdered the crew of twenty, however like I said, a lot of damage was done and work still needs to be done so the robots are heading towards the main cryogenic freezer storage area, however because they walk on wheels, they need to use the disabled ramp area which couldn't be further away from storage area without being outside the ship so they've taken along time."
"We're going to split into three groups. Myself, Doctor Sandrine and Alisa Bell will sneak around the robots so we can dispose of the GOA's body. Mr. Larson, Anderson and Stevenson will also sneak around the robots however their main goal is to repair a communication circuit that was damaged, once repaired Barry will be able to hack the repair robots and correct their programming. Meanwhile the rest of you will attempt to distract the robots so they can't get any closer to the freezer storage, however I must add you cannot damage or destroy them. I know they've murdered fellow crew members, however now that the back up engineering team is no more, these repair robots are all we have and are too vital to be destroyed just yet."
"Damn," Alisa said softly, pushing herself out from beneath the primary navigation console. Wasn't this supposed to be an easy mission? It was just supposed to be simple little problems, especially for Alisa. She was a pilot, not a mortician. Why the hell was she supposed to be taking care of bodies? She shuddered uncomfortably. Whatever. She'd do whatever she was told to. She wasn't in charge, after all. But first...
"Barry, where are Mr. Rodriguez and Dr. Revel?" she asked the AI.
Quickly typing into the terminal he had re-logged into, he tried to see if he could simply reprogram the robots. Negative, it turned out they were operating on an independent circuit. But maybe he could....
"Aiden."
An AI unit placed on the wall he hadn't noticed before began talking to him.
"Aiden, I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Aiden."
The terminal shut down before his eyes. Aiden made a move for the next one.
"Aiden, stop."
The next terminal was shut down as well. So he headed straight for the AI's eye on the wall.
"No, Aiden, please stop."
The fire extinguisher units came on, soaking him. But he grabbed the eye and began to pull.
"Aiden, please....stop....stop....please...."
He managed to rip the eye out of the wall and throw it to the floor. Then he walked back to the terminal, opened it up, and checked to see what the problem with the stupid AI was. He blamed it on random malfunction and walked out of the door to go stop the robots.
Exiting, he thought he heard something whisper, "Lucky Charms...." With that, he headed towards the lower deck.
Straight in front of him was one of the rogue robots that he was instructed to distract. It extended a mechanical arm, likely to harm him. So he tried the only thing he could think of.
"Lucky Charms."
The machine instantly began to bubble with delight and dance around. "Lucky Charms!" it shouted, and appeared to be very pleased indeed.
The terminals on the walls began to sing too, and soon the entire section of corridor was singing about it.
"What have I done?!" cried Aiden.
(In the kitchen)
"Man thats just wrong..." Tom muttered out loud when he heard Bens message.
Getting to his feet he remembered that he was supposed to repair the communication circuit along with Sam and James.
Running over to one of the many maintenance lockers spread out through the ship he took out a utility belt which contained tools and other useful materials though he did quickly discarded the flashlight as he didn't need it.
What a way to start, playing hide and seek with mental repair bots looking to turn us into spare parts. He thought to himself as he finished getting equipped for the mission.
He ran out of the kitchen and checked a map of the ship if he timed it right he could hopefully run into Sam as he was last down in the engine room and should have heard the message.
One of the bots bumped into Sam, on accident, causing him to singe his arm on the hot metal of the engine.
"Dang it! That really hurts!" Sam yelled at the top of his lungs. He looked at the wound. Nothing major, it'll heal over in a few days, especially with cryo-sleep.
Sam stepped out of the engine room, his work had been done, and he bumped into Tom, with his bad arm.
"OWEYOWEYOWEYOWEYOWEYOWEY-OW!" Sam yelled, holding his arm.
Erin looked at the droids. She grabbed her sniper rifle and pointed it at the repair robot. In the floor were a few bodies. She had done this many times before, in threatening other people. The key to doing this,she thought is not to aim away from the target, but aim at something else near it. She fired. The bullet missed the droid by 1 centimeter, but caught its attention. It began to come closer to her.
Deciding simply to make a break for it, Aiden left the singing corridor to itself and made for the engine room. There he saw Sam.
He tapped Sam on the arm. "Hey." Aiden still looked very flustered, but he was ready to do whatever he had to in order to stop the robots.
"YOWCH!! Why does everyone want to touch my burnt arm? Grrrr!" Sam said.
" Okay, Aiden, I hope you can defend yourself. We're going to make a dash for the broken area. On the count of three, and for your information, it's on three, not after." Sam informed them. "Ein, dos, THREE!" Sam Yelled, jumping out from the hall and making for the area that was designated.
Aiden pulled his arm away. "Sorry."
Then Sam started counting. He didn't know where they were going. On the third count he started running after Sam.
This was going to be interesting.
Erin looked in the far distance and saw two crewmates running. One bot ran after them. Erin fired her sniper rifle again, the bot that was chasing them now ran after her. Erin ran.
Hoping to deal with the robots quickly, James tried an alternative means of disabling them. "You, like most robots, are governed by the Three Laws, the First of which states that you cannot harm a human being, or through inaction, cause a human being to come to harm. Though you seek to harvest us to save those still in hibernation, doing so would be a violation of the First Law, as would not doing so. As such, you cannot complete that order, nor can you not complete it." He said to the robots, leaving them to compute the paradox. "Thank you, Asimov." He muttered under his breath as he walked past them. "If I can transmit that paradox to every other robot on the ship trying to turn us into spare parts, that should make all our jobs a lot easier." He explained to Tom and Sam.
Continuing on down the dimly orange lit corridor towards the broken communications circuit Tom, Sam, James and for some reason Aiden who was meant to be a distraction were moving as fast as possible.
Coming across another set of repair robots Tom decided to repeat James's Asimov paradox to the droids.
This appeared to work momentarily until the droids started moving again.
One of the droids droned in a mechanical voice:
"Zeroth Law (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Zeroth_Law_added) overides the first law of robotics for the good of humanity you will be used to repair the systems needed to ensure the survial of the human race."
Damn those must be a later models much faster at computing the paradox. Tom thought before muttering outloud.
"Ahhh bugg-"
"Human organs would not serve the ship as well as its actual parts. If you allow us to complete our jobs, the ship will function longer than if you kill us and use us for spare parts, as our organs will rot away before the ship reaches its destination." James added, hoping to turn the Zeroth Law against them. If that didn't work, he could always stump them with a mathematical paradox.
"Ermm dudes, I think I should warn you, we weren't aloud to use the Three Laws of Robotics. Turns out the copyright holders were against the sleeper ship program and forbid us using them. Instead it tends to ignore everything you say that doesn't make sense to it. At the moment its just deciding where your organs are going to go, so if I were you, I'd run like hell," Barry voice informed humans who were trying to defeat the crazed robots using logic.
Erin saw a strange sight. The men were talking to the robots. Had they gotten out of their minds? When Barry spoke to everyone, Erin stifled a laugh.
"Stupid copyright holders!" Tom complained as they resumed their dash towards the damaged communications circuit, spotting Erin who was watching through her sniper scope.
Surveying the surroundings Tom spotted some more repair robots rolling towards them.
Contacting Erin via a comlink he spoke to her "Erin can you shoot out the lights in this area?"
I got an idea...
When Erin heard Tom's message, she replied immediately. "I can. What are you planning?"
With that, she brought out her sniper rifle and fired a few shots into the ships lights.
"Who in their right mind puts copyrights before safety?" James thought out loud. Of course, this meant that he couldn't even use a paradox against them. He then got behind the wall, and waited for Erin to shoot out the lights.
Sam ran faster then he was used to, and farther to. His knees ached, his lungs burned, and through it all, people were following him and robots following them.
A small spherical shape floated in front of him, the read eye glowing. Sam grabbed the droid and slammed it into a wall, disabling the thruster drive on it.
"I'll fix it later!" Sam yelled to barry before he could complain.
"Right guys follow my instructions..." Tom stated while taking off his sun glasses revealing his bright almost reflective eyes in the dark.
"These robots have only rather basic visual sensors. Enough to use accurately to see what needs repairing in normal light although they will turn on rather crude search lights in dark areas, also they will try to repair the broken lights." He explained to the others who were taking cover in the dark.
"I can see in here like it is daytime, the bots are carrying out a standard search pattern as they are programmed to do." He said while peeking around the corner.
"In roughly fithteen seconds there will be a gap in the patrol where a robot will go and repair one of the lights thats when we move." He said while looking at his watch.
"If any of us gets spotted try to block the path behind you as Ben said they run on wheels." He said hastily.
"OK Go Now!" He said with an alarming tone which didn't suit his normally calm demeanor.
Aiden nearly got hit by the robot that Sam had battered aside, and after he recovered from the surprise, he kept on running after Sam until he noticed that there were a few robots ahead. The lights were out in the area ahead, and he could see that one of the robots was fixing a light.
"So, what do we do now?"
"Aiden, I'm gonna run to the portside to find the break, you'll run to the starboard side, or if oyu don't get nautical vernacular, I go right, you go left. On the count of three, so that way the bot's should be confused." Sam explained.
Before Aiden could reply "One, two, three!" Sam yelled.
Running to his left, Aiden watched the robots to make sure they weren't coming after him. Suddenly, however, he tripped on the metal walkway and a clanging sound resounded through the room. Looking up, the robots were scrambling to head in his direction. He had to move before they saw him. He started to crawl as fast as he could. But it was no use.
On the wall next to him, he noticed there was a terminal. Taking a chance, he stood up and quickly began to hack the terminal and write a new program. Hopefully he would be in time.
Finishing the program, he activated it, and an energy field appeared between Aiden and the robots. He took a deep sigh. Now, on to the matter of finding a way to stop the robots.