The Voyagers

“Anything you need, Issac?” she asked, giving me a soft glint with her eyes. I felt frozen, I wasn’t there for anything really, I just wanted to see what everyone else was doing so I didn’t look like a total outcast or weirdo.

“Oh I’m fine! I was just stopping by,” I responded kindly, trying to hide my nervousness. Laura looked me up and down before going back to looking out the ship’s giant window like she just finished judging me. I turned to Reinfield’s direction. He was totally unaware of his surroundings. There was chalk dust everywhere on the floor, half of it covering his helmet. If someone asked me to describe “maniac” I would bring up this. Obviously being worried I walked up to tap his shoulder only to have my hand slapped!

“Leave me be, Issac,” he hissed. I felt a slight burning in the palm of my hand, he had no right to do that. I was about to kill him before Michael stood up to calm me down.

“We all tried doing the same Issac, just leave him be dude.” I took a deep breath and backed away, turning to him and giving him a slight smile of agreement before a loud jingle echoed through the room startling me and everybody else.

A robotic voice spoke on the ship’s intercom: “Attention fellow scientists, please meet at game room, I repeat please meet at game room!” It said it in such a weird aerie robot voice it sent chills jogging down my spine and up. We all walked to the game room, our suits creating clunky noises. We entered the game room meeted by the sight of a stack of board games, a ping pong table in the middle and a soft rug for us to play games and such. Laura looked at me, giving me a small inviting smile.

“Would you like to play ping pong with me?” saying in a soft calming voice. I nodded before going on the other side of the table, grabbing a ping pong racket. Laura did the same, picking up the ball thus starting the game. I was not used to playing ping pong in fact I never played until now. I only played baseball back in Boston and baseball is really easy for me. But for someone who never played ping pong, I was doing surprisingly well. But as I was playing I wasn’t paying attention to the game but I found myself paying attention to Laura! Although everyone was wearing astronaut helmets, I could get a glance at Laura’s marvelous features. Everything from her eyes to her glasses. I felt a special connection to her. I was so focused I didn’t even realize it was resting time before Dr Reinfield snapped me back.

“Issac! Stop daydreaming and making a fool! We need to tend to our pods!” he shouted. Me and Laura put down the ping pong rackets all heading to the sleeping area. I crawled into my pod putting a checker patterned blanket giving me warmth. I slowly but surely began to fall asleep thinking of today. Wasn’t the worst I was expecting on our first day on the ship. Hopefully we finally get to our destination soon but until then, goodnight.

“What happened, where was everyone?!” I was asking myself, barely able to even hold myself up. I made my way into the control room, Michael panicking on the floor and Reinfield having a panic attack in the corner, all but Laura pressing a bunch of buttons on the control panel. She was sweating, her fingers scattered on the control panel.

“Come on! Head east!!!” she yelled, banging her fist. It took me a while before I looked out the big window, we were about to nosedive into a planet.

“We are a lost cause! We’re all going to die!” Reinfield sobbed, spazzing out, simulating a seizure. The ship was accelerating closer and closer to the planet, ready to explode on impact. I took a look at the panel and saw the turning lever was jammed and twisted. For a moment, I began to believe Reinfield. We were in a 120 ton ship about to crash on an unknown floating rock. Just like everybody else, I ducked under the control panel, bracing for impact as Laura did the same. I closed my eyes, a teardrop escaping my eye. I then felt a loud thunder then a boom, after that everything went black. For a brief moment I was dead, or so I thought.

It took a while before my eyes opened, everyone surrounding me. I wasn’t in the ship though but in a tropical jungle-like area. I hunched up from the ground, taking a glimpse of everything around me. I was surrounded by these trees, leaves blue and the wood a light green. It was nothing like Earth, totally separate. Michael lifted me up, my legs shaking.

“You ok, Issac?” Michael questioned, brushing the dirt off my suit.

“I’m good, Mike,” I murmured, making space for myself and walking backwards. All of our space suits were ripped up. Everyone’s helmet had glass missing from half the side. Laura hugged me tightly to the point where I thought she would shatter my bones if they weren’t broken already.

“We thought you died, thank god!” she mumbled in my ear. She pulled away from me turning to Reinfield and Michael, “We must explore this place and find a place to stay before dark!” Reinfield and Michael nodded, following Laura’s lead as she walked off and I followed. My space boots traced against the ground, creating a small trail across the gravely dirt and grime. It was also silent, like everything here had been extinct, not a sign of sound besides our stomping against the ground. We made our way towards a small river in the tropical area, the water flowing through the jungle. The water looked quite mythical. It was a light pink and flowed gracefully. Whilst looking at the river, I heard the sound of distant marching, the type of marching you would hear at military school, the type of marching you would hear from an army approaching. Everyone including me froze, looking behind the path we were walking through. It was hard to make it out but it appeared to be an army. I saw them holding some sort of laser rifle.

“Who the heck are those people?” Reinfield wondered out loud, slowly backing away.

“Keep your calm.” Michael comforted. As they got closer, I got a huge glimpse of what they looked like. They appeared to be some sort of race of aliens! They wore these bulky large hazmat suits covering the entirety of their body back and front. The hazmat suits were black and blue, slightly intimidating me. At last they were standing right infront of us, the hazmat mask reflecting my face like a mirror.

The one in the front then began to speak, “Greetings, who are you all?” the front one asked, its voice sounding like a radio host. I could tell they don’t have a good grasp of English at all. Reinfield stepped up in front of them looking all high and mighty.

“We are courier group 19 of NASA!” he said in a confident, arrogant tone.

The front one spoke again,”We are voyagers of planet Paltopia, servant of r.o.u.g.e. I am 3k-s2r.” Reinfield smirked, going in for a handshake.

“Greetings voyager, pleasure to meet you! I’m Reinfield!” 3k-s2r gently shook his hand, making a metallic sound.

“Reinfield, accompany voyager to temple.” 3k-s2r responded.

“What?” Reinfield said confusingly.

“I think he wants us to come with them to a temple,” Laura mumbled. Reinfield looked the group up and down before giving a conclusion.

“Well then lead the way voyagers!” The voyagers then began to turn left, going the completely opposite direction they came from. I’ve got some bad vibes from them, it looks like some sort of cult but they appeared friendly so I’ll give them a chance. We walked out the jungle and were brought to the site of dead trees and ground grayer than the night sky itself. Everything looked like it had been destroyed. Almost every architecture was rubble or a depressing sight of what was left. My skepticism began to really rise up. What happened here? But nobody seemed to notice that but me. I tried ignoring it, catching up with the group and following them to avoid being rude and make them offended, that’s if they can even feel anger. Among the destroyed apocalyptic sight upon us there was a temple. It was dark gothic and had a superior-like aura amidst all the destroyed things. I looked on my left, seeing Laura and Michael shaking, almost if they had the same thoughts as me while looking at this temple in hindsight.

The voyagers stopped in their tracks once we approached the temple, all giving this weird bow. Eventually, the towering doors of the temple swung open, inviting us in. The four of us went in as some voyagers stood outside, like it was guard duty. My expectations were low. I expected the inside palace to be a ruined mess but surprisingly my expectations were wrong. We were all met with a lavish dining room colored in dark cloth. Before the dining table was a tall aluminum steel pillar standing before us. When we approached it, a neon yellow eye opened up, glancing and looking at us. The pillar was silent before turning its eye to a voyager.

“Who do you bring upon thy temple?” its voice echoed across the temple, making a slight boom sound.

“They are NASA, they need help and saving.” the voyager said in its broken English. The pillar then turned its eye to us. I couldn’t tell what he thought of us, but I hope it was good.

“Ah yes greetings. My name is the r.o.u.g.e ai. It’s a pleasure to meet you humans.” it said in its robotic voice.

“Hello r.o.u.g.e ai. We appreciate your people’s kindness. We really are in a pickle!” Michael said jokingly, snapping his fingers.

“Ah yes humans, it will be a service to help you. I have a guest room for you to stay in.” it responded back. The voyagers then immediately guided us to the room, taking us across the hallway. In my 3 years of robotics in Harvard I’ve never met a robot that was so alive, a robot that felt and… it was mind blowing to me. I look forward to trusting this r.o.u.g.e fellow.

“Noooo!!!!!!” I yelped as I tried to get out of the voyager’s grasp, but it was no use! I watched Laura get dissected like a frog, her arms and legs completely detached from her body. Me, Reinfield and Michael watched in horror, Laura was dead now and there was nothing we could do but watch as the voyagers tossed her body into the pit. R.o.u.g.e laughed like a maniac. The robot that I once had no bad feelings for was a monster!

“What an unfortunate sight my friends!” r.o.u.g.e said mockingly, his yellow neon eye blinking red to blue.

“Monster, monster!” Reinfield yelped. A couple voyagers took r.o.u.g.e away, carrying his pillar-like structure. Upon everyone’s absence, the room began to light on fire, everything surrounded and engulfed in flames. Reinfield began to bang loudly on the door letting out a blood curdling scream. Michael then pointed at a nearby hole, a tiny one at that.

“Issac, escape while you can!” Michael yelled. He shoved me in the hole. It was enough to fit my body.

“You need to get out of here, me and Reinfield must perish for you to go on.” I yelped, clinging on to Michael and the last thing I know, his skin is melted, his face now bone. I sobbed, making my way through the tunnel and exiting the flame room. R.o.u.g.e, voyagers and everyone on this planet will die by my hands. Before they know it, him and this temple are being blown up. I made my way toward a ruined scripture code, one to blow this place to the ground. On the ground was a laser rifle, bingo. I equipped the laser rifle and stormed into the hallway where I shot over 5 voyagers. They made a yelping sound and I didnt feel a thing doing it. I progressed, taking every voyager in my sight, making my way to the main room where I saw him, the monster, standing before me. His yellow eye enhanced at me before he made a loud cackle.

“Impressive for a human but I don’t see you ever getting past me!” I sighed and took out an ammo stock, I was out of fluid. I threw down my laser rifle, charging face first. R.o.u.g.e shot a laser from his eyes giving a quick humble. The laser pierced through my chest sending me crashing down a table. I groaned in pain, clutching my wound. I crawled slowly to the left looking down the dining cloth to see what I could do. But my plans were foiled when I felt a giant claw machine-like arm grab me from above. I was brought into r.o.u.g.e’s vision. Despite having no facial expression I knew he just wanted to skin me alive.

“Foolish, foolish I say! Do you not know who I am? I am the r.o.u.g.e! Ultimate artificial intelligence of this planet! Me and my army included have eradicated almost every race on here. If you think you can surpass me, I will just create more voyagers!” r.o.u.g.e went on to keep talking, which gave me time to think of plans. Looking above me, I saw a large golden giant boulder like thing. Thinking I could crush him with this, in a faith of attempt I was able to trigger the boulder, throwing a pebble-like object at the boulder.

In a blink of an eye, the boulder fell onto r.o.u.g.e’s pillar structure, crushing him immediately. Sparks flew from each spectrum of his body, SIM cards flying and dropping like rain. I fell onto the ground, crawling before r.o.u.g.e. Behind him was the computer to self-destruct the temple, the computer that would end all the chaos. I slipped the paper code into the SIM of the computer, upon slipping it in a 10 second countdown activated. I charged out the temple, dashing across the dining table, the last ounce of adrenaline activated. I looked back and saw it erupt in an explosion ending everything for all.