ScareScapes Book Two: Systems Failure!

By Jake Bible

After escaping the dangers of the rogue loader bots and fighting for control of their own cybernetic enhancements, the kid crew finds itself in an even bigger mess. The ship’s systems seem determined to destroy them. If they cannot regain control, the crew faces the possibility of being burned, drowned, or ejected into deep space!

Luckily the kids have an ally, an AI named Ship, willing to help them dodge the forest fires, sur-vive the floods, and escape the space vacuum, all while they search to unravel the mystery of what is happening to the Scorpio!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: May 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618685223

Book preview

Scarescapes Book Two:

Systems Failure!

Jake Bible

A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

Published at Smashwords

ISBN: 978-1-61868-521-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-522-3

SCARESCAPES BOOK TWO

Systems Failure!

© 2015 by Jake Bible

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Jack Keely

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Permuted Press

109 International Drive, Suite 300

Franklin, TN 37067

http://permutedpress.com

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

Chapter One

When you have a cybernetic eye, you get used to seeing things that others can’t.

Sure, the rest of the kids that woke up with me on the Earth Colony Asteroid Scorpio have cybernetic parts too, but they don’t get asked to scan this or scan that. They get to run fast and break stuff or jack into the mainframe and open hidden doors.

I get told to stare at a cloud.

My sister, Isla, who is thirteen and currently the Scorpio’s captain, has cybernetic legs. To say she can run fast is an understatement or two. Not to mention the whole jumping really high thing.

Landon Fields, security chief and thirteen as well, has all of his joints replaced with cybernetics and his bones are laced with titanium to handle the stress. He’s pretty fast too, and strong. His nine year old little sister, Ajay, has cybernetic lungs. No clue what those can do. Maybe she can blow big bubbles?

There’s Bessie Sacher, Systems Chief and almost thirteen, who has cybernetic hands. She can jack into the the ECA Scorpio directly and control pretty much every system she wants. That’s kinda cool. I’ll admit that.

Can’t forget the twins, Carlos and Enrico Barraza, both eleven since they’re, well, twins; they are supposed to be in charge of Health, but Health won’t let them be in charge of anything. Which is good since mostly they just goof off and get in everyone’s way, while also getting on everyone’s nerves. They’re my best friends. Carlos has a reinforced spine and ribcage while Enrico has cybernetic ears, sinuses, and a voicebox. He does killer voice impressions.

We’re the crew of the Earth Colony Asteroid Scorpio, one of twelve ECAs sent out into space over a thousand years ago in order to find inhabitable planets for humanity. 10,000 people were put into cryosleep on the Scorpio for the mission, ready to wake up after 100 years.

That didn’t work out so well. Guess there was a glitch in that plan of waking everyone up in a hundred years thing.

A thousand years later and only the seven of us were woken up by the ship’s Artificial Intelligence protocols—Systems, Security, Supply, Health, Tutor, and the one running it all, Pilot. Since our bodies were in a cryosleep coma for so long, some of our parts had to be replaced. Hence the cybernetics—basically robot parts that look like human parts.

Which brings me back to the whole having a cybernetic eye thing and why I get asked to scan everything. I can see in spectrums the human eye can’t. All those spectrums go right into my brain where luckily, being a really smart guy, I can figure out what I’m looking at. Most of the time.

Right now is not one of those times.

Here we are, just chilling out in the sky dome, which is a secondary shield dome that houses all of the terraformed parts of the asteroid—fields, orchards, forests, lakes, you name it. The AIs were busy while we were stuck in cryosleep. They changed parts of the asteroid and got this place up and running, making sure that there would be food and resources for us.

Good for them.

That doesn’t help us now as Bessie sits up and squints into the fake sunlight above. She studies a spot for a second then looks over at me.

What does that look like to you? she asks. Is it composed like a real cloud?

How do I know what a real cloud is composed of? I say. It looks like a cloud.

Which isn’t exactly true. I can remember what clouds looked like back on Earth before we were shot out into space on the Scorpio. This thing doesn’t look like a cloud.

What? Bessie asks, standing up quickly as she studies my face.

Stare much, Bessie?

If it’s a cloud, it isn’t made up of water particles, I say.

So you do know what a cloud is. My sister laughs.

Hush, Bessie snaps.

Isla starts to reply, but sees the serious look on Bessie’s face and clams up. Good idea.

What’s wrong? Isla asks.

Felix? What is it? Bessie asks.

Landon and Isla both get to their feet and shield their eyes as the cloud lengthens and moves faster towards us.

I don’t know, I say. I really don’t know. The colors are all over the spectrum. It keeps changing.

It does. The fruiting thing is showing up on all the electromagnetic spectrums, not just visible light. I’m seeing infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, and so on. I can see it all, which is something not even my sister knows. She thinks I can see visible light, ultraviolet, infrared and X-rays. She has no idea I can see everything, if I want to.

Mostly I don’t want to because it gives me a headache. You ever try staring at something down to the tiniest molecule? It isn’t as fun as it sounds. It’s actually sorta boring.

Attention crew members, Systems’s voice booms. For your own safety, please do not enter the secondary shield dome. Systems diagnostics will begin in fifteen minutes.

Systems! Stop! Bessie orders. We’re in the dome!

Again, attention all crew members, Systems announces one more time. For your own safety, please do not enter the dome. Systems diagnostics in fifteen minutes. Have a nice day.

Systems? Systems! Stop! Bessie shouts. This is Chief Sacher ordering you to stop the diagnostics in the sky dome!

No response. Nothing.

Systems!

Still nothing. Systems is being a total jerk.

We should get out of here, Landon says, scooping Ajay up into his arms.

Good call, Carlos says, hopping on one of the hover bikes we had been playing around with in the field by the orchard here. Race you to the hatch!

Enrico looks at me, I look at him, and we get on ours and hurry off to the portal hatch, leaving everyone else behind.

Thanks! Isla shouts.

I’m not trying to be a fruiting jerk, but I need to get away from Ajay’s whining and Isla and Bessie’s bickering. Those two are both like head over heels for Landon, which makes me wanna puke. I don’t think well when I wanna puke.

Dude, Carlos says, ditching his hover bike by the portal hatch that leads from the sky dome and back inside the main part of the Scorpio. Tell me we’re going to be okay, okay?

I don’t fruiting know, I snap.

The hatch isn’t too far away from the orchard, so everyone else catches up to us quickly. No one is really panicking yet, which is good since panicking kinda irritates me.

Actually almost everything on this fruiting ship irritates me.

By the way, fruit is our special curse word. We’ve used some real ones, but