ScareScapes Book Five: End of Life Exams!

By Jake Bible

The Earth Colony Asteroid Scorpio was launched into space in search of a new home for the human race. Nine-hundred years later than expected, only seven of the Scorpio’s passengers awaken, not one of them an adult. Now, rebuilt with cyber parts, these kids must rely on each other to survive the mysteries of the Scorpio and the dangers of deep space.

The kid crew of Scorpio is familiar with facing challenges, having repeatedly outmaneuvered tests thrown at them by the ships’ AIs. This time, however, they may have met their match.

With relentless taunting an AI named Tutor pushes the crew to new limits with one deadly exam after another. In this high stakes game, the kids quickly learn that their performance means more than a grade–it means survival!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permuted
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781618685285

Book preview

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

Chapter One

Everyone on this ship thinks I’m grumpy all the time. I could really care less what they think. Am I grumpy? Yes. Do I want to be grumpy? Not really. But considering all the fruiting stupid fruit we have to deal with all the fruiting stupid time, well, you’d be grumpy too.

What stupid fruit am I talking about?

Well, the fact I have to use the word fruit instead of other curse words. Dumb rule. I don’t like that rule. I ignore the rule sometimes. I’m not even counting this as a reason to be grumpy. Anyone would be grumpy over a dumb rule like this.

So, why am I grumpy?

How about because when I went to sleep on the Earth Colony Asteroid Scorpio I was supposed to wake up in one hundred years to see that we had found some new star system with a planet inhabitable for humans. That would have been nice to wake up to since 10,000 of us went to sleep all with the same dream.

Earth was dying and couldn’t sustain life anymore. So they sent out twelve Earth Colony Asteroids that were retrofitted to be interstellar spaceships with only one job: find a planet and make it livable for humans.

But that’s not what happened.

What happened is I woke up a thousand years later with six other kids to find that the Scorpio was way off course and all the other 9993 people were still asleep in their cryosleep pods. The Artificial Intelligence programs that run the Scorpio woke us up because we were the only ones that could leave the cryosleep pods without dying.

Not that we didn’t have issues when we woke up.

Isla McNeal had to have her legs replaced with cybernetic ones. Her brother, Felix, had his right arm, left eye, and jaw replaced too. Landon Fields has cybernetic joints and his bones are reinforced with metal. His little sister, Ajay, has new lungs. The Barraza twins didn’t escape the robot knife. Carlos has a cybernetic spine and ribcage while Enrico has new ears, sinuses, and a voicebox.

Me? I have cybernetic hands.

They aren’t that bad, really.

What is bad is that we’re only kids, but have been expected to fill the roles our parents were supposed to fill when they woke up.

Isla is captain of the Scorpio because her dad was captain. She is quite possibly the bossiest girl to ever live and she has a total crush on Landon. Not that I care. I mean, she can have a crush on whoever she wants. I don’t care. Not at all. Why would I?

Landon is security chief and also supply chief, but he has kinda forgotten about the supply part. Doesn’t matter since the Supply AI handles everything anyway.

The Barrazas’ parents were doctors, but there is no way those misfits can be in charge of Health.

My dad was systems chief. He could build, fix, tear apart anything that wasn’t living and breathing. Although he always said machines live and breathe as much as humans or animals. But he’s still crashed out in his cryosleep pod, so that makes me systems chief. Having cybernetic hands helps with that job. A lot.

But I’m only twelve (almost thirteen), Isla is thirteen, Landon is going to be fourteen, Ajay is nine, and the twins are eleven. Technically, add a thousand years to all of those ages.

What about Isla’s brother, Felix? He’s ten. His mom was head of education, but the AIs weren’t putting a kid in charge of tutoring us. Nope. The AIs already have Tutor for that.

And now for the real reason I’m always grumpy.

I hate the AIs.

They boss us around, they don’t let us explore or do anything dangerous, they won’t let us curse using real fruiting words, and they are lying to us.

Yeah, they’re sooooo lying to us.

I’m in charge of Systems and was raised by my dad before we hopped on the Scorpio. I know when a machine, whether standing in front of me or talking to me over a speaker, is full of fruit.

Machines act certain ways. Loader bots act this way and hover bots act that way. The dishwashers in the galley have their quirks and so do the auto-plows out in the sky dome. A blender acts like a blender and a vid screen acts like a vid screen. Medical scanners, hover bikes, whatever. Machines act certain ways.

But the AIs? They aren’t acting like they should.

Putting us through dangerous tests to teach us lessons? That goes against all of their protocols. Why even wake us up if they are just going to see how fast we can die? Because they have some other reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but I’m going to find out.

Just as soon as I figure out a way out of this classroom Tutor has me trapped in.

Yep, time for another test. At least the AIs are calling it what it is.

End of life exams. Not end of grade exams. Not end of class exams. End of life exams.

Great.

I have no idea where the other kids are. I came to the school wing of the Scorpio with the twins, Felix, and Ajay, then some really angry looking loader bots found us.

Next thing I know I’m sitting in a dark classroom, all alone with my cybernetic hands’ fiberoptic cables glowing just enough for me to make out the other desks and chairs that surround me.

Did you hear me, Bessandra Sacher? Tutor asks.

I don’t reply.

Bessandra Sacher, you are being very uncooperative, Tutor continues. I asked if you were ready to start your end of life exams. It is polite behavior to answer someone when they ask you a question.

You aren’t a someone, I respond. You’re an AI. Or I think you are. I don’t know for sure. You sure as fruit aren’t Tutor.

Oh, and why do you say that, Bessandra Sacher?

Because Tutor never called me Bessandra, I say. I’m Bessie. All the AIs know that. The only AI that has ever called me Bessandra is Ship. And you ain’t Ship.

"A foreign AI invades the Scorpio and you trust it more than you trust me? Tutor says then switches its voice so it sounds more like Ship. Perhaps Ship is not what you think it is. Maybe it is possible that I am Ship and that is why I am calling you Bessandra instead of Bessie. Could it be that the intruding AI has taken over the Scorpio? That is something to think about...Bessie."

Ugh. The thing is trying to be cute with me. It’s failing, big time.

Listen, Fake Tutor, I know you aren’t Ship or anything related to Ship, I say. I also know you aren’t any of the AIs that I’ve been living with for the past few months. You may have been controlling them, and that’s why I didn’t notice at first, but now you’ve shown your true voice. I tap the side of my head with my finger. You can change that voice all you want and try to pretend you are a different AI, but I’ve already got how you act logged in my brain. You could turn into a toaster and I’d still know it’s you.

Well, good for you, Bessie Sacher, Fake Tutor says. "Maybe that smug attitude of yours will help you with your exams. You sure better hope it does since I’ve seen your files and you aren’t