In2Minds2

By Theresa Snyder and David Stevens

Commander Tait knows the odds are against him, they always have been, but he is driven to return to Home World to find the love he left behind.
Will he find her or will it be another who is waiting... waiting to destroy him and silence the secrets he might reveal to an unknowing population?
What Commander Tait finds on his return to Home World will astound him and make him question his entire existence. An existence which might end at the hands of his creators.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theresa Snyder
• Release date: Nov 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370720705

Theresa Snyder

Theresa Snyder is a multi-genre writer with an internationally read blog. Theresa grew up on a diet of B&W Scifi films like Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still. She is a voracious reader and her character driven writing is influenced by the early works of Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffery and L. Ron Hubbard. She loves to travel, but makes her home in Oregon where her elder father and she share a home and the maintenance of the resident cat, wild birds, squirrels, garden and an occasional dragon house guest.

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In2Minds2

David Stevens

&

Theresa Snyder

Copyright © 2016 Theresa Snyder

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

Ebook formatting by ebooklaunch.com

DEDICATION

To my writing partner, David Stevens, may we explore all the unknowns in this world and beyond

- Theresa Snyder

CONTENTS

BOOKS BY DAVID STEVENS

BOOKS BY THERESA SNYDER

Flashback

1 Missing Two Minutes

2 Manipulation

3 Against My Will

4 This is the Place

5 Searching

6 Monitoring

7 Download

8 The Watchers

9 Observation

10 Second Floor, Number 201

11 The Waiting Game

12 Hold Your Positions

13 Reboot

14 Run for Your Life

15 In2Minds

16 Escape

17 The Plan

18 Lockdown

19 Awakening

20 Space - A very dark place

Epilogue

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

BOOKS BY DAVID STEVENS

Available on Smashwords

Fantasy

Foundation of a King’s Legend

Scifi

A Trainspotter’s Guide to Other Earths

Paranormal

Vampire Retirement

The Vampire War Commences, Vol. 1

The Elders Eradication, Vol. 2

Romance with a Twist

For (4) Women

Transgressions

DavidStevensBooks.Blogspot.com

BOOKS BY THERESA SNYDER

Fantasy

(The Farloft Chronicles)

James & the Dragon

Kingdom of the Last Dragons

Dragon Deception

Three & a Half Dragons

Dragon Memories, Dreams & Reflection

Farloft’s Storybook

Scifi

(The Star Traveler Series)

The Helavite War

The Heirs of Henu

Old Friends/New Enemies

The Malefactors

Cataclysm

A Mear Sleight of Hand

Paranormal

(The Twin Cities Series)

Shifting in The Realms

Shifting Agony & Ecstasy

Shifting Places

Non-fiction Memoirs

We 3.

TheresaSnyderAuthor.com

Flashback

In my two minds I can see the past, but I am blind to the future.

My name is Commander Tait. I am an astronaut who was sent on a one-way mission to terra-form a distant planet. A planet that would one day save the people of Home World, my world, from the destruction predicted by our scientists when our sun goes nova, and burns up our planet.

In my mind’s eye, I see the landing on that distant planet and my construction of the device which would bring the unmanned sleds, filled with the terra-forming materials, up from the station in the asteroid belt around Home World. Humans would not arrive for seventy years. By that time the planet would be livable.

I see the accident that would have cost any human astronaut his life, but I was able to escape with the help of the AI computer entity aboard my ship, which I affectionately refer to as MAI. She is a Model 1 Artificial Intelligence.

She ‘awakened’ me. MAI revealed to me what I really was and why the mere passage of seventy years, until the arrival of the first humans, would not have been a long wait for me, all alone.

For you see, I am a robot. I am an AI. I am a Tactical Artificial Intelligence Technician - Commander T.A.I.T.

Yes, it took some time for that revelation to sink in when MAI told me. I was, and am still, driven by the feeling that I am human. I have this overriding, undeniable belief that I have a wife waiting for me on Home World - a wife who loves me, and one whom I love without reservation.

So, MAI and I formed a plan and refitted one of the sleds to accommodate my human looking form with her intelligence downloaded into my mind. We were, and are, now one. I could not leave her behind. Over the years she had become my companion, my teacher, my friend.

The most difficult part of the return home was avoiding being detected by the station in the asteroid belt from which we launched. You see, AIs are not allowed on Home World. Robots are forbidden due to over population and the need to use the strengths of humankind to perform the everyday duties. At the station, I was surprised and a bit disgusted to see how AIs were treated. They were no more than slaves.

So MAI and I devised a plan to avoid detection and we crash landed in the ocean off one of the main continents of the Home World. It did neither of us any harm. I walked ashore with MAI still safely nestled in and guiding me.

However, I was shocked at what I saw. My guiding force, whether it be programming or true memory, was still to locate my wife, but this was a world I had not expected. A world unlike what I remembered, or had been programmed to remember. It was all a lie!

1 Missing Two Minutes

My name is Melissa Fineing. I am one of the Chief Transportation Officers at LR-9. That is Launch & Recovery Station 9 for those unfamiliar with the acronym. The station is located in the asteroid belt circling the Home World. My job is to monitor the traffic to and from the station, as well as protection of the station and Home World from any invading vehicles or celestial objects. Recently, I witnessed, and allowed to pass, a vehicle from a far distant planet, which eventually crashed on Home World.

I knew the occupant of this craft, or at least I could give an educated guess based on my knowledge, the trajectory, and the design of the craft. I was relatively sure the sled that bypassed the station contained Commander Tait and though my orders were very clear about preventing AI life forms from gaining access to Home World, I was also clear in my mind how I felt about the Commander, his mission and the probable outcome.

I let the sled pass and monitored the crash into the sea off the coast, and not far from the city, where the Commander believed his wife was waiting for him.

Unfortunately, I believe my boss, First Tech Model, might have witnessed my transgression. I don’t know this for sure. What I do know is that I was called to his office and I am now ‘missing’ two minutes of my life. It may sound small to you, but on this station I know for a fact that two minutes can mean a lifetime.

2 Manipulation

First Tech Model sat behind his desk as Melissa Fineing stood at attention before him, her face blank of expression. He was talking, but quietly, almost as though he were talking to himself. In an irritated gesture, he ran his hand over his short dark hair.

You allowed Commander Tait’s vehicle to pass the station and proceed on to the Home World. This was an unfortunate occurrence and totally unforeseen, he mumbled as he took a folder out of his desk drawer.

No matter what he thought now, the decision had already been made and the plan of action instigated. Win or lose there was no turning back. Either way it would be a heavy price to pay to lose the Commander. Model had hoped the AI could be returned to this base and reprogrammed, rather than destroyed, but that would not be the case. He could have convinced himself that such might happen, if it were not for the slight doubt that the Commander’s programming had already