Chapter Seven

    Andrew and Rolph went into the control room. Uno was in the middle of the circle of computers going through a scan. They approached him.

    Uno stopped scanning, “What do you need?”

    “I apologize for the intrusion,” said Andrew. “Are all robots here connected?”

    “All of the robots are online in the same stream,” he responded.

    “Can you find Sir Droid?” asked Andrew.

    Uno was silent for a minute, “No, he disconnected from the stream four years ago.”

    “Can you see why?” he asked.

    Uno’s thoughtful eyes glowed, “I can only see that he disconnected.”

    “How was he not online when he is on board?” asked Andrew.

    “It is strange that Uno said that all robots are online when that is not the case. I think we should talk about it somewhere else,” he replied. “Uno, can you connect with Eli?”

    There was a moment of silence as Uno attempted to contact Eli, “I’m afraid I’m unable to.”

    “How is this possible to not notice?” Rolph asked.

    “What was the last message from Eli?” Andrew asked

    “The last message was three years ago,” Uno answered. “He warned us about leaving the galaxy, but we were unable to locate a habitable planet.”

    Rolph cleared his throat, “Andrew, let’s go back to your station and talk about this.”

    He went back to Andrew’s station where Sir Droid was still sitting. He was booted the robot back up. Rolph stood by the entrance with his hands arms crossed.

    “How did this happen?” asked Rolph.

    “Too many hands were in this,” said Andrew. “There was a virus that was sent that invaded the message system and cut off all communication.”

    “I still can’t see how this happened,” said Rolph.

    Andrew pointed at the monitor, “This file was sent to us and installed at some point. This was a Trojan program that Sir Droid thought was safe. Whoever sent this invaded our systems and made it impossible to send or read messages.”

    Rolph pulled up a chair, “So, now what?”

    “Well, I’m going to need remove the virus,” he said

    “Does that mean we will need to erase everything and reinstall programs?” asked Rolph “This may affect all of the robots. If you do anything, everyone will know there is something wrong.”

    Andrew sat and thought, “What are you trying to say? Were you alerted that something happened?”

    “No, I was not alerted until you turned off Sir Droid,” he said. “Not all of us utilize the communication system. It is pretty obvious at this point since none of us noticed anything was going on.”

    “We should have caught on since the messages that we did receive were distorted. What do you suggest doing?” Andrew asked. “Are you saying that we should not tell anyone about what happened?”

    “I think we should not say anything. We are so far out here,” said Rolph. “So far most of the crew has died. We do not have enough supplies to return to earth. We’ll all be dead by the time we come home. If we die, the robots would not be available to avoid any future attacks from the hackers.”

    “This does not make sense,” said Andrew. “Basically, you’re saying either way we’re dead.”

    “Unless, Uno finds a planet,” he said. “We want to prevent hackers from using the robots against Earth.”

    “You’re forgetting that no needs direction from Eli and the government,” Andrew reminded him.

    Ralph nodded, “If I think about it, it seems like Uno has been functioning fine without them.”

    Andrew’s eyes widened, “You’re right!”

    There was silence as they sat and thought. Andrew stared at the quarantine folder on the monitor. He sat up and open more programs.

    “What are you doing now?” Rolph asked.

    “I am red flagging the Trojan virus. Sir Droid is going to guard this and alert the robots if there is any activity. If there is activity the robots can block it. They also will not panic,” he said. “I’m also going to review the messaging system to see when communication ended. I am interested to see what happened. For now, I am going to need to block any further messages coming in.”

    “Okay, do that and we will allow messaging once we have everything under control,” Rolph left the room so Andrew could work.