0:01 (One Past Midnight)

1. Colony 147

The alarms were sounding and blaring furiously in the office of Chairman Briphet, the recently appointed chairman of Colony 147. It was the first time this alarm had rung, not only during his rule as Chairman, but even among his predecessors. Though it had never happened before, every Chairman knows what it is. The alarm meant that someone in the colony had not just attempted, but successfully left the colony to venture to the outside world.

He consulted what was known as 'the manual' for hints and clues on what to do, but sadly the two passages dealing with this possibility were redundant and rather useless at this point. The manual assumed that certain protocols had been put in place to deal with this eventuality but in the many, many years since the colony was founded, no chairman had ever undertaken the necessary steps to prepare for anyone escaping. At the time, though still true to this day, the thought of someone wanting to escape was unfathomable, and so no one bothered to prepare for this.

The manual spoke of several defensive grids to be put in place as well as guard rotations around the few exits that technically existed. The manual even made suggestions for robotics to be built and installed to deter people from attempting escape. It was never expected throughout the making of the manual that any threat from the outside world would come for them, so this was never the focus of any of the manuals written in their time and across the ages.

No, the manuals assumed that the colonies themselves were safe enough from any outside invader and so the focus needed to be on keeping people in. Unfortunately, the manual didn't focus much time or space on these matters either because the writers of the manuals had seen the emerging horrors for themselves; and they could not imagine anyone who had seen what they had would ever want to venture outside again. However, they foresaw that if humanity did survive underground for generations, some who had no idea of what had occurred would want to find out for themselves and "planned" accordingly.

As it turned out such a case had now occurred. After nearly 200 years of isolation from the surface, someone had ventured outside, and no one was prepared to deal with it.

Without delay Chairman Briphet called some of his trusted advisors as well as the head of education and the head of security into his office. He needed to find out firstly, who had left; and secondly, to make plans to retrieve them before the escape caused any problems for the colony by attracting unwanted attention. The AI that oversaw the alarm trigger as well as most functions of the colony, DrOS, was silent throughout the entire meeting.

Finding out who had left took very little time. The head of security prompted DrOS to pull up the footage from the different cameras around the potential exits from several minutes before the alarm started to ring. Within minutes the culprit had been spotted, making no attempt at being sneaky around exit tunnel 3, one of the least accessible exit points of the colony. The head of education ordered DrOS to scan and identify the individual, knowing full well who they were looking at. DrOS identified the culprit to be Melissa 1337, displayed a photo as well as some highlights from her file on a large screen behind Chairman Briphet. She was an older teenager who had caused many problems in education classes before and was flagged down in the system as a troublemaker. She had never been content with the materials of the education classes, at least when it came to the world before the colonies, and was often a massive disturbance.

Sadly and with good reason, no one wanted to venture outside to go after her; but leaving her out there was not an option. None of the advisors had the heart to suggest forcing any human in the colony to venture out there. Even the AI agreed on that point as its directive was to keep the humans who wanted to be in the colonies safe and healthy to the best of its abilities. Most of the members of the meeting were dismissed by Chairman Briphet and returned to their active duties. Briphet told two specific advisors to remain behind to discuss the retrieval of Melissa. The Chairman, the AI, one military and one science advisor were left in the office, pondering how to solve this problem.

The members of the meeting were silent for a while, not sure where to begin the discussion on how to retrieve Melissa in absolute fear of the outside world, until DrOS made the suggestion of sending an automaton after her.

Robotics technology wasn't scarce and was no longer rudimentary as it had been around the time of the great rifting incident and subsequent founding of the colonies, yet it hadn't occurred to any of them in the heat of the moment. There was a good reason for this too, as weapons technology had not evolved particularly well in new underground human societies. Certainly the technology had changed with the development of AI and robotic assistance across the many surviving colonies, but the rather real sense of isolation made the necessity for weaponisation obsolete.

Having all agreed to the idea of an automaton, DrOS suggested many things about the machine, most of which the advisors agreed were possible and manageable. This included modelling the automaton after the teacher that had taught Melissa a few years prior and had died of somewhat natural causes. She was to be modelled physically but also partially mentally after this teacher, Trisha 767, using the mind maps stored in the central imprint database.

Everyone seemed satisfied this was a good idea and both the science and military advisor would take the instructions from DrOS to the manufacturing facilities and build the Trisha robot as soon as possible. They both left, leaving DrOS and chairman Briphet alone.

"Why did you choose Trisha, DrOS?" he asked the AI.

"Data shows Melissa 1337 had respect for Trisha 767 as an educator. Other data shows that after 767's death 1337 became more troublesome. From this I have concluded that using 767's likeness will be effective in achieving the goal you seek, to protect colony 147." DrOS replied confidently.

This was enough for chairman Briphet, as DrOS had yet to fail the colony. Chairman Briphet told him to do whatever was necessary, to which DrOS replied, as it often did, that whatever was necessary to keep those who wanted to be safe, would be done.