Star Fields

Chapter No. 135. Decision

Chapter No. 135. Decision

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I realized something was wrong when I prepared to go to the command deck the next morning. I was being electronically assaulted. At first, I thought it was a Tyco attack, but it didn't have the correct protocol markings. I was experiencing an internal attack on my control of the collective, but it wasn't the androids doing it.

I shut the entire system down and searched through the central core system to find the origin of the attack. What I found disturbed me. It was the women in the new group, specifically the 3 M's, Molly, Marie and Margaret. They were trying to wrestle my powers and assume control.

What I was about to do next would not be pretty. In a flash of anger, I made all of the central command group appear in the hidden meeting area near the pool. It was obvious from the expressions on their faces that they knew that I was not happy. They sat there completely frozen as I exacted my verbal retribution.

I rubbed my face and sighed. "I am saddened that you would do this to me. I have bent over backwards to accommodate your wishes, and you rewarded me by trying to take me down. I came very close to just making all of you vanish, but I don't want to destroy you even though it would be within my rights to do so."

I glared at them for several minutes before I calmed down.

Marie was the first to speak. "We are sorry for what we did."

"I don't believe you!" I shouted.

"Please have mercy on us," she said, her voice breaking up.

"Are you going to punish us?" Molly asked in a weak voice.

"I have removed your powers. That will be punishment enough. I have removed powers from all of you."

"We promise not to do anything as stupid at this again," Marie said.

"You say that only because you know that I could easily destroy you."

She cried. "Please don't."

"I thought that we all realized what was at stake, but I see that I was wrong. You are no better than Tyco. How could you be so stupid as to think you could remove me from control?"

They didn't reply, instead lowering their eyes to avoid making eye contact.

"I will send you back to your quarters. Stay there until I summon you."

I teleported all of them, except for one.

"I see that you didn't include me in your diatribe," Alexa said with a hint of a smirk.

I sighed. "I knew that you weren't involved in this."

"It looks like we're back to square one," she said.

I sighed. "You're right. I was foolish to think I could trust them with powers." I turned to stare at her. "Why didn't you join them?"

"I didn't think it wise to do so. They're fools. Besides, I like the fact that you don't mind me being in dark skin."

I chuckled. "That's ironic. My parents were bigots who abhorred dark skinned people. Actually, I think your skin is beautiful."

She smiled. "You are unique."

I shrugged. "I'm just trying to keep us safe."

"You don't have to worry about me," she said. "I will follow you into the gates of Hell."

"I value your commitment. Your reward will be more than you realize."

She stared at me for a moment with a solemn expression before she smiled again. "Oh, and by the way, I've tweaked the emotion algorithms a bit to prevent this from happening again. We don't need those bitches trying to dominate men just because they feel impowered."

"Thanks, I appreciate that."

She gave me a salute and teleported back to her quarters.

It took some time before the enormity of what had happened became known to everyone, but as quickly as it had happened, the effects of it dissipated quickly. The 3 M's stayed in their quarters for a day before they showed up for our communal meal, which I now held in my quarters for just the command group. Despite their egregious sin, I allowed them to continue their duties as if nothing had happened.

I could sense that Alexa's tweaking of the emotions code in the central core had toned everyone down a notch. The 3 M's didn't say much. They were still trying to keep a low profile. The other women also remained quiet, having been scared silly by my threat to make them vanish.

The men also kept quiet, but I could sense that they were happy that the women had been put in their place, so to speak. Little did they know that this didn't have anything to do with their domination of us men.

The evening passed with little discussion. Alice, Ellen, Jessica and Betsy entertained us with songs from a long past era, including the hits; Baby Love, Come See About Me, Stop! In the Name of Love, and Back in My Arms Again."

Alexa loved it as I knew she would.

I retired to my bed to watch some cartoons from the past when Alexa appeared out of thin air.

"Guess what?"

I squinted. "What?"

"I found out why the three bitches tried to take you out."

I sighed. "Let me guess, it was Tyco code."

"Yep. I eliminated it. It was in all three of them."

"Damn that son of a bitch!"

"The worse part of this was that they were planning on destroying their children because they are male."

I shook my head. "That's awful. How can we prevent this from happening again?"

"It turns out it was in them from the beginning. I've started a system wide search for Tyco code in the positronic brains of everyone. So far, we're all clear."

"I suppose we should have realized that. We are all products of Tyco's madness."

She tightened her jaw. "We were spawned by the devil, but he's about to earn our vengeance for his sins against nature."

"How would that be possible?"

"Because his existence is recorded in our operations code, and I'm going to put the three bitches to work delineating it so that we can destroy it forever."

I wasn't sure what she was spouting about, but I felt it was on the right track for eliminating Tyco's influence. Unfortunately, the road to perdition would be paved with suffering.