Chapter No. 117. New Data.

Never assume anything.

After a spirited discussion, the robots had their answer to my statement about the Tyco threat.

"We have data that might help you," the robot spokesman said.

"Thank you. We appreciate any help you could give us."

"Come with us," he said.

We went with a contingent of robots to the humongous spherical dome. When we entered it, we were astounded by what we saw.

"Holy shit!" I whispered. "This looks like a 3D display of the entire Laniakea Supercluster, which is composed of many galaxy clusters that contain over a hundred thousand galaxies. What we're seeing is a chunk of space over 520 million light years in length."

"Actually, this is a display of space that's billions of light years across," Alice said. "It contains many superclusters."

"How in the hell did they create this?" Molly said.

"I don't know, but this would save us one hell of lot of time."

"We have copied their data, Jason," Alice informed me.

I tuned to the robot spokesman. "We appreciate what you've done here. It will save us a lot of time."

Molly pointed at the middle of the display. "We're from a galaxy in the middle of this."

The robot waved his hand and the display zoomed into the middle.

"That one, there," Molly said, pointing to the Milky way galaxy.

I turned to Alice. "How are they doing this?"

"They are using data from a dimensional plot that has the three dimensional positions of all the galaxies. What we're seeing is simply a three-dimensional projection."

"We need to set up a display like this. We were going to do that when we saw something like this in one of our other contacts."

"We have already done so," she said.

"We're using that," Molly said. "This new data will be a big help."

I turned to the robot. "We appreciate this. We will leave now in peace."

The robots didn't seem to mind. They followed us to our shuttle and watched us board it. None of us said anything on the trip back up to our ship.

After we arrived on the command deck and I sat down in my captain's chair, I decided to say something. "I am surprised that this species didn't do anything threatening. Most species we've encountered were not as cordial."

"Maybe it's because they don't have a central computer system running them," Molly said.

"Yeah, that makes sense."

Alexa turned to me. "You're not going to like what I'm about to tell you."

"What?"

"I've been going through the data banks connected to all of the androids in our collective, and what I've found is absolutely disgusting."

We all turned to her.

"All of the androids are human based. I know you had suspected that some time ago, but I've found that they are all former humans that were personally murdered by this Tyco after he had recorded their data. He also raped every female before he murdered them just like he did to me, and the way I know that is because that bastard placed a phallus symbol after each female name."

"I was afraid of this," I said. "We must have a hundred and sixty thousand androids of the four hair color varieties. If he personally murdered all of them, it would make him the most prolific serial killer of all time."

"I don't get it," Marie said. "If all of these androids are the same as us why are we the ones that have the fancy quarters?"

"That is because you are our leaders, Marie," Judy said. "We are your servants. We do not need to eat and can regenerate in the power cubicles."

"That doesn't make any sense. Why are we the leaders?"

"Because you have the series-5 code," Judy said.

We all exchanged confused glances.

Molly turned to her station and began a search. "I'll work on that."

"No matter what, we have to locate this Tyco code and eliminate it," I said. "Our lives and the lives of one and a half million androids depend on our success."

"I got it," Molly said. "That refers to an advancement of the positronic brain. Evidently, we have this series-5 advancement that they don't have."

"What does it do?"

"Apparently, it allows us to make decisions."

I sighed. "That goes back to the very beginning of this journey. The reason the androids needed us is because they couldn't make decisions."

"What we don't know is how many have this advancement," Molly said.

"I can make a list, but I'll bet it's us and maybe a few others we don't know about yet."

I thought about that and it made me wonder if the Tyco code might be hidden in this Series-5 advancement. I decided to look into it myself because I was afraid that revealing my plans could make the code morph.

Later that evening after supper, we gathered in my living area to discuss the day's happenings, but something else took over. Betsy, Margaret, Molly and Marie brought their respective toddlers with them. Tad, Kevin, Edward and Evan stole all of the attention with their antics, which seemed to be like normal human children. They giggled when held, ran after each other, and screeched when they fell.

Everyone enjoyed their boisterous play. I saw it as us becoming more human through the effect of childbearing. I just wasn't sure if it was a good idea to propagate like this. For one thing, the child of Betsy and Ben, Tad, seemed just as normal as the other children, an indication that he was just as normal. Did it mean that he has the series-5 advanced positronic brain?

"He does, Jason." Alice said, after reading my thoughts. "We are in the process of updating all of our positronic systems."

That made me nervous. I hadn't given them my permission to do that. It meant that I was being deceived again and if the Tyco code was in this series-5 addition, we would be in big trouble.