“Alphas,” he tutted under his breath.
“Huh?” He felt a prod in his ribs. He turned to see Anne looking at him confused but skeptical.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “Just hold on another second…”
She huffed and leaned back against the hangar deck wall, also out of sight of anyone who might be walking through.
“Ok. We’re clear,” Giles said after a moment.
“Finally!” Anne huffed impatiently, pushing herself up off the wall and falling in step behind Giles who was stalking out towards the pods.
“Quickly now,” he hissed back to her.
She followed a little faster. “I take it from our clandestine exit that you didn’t clear this with Molly.”
Giles turned back to her and grinned. “Better to ask forgiveness than consent,” he chimed as if his words were on autopilot.
Anne narrowed her eyes. “That’s a ‘no’ then,” she confirmed.
Giles responded carefully. “Oz has authorized the use of the pod.”
“But Molly hasn’t authorized you to take me off base. What if we get caught?”
“Then it will be my responsibility. Do you want ice cream or not?”
“I do,” Anne said insistently. “And you did promise. But I wasn’t talking about getting caught by Molly.”
Giles turned to look at her, his brow furrowed. “Well who else are we going to get caught by?”
Anne’s lips clammed tight. He’d pushed her too far. He knew it. In all their conversations she had been as tight lipped about her story as she was right now. He’d thought that under pressure she might yield. Obviously he was going to have a try another tact.
“Well come on then,” he said, ushering her across to an open pod. “This is me making good on our deal.”
The pair snuck across the remaining decking and climbed into the nearest pod as quickly as they could. The door started to close and Giles showed Anne how to strap herself in.
“You know,” Anne said as she allowed him to close the buckle, “I’m not telling you where the talisman is. Not until I know I can trust you.”
Giles snapped it closed and then started doing up his own harness. “That’s ok. I wouldn’t want you to, until you trust me.”
Anne smiled rather sagely for someone so young. “As long as we understand each other,” she said firmly.
This was one little Estarian who was not to be messed with, Giles thought to himself as he felt well and truly put in his place by the last few minutes of conversation.
All of a sudden the audio in the pod opened up and Oz chimed in. “You know where the talisman is?”
Giles punched the keys to take off. “This is a private conversation Oz,” he said firmly, his voice not letting on that he felt humbled.
“Nothing is private in a pod. Or on base.” Oz told him. “You do realize that I am everywhere, right?”
“Yes, I do,” Giles acknowledged. “And it’s funny that, isn’t it? Thank goodness we’re going to be eating ice cream in an Estarian ice cream parlor for the rest of this conversation.”
Oz went quiet.
Anne snickered.
“What? Nothing to say Oz?” Giles chided.
“Don’t goad me, Kurns!” Oz warned like a jock in a locker room. “I can tell Molly about your plan faster than you can dial a number on your holo.”
Giles looked out of the window as the pod started rising up from it’s storage position, wondering briefly how quickly the pod could get out of the hangar. Not that it couldn’t be recalled. “Ok. ok. I’m sorry,” he conceded. “I appreciate your discretion in this.”
Oz’s voice suddenly became more amicable. “No problem, bro. I got your back. Just don’t piss me off,” he added in a warning tone.
“Would never dream of it, Oz.”
Giles made a face to Anne, who sniggered again, and then returned to her fascination with the pod as it lifted up and carried them gracefully out of the hangar deck door.
AI Lab, Nefertiti Military Research Facility, Ogg
“What’ve we got?” Lugdon strode across the lab, completely disregarding Dickwad Charles who was hard at work at the console nearest the door.
Charles spun round, stunned to see his boss heading straight over to Sue.
Sue got up, but clearly in the middle of something exciting. “You were right, Sir,” she reported enthusiastically as Lugdon approached her. “There was a spike in energy and processing capability which all but slowed all the other planned maintenance to a stop.”
Lugdon stopped in front of her console. “And when was this?”
She lowered her eyes to the floor. “The night before she was discharged.”
Lugdon bobbed his head, wracking his brain. “We need to find her,” he concluded.
He pulled up a holoscreen and punched an order through to all available domestic units. “Ok. We’ll have our normal patrols out looking for her within the hour.”
Sue shoulders relaxed an inch. “Good,” she muttered, fiddling with the back of the seat she had been sitting on.
Charles ambled over, wanting in on the excitement. “What’s going on?”
Sue glanced at Lugdon who nodded, clearing her to explain. “Looks like the AI was… born the night before Molly was discharged.”
Charles frowned. “What does that mean?”
Lugdon rocked forwards then backwards on the soles of his feet. “Given the circumstances we can only assume that she downloaded the new entity and ran.”
The furrow in Charles’s brow deepened. “So how come we haven’t been attacked by the AI? Or what… she didn’t sell it to the enemy?” His mind scrambled to understand what might have happened and why.
Lugdon sighed, folding his arms. “We don’t know that she didn’t.”
Sue shuffled her feet nervously and moved her swivel chair under the desk. “I must say, that doesn’t sound a bit like Molly.”
Charles tilted his head and then folded his arms, subconsciously mirroring their boss. “No,” he agreed. “But… you think you know people, and then…” His voice trailed off.
There was a moment of silence amongst the three, leaving only the buzzing of the fans filling the airwaves in the minimalist laboratory.
Sue awkwardly folded her arms too, her awareness drifting off to some place else. “-they fuck you over in the worst way possible,” she muttered, “leaving your heart bleeding out of you while your soul withers away in agony.”
Disturbed from their own tactical thoughts Charles and Lugdon turned their heads slowly to look at Sue, both men with raised eyebrows.
Suddenly aware of their gaze she looked up at them. “What?” she protested, bemused by their reaction to her. “I’m just sayin.’”
The sound of the computers fans dominated their consciousness again for a brief moment.
“In any case,” Lugdon continued, breaking the lull, “We find Molly, we find the AI.”
“Oz,” Charles corrected him.
“Right, Oz,” he repeated, quietly irritated that he had to learn names of inorganics as well as his personnel.
Sue interjected. “And then what?”
“Then,” he declared, “we bring them in.” Lugdon tightened his jaw. “At best they’re a security threat.”
Charles looked at Sue who was seeming equally concerned at where this was going. “And at worst?”
Captain Lugdon mulled his reply for a moment. “At worst they’re the enemy.”
Just then, his holo beeped. He immediately accepted the call, listening passively. “Understood,” he confirmed, and closed the line again.
He raised his eyes back to the pair of tech experts. “Seems that there are no existing images we can use on our facial rec systems. No DNA on file. Nothing we can use to track her.”
Charles frowned, confused. “That’s highly unusual,” he posited in his analytical voice.
Sue pursed her lips. “Shit
.” She’d connected the dots, cursing under her breath. She knew what this looked like. Lugdon eyed her suspiciously. He couldn’t help but wonder that maybe she was putting on an act. No way she would want the military out looking for her former friend.
“Hang on,” Charles piped up. He scurried off out of the door and into the adjoining prep room they shared with the chemistry team. Sue could hear him opening up one of the lockers.
Moments later he reemerged with a look of triumph, holding a printed image. “This might help!” he announced, holding the paper up. He handed it over to his boss who looked at it for a moment, before raising his eyebrows.
“Yes. This will do nicely, I believe.” Lugdon took the piece of paper off his subordinate and started for the door. “I’ll have the support team upload it to the servers immediately. They’ll be able to extrapolate and use it for tracking her down, I’m sure.”
Lugdon disappeared out into the corridor, the sound of his shoes tap tap tapping his retreat.
Sue scowled at Charles. “What did you give him?” she demanded.
Charles shrugged, heading back to his console. “That picture we took during one of our drinking games. I’d kept it in my locker, just as a memento.”
Sue’s jaw dropped, horrified at his betrayal. “You sold her out, you scoundrel!” Sue growled at him as he continued to walk away. “She’s one of us!”
“Look,” Charles said, turning suddenly with a look of determination that froze Sue’s anger. “She used to be one of us. But now she’s not. She left us… remember? That’s not what friends do!”
Sue wasn’t sure from this distance, but it looked like there was more to Charles’s sudden outburst than just trying to make right with the boss and the company line.
She blinked a couple of times as the dots connected. “You… You had a thing for her?” she stammered.
Charles turned on his heels and pulled out his swivel chair. “Yeah, well. It’s irrelevant now. She left. And now she’s a dead woman walking. She saw to that when she walked out without even saying goodbye.”
He plonked himself down, fuming.
Sue could tell she wasn’t going to get any further with him while he was in this mood. Frustrated and angry she backed off for the time being.
She could always invite him for a drink in the base hole in the wall later on.
Chapter 3
Ice cream Parlor, Uptarlung
“So you mean to tell me that all this time you’ve been hiding that you have… powers?” Giles watched Anne attacking the last chunks of ice cream in the bottom of the glass.
The ice cream parlor was busy enough to remain anonymous, but quiet enough for them to be able to talk.
Anne nodded, finishing the liquid bottom of her ice cream sundae. She seemed happy to be off the base, and Giles guessed probably thankful for some attention which wasn’t trying to determine how much of a security threat she might be.
Giles stroked his face thoughtfully, tinkering his teaspoon in the saucer against his mocha cup.
“You know,” he confided, “Molly has certain… abilities too, don’t you?”
Anne nodded.
“And you still don’t think you can trust her?”
Anne shrugged, her eyes still not leaving the glass she was cleaning out with her spoon. “I don’t know her,” she replied simply.
Giles bobbed his head and took another sip of his mocha. “Fair point.”
She raised her eyes for a moment, her spoon mid scoop. “So, you think you can help me?”
Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them buying himself time to think. This girl was young, but she was nobody’s fool. And she was turning out to be quite the resourceful negotiator. “I think we can help each other. Although, in order to do that I’m going to need you to tell my friend everything you’ve just told me.”
“Who is your friend?” she asked, placing her long tailed spoon down on the saucer her ice cream sundae glass stood in.
“Her name is Arlene Bailey,” he explained. “But you can call her Auntie Arlene.”
He winked at her playfully.
Her face was unmoved. “I’m not a kid you know.”
Giles smiled awkwardly, knowing he’d been rebuked. “Very well. You can call her Arlene,” he conceded. “You will thank me… and probably hate me. But she is not only the best person to guide you with your special… condition… but she and I have also been working tirelessly to make sure the talismans don’t end up in the wrong hands.”
Anne eye’d him carefully.
Giles grinned. “Yeah yeah, and you need to be sure that ours aren’t the wrong hands!” He held his hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry… I get it.”
Anne allowed her defenses to drop and smiled awkwardly for the first time in a long time. “Ok then,” she agreed.
“Well good then,” he said, sitting back in his chair, finally relaxing. “Let me talk to Arlene, and we’ll set up a meeting.”
“When?”
“Soon. Sometime soon,” he promised.
“Ok. Can we go for a walk on the high street now?” she asked, her attention now on the street beyond the window they sat in.
Giles smiled. It was probably about time he took some time off to experience living like a normal, planetary person. He’d not done that for a while. “Yes. I think we ought to,” he agreed, watching Anne already shuffling out of their booth and straightening herself up.
Skóli Uppstigs Academy, Spire, Estaria
The bell rang hailing the end of class, and in fact, the end of the day.
Molly stopped speaking mid-sentence. “Saved by the bell,” she smiled at her class. “Have a read of the next two chapters, and we’ll discuss next session. And if anyone can give me any examples of when extraordinary communications have resolved conflicts without a single bullet being fired, you’ll get extra credit.” She raised her voice, “Let’s push the possibilities people!” she said, expecting to need to be louder to be heard above the hub bub of students packing up and chattering.
She even used Joel’s rounding up, shipping out hand gesture to mobilize her class, expecting them to get up and leave.
No one stirred.
She looked at her holo, checking the time.
It was the end of the day.
She stood up. “Folks, that’s all for today,” she said, a little more uncertain in her demeanor. She scanned the faces in front of her. Still no one moved.
Eventually the girl who had given her her protein shake raised her hand. “Sorry Ms. Bates. It’s just… erm. You promised to tell us at least one story after an end of day class last week. You know… if everyone handed in a paper.”
Molly’s face dropped. “Oh. Erm. Right. Yes… it’s… today.” She had stood up from perching on the front bench, but now realizing that she had not yet been dismissed by her class she sat back down.
She thought a moment, “Well. I guess I could tell you about what happened this morning…”
The class shuffled and excitedly closed their holos to listen to her tale.
After a few minutes Molly was in full throws of the story, the rest of the building quiet now that the other classes had left.
All that existed were her and the class… and the adventure she was weaving for them in the moment. In fact, Molly was so absorbed in recounting the event she didn’t notice Giles quietly slip in the door and take a seat a couple of rows back.
Neither did any of the students.
* * *
Molly didn’t know how long she had been talking but a rap at the classroom door window broke the trance.
It was Joel.
She beckoned him in.
“Sorry to interrupt, but the team was wondering if you were going to be finishing up any time soon. Also… it seems that Giles has gone missing.”
There was a nervous twitter throughout the class.
Giles’s voice chirped up from the midst of the cla
ss. “No. No I haven’t,” he confessed. “I’m here.”
Heads turned to him, shocked he was in their midst.
“I just wasn’t answering,” he admitted, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
There were a few sniggers from the back row. Molly cast them a look that silenced them immediately. She turned to Joel. “Security crisis averted, it seems,” she reported dryly.
Joel tried to keep his face straight. He was clearly amused, even though he shouldn’t have been. “Seems so. So… are you… planning to stay the night here?” He looked around the room a second before looking back to Molly, “Pajama party?”
Molly chuckled. “Goodness no. I… they just. I promised them last week. That’s all,” she explained, using one hand that she had uncrossed from her folded arms.
Joel nodded. “Fine. So, our meeting?”
Molly’s face dropped. “Shit! Yes! Sorry!”
She looked to the class. “I’m sorry guys, we’re going to have to finish up another time…”
There was a collective groan, followed by an air of resignation as the students started packing up their things.
Giles collected his beat-up leather bag and armful of maps and headed for the door. Joel caught his arm before he could disappear. “I’d check in with Arlene, Professor. She was concerned you’d been kidnapped or something. Worried about finding you in a ditch or somesuch.” Joel shrugged, not quiet understanding the strange idioms Arlene would use now and again.
Giles seemed to understand. “Of course. I’ll… head over there now. She’s in her office?”
Joel nodded. “Last we spoke…”
Giles nodded to Molly, who smiled and twiddled her fingers at him. He grinned in response, nearly bumping into the door frame before correcting his course and heading out of the room.
Joel watched him leave, then turned his attention to Molly. “Since when did he join your class?”
Molly smiled and shrugged. “I dunno. But I’ve got a funny feeling that someone is itching to get back out into the field.”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 154
