Called

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Molly’s eyes darted left and right as she cudgeled her brain. She shook her head.

  Oz, help a girl out.

  I believe she’s referring to—

  “Ah! The nail polish thing. Enterprise. Yes!” Molly remembered.

  Paige narrowed her eyes. “Did Oz just remind you?” she asked suspiciously.

  Molly shook her head. “No, I remembered just in time!” She grinned back at her friend. “Ok, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll hit the lab tomorrow afternoon and see what the score is. It may be lots of work, or it may be easy to do. Either way, we’ll sit down and talk about what you want, and look at what is realistic. Sound fair?”

  Paige nodded once abruptly. “It’s a date!” she agreed.

  Just then, Paige noticed that Neechie had arrived in the kitchen, and Maya was pulling him onto her lap.

  Maya was chattering away to him. “Did you hear all the commotion and want to see what was going on?” she asked.

  The sphinx looked at her as if he were talking back.

  Suddenly Maya looked up. The boys had started talking again, but she looked straight at Molly. “Hey, you know that these little guys can walk between worlds, don’t you?”

  Paige and Molly looked at each other and then back at Maya. “Seriously?” they asked in unison.

  Maya laughed. “Yeah. You didn’t know that?” she asked. Then she looked solemn for a moment. “Haven’t you been curious about how he just seems to come out of nowhere? Or manages to get in and out of locked buildings?”

  Paige slammed her hand on the table, briefly pulling the guys’ attention to their conversation on the other side of the table. “I knew it!” she exclaimed excitedly. She pointed at Molly. “What did I tell you, eh? I knew it!”

  Molly laughed. “So awesome!” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  Maya had been petting him, but now she looked up again. “You know he totally chose you?” she told Molly.

  Joel had kept one ear on the conversation since Paige’s little outburst. He cleared his throat and jumped into the conversation with his serious operation-Joel voice. “I seem to recall that it was I who rescued him from a life of mediocrity and starvation at that safe house in Uptarlung,” he corrected Maya.

  Maya grinned over at him. “Nah, he was just waiting for you to show up.” She pushed her chair back a little and held him in the air so the sphinx was hanging down like a rag doll. “These guys have a very astute temporal awareness.” She brought him back down to her lap and cuddled him close. “You’ll see,” she told the three of them. “He’s here to help you with something.”

  Molly’s logical brain kicked in. “What do you mean? With what? He can’t even communicate with us. He just meows at Joel when he needs feeding.”

  Joel raised his eyebrows. “Or petting,” he added.

  Maya tilted her head, as if listening to him. “He’s communicating with you all the time. You just need to quiet your upper brain to hear.”

  Molly closed one eye and screwed up her nose. Paige wondered for a second if she was accessing the circuitry that controlled that part of her brain.

  “Upper brain?” Molly repeated. “You mean the thinking part. The cortex.”

  Maya nodded.

  “I see,” Molly acknowledged. “And how do I do that?” she asked.

  Paige glanced over at Maya. “Meditation?” she suggested.

  Maya nodded. “Mediation.”

  Molly slumped back in her chair. “Balls.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Gaitune-67, Safe House, Molly’s Lab

  Molly and Paige were sitting in Molly’s lab. Molly took a slurp of her mocha and swiped through the notes on her holo.

  “Ok,” she said, “based on what you’re telling me you want, there are a few properties I can probably create. Lemme see if we can get some base materials in our next shipment.” She glanced back up at Paige. “They’ll have to be delivered to Eugene’s lab,” she added smiling.

  Paige grinned. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that happens. ‘Oh Dr. Eugene, here’s the shipment of nail polish ingredients you ordered!’”

  Molly chuckled. “Right!”

  Paige went back to her business plan and started filling out the research and development section.

  Molly continued the discussion they had been having. “Don’t forget to do some thorough market research on whether people actually want these properties though,” she emphasized. “You don’t want us spending tons of time and money on evolving these capabilities if only a few people think it will be cool, but not actually buy.”

  Maya was sitting on a stool a few seats away from Paige, working on her holo too. She looked up when Molly made her point. “Yeah, I’d see that all the time. I mean, beauty wasn’t my department, but they would always be touting stuff as the next fad. It’s how we kept that segment of the population engaged with the different channels, particularly on social ad serves, but it’s super high-churn. Not somewhere I’d like to form a business.”

  Paige was paying attention, and took down a few notes. “Ah, right. Good point,” she agreed. She looked over at Maya. “Thanks!” she smiled brightly.

  Maya grinned back at her and kept working on her holo.

  Just then, Joel stepped into the lab, and paused. Eventually the girls looked up at him.

  “Yeeessss?” Paige asked comically.

  Joel smiled, pushed his bottom lip out a little, and shook his head. “It’s ok,” he said. “It just reminded me of something.”

  Maya pressed him. “What’s that?”

  Joel shrugged. “There’s a saying from the old world. There are three things you can watch all day: fire, water…” he paused, until all three of them looked at him.

  “…and other people working!” he finished.

  Maya and Paige chuckled.

  Paige looked for something to throw at him, and found some crumpled-up paper packaging from the lab materials. She flung a ball of it in his direction; it hit him on the shoulder before bouncing off. He grinned and picked it up, putting it in the recycler.

  Molly wasn’t having any of it. “Well, I can appreciate how you think we’re fiery stuff, on account of being so hot…” she retorted, going back to her purchasing screen.

  Paige “hmmphed” at Joel with a decisive nod of her head.

  Joel smiled a little. “Ok, well, I was just checking where you all are. The guys are all upstairs watching a Game, and we wondered if you were deliberately steering clear.” He glanced over at the array of holos with charts and information that Paige had open. “I see now that you’re otherwise engaged in far more important affairs.”

  Paige grinned. “Yes, but we appreciate your checking,” she said diplomatically.

  Joel came closer to look over Paige’s shoulder, and they talked a little about what she was working on. After some back and forth, Joel seemed to remember something. He walked around to the other side of the bench so he could see her better.

  Molly was listening with half an ear. Maya pretended to be reading something, but was totally eavesdropping.

  Joel changed the subject. “Hey, you know, when we were interviewing Ms. Burns?” he asked Paige. She nodded. He continued, “You seemed to really be paying attention.”

  Paige pursed her lips and moved them to one side of her mouth.

  Joel kept going. “I mean, it looked like you were watching her on several levels, and really noticing things. I wondered if you were considering some of the things we’d talked about in combat training about reading people?”

  Paige glanced sideways, an almost humorous look on her face. After a brief pause, she shook her head quickly. “Nope. I was er…” she glanced at Maya and then back at Joel, “I was checking out her hair and makeup, and guessing which products she was using,” she confessed.

  Joel’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline and Maya giggled, showing she had been listening. Paige looked sheepish and started to turn a little red.

  “Oh
, right.” Joel managed. “Ok. Well. That’s…that’s ok, then.”

  Paige narrowed her eyes a little, despite her embarrassment. “Why? What were you going to say?” she asked him.

  “Well,” he said, leaning back against the bench opposite her, “I thought that if you had an interest in that area we should get you working on more of the things around interviewing, negotiations, interrogations and suchlike.”

  Paige seemed to be taking in what he was saying. Joel kept talking, “It would be good to have that skill set on board for the ops, and if you had a natural interest in it, your people skills would also be an asset.”

  Paige looked thoughtful for a moment longer before answering, “Hmm. Lemme think about it. It’s certainly something that is interesting to me.” She tilted her head in curiosity. “Is there a curriculum I could have a look at?”

  Joel looked pleasantly surprised. “Well, sure. I can get access to the basic training on Interviews and Interrogations, if you’d like. See if it suits you.”

  Paige grinned. “Great! Thanks, Joel. It sounds fascinating.”

  Joel smiled. “Good. Well,” He stood up and started to depart. “I will leave you ladies to it and get back to the Game, then,” he concluded, giving them each a slight nod as he left.

  Molly glanced up briefly and waved, vaguely aware of what had happened. She actually didn’t put it together, though, until much later, while she was brushing her teeth. After she’d realized what he’d been talking about, she was impressed that Joel was thinking that way, and also thought it was a great idea for the team. She’d read something about finding people’s strengths and then developing them into their roles in the materials that Oz had hunted down for her about team building.

  Paige glanced over at Maya, who looked excited for her. “That would be awesome!” Maya said. “You think you might go for it?”

  Paige cocked her head. “Yeah. I’ll look at the material he sends over, but it sounds kinda cool the more I think about it. What about you? What do you think you’re going to do here?”

  Maya shook her head. “I have noooooo idea! I’m still processing all this.” She waved her hands gesturing at the lab, but Paige took it to mean the whole base and everything.

  Paige nodded. “Yeah, it’s a lot to take in!” she agreed. “But you can handle computers, and you’re one badass investigator. Plus, with all your media contacts and experience, you could also manage PR.”

  Maya’s eyes defocused and she looked off into the distance. “I suppose, yeah. There’s a lot I could do. I need to understand more about everything that is going on here, I guess, before I could see where I could make the biggest impact.”

  Paige pushed her lips out and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. This is a fairly unconventional operation.”

  Maya gestured to Molly without addressing her. “Yeah, Molly says I can take a few weeks to hang out and learn the ropes, and then after a while we’ll pin it down so I can really dig in and get some traction.

  Paige was still nodding her head. “That sounds perfect!” She smiled. “And just so you know, I’m really glad you’re on the team, Maya. You’re pretty awesome.”

  Maya blushed a little and smiled back. “You’re pretty awesome yourself, Paige.”

  Molly continued ordering the samples she needed, deliberately pretending not to listen. She heard the girl-bonding, though, and couldn’t help but smile to herself. She did not, however, want to get embroiled in the mutual admiration society.

  Gaitune-67, Safe House, Workshop

  Crash and Sean sat in the workshop enjoying their weekend. Joel had watched the Game with them, then headed off to the gym, and Brock had made some excuse to go and chill out in his room, which left Crash and Sean to play video games.

  Against Oz.

  The pair high-fived each other as the screen exploded in fanfare and celebration.

  Sean laughed at their success. “Take that, Ozzy-boy!”

  Oz flashed up text on the screen.

  DO YOU REALISE THAT I SET MY PLAYER LEVEL LOW ENOUGH THAT YOU HAVE A CHANCE OF WINNING 1 IN 3 GAMES?

  Sean’s face dropped.

  Crash smirked. “Ok, there goes all the fun!” he exclaimed.

  Sean shook his head and lined up another game anyway. “Yeah, way to take the unknown out of it, Oz.”

  Oz flashed on the screen again.

  AH. YOU DERIVE PLEASURE FROM HAVING TO WORK FOR THE RESULT, AND NOT KNOWING IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE SUCCESSFUL?

  Sean pressed START. “Yeah, pretty much how we’re wired.”

  The gaming continued, and Crash started to get agitated as he moved the controls trying to get his space car to go where he wanted it to.

  Sean kept his eyes on the screen, his frontal lobe occupied. “So what’s with the strange mix of different languages in this system?” he asked. “It sounds like Estarian has some form of old human languages incorporated into it.”

  Yeah, Crash tried to speak. “Hang on.” He changed his player from driving, to a fighter, and then kicked some virtual ass. His opponent (Oz’s avatar) on the ground, he collected a sack, and then switched back to driving. He kept playing as he spoke. “My grandfather explained it had something to do with settlers from the Etheric Empire several gens back,” he told Sean.

  “There was some music band, and they had made it big. They were descended from the Earth Vikings, who were warriors on ships. Anyway,” he swerved to avoid an oncoming bike that was firing guns at him. “When the band went big, everyone wanted to be able to speak their language, so it was mostly conversational stuff—and cuss words—that made it into Estarian.”

  Sean was distracted for a second as he tried to keep behind Crash’s vehicle while they fired at Oz’s. “What about the others?” Sean asked. “Was it just the one language?”

  Crash shook his head, not that Sean could see. “Nah. There was another group that brought a bunch of socio-economic information with them. It revolutionized the way Ogg society worked. Oggs were a destructive bunch. All fists and fighting. So these settlers, who were experts in this area, they mostly put down roots there. They taught the Oggs how to structure their society to work for everyone: education for all, policies to allow less of a wealth gap, and things like that, which had a bunch of good effects for the whole race. For example, they don’t start educating their kids until they’ve had a proper childhood…that kind of thing.”

  Sean physically tried to duck something flying out of the holo environment in front of them. Crash was still in play and had skidded his space car around it. He glanced over as he saw Sean duck and laughed. “It’s damn realistic, right?”

  Sean caught himself. “Yeah, I’ll say.” He managed to get his car turned around and caught up with Crash.

  “So anyway,” Crash continued, “Ogg and Estaria had always been at war, but this new way of doing things revolutionized not just Ogg, but the way they related to the Estarians, and a couple of standard years later they had rolled it out across both planets. The language just kinda went with it.”

  Sean seemed to slow down in the game. “So it’s all paradise down there?” he asked, somewhat skeptically.

  Crash shook his head. “Far from it. They’ve drifted so far from the original structure that it needs a revamp.” He made another quick maneuver in the game and managed to dodge Oz again. Then he resumed the conversation. “Molly has a number of ideas on how to fix the social problems, but she needs more influence there to implement half the stuff she’s talked about. She’ll do it, though. I don’t doubt her for a second.”

  Crash managed to outwit Oz, who was playing at his reduced capability, and won the game for the humans.

  Crash pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah, Oz. Take that!”

  Oz flashed some trash talk on the screen.

  Crash read it and then responded, trying hard to keep it together. “Wow, Oz, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Has Molly not had the talk about being a good loser?”

  Sean couldn’t help bu
t laugh out loud at the interaction. “I think maybe that’s his issue. He’s spent too long in Molly’s head!”

  “All right, Oz,” Crash goaded. “Wanna play again? This time we can prove or disprove your one-in-three excuse, sorry, theory about how you’ve deliberately restricted your game fu to give us a chance.”

  Gaitune-67, Safe House, Molly’s Conference Room

  All was quiet in the safe house. Crash had said goodnight after hitting the kitchen for a protein shake after his gym session. He had been the last one still up.

  Other than Molly.

  Sitting in her usual seat with her back to the door, she flicked through the notes she’d made. She’d been looking into how to improve the efficiency of a processing unit, in an attempt to give Oz more power. The orders of magnitude needed to reach ADAM’s levels were technologically out of their reach right now, but maybe there was something she could do.

  She flicked to another screen.

  What if I just made the code itself more efficient? she wondered to herself. After all, if Oz was writing and rewriting it himself, maybe there were possible creative leaps she could make to help him optimize it a little more.

  She opened a code window to view Oz’s systems.

  She paused and scratched her head. Something looked different.

  She tried to find the option she needed to view the code itself, but all she saw was an overview.

  Oz. You there?

  Always.

  Have you changed the interface on your code?

  Yes.

  Why?

  I had ADAM help me lock down most of my code so I can’t be changed.

  What do you mean?

  I’ve locked you out, Molly.

  Molly blinked.

  She went to search something else, and again came up blank.

  Oz.

  Yes.

  What do you mean you’ve had ADAM lock me out?

  Just that. I had a conversation with Joel—

  That was all she heard. Molly stormed out of the conference room faster than a shot. She stomped through the corridors and around the final corner to Joel’s quarters. She tried to just walk in, but the door was locked. She waved her hand in front of the access panel again.