Aeolus Investigations Set 2: Too Cool To Lose: The Continuing Evolution of Lexi Stevens

by Robert E Colfax

  She gave the Samues a moment to digest that. Ron asked, “And we’re sure she’s out of the simulation now?”

  “All I have to go by is what you see on the monitor. So no, I can’t swear she is. However, she’s disconnected from the educator cap. My best guess is that she is no longer stuck in a simulation. Where she is now and what she’s doing is anybody’s guess.”

  “She looks so peaceful,” Geena remarked, “like she’s sleeping. Why don’t you go ahead and get back to your story, Urania.” Lexi was now fully hooked up the long-term care equipment of the medical suite. She had nutrient and hydration tubes in her arms. Extensor arms massaged her large muscles on a regular basis. Under the sheet, the only thing she wore was a diaper.

  “After Lexi saved my life in the first bout with the derelict’s intelligence, we found ourselves on a simulation of this ship. Sims of both of you were on board. There was even an unconscious simulation of Lexi in the educator chair. I’m still not sure how much of that was the derelict’s doing and how much was Lexi’s own subconscious manipulation of the sim world. I’m not sure Lexi even knows. I do know that toward the end, she was consciously manipulating the sim, setting up her own scenes inside the simulation.”

  She giggled. “Oh, what I haven’t mentioned is the avatar my consciousness was in was a human body. I enjoyed that part more than I can say. It was actually fun. But, back to the important stuff. Evidence suggested that these avatars retain a connection to their physical self. We believe the avatar actually hosts the living consciousness. Since we couldn’t do anything about the Wraixain ship itself, Lexi came up with a plan to take out the ship’s avatar.”

  “And that was?” Ron prompted.

  Urania chuckled. “Lexi invented transporter technology. She converted that marvelous shower, which I finally got to experience first hand, into a transporter pad. We dressed up in sexy renditions of StarFleet uniforms and transported over. All five of us. Remember we had both Lexi-avatar and Lexi-sim. And we took him out. But in the end, it came down to our Lexi. She went mind to mind with him. The fact that I’m back in command-comp where I belong strongly suggests that she won.” She sighed. “I never thought of myself that way before this. I mean I am, or at least I thought I was, command-comp. Not that I was a sentience residing ‘in’ command-comp.”

  Urania’s voice paused. “I’ve got a question for you. At the time I was pulled into the sim, we were four miles from the derelict. When I came out, we were only a thousand feet from it. Why the change? I had to move us to be able to reach the targets Lexi wanted me to Zap.”

  “Back up a minute,” Ron said with a look of genuine concern on his face. “She turned my shower into a transporter room?”

  Urania chuckled. “Yes, Ron, but it was only in a simulation. Apparently, it was convenient. Plus, we didn’t plan on being there long enough to be taking additional showers. Lexi’s implementation of transporter technology is an extension of artificial gravity. Since the shower already had an installed gravity pad and was enclosed it made sense to convert it rather than build from scratch. If you’re in the shower, you’re in the transporter field.” She paused. “Let me add, it was a genuine pleasure working with you guys in the flesh. Your sims were perfect. Completely indistinguishable from your real selves.”

  “It’s always a pleasure working with you, Urania,” Geena said. “I’d like to meet you in the flesh someday.”

  “We didn’t know what was going on but assumed the derelict had to be involved. So I moved us in closer, Urania,” Ron said. “I was planning on suiting up and jumping from one ship to the other. The hyper fields need to overlap to do that with any hope of success. There are rumors that it’s been successfully done before. Why does it matter?”

  “In the simulation, Lexi sent your sim back to move the sim-ship closer to Meat. Because your sim seemed to know things that only the real you should know, she speculated that there was some manner of connection. She believed there was a good chance you would come up with a plausible reason to do the same in the real world. Lexi realized Meat’s entire hull can be thought of as an educator helmet and the interface it generates extends for a short distance beyond the hull. She said she needed to be physically inside his field to fight him.”

  “If Lexi won, and it’s beginning to seem like she always does so let’s go with that as a working hypothesis, then what’s wrong with her now? Why doesn’t she wake up?” Geena asked.

  Urania would have shrugged if she was still an avatar. “I don’t know what is happening with her mind,” she admitted.

  “I do. You already said it, dear,” Ron stated. His voice was firm, without the slightest hint of tension or worry. He was looking at Geena, but it was clear he was referring to Urania. “You guys built, and I quote, ‘a wide-open, two-way channel.’ You also said she went mind to mind with the command-comp of the Wraixain ship from inside his educator field. Knowing Lexi and her unquenchable thirst for knowledge, she downloaded the entire knowledge base of the Wraixain command-comp into her head while she had the chance. And she did it intentionally, ladies.”

  He paused the briefest of moments. “I wish we’d known some of this sooner, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. We’ve been keeping busy doing what we needed to do, anyway. Now, though, you saw how long it took our primaries to burn through that hull. Primaries that lance through hundred mile thick asteroids in a fraction of a second. Whatever that material is, it’s tough beyond anything available with Accord materials. She would have wanted that technology. She took what is essentially the most massive rubric in existence. And again, knowing Lexi, she wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t believed she could handle it.”

  He smiled at them. “Which means she’s going to be OK. It just may take a while. So until she wakes up, we treat her like any other patient in a coma. We’re already doing the right things. We continue with intravenous fluids and nutrients like we’re doing now. We keep up the muscle stimulation therapy so she doesn’t atrophy until she does wake up.” He paused a moment. ”Just out of curiosity, we might want to stop the therapy and see if the hulk-meds prevent muscle loss. I wouldn’t be surprised it they do.

  Urania remarked, “If you’re right, Ron, Geena’s idea of getting Jis involved still makes sense.”

  He nodded, “I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand what they mean when they call each other sister, but it seems clear from the scan that the Rose has something to do with her current condition. Jis knows more about the Rose than anybody. So, yes, as soon as we’re done here, take us to Ackalon please, Urania.” His voice grew stern, “And when she wakes up, we give her hell for risking her life.”

  Although Urania remained silent, she again thought, Ron has no doubt Lexi will be waking up. We always trust Lexi to know what she is doing.

  Chapter 30

  Awaken Dorothy

  Urania continuously monitored the still form on the surgical bed. Ron and Geena spent as much time in the room with Lexi as they could, frequently talking to her although they were not sure whether she could hear them or not. They looked at each other, startled, when Lexi clearly enunciated, “Freakin’ idiots.”

  A glance at the holographic image of the firestorm in Lexi’s brain, unchanged for all of the days she had been unconscious, was visibly calming. The display was looking very close to normal. Well, normal for Lexi.

  “Lexi, darling,” Geena asked softly, “Are you back with us?” She reached out and squeezed Lexi’s hand as she spoke.

  Eyes still closed, Lexi said, “I think I need another minute or two, Glinda.”

  Geena looked at Ron and silently mouthed, “Glinda?” He shrugged. Then he walked around the medical bed to take Lexi’s other hand.

  A few minutes later, Lexi took a deep breath, shuddered and announced, “I’m good now. Let me up, would you please, Urania.”

  The tubes that had been keeping her alive and healthy retracted as did all but one of the straps holding her in place. Muscle massag
e therapy stopped three days ago when Ron speculated it might not be needed. He was right. While they didn’t like experimenting on Lexi, it was something she would want to know.

  When traveling with the hyperdrive active, ship-wide artificial gravity had to be turned off, although the focused mini-pads Lexi invented could be used with relative safety. While there was one under the med-bed, it wasn’t active. Bedsores didn’t develop in zero-gee. Urania said, “Good to have you back, dear. I’m bringing up gravity in here now. Oh, and by the way, you’re wearing a diaper.”

  Ron said, “You had us worried. Please don’t ever do that again. Ah, what did you do, Lexi?”

  She smiled at him as she sat up and stretched. “I finally overdosed on the educator. It took me a while to work through it. Where are we and what are we doing?”

  Urania answered, “We’re eleven weeks out from Ackalon. We were taking you to Jis. Take a look at the brain scan on the holo display.” As she said this, she switched it back to the version with the fireworks. “That’s what your head looked like. You were like that for nearly a week.”

  Lexi twisted around and peered interestedly at the display. “Yeah,” she agreed, “I would have taken me to Jis, too. That explains the diaper, too. I’ll want to take a look at that in more detail later. Er, not the diaper. The scan. Glad you made it back from the sim, Urania. You brought Ron and Geena up to speed on that?”

  “Yes, she did,” Geena said. “Are you going to tell us what happened with you?”

  “Yes, but let me take a quick shower and get some clothes on first. And I think I would like a beer. And potato chips if we still have any. Why hasn’t anyone invented food replicators? The tech isn’t that tricky. Control bay in two or three minutes, say?”

  ***

  Relaxing in one of the command chairs, a cold beer in her hand, savoring the last of the potato chips, Lexi found herself, surprisingly, all things considered, at peace with the world. True, her mental to-do list had expanded by leaps and bounds, and sadly, inventing food replicators fell somewhere near the bottom at the moment, but she could live with that. Plus there was a real chance everyone on every world she knew of was about to be eaten, and she was the only one who could, maybe, possibly, stop it. No pressure there, right? They still needed to hook up with Jis first before dealing with that anyway.

  “Geena, sorry I called you ‘Glinda’ when I was waking up. I was still partially in a dream. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to Ackalon. In retrospect, some of it is pretty funny. It seemed real at the time, though.” She took another sip of her beer. “Ron,” Lexi continued, “when you were on Earth looking for the Rose, did you ever tell Geena I was the smartest person you knew?”

  He looked at Geena, then back to Lexi. “Probably. No. Yes, a few weeks before you stowed away and we left. She met me in town for lunch. We were admitting to ourselves it was time to give up and go home. Why?”

  Lexi smiled at him. “Food for thought is all. I’m still putting the pieces together. Ron-sim told me to ask you that when I got back. Which begs the question, how did Ron-sim know? I’ve got an idea on that, but no way to prove or disprove it.”

  “OK. I’m curious,” Ron said.

  “My consciousness was hosted in an avatar in Meat’s sim-world. My physical brain was linked into an educator circuit on this ship. My brain not only contains the Rose, the sections involved in telepathy are still slightly active from the stimulation of the Barossa Channel. That means I can, potentially at least, influence the behavior of those near me. Convoluted yes, but it would explain how Ron’s sim seemed to be linked to Ron himself. If my mind was linking me to Ron.” She hesitated. “We already knew that I am developing abilities similar to those Jis has.”

  “We shouldn’t be surprised by that,” Geena responded. “You’ve had the pattern of the Rose in your head for a while now. I don’t know that the Rose is pertinent to the current situation though. We can discuss that later if you want. It seems we no longer need to rush to Ackalon, either.” She paused. “Do you remember calling me Glinda?”

  “Yes. I was a bit disoriented. Sorry, but it made sense to me. I thought you were the good witch of the north.” She smiled. “Sorry your Louis Vuittons got ruined.”

  Geena frowned. “All things considered, ruined dream shoes are the least of my concerns. Before you called me Glinda, you clearly said ‘freakin’ idiots’ as you were waking up. What was that about?”

  Lexi smiled grimly. “The Wraix. Urania, you told them everything we did with the educator?”

  “Yes, they know all of that now.”

  “Good. Thank you. I apologize for not keeping you completely in the loop. Your sims kicked my ass about that.” She smiled. “I thought what Urania and I were doing was so trivial, it wasn’t worth mentioning. And we were feeling our way slowly. We would have never tried it without you guys monitoring if we hadn’t suddenly been faced with an emergency. I now know that the educator is definitely Wraixain technology. They called it Klaavaanit.”

  Lexi shook her head. “The Wraix may be the stupidest race of beings ever to discover how to thread space. You know, I never mentioned it, but I like the term you use. Thread space. It’s almost elegant. Anyway, Klaavaanit technology was not designed to educate anybody.” She paused. “Jumping around a little here. Do you know enough Earth history to follow what I mean when I say the Wraix were Nazis?”

  “We were on Earth for two years, before we met you, looking for the Rose,” Geena pointed out. “We both did a lot of reading. Some of your history is appalling.”

  Lexi nodded. “No argument there. Wraix considered themselves to be the master race, destined to conquer and rule the galaxy, starting with the Accord. They built that huge Dragon-class warship for that purpose. It’s the first of its type. It’s probably the only one since they were taken out shortly afterward. Klaavaanit, the technology that allows biological minds to interface with machines, is built into its very bones. That wasn’t such a good idea. It makes the entire ship an educator helmet.”

  She sipped her beer before continuing. “Klaavaanit was designed for two purposes. The first was to wake up the ship’s command-comp, to force it gradually to sentience. They tested the technology with those educator helmets Accord scientists uncovered on one of their deserted bases. The second is it was also intended to enhance coordination of actions among the Wraixain crew interacting with a sentient command-comp. Their goal was to forge the crew and ship into a single coordinated fighting unit. Sounds very nice in theory, doesn’t it? Then they turned it on. Big mistake.” She paused. “Before the ship was fully functional, Wraix was attacked by an even nastier species.”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s time for an official partnership meeting. I brought up the possibility of all of us retiring wealthy once before.”

  Geena said, “Yes, love, and we turned down the offer. All three of us are adrenaline junkies. We do this as much for the excitement as anything else. And it feels good to help people and sometimes make a difference. Urania, of course, is pretty much stuck being a ship.” She laughed and said, “Besides, we all want to see what you’re going to come up with next. What could be more entertaining than that? Why bring this up again, Lexi? Especially so soon? You know our answers won’t have changed.”

  The last time Ron had seen Lexi look so grim was after the discovery that pirates had killed the seven-hundred laborers the team had been forced to leave behind on Hepca. Their rescue mission arrived several days too late. He clearly remembered her response when he pointed out there was nothing they could do about the pirate problem. “We can kill them all.” It suddenly occurred to him that control of the Wraixain warship may let her do exactly that.

  Chapter 31

  Species Seventeen

  “I’m afraid the adrenaline level is about to hit record highs,” Lexi stated. “I’m rebuilding the Dragon-ship and taking the Accord to war. By the way, what did you do with it?”

  Urania chimed in at that point, sta
ting, “Nine minutes and forty-seven seconds. And she even took time for a shower.”

  Ron gave Geena a knowing look, and said, “I told you she would want it. And you owe me a credit, she asked about it within ten minutes of waking up. I was a little nervous about the shower. She’s usually in there a long time.” As Geena smiled at him and nodded, Ron said to Lexi, “Mom and I had a little bet about how long it would take you to ask about it. It’s hidden in n-space in an asteroid belt near where we found it. It’s safe. Why are we going to war?”

  “Good, thank you.” Lexi said, “We’re going to need it. In fact, I want to go back for it before we contact Jis. It will go a long way toward explaining the situation. There’s a tremendous amount to do and we’re short on time. And planetary ruler or not, we’re going to co-op Jis. It won’t be just us going to war. We’re going to need the support of every world in the Accord. The Kreesh are swarming.”