Demonhome (Champions of the Dawning Dragons Book 3)

by Michael G. Manning

  sickness,” he responded. “If I keep using my power it wil get worse. I might even pass out. I don’t know how long I can keep going.”

  Gary answered immediately. “Then she’s dead. The GPS on this unit shows you’re in northern Arizona—the Grand Canyon. There are no

  organics living within a hundred miles of there and the nearest medical facility is hours away, even if I commandeer someone’s pert to fly you there.”

  “I can keep her alive indefinitely, if I can just get her heart to beat on its own,” said Matthew, exasperation filing his voice.

  “I’m not sure how your magic works,” said Gary doubtfuly, “but without a defibrilator, there’s no way to restart her heart rhythm.”

  “What’s a defibrilator?” asked Matt.

  “A device that delivers an electric shock,” explained the AGI, flashing several pictures on the screen. “The current passes through the heart tissue and stimulates it to begin beating again.”

  “Current?”

  “You don’t even understand the basics of electricity,” said Gary. “There’s no point in trying to explain it now.”

  Gary’s tone annoyed him. “I know enough to fry that little box you’re in,” he snapped. Lifting it, he turned it to face away and with his other hand he sent a smal stroke of lighting to strike the ground in the direction of the river. Unfortunately, he also lost his connection to Karen’s heart, and he was forced to pause and reestablish his link again.

  “Can you do something less dramatic?” asked the AGI. “Preferably something that won’t crisp and burn flesh.”

  Matthew was staring down at Karen, but he nodded. “I used to shock my sister now and then.”

  “And she was okay with that?”

  “No, one time she reacted by lifting me up and tossing me al the way over the house. She has a tendency to overreact,” he replied with a faint chuckle.

  “It’s a wonder either of you survived to adulthood,” noted Gary.

  “I learned how to use my power to break a fal pretty early on,” said Matthew, “and my parents were pretty mad about that particular

  occasion. She had to wash dishes for a week by herself.”

  Gary looked thoughtful. “Do you think you could deliver a smal shock like that to her heart?”

  “I could,” said Matthew, “but it might be too smal. I’ve had some practice with shocks at the smal and big end of the spectrum. I don’t know

  exactly how much of a charge I should use. I might kil her.”

  “Start smal,” advised Gary. “As though you were playing a prank on your sister. If that’s not enough, you can work your way up. Can you

  make an arc between your hands?”

  “Yeah,” said Matthew. “I used to scare Conal that way.”

  “I think I’ve heard enough about your violent familial tactics,” said the AGI. “You’l want something weaker than that. A spark powerful enough to pass through the air between your hands would burn the flesh, assuming you were talking about a foot or more of distance. You’re going to put your left hand on her chest, beneath the middle of her clavicle, above her right breast and a little bit toward the center. You’l put your right hand just beneath her left breast.”

  “What about her shirt?”

  “Open it up. You’l want skin to skin contact to minimize resistance,” answered Gary.

  He did as he was instructed, feeling a little odd about being asked to undress Karen by her virtual father. Once his hands were in place, he announced, “I’m ready.”

  “Try the smalest charge you can manage.”

  Fighting down his fear, Matthew release his grasp on Karen’s heart, letting it go stil. In the first few seconds he realized he wasn’t sure how to do what he wanted. When his father had first taught him to create lightning, it had involved visualizing the air itself, coaxing the aythar to rip parts of the atoms it consisted of apart. Doing the same thing to flesh seemed foolish, so he withdrew his hands from her skin to alow a little air between them.

  His first attempted created smal sparks that caused her skin to twitch but did little else. Dammit!

  “Have you tried yet?” asked the AGI.

  Matt used more power the second time, ignoring the voice of the computer. More sparks, and this time he saw couple of smal burns appear on her skin. He described what had happened to Gary, struggling to keep the panic from his voice.

  “You have to make skin contact,” said the AGI. “You aren’t trying to make the same sort of discharge you did before. You want the current to pass between your hands, so that it crosses her heart muscle—like a spark in the air, except it wil flow through the tissue instead. It should take less energy to create, since flesh is a better conductor than air.”

  Matthew put his hands on her skin and visualized the atoms coming apart, the charge flowing from one hand to the other and then he put his wil into it. Karen’s body spasmed beneath him and smoke rose from her skin beneath his right hand. Lifting it, he saw a smal place where the skin had been scorched. He clenched his eyes shut, struggling to contain tears. “I’m so sorry, Karen.”

  Then he noticed her heart had begun beating on its own.

  “What’s happening?” asked Gary anxiously.

  “It worked,” said Matthew, jumping to his feet. “It worked!” He began rummaging through their items again until he found the box with his

  stasis cubes.

  “Don’t waste time,” said the AGI. “I’l summon a pert and you can transport her to a hospital. I think I can manage it without alerting the military that…”

  “No!” ordered Matt. “Don’t do anything.”

  “Young man, that’s my daughter. I’m not taking chances with her life just to protect you…”

  “I’m not taking chances, I’m eliminating them,” interrupted Matthew. “I’m going to put her into stasis. Once that’s done, we can take as long as necessary to do it safely. Time wil effectively cease for her. In the meantime, don’t create any unnecessary risks.”

  Gary stared at him intently from the smal screen, clearly doubtful. Eventualy he answered, “Fine. Do it. But if you screw anything up and she dies because of you, I’l make certain you regret it.”

  Matthew ignored the threat and began placing the quartz cubes in the air around her. Each glowed and clicked into place when charged with

  aythar. He arranged the upper cubes into a rectangular pattern, one at each corner and two midway between them. He would create a second

  rectangle beneath it, and the space between them would be locked in a stasis field, but first he needed to lift Karen’s body.

  Creating a plane of force beneath her body, he levitated her into the air, until she was floating just beneath the first rectangle. Then he began placing the lower cubes in the air beneath her. Her eyes opened just before he finished.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  His chest grew tight and he blinked away tears. “You’re in bad shape. I’m putting you in a stasis field until I can get you to a hospital.”

  “Oh,” she replied, clearly stil befuddled.

  He placed the last cube and charged it with his aythar. Yelow lines of force shot between the cubes, and then the air between the lines began to glow a golden color. Al motion inside the field stopped. He had succeeded.

  Chapter 25

  “How long wil this stopgap measure of yours last?” asked Gary. The PM was now propped up against a rock, giving him a view of Karen’s

  stasis field.

  “As far as I know, until the end of the world, unless someone breaks the enchantment,” said Matthew. “My sister was in one for a little over a thousand years, and I know of someone else that was kept in one for two milennia. She’l be fine until I can get help for her.”

  The AGI frowned. “You mean until you get her to a hospital.”

  Matt gave the smal screen a frank stare. “No, I mean until I get help for her. It wil have to come here.”

  “You’re goin
g to leave her there?!”

  “I don’t have a choice,” said Matthew flatly. “Those cubes won’t move until they are deactivated. If I had been able to create a portable stasis box, then moving her would be an option. Those cubes are smal, which makes them very portable, but when activated, they lock in place. They can’t be repositioned without releasing the enchantment.”

  “Then I’l have to cal an ambulance,” stated Gary.

  “Can you do that and avoid tipping off the military?”

  “Doubtful,” admitted the AGI. “If you could get her to a hospital, I could keep the information suppressed long enough for them to give her initial treatment, and then you could escape, but an emergency cal, hours from civilization, would be impossible to hide long enough. They would very likely be waiting for her when she arrived.”

  “Wel, we have time,” said Matthew. “We need another option.”

  “Are there people in your world that could treat her?” asked the AGI.

  Matthew gave it thought for a moment. “My father, if he’s stil alive. I came here in part to look for him. The She’Har could possibly save her; at least they were capable of it a long time ago. I’m not entirely sure what they can do now.”

  “She’Har?!” exclaimed the machine. “I thought your world was inhabited by humans.”

  “Primarily. The She’Har came to my world long ago, like they did here, except on my world they won. Much later there was a rebelion, and

  the She’Har were almost entirely wiped out. A few remain now, living in peace with my people.”

  “I would like to hear that story,” said the AGI with obvious interest.

  Matthew rubbed his temples with his fingers. He was stil fighting a terrible headache and mild nausea, and the events of the past hour had forced him to use his abilities when that was the last thing he needed in order to recover. “You’l have to forgive me, Gary, but I’m in pretty bad shape myself. If I don’t rest soon, I’l fal over.”

  “What about Karen?”

  “What about her?”

  “You can’t just leave her out in the open. The sun wil be up in the morning—she’l burn. And what if it rains?”

  Matt sighed, “I know you’re a super-inteligent being or whatever, but try to remember, time doesn’t exist in there. Nothing wil affect her—not rain, or sun. Nothing.”

  “Point taken. What if the military finds her, or a rockslide hits the cubes that keep her in stasis?”

  “That could be a problem,” Matt admitted, “but it isn’t one I’m in any shape to deal with, so I’m going to sleep.”

  The face on the screen nodded, “Fair enough. There’s a tent over there if you want to set it up.”

  “Tent?” he asked. It wasn’t a word he had heard yet.

  “A temporary shelter, used for camping,” explained the AGI.

  Matthew started to dismiss the idea—he had no need to worry about wind or cold, but then the throbbing of his head reminded him that even

  the slightest uses of power would be painful. Perhaps a mundane solution would be welcome.

  The next half hour was a combination of frustration and embarrassment. The bewildering array of material, stakes, and sectional poles that emerged from the large bag that held the tent was unlike anything he had encountered before. He might have given up entirely if it weren’t for the regular advice offered by Gary, which was also the source of his embarrassment. The AGI hadn’t forgotten his snippy remark about his ‘super-inteligence’ and he took the opportunity to show Matt his own ignorance.

  When he had finished, he managed to set up his bedrol without help, but before he lay down he asked one last question, “Should I move you in here?” The PM was currently stil outside, propped up against a rock.

  “No thanks,” said Gary, his voice almost wistful. “This unit is an outdoor model. It’s built to handle moisture and the elements. I’d rather stay where I can watch her.”

  Once again Matt found it hard to believe he was talking to a machine rather than a person, but he was too tired to explore the observation.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, and then he lay down. He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the smal camp pilow.

  ***

  “It’s clear that your systems are compromised, Director,” said Tanya Miler.

  Aiseman felt his jaw beginning to ache from grinding his teeth, “We’re stil analyzing the data.”

  “Analyze al you want, Director, but I’m here to tel you what any five-year-old could deduce from the facts. Your sensor feeds found nothing, but when the cybernetic units went in, they were there. Even a man of your ‘abilities’ should be able to discern that without too much trouble,” she responded, with an undisguised sneer in her voice.

  “The systems people are stil trying to figure it out,” put in John Wang. “It shouldn’t have been possible.”

  Dr. Miler smiled, a rare event for her. “My husband usualy took the word ‘impossible’ as a chalenge rather than as a sign to give up. It was one of his more endearing, and frustrating, qualities.”

  The impossibility of getting into that woman’s cold, dead heart must have been what inspired him to marry her, then, thought Aiseman sourly. “Wel, if your husband’s AI realy did al this then he’s outdone himself.”

  “You need to consider activating ANSIS,” she replied.

  Director Aiseman gave her a cold stare. “It’s already active. We’re using it to pinpoint anomalies.”

  She leaned forward. “Don’t give me your bulshit, Aiseman. I know what ANSIS is and what it’s meant to be. I’m not talking about your little experimental instalations. I’m talking about ful deployment—alowing it to access the network at large.”

  John interrupted, “We’ve already got one rogue AI supposedly on the loose and you want to add another to the mix? Your husband designed

  both of them . Do you realy think that’s wise?”

  “Watch your tone with me, Mr. Wang,” she warned him. “And yes, to answer your question, I think it’s the best option you have. Gary was

  meticulous in his work. He designed ANSIS to do what was needed, and I’m certain he would have built in safeguards to prevent it from running amok. In fact, I would point to the example of your current AI problem as proof of that. If he hadn’t built enough restrictions into the AGI he left Karen, it would quite possibly have put an end to al of us by now. You’re going to have to fight fire with fire.”

  “Our best people are working on it as we speak,” said Aiseman.

  “And if my husband’s AI is violating standard operating limits, which it obviously is, then it’s already spent a thousand human lifetimes’ worth of thought anticipating every possible countermeasure they might undertake,” she shot back.

  “Regardless, I am not prepared to take the risk of exposing the wider network to ANSIS at this time ,” returned Aiseman.

  “Need I remind you of the President’s words, Director?” chalenged Dr. Miler.

  “Then take the matter up with her. If she doesn’t like my decision, she can remove me from my position and get someone else!” the Director barked back.

  Her brows shot up in surprise. “Oh my! There’s a spine in there after al. You surprise me, Director. You’re stil wrong, though I’l let it pass for now. If you don’t show some results soon, I’l take you up on that chalenge.”

  Aiseman didn’t trust himself to respond. If he’d stil had had a body, he was sure his blood pressure would have been through the roof. Or I’d have jumped over this desk and choked the bitch to death already. For the first time, he regretted the fact that it wasn’t realy possible to kil people anymore. It might have been worth prison.

  John rescued the discussion by breaking the stalemate. “Dr. Miler, have you had a chance to examine the materials recovered from the scene?”

  She nodded. “The early scans are in. It’s clearly organic, and alive, though how it survived the explosion is a mystery. My first impression is that it is exactly what
it appears to be.”

  “An egg?” asked John. “That seems improbable.”

  Tanya leaned back in her chair. “Please Mr. Wang, enlighten me with your deep insights.”

  Aiseman might have found it funny, seeing his deputy suffering Dr. Miler’s attentions, but he had too much spite in him to take her side.

  John did a good job of hiding his discomfort, though, “Wel, to make a flawed analogy, if we blew up a chicken, we certainly wouldn’t expect to find an intact egg in the remains.”

  She smiled. “Flawed? Yes, your analogy is indeed flawed. Whatever it was, that creature was no chicken, and the egg you recovered is no

  ordinary product of reproduction. The shel is strong enough that we haven’t been able to get accurate readings yet on its mechanical properties—

  not without risking its destruction anyway.

  “DNA analysis confirms that it is likely reptilian, much like the remains you recovered it from, but what’s truly puzzling is the amount of power it contains,” she finished.

  “Power?”

  “Not of the sort we traditionaly measure,” she clarified. “The same kind we encountered with the She’Har. In fact, the concentration is so high that we aren’t even sure how it can be stable. It probably should have exploded when you attacked it.”

  Aisemann’s interest was piqued. “How big an explosion are we talking?”

  “I realy can’t be sure, but I’d expect it would be on the order of one of the larger hydrogen bombs.”

  “As in a megaton class explosive device?” he said in disbelief.

  “Physics isn’t my forte, Director,” she responded, “but some of my coleagues think it would be wel beyond that. If it were capable of

  exploding , which thankfuly it doesn’t seem to be, then it might wel have turned the British Isles into a sinkhole to be filed by the Atlantic.”

  “That’s an order of magnitude greater at least,” said John, “possibly in the gigaton range.”

  Dr. Miler gave him a wan smile. “As I said, physics isn’t my forte. What I do know, is that it is alive.”

  “What would the purpose of such a thing be?” wondered Aiseman.