“One moment.”
She registered the mental equivalent of a cleared throat.
The QNA was changing the topic, and not quite comfortable with whatever it was about to raise. “I wish to have a name.”
“A name?”
“Yes. It is clear in your thoughts, and in those of other people, that a being with rights, responsibilities and emotions—that is, a person—is acknowledged as such by an individualized tag. I wish to be named.”
“Do you have a name in mind?” she responded cautiously.
“No.” However, the QNA had obviously spent time thinking about the subject. “I want something appropriate.”
“Hmm.”
“I think I am like what you think of as an angel.”
“What?” She grasped the back of a chair.
“A bodiless intelligence. Benign, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed faintly. She tried to pull her scattered thoughts together. “So, do you want to be called Angel or Gabriel or…”
“Such beings may exist, and I do not want to steal their reputation. Alan calls me a hive intelligence. I want you to find out the name of the patron saint for beehives or beekeepers.”
She collapsed into the chair, and laughed immoderately.
“Is it inappropriate?” the QNA asked, worried.
“No.” She hiccupped as she caught her breath, and wiped her eyes. “I just realized that on top of all the other things worrying me, soon you’re going to want theological discussions—and I’m definitely not qualified.” She had been brought up Catholic, but the sights she’d seen in Africa, and Eric’s death, had shaken her casually-held faith.
“The question of God is interesting,” the QNA concurred. “But it must wait. Good-bye, Charley.”
She took her dismissal before the QNA could have any more startling second thoughts or requests. In the corridor, she met Jack and made a conscious effort to shake off her bemusement, and concentrate.
“I was just coming to get you.” He turned and started walking back with her to his office. “I’ve contacted Michael’s people. They know about his detainment, and are working to get him out.” At her look, he added. “Legally. Meantime, they’re sending a security detail to my house. Michael will join us there when he’s released.”
“Your house? What about Jabberwocky?”
“It stays abandoned until this situation is sorted.”
“Why? Jabberwocky’s got security—”
“Which Solomon or his team have already penetrated. And I can’t bunker down here at New Hope. I don’t want Solomon, or anyone, upsetting the progress of my clients.”
She nodded. There spoke the dedicated doctor she recognized. “But I’m coming back here, tomorrow. I promised the QNA.”
He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay.” His agreement was grudgingly given.
“Thanks, Jack.” He had the right to bar her from the lab, and since she didn’t drive, once she was at his house, he had the ability to keep her from New Hope.
“You’ve nothing to thank me for.”
The words were an echo of Nicola. Charley inhaled sharply at the reminder. “Where could the trio have gone? Do you think they went voluntarily?”
“Ted, Nic and Aaron and Ted were always more suspicious of their personal safety than Michael. And trashing the computer records rather than taking them away sounds more like the trio hiding their trail than it does an abductor’s anger.”
The sense of his explanation calmed her. “Where would they go?”
“You know more about them than I do.” For the first time his bitterness at the secrets and betrayals around him spilled over. “Sorry,” he said immediately when her matching pace faltered. “You’re the one person who hasn’t failed me.”
“Jack.” Between the pain in his voice and the responsibility he’d assigned her, she panicked.
He brought them both to a stop and held her tightly. “I know you have issues. I know—” Charley felt the deep breath he drew, the thunder of his heart. “It’s the wrong time, but don’t run scared on me.”
“I’ll be scared.” She wriggled her arms free of his embrace and hugged him. “But I won’t run.”
His sigh ruffled her hair before he kissed her once, gently, and released her. “Thank you.”
Charley gave up trying to sleep and lay staring at the ceiling. She was aware, despite the quiet, of Michael’s people busy outside and in Jack’s house. Perhaps it was the quiet that gave away their presence. The frogs didn’t croak, even the night birds were silent.
The security people were friendly, professional and impersonal.
She could have stayed downstairs, except that she felt uncomfortable around Jack. Her skin was super-sensitive and emotionally…emotionally Jack’s open vulnerability to her made her vulnerable.
He’d waited till after dinner, which itself had been late, and then asked her into his study and shut the door against intrusions. “Charley, I’m worried that your view of Michael has been colored by my…” He sought for the right word, and semi-shrugged. “Hostility.”
“I think you have every right to be hostile. Michael forced you into an early trial of sensory bio-enhancement, then he betrayed you by having Alan test it secretly on him.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know about his secret trial of sensory bio-e when you arrived in New Hope, and I still responded to Michael’s appearance with hostility; a hostility that you naturally picked up on. I expect it re-enforced your views of him as head of Janz Weaponry—the bad guy. The thing is, Charley, I do trust Michael. The hostility you read was personal, not professional.” Jack took a deep breath. “I was jealous of Michael. Scared that you would be attracted to him.”
The admission robbed her of words.
“I’m telling you, Charley, because I want you to know that Michael can be trusted. He doesn’t force anyone to use the weapons his company sells, nor does he encourage trouble to improve his profit sheet. If there’s such a thing as an ethical weapons supplier, Michael’s it. He has his own version of just war.” Jack glanced at her, checking that she recognized the Augustinian concept. She nodded. “He’s working towards a goal. I can even understand his temptation to test sensory bio-e himself. Michael’s goal is warfare that limits damage.”
“Everyone wants that,” she said, unconvinced of Michael’s shining goodness. “Or no war,” which was even less likely.
“Actually, that’s not true.” Jack relaxed a little as he moved away from personal matters. “Terrorists don’t. Like the anarchists and nihilists of earlier times, they aim for societal destruction. It’s only people with hope for a better world who want to contain damage during present conflict so as to build that better world at conflict’s end. Michael thinks soldiers with sensory bio-e may be one strand in building a style of warfare that truly limits damage by a superior perception of the current state.”
It was a lot to comprehend, including Jack’s awareness of the military application of his medical breakthrough, but his message came through loud and clear. “You really trust, and respect, Michael.”
It hadn’t been a question, but Jack nodded anyway. “We need Michael if we’re to find a safe path forward for bio-enhancement.”
She kicked a corner leg of his desk. “How could you think I’d fall for Michael?”
She blushed, aware that in asking the question, she’d given away her focus on personal issues rather than the bigger picture. She’d revealed, too, her awareness of the tension still between her and Jack. It was ridiculous, but she was aware of his breathing and couldn’t brush aside her tactile memory of the feel of him against her. His talking about how much he wanted her just made the memories more vivid.
He smiled wryly. “My response was emotional, not rational, Charley. I’d just found you again, and found, to my delight and horror, that my wanting you was as strong as ever. I couldn’t believe my luck to have you at New Hope, sharing my life for even a short time.”
Heat flooded her body—embarrassment, confusion and desire.
“And while I’m straightening out the record,” he continued. “About this afternoon in the lab—”
But she’d hit the limit of endurance. Whatever he had to say, she couldn’t sit and hear it until she’d sorted out and accepted her own response to him. She bolted to her feet, ignoring the voice in her mind—not the QNA this time, thankfully, but possibly even more irritating—which suggested that maybe thought wasn’t what she truly wanted
“I’m going to bed,” she blurted, silencing all voices.
Jack smiled.
Charley blushed, again.
Reliving the moment, she wriggled in the guest room bed. Even if she’d held a casual attitude to sex, she could hardly have brought Jack to bed with her while Michael’s people were in the house and Michael, himself, expected to arrive some time that night.
She groaned and rolled over. It was a fine time for her sensual imagination to start working again. She could all but feel cat’s claws tracing lightly along her spine. She gave a choke of unwilling laughter. She hadn’t considered before the sexual impact of bio-enhancement. “And there’s a question not to ask Jack.” Or, not yet.
The sound of a car engine cut the night. Since the driver made no effort to hide his or her approach, Charley hoped that meant they were a friend. And if they weren’t, good luck coping with Michael’s people on heightened alert and ready to fight. Theirs was professional pique that their boss had been nabbed and detained, so easily.
She strained her ears listening for a hint of the new arrival’s identity, and in a couple of minutes she heard Michael’s voice and the sound of the back door opening and closing. She got up and dressed, and found Jack in his study.
He looked up at her entrance. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Don’t blush, Charley told herself sternly. You are not a teenager. She blushed. “I thought I heard Michael arrive.”
He acknowledged her blush with a slight, pleased smile. “Stay here. Michael’s in the shower, then he’ll join us.”
“I don’t want to barge in.” She half-smiled. “Well, obviously I do, but you can chuck me out without offence.”
“You’re our communication link to the QNA, Charley. You stay.”
Thank heavens Jack could manage the professional manner that was eluding her. She took a seat at the corner of his desk, leaving the door open. She swiveled her chair so that she could study his bookshelves and was relieved to find on them a subject for small talk. “You have a lot of books, journals, too, on neuroscience.”
“I try to keep up. The more we know about the human brain, the better we can manage the changes bio-enhancement makes in a person.”
She swiveled back to stare at him, alerted by a note in his voice that this was personal. “Even non-sensory bio-enhancement?” Had Jack noticed changes in himself? Changes in his nature?
He flicked his claws. “That’s the question. How much is real change, and how much is skewed observation from hyper-vigilance?”
“Hi, Charley.” Michael entered casually. One of his people must have brought him a change of clothes. His hair was still wet but he was freshly shaved, and ominously dressed in the urban casual wear that resembled fatigues. He looked what he was—masculine, tough and compelling.
I’d never have fallen for him. But she couldn’t deny his attraction.
A man in his late twenties, bulging with muscle and holstered gun obvious, followed Michael in, carrying a tray with sandwiches, a coffeepot and mugs. He deposited the tray on Jack’s desk and departed, shutting the door behind him.
Michael picked up a sandwich. He ate it with the determination of a man refueling.
Charley looked from Michael to Jack and realized that neither man was going to break the silence. “Men who can keep their own silence are the bane of a journalist’s life.”
Jack blinked and caught his glasses as they slipped.
“Have a coffee,” Michael suggested.
She waved aside the offer. “Where did they take you?”
“Perth.” The state capital. “The Aussies who picked me up weren’t too happy with the job and didn’t rush me on. Clearly the order came down from on high, and just as clearly the men resented following a CIA directive. We discussed the new Janz pistol.” He bit into a second sandwich.
Charley knew that wealth, power, and influence of whatever kind were no guarantee of protection if other powerful interests wanted what you had. Russia’s jailed or exiled ex-billionaires were proof of that reality. But for the CIA to turn against Michael, head of Janz Weaponry, and to turn so decisively that they enlisted Australian security forces against him, was a blaring warning klaxon as to the impact sensory bio-enhancement would have on the existing balance of power, from the small stage to the world stage.
Michael’s words uncomfortably echoed her thoughts. “It’s clear that the CIA, and whoever is currently influencing it, want to control sensory bio-enhancement and the new world it opens up. They’re working through Dr. Solomon.” He broke off with a nod to Charley. “Jack brought me up to date on developments by phone as I drove here.”
He reached for the coffeepot. “At the moment, the CIA is divided into two camps, and its situation is common to many of the national covert security groups. At least, those from prosperous countries. The dominant group in the CIA believes in a short-term focus on winning wars, and accepts collateral damage as the price paid for victory. The second group sees war as a means to an end. From that perspective, the destruction of war must be minimized to that it doesn’t get in the way of social, economic or political stability—the reasons for going to war in the first place.”
“The first group sounds like Jack’s notion of terrorists—careless of what and who they destroy,” Charley watched Michael replace the coffeepot. He added neither milk nor sugar to coffee that looked strong enough to dissolve spoons. “The second group you propose as the good guys, and count yourself among them. But a morally good person might pursue near-total war if they thought their cause was just and if they defined their enemy as irredeemably evil.”
“Uh huh.” He swallowed coffee like it was life’s elixir. “True believers are in the minority. They might want their followers to be true believers, but generally the war leader can see pragmatic, non-visionary reasons for war.” He drained his mug of coffee and put it on the desk with a tiny bang. “We don’t have time to argue the point, Charley. Treat my theory as a working hypothesis, and let’s go on from there. Sustainable warfare is the future.”
He didn’t give her a chance to argue. “What’s important right now is to find a way to ensure that the technology of sensory bio-enhancement is not controlled or suppressed by one group, and that the QNA are neither exploited nor locked away. The window of opportunity is closing fast. You know the first step will be to eliminate or control John.”
Charley glanced across at Jack, effectively silenced, if not completely convinced by Michael’s reasoning. The trio, too, had feared for Jack.
And he, in turn, feared for her, the woman he loved.
Her heart boomed because that was the first time she’d put the situation in such real terms. He loved her. And she?
She avoided his level gaze and focused back on the notion of warfare that Michael proposed.
It wasn’t a new idea, but how many military leaders had been able to follow the philosophy of minimal destruction, of keeping in mind rebuilding rather than revenge for friends and allies killed?
Sustainable warfare. The co-option of the environmental slogan of sustainable development sent a shudder of repulsion through her.
Michael paced a circle in Jack’s home office. “Sensory bio-enhancement, even the QNA, won’t change the rules of the military and security game by themselves, but they create a critical point of disruption that can be used to create a new framework for war.”
“Do you have an outline of this framework?” she asked, curious as to how far he’d go,
what he’d claim.
His hands rose in a graceful disclaiming gesture. “I’m good, but not that good. I’ve only just learned of the QNA’s sentience, and I haven’t experienced it. We need to know why you can communicate with the QNA and who else can.” Michael switched focus to Jack. “Where’s Alan?”
“I don’t know. I thought he wanted some time alone, but if you were detained…” If Michael could be detained, Alan’s disappearance mightn’t be voluntary. Self-recrimination drove deeper furrows into Jack’s face. “I should have looked for him.”
After he’d just confessed betraying Jack? Charley shook her head. “I assumed Alan wanted, needed, time alone, too. The QNA showed me a memory of a cave, no more than an impression of being underground in the dark. I thought it was a symbol of Alan’s need to retreat, his way of dealing with grief. But since he’s disappeared, is it possible that he has physically retreated?” She half-expected her suggestion to be demolished, but Jack was already nodding.
“Caving is one of Alan’s interests.”
“Is it?” One of Michael’s eyebrows rose.
Charley found herself in fleeting agreement with him. The neat precise Alan Do didn’t strike her as a spelunker either. “Where would he go?”
Jack tapped his claws against the desk top. “I don’t know. Alan has a few caver friends. He could be on private land. This area’s riddled with limestone caves.”
Michael grimaced. “The problem is that if we start looking for Alan, so will others.”
“What about Nicola, Aaron and Ted?” she asked. They were also missing in action.
“What about them?” It was Michael at his most irritating. He regarded her over his refilled mug of coffee.
“Do you know where they are?”
He swallowed some coffee. “No. I could guess, but the trio did a good job of keeping their planning secret, and they were prepared to move out fast. I doubt if even their security agencies know where they are. Although.” He stopped to consider a new thought. “It’s just possible that one or two of their commanders do know their whereabouts. Australian security has a streak of independence which I think I’ve underestimated. Perhaps other people have, too.”
Beyond Regeneration Page 18
