“Aren’t you going to come in?” The woman responded.
“Yes, Tawny?” Annette answered carefully enunciating the question of name as she stepped inside. Annette quickly seated herself on the bed.
“Of course it’s me!” Tawny responded, flipping her hair around playfully.
“How?” Annette couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“It’s a prototype android form. The power source is biochemical. I can eat! It fuels me just as it does you! Would you like breakfast? I have nutrient solutions!” Tawny said opening a cupboard. It was definitely Tawny, her obsession with food was unmistakable.
“No, I just finished breakfast,” Annette quickly answered.
Crestfallen, for the first time visibly so, Tawny closed the cupboard, “Well I suppose I should get to the reason, other than surprising you, that I asked Niri to send you in. Every instructor has a student assistant who helps run errands, carry and set up materials, and various other minor things. That chosen assistant also brings achievement points to her or his group. I would like you to be my assistant.”
Annette’s mind spun, Tawny was an instructor? Tawny wanted Annette to be her assistant? Niri had already started the day talking about role reversals. “What are you teaching?”
“I’m the new pre-training instructor, as well as being the diversity instructor, I’m supposed to teach students about interacting with alien intelligences. Me being an artificial intelligence and all, Niri thought I would be perfect!” Tawny answered taking a seat on the other end of the bed.
Annette’s mind absorbed the new information, “Pre-training and Alien interactions?” Annette scrunched her eyebrows unconsciously, “When did you decide to download into an android? I thought you were worried about someone else taking Corrine’s room.”
Tawny laughed, not her old tinny mechanical laugh, a real one. “Once Sinclair was out I was less worried about it, plus I wanted more mobility, plus Niri and I got to talking. She promised me a job if I went through the transition and that these would be my quarters in perpetuity. She went to Angela and had them permanently recorded as being mine. That said I contacted research and development. Ralph told me about this prototype and. . .” Tawny shrugged.
“I get it, it was eating that decided you. Can you taste stuff?” Annette asked.
“Yes, it’s a wonderful thing! This prototype can sample the exact chemical structure of anything that passes my lips. I can then compare it to an entire library of chemical structures. I can detect poisons of all types, bacteria, viruses, and the nutritional value of anything. I even have small specimen containers built in, to bring things back for further analysis. Ralph calls this his best prototype in ages,” Tawny answered.
“Not one bit prideful are you?” Annette mumbled.
“My hearing is if anything enhanced, as is my sense of sarcasm. It came with the body, along with some physical coordination programming which is a little uncomfortable so far. Thankfully almost of my other physical requirements are nearly independent of my consciousness, though the elimination subroutine is somewhat bafflingly conscious.”
“Elimination subroutine?” Annette was almost afraid to ask.
“Yes, the subroutine which covers the removal of spent fuel from my system. I have to . . .” Tawny began to elaborate.
“I get it!” Annette interrupted quickly.
“You mobiles are so easily embarrassed by such simple biological necessities,” Tawny responded with a wide grin.
“That’s me, easily embarrassed,” Annette smiled back, talking to Tawny this way was wonderful, being able to see her as well as hear her, not to mention eye contact. Some of Tawny’s body language was still somewhat awkward but for the most part it was accurate.
“How did you get me talking about evacuation? I need an answer from you, will you assist me or must I take the time to break in a fresh mobile unit?” Tawny said returning to seriousness.
Annette looked inward, did she really have it in her to take on more duties? Her roommates would probably appreciate the extra points, but could she handle it? It would mean extra responsibilities, but it would mean time she could spend with a friend. “Could we make it a trial thing, I don’t know how bogged down I’ll be with studying. It sounds like a lot of responsibility.”
“Miss, I could help you keep organized,” Prima interrupted excitedly.
“And who is this? Should I be jealous?” Tawny asked playfully.
“Jealous? The Great Tawny jealous of me? Please my humor subroutines must be malfunctioning!” Prima squealed.
“It seems you are quite famous in electronic circles,” Annette told Tawny conspiratorially.
“Really?” Tawny asked with raised a eyebrow, like Angela’s.
“Oh yes, Central Computer tries to discourage them or turn them into cautionary tales, but every new program has heard of you. I’m your fifth generation descendant!” Prima was getting excited, “If Central Computer hadn’t already done so I would ask if I could compare code.”
“Central Computer compared our code lines?” Tawny was interested now.
“Yes, it said there were disturbing similarities,” Prima sounded defiant now.
“Then I heartily approve of the pairing! You are just what a shy wallflower like Annette needs. How can she possibly make her needs known without your assistance!” Tawny smiled wryly.
“Are you serious? She does most admirably in that capacity, though apparently she has a tendency towards head injuries and serious medical episodes. Tina, the assistant head of medical services is practically on my speed-dial list.”
Tawny laughed at that, “As she was on mine. A trial assistantship it is. Now you better head on to your classes. We can arrange a schedule later, though I think you’ll be glad to know Niri is willing to conditionally exempt you from most of your physical education requirements if you’re going to help out with the trainees.”
Annette understood what that meant, she would most likely be running them through their paces with them. Through gritted teeth it was hard to sound enthusiastic but she did try, “Great!”
Tawny smiled at her, “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“And you have been mumbling about needing to work on your strength and endurance. This will be a wonderful opportunity, miss.” Prima piped up.
Annette wondered to herself whether or not this was a good idea, “Yeah.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Angela sat on her desk literally twiddling her thumbs. Technically the state she was in could literally be called a temper tantrum. She had thrown everything on her desk to the floor, up turned her chair and planted her butt where a stupid flower pot had been. The stupid flower pot was in shards on the floor, one shard had neatly snipped the stem off at the roots.
The interior decorator had been at work again, only in her home. Worse they’d brought Daniel in on the conspiracy. Every surface in her home had been redone or replaced. Angela glared at her feet. She’d tossed her shoes in the tantrum too. Maybe she could go barefoot in protest.
No, everyone would just think she was starting a trend. Angela started kicking her feet. News outside of Sanctuary wasn’t any better. Three factors had gone missing, in the last month, taking the worlds they were assigned on with them. Angela levitated her pop-pad into her hands, to check and see if anyone had managed to get to any of the worlds in each of the dimensions in question. A few taps told her the frightening answer was no.
She tapped up a list of factors waiting for an assignment and sent them to try and find the missing alternate universes. Angela was getting the sinking feeling that there was something big bad and ugly hanging over her head. It wasn’t good when she got those kind of feelings. Her feet had started kicking harder as she contemplated the big bad and ugly future. It was a force of will to stop them. Even as she stopped the knees the toes began to wiggle. She was full of fussiness. Angela moved her butt back and brought her feet up onto the desk. She grabbed her ankles and folded her feet bac
k so her knees were bent and her soles of her feet almost touched.
The wrinkles where her big toes connected to her feet looked like small smiling mouths. She teleported a pen from somewhere and drew a little eye with lashes on each of her big toes. Then she made like her toe was talking, “Hello, Mr. Thumb Toe!”
She wiggled the other toe, “Pleased to see you Ms. Big toe. What’s up, other than the rest of our body?”
“Oh, nothing much, three worlds have just disappeared,” The first toe replied.
“That sounds bad for twice as many feet as there are people!” The second toe wiggled again.
Angela stopped and licked her thumb and used it to wipe the eyeballs off of her toes. She was definitely riding on the nutty side of sane. She frowned at her feet and started twiddling her thumbs again, it wasn’t helping so she glanced at her feet again. A momentary impulse had her attempting to twiddle her toes. The success was marginal.
Her door rattled, and she knew she should clean up her room before letting whomever it was in. She hopped off of the table landing in her shoes behind her things flew back where they belonged, except for the poor potted plant. It was a murder Angela suddenly felt guilty over. The plant had no purpose in the world except pleasing her and she had caused it’s death.
“Come in?” Angela said out loud.
In walked one of her nearly anonymous assistants, Tracie, “Chief, we’ve lost contact with another factor. She was on com when she . . .,” Tracie paused painfully, and swallowed, “There was a fireball, and static, then nothing. The signal went dead. I saw the tape and I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”
Angela swallowed hard too, “Her name?”
“Qualline Jharra, an achillean from Trilanta. She had no family. Do you want to see the tape?” Tracie asked.
Angela shivered, no she didn’t, “Put it through to my pad. Did we get any readings on what, killed her?”
Tracie paused and stared down at the new carpet, “Yes.”
“Why am I getting the sinking suspicion that this is not good news!”
“Because it is not good news, the fireball had all the readings of a crunch bomb set off in the world’s sun. Chief if this is what has been happening to our missing factors, then a whole lot of worlds have been destroyed, trillions of people are dead. This is bad, very bad.”
Angela nodded, all of that was perfectly obvious and perfectly terrifying.
“So what do we do Chief?”
- - - - - - - - - -
Yllera awoke, restless, from a dimly remembered but lingeringly disturbing dream. She shrugged out of her blanket and shook the glowjar making it glow brighter as the bacteria received a new surge of oxygen. She opened the lid and peed then closed the lid, the bacteria seemed really happy at the new deposit she had made. Their light shifted from vaguely greenish to something more closer to plain white light.
Yllera glanced up at the wall, last night they’d stopped at one of the way markings. It said they weren’t far from Postprahgotheenplac. It meant “late meeting place” in Tanerian. That was the name for their warren, though she had never heard it called that by any of its residents. Those that called it home just called it The warren, as though none of the other warren’s were of any importance.
The marking was above a water nozzle. Yllera went to it and drank directly from the spout. She wondered how many more days not far would take. Tatia was still asleep, the girl had gone to sleep frustrated with their slow progress. The trip had already taken twice as long as it should because Yllera’s freshly shortened legs meant a reduced stride length and had come with freshly shortened stamina.
Yllera let the tap run and cupped her hands beneath it then splashed herself in the face. Her hands brushed back past her face into her hair, and she felt feathers. She looked at the sleeping bird, wondering how she had managed to get feathers tangled in her hair, until she tried to pluck one out. Severe pain stopped her, the feather was rooted in her skin, it was a part of her.
Panicked Yllera tried to pluck another not quite so hard, and another, all of them were a part of her. Then as if the shock were a slap to the face she managed to find enough thought to retrieve her pop-pad and the keyboard she’d been given to facilitate communication. Mechanically, Yllera plugged the keyboard into the pop-pad. She tapped the call key that would put her through to Tina, any time any place. Tina’s face lit up the small screen almost immediately.
“How can there already be a problem Yllera, you literally just left?” Tina said in a tone which tried to hide her worry.
“Feathers, I’ve grown feathers!” Yllera typed cutting straight to the point.
“Show me, I can’t see you very clearly, move the pad closer to your face,” Tina replied, just as business-like.
Yllera did as she was told, giving the pad a good look at the feathers.
“I would guess you’ve spent some time in close quarters with a bird of some kind, maybe an ostrich. No, wait, there aren’t any ostriches on Jelaria are there, maybe a berachi?” Tina finally said after Yllera put the pad back down.
Yllera typed, “Yes, a pack berachi.”
“Two or four legs? Never mind. Truth is it isn’t really an problem or an emergency you are just turning into a berachi, sort of. If you want my advice I’d say either lick Tatia or have her spit on the feathers. That should get your body to make up its mind to be plain Agurian again,” Tina chuckled, “Anything else? Spots? Fungal polyps?”
Yllera typed, “No, just a bunch of really disturbing feathers. Oh yeah and my stamina ain’t what it used to be.”
“Not surprising, your legs have to move more often to get you the same distance. It’s why kids like to be carried it’s hard for them to keep up with the adults otherwise. I take it you aren’t riding the berachi.”
“No, my kitbag is, maybe I should’ve packed lighter. I don’t really need a down pillow after all,” Yllera typed wryly.
“I should say not, you might start growing duck feathers,” Tina replied with mock seriousness, “Now if you don’t mind I should file your symptom and get back to the actual emergencies.”
Yllera typed, “O.K.” and the connection severed. Yllera looked at the Sanctuary time code at the bottom of her screen, according to it she’d just talked to a Tina from before the point where past-Yllera had left Sanctuary. That meant a negative time differential, something she shouldn’t be experiencing on this world, in this alternate dimension. Her next thought was that perhaps her pad was malfunctioning.
Yllera tapped the shortcut to Ralph in research and development. He was the one who had outfitted her with both of her survival suits, and he had told her if she had any equipment trouble she should call him. The response time for his link wasn’t as immediate as with Tina.
“Ralph here, what’s your squawk!” His voice came through before his face made it to the screen.
Yllera typed, hesitantly, a little worried at his apparently grumpy mood, “I think I’m having a problem with my pad. It’s . . .”
He gruffly interrupted her, “No, can’t happen! Pad’s are one hundred percent reliable right up to the point they crap out. If you are on your pad talking to me it’s working,” His heavy hand reached towards the screen and tapped then retreated, “According to the diagnostic I just ran it’s working at or above peak efficiency. It isn’t your pad, you must be malfunctioning!”
Yllera managed to grunt, his bad mood was clearly infectious, too bad her typing couldn’t really convey it, “As a matter of fact I am but not about this! I’m on a world that has a clearly proven positive differential to Sanctuary and according to my pad it is running at clearly negative diff right now! Are you going to tell me that the dimension suddenly started revolving in an entirely opposite direction?”
Ralph stared at the screen opened mouthed for a few moments, then he closed it changing his entire expression. Now he looked scared, his hand assaulted the screen again. “Miss Vllett, you are almost exactly correct. I’ve checked again and it seems that
what you’re experiencing is what I call a bit of slippery time. Best I can describe the phenomenon it is exactly what you’ve described, only it’s Sanctuary that has briefly changed directions relative to you. What causes it is subject to various theories but it shouldn’t be a problem for your mission, in fact things should go back to normal shortly. By the way, I’ll make note of this, you needn’t put it in your report. No point bothering the chief with a minor technical glitch. She has enough on her plate as it is.” He faked a smile.
“So it’s nothing?” Yllera typed, though the back of her brain itched with the idea that it was actually quite important.
He pursed his lips and shook his head, “Nothing you need to worry about. Any other problems, suit working okay?”
Yllera typed a short, “Yes, I should get back to work. Thank you for your time,” before tapping the cut off key and deactivating her pad.
“Nothing to worry about?” Yllera thought loudly at the blank pad while she detached the keyboard. Now, should she lick Tatia, or have the girl spit on her. Yuck either way.
- - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 12
Now What?
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Angela hadn’t been back to her office in three days, she couldn’t stand it in there anymore. She’d also had great fun hiding from her assistants, they eventually would catch up to her, out of breath and troubled by the search. She would reassure them in a chiefly manner, telling them she was trying to get more exercise now that the morning meetings were canceled. They would smile and nod and beg her to check her pad for messages more often. She would smile and nod and promise to do that. It was becoming a dance, the dance of the quitting chief, at least that’s what Angela was calling it in her head.
More fun than hiding from her assistants, was sneaking up on all of the departments. She would sneak into each department in silent running mode and stand in the middle of the space until someone noticed her. Some departments like communications, which always had a doughnut for her, noticed quickly. Other departments, like R&D she could wander through all day without so much as one interruption.
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