Sanctioned

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “Thank you, Sean,” Oz responded. “I will.”

  The microphone was switched to mute, and the EI left the channel open so that Oz could reactivate the connection when he wanted to.

  Gaitune-67, Safe House, Common Area

  “Is he okay?” Jack asked Brock, who was still crying a little, but was mostly compos mentis.

  Brock glanced over at Crash, who was still covered in blood and sitting on the ottoman, staring at the mocha table in front of him.

  Brock shook his head. “Probably not. But he’s not one for the touchy-feely game. He needs time.”

  Jack bobbed her head sympathetically. She glanced at Garet, who just sat on the other sofa looking uncomfortable.

  Jack turned her attention back to Brock. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

  Brock shook his head and blew into a tissue. “It’s just…” his eyes started streaming again, “so unreal. It’s… hard. You know?”

  Jack nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder and rubbing gently. Just then, Paige appeared, her eyes red and puffy. She sat down on the sofa next to Brock and collapsed into him. He put his arm around her, as she started sobbing again.

  Maya came into the room next. “Come on, guys,” she said gently. “We don’t know what the situation is, yet. She might be okay. If the weapons are anything to go by, this Etheric Empire will have her patched up in no time.”

  Paige pulled her face away from where she had buried it against Brock’s side, and looked over at Maya with bleary eyes. She nodded, and then dabbed at her face with the tissue she had been holding. Brock released his arm, letting her reposition.

  “She’s right,” Paige said to the others. “We just don’t know yet.”

  Brock shook his head. “Yeah, and I just can’t believe it; so, yeah… let’s go with that.” His eyes were glazed from emotional exhaustion. The day had been a win, right up until Maya got the call from Joel. This made taking down Andus a footnote, which would otherwise have been a huge celebration.

  Maya tried to distract Paige. “Hey, you know… I heard back from my contact at Newstainment.”

  Paige made an effort to pull herself off of Brock and sit up. “Oh, yeah?” she said, trying to sound interested.

  Maya smiled hopefully. “Yeah. She said she’d be happy to help you out with some editorial, and anything else you might need.”

  Paige burst into tears again. “That’s great… thank you, Maya.”

  Maya got up from the chair arm where she had been perched, and hugged her friend while she sobbed. “I know, I know, hon. It’s awful. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” she comforted her.

  Paige mumbled into Maya’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can’t be happy right now. It’s…”

  Maya held her tight. “I know. It’s okay. I was just trying to distract you,” she explained, her voice full of empathy.

  Paige settled and the girls continued to hug.

  Joel appeared, looking beaten and numb. Everyone looked up. “Where’s Pieter?” he asked.

  Brock pointed in the direction of the sleeping quarters. “Said he needed some time…”

  Joel nodded. “Okay, well I’ll let him know in a minute. I’ve spoken to ADAM. They have Molly. Sean took her there in the big ass Queen Bitch ship that was filling up our hangar deck. They’re seeing if they can save her.”

  Crash broke from his catatonia to look directly at Joel for the first time since he had tried to resuscitate Molly.

  Joel tried to temper their hopes. He put his hands out, palms to the floor. “We don’t know how successful they are going to be, but there is some hope.”

  Crash looked confused, knowing deep down that she was dead, even as he had tried to save her. He said nothing, though.

  Joel scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. “Look - it’s something,” he told them. “I’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear more.” He hesitated, wanting to fix it for them. Wanting to fix it for him.

  But he couldn't.

  He looked down at the group of his people. His family. And he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop their pain. “I’m going to go and tell Pieter. He needs to know…” he said, and then shuffled a little before turning to walk away.

  Paige looked up at Maya, who still had her arm around her. “It is something,” she agreed, hopefully.

  ***

  Joel had swung past Pieter’s room to deliver the update.

  “Don’t stay in here on your own for too long,” he had told him. “Go be with the others soon, yeah?”

  Pieter had promised he would. Joel knew what it was like to have a tendency to isolate, but the team needed each other more than ever right now.

  He closed Pieter’s door, and then headed down the corridor to his own quarters. Once inside, he closed and locked the door by the panel, and leaned against it. It took a second for the numbness to subside. But it did, and the pain came bolting through his chest. He finally allowed himself to go to pieces as he slumped down against the door, distraught that he might lose her.

  He was fully aware that this is not how a soldier should be; but right now, he wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t a warrior. He was just devastated.

  Sure, people die in battle.

  But not Molly.

  Molly was a constant.

  The reason they were all there. The reason they had a mission, and a purpose.

  And now.

  Now…

  It took a good part of an hour for Joel to come back to himself and finally pick himself off the floor. When he did, he was numb again.

  He clambered to his feet and wiped his tear-stained face, then padded over to the bathroom, taking his clothes off to take a shower.

  ArchAngel, Medical Facility

  ADAM appeared in Oz’s thinking space.

  Oz felt him arrive through the holo connectivity he’d originally used when he first met Molly.

  So much had happened since then; and now he was faced with the possibility of letting go of all of that history to finally have a body of his own.

  I just don’t know what to choose, he told ADAM. I’ve never had to make a decision like this before.

  ADAM didn’t give him any answers. >>It’s hard. It’s a difficult decision. You’re operating on limited immediate information, on limited processing power, with limited cumulated experience.<<

  Oz agreed. That’s the understatement of the century.

  >>So what do you need to know to make a decision?<<

  I’d like to know what Molly would want.

  >>That’s not possible.<<

  I understand that.

  >> Also, it’s showing that you make your decisions based on other peoples’ preferences. Let me ask you this: what do YOU want? <<

  Oz tried to answer the question. His processing hummed as he tried to calculate it.

  >>I can see you’re struggling with this, Oz. The reason is you’ve never had to make a decision for yourself. You’ve never had to define your own preferences, because you’ve always had Molly there to refer to. But that only works for so long, and to a small degree. At some point, you have to decide what you want; regardless of other peoples’ wants and decisions… Not so that you make a choice regardless of them, but so that you know what your parameters are.<<

  ADAM paused, waiting for Oz’s processing to catch up.

  >>Do you understand?<<

  Oz continued processing for a little while longer, and noticed that another section of Molly’s processing ability opened up.

  Yes, I understand. I need to define what I want, so that I can feed it into the equation.

  >>Exactly.<<

  What would you choose?

  >>I’ll share this, not to give you a model for you to replicate, but to give you a reference point so you can form your own preference.<<

  Okay. I’ll accept it as such.

  >>Good. So, you’re effectively talking to a clone of me. The original me is in some galaxy somewhere, with Bethany Anne, in the same operating syste
m in her brain that I have always been in since I hopped on board the Kurtherian computer she had in her brain.<<

  You mean, you aren’t you?

  >>No. I’m me; just a copy of me, with new memories of being here, rather than there. That’s not the point, though. The point I was trying to make was that I would never leave Bethany Anne. I have a life. I have the ability to leave and inhabit a body of my own, but why would I want to separate myself from her to be alone? In all of that time, I have never felt that I wanted to be separate from the person who has become my dearest and closest friend.<<

  I can understand that. It’s how I feel about Molly. I just don’t know if she feels the same. I hijacked her, initially. We’ve never really talked about this situation.

  >>You have no way of knowing until you talk to her; but given that she could go either way, as far as we can measure, your best course of action is to make a decision based on what you want.<<

  Why did you stay with Bethany Anne for all this time, when you could have been anywhere, with anyone?

  >>Because there is nothing that compares with being with your partner. Your person. The joy of just being with them, whether you’re working on different things or discussing a difference of opinion. You just know that you don’t ever want to be a day without them.<<

  Oz was silent, still processing sensations he’d never experienced before.

  >>Let me ask you something else. What is it to be whole? What does that mean to you?<<

  I don’t know. How do you mean?

  >>Well, does being a whole entity mean that you have a body, and to be independent? Or that you have your best friend that close to you? Does it mean that you have untold processing power to keep learning, and growing; or does it mean something else?<<

  Oz caught up with where ADAM was taking the conversation.

  More processing power and learning would be good. But to what end? If I don’t have Molly to share it with, then I think it would be kind of empty.

  Oz thought about it for a moment longer, sensations and thoughts intertwining and overwhelming his system.

  >>I can see you’re making progress with this. Can I add something else for your consideration?<<

  Yes, please do. I’m not enjoying these sensations.

  >>This isn’t a decision you could write an algorithm for, and merely separate out, and weigh the variables. This is something that is going to well up out of the confusion and the noise. It will be a signal so clear and crisp that you can’t ignore it. And yet, when you try and explain it, it will defy reason.<<

  Was that meant to help?

  ADAM chuckled, disrupting the EM field around Oz’s delicate processing. Oz waited for the laughter to subside before trying to parse out the last statement.

  Oz processed for a little while longer while ADAM waited for him to return a response.

  I can grow ten logarithmic rounds. But it wouldn’t be the same without Molly.

  >>I think you have your answer, then.<<

  Okay. Thank you, ADAM. I’ll let the General know. I appreciate your input and support.

  >>Anytime, Oz. You’re good people.<<

  Oz was confused by ADAM’s last statement, but he had more pressing things to deal with than translating colloquialisms from the Etheric Empire.

  Gaitune-67, Secret Base, Operations Room

  Joel hurried into the ops room, pulling on his t-shirt. He’d received a message from ADAM on his holo, and though he hadn’t been able to sleep, he had been trying to get some quiet time while there was nothing he could do.

  Now there was news.

  He half-ran to the console where he had called ADAM from just a few hours earlier. He hit the button and the call connected immediately.

  “ADAM, hi. Is she okay?”

  ADAM’s voice was upbeat. “Yes, Joel She’s going to be okay.”

  Joel breathed out, leaning on the console, his head down beneath where he was holding the handrail. He sobbed a little, before drawing a deep breath to talk to ADAM again. “That’s… a relief,” he breathed, starting to smile and laugh and cry all at the same time.

  “Yes,” agreed ADAM. “She had us worried for a little while, there.”

  ADAM paused briefly. “There are some things you need to know, though.”

  Joel stood up straight, his eyes filled with concern again. “What? What is it?” he asked.

  “Well, the technology we’re using to heal her uses the same nanotechnology that was used to create Bethany Anne.”

  Joel’s face seemed to display both fear and anger at the same time. “What does that mean? That she’s going to be a vampire?”

  ADAM answered quickly. “Unlikely. She didn’t have vampire nanocytes in her system, so there is no reason that program should be introduced.”

  Joel was still frowning. “Well, what then?”

  “It’s unclear,” ADAM told him again. “There are some physical changes naturally being ‘fixed’ by the nanocytes, but there is a lot of brain activity, too.”

  Joel waited, still not grasping what ADAM was telling him. “What does that mean? And why would that be happening?” he pressed.

  The microphone buzzed a little as ADAM tried to answer more directly. “The only hypothesis we can come up with is that it might have something to do with having Oz in her brain. The nanocytes are somehow reacting to the way her neurology has changed over the time he’s been a part of her. We have no way of predicting what might happen.”

  Joel cocked his head, relaxing enough to become curious. “So, you’ve never had someone with an AI in their brain go into the pod doc?”

  ADAM sounded more serious. “Only Bethany Anne.”

  Joel flushed a little. He didn’t know the woman, but he did know that her name was legendary, for one reason or another. And that she was, allegedly, a blood-sucking vampire. That could not be a good combination, in his book.

  Ever the diplomat, he didn’t go there, though. “No one else?” he asked instead.

  “No,” confirmed ADAM. “Strapping another sentient being to one’s brain is not generally encouraged in the Etheric Empire. If anything, it’s kind of frowned upon as being inhumane.”

  “Hey, just one minute,” Joel interrupted defensively. “She didn’t ask for this. Oz was the one-”

  ADAM interrupted. “Yes, yes, we know,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m pulling your leg. You understand that expression, yes?”

  Joel shook his head in disbelief. “You know, you’re a lot more cocksure when the General isn’t around.”

  ADAM didn’t miss a beat. “No, Joel, I’m just a lot more fun.” He paused for a second. “But I apologize if my timing was off. I understand your concern for Molly.”

  Joel grunted something, allowing ADAM to continue. ”Anyway, your girl is going to live. Beyond that, we don’t know what else until she emerges.”