by Gini Koch
Resisted the urge to really curse a lot. “Fine. That means we need to do something, and there’s no one we can ask for help.” Considered the situation. It sucked. Forced myself to think. “Why did Stephanie go back to Drax? She had the helicarrier, she had a nice android army starting, and she had people she was going to turn into androids who would easily infiltrate our defenses.” And cause heartbreak, but I didn’t say that out loud. “So, why go back to him?”
“He had something she needed to do the transfer,” White suggested.
“Yeah. And she didn’t get it, or if she did, it’s incarcerated along with her or still at Drax’s place. So are the guys brain-dead yet, or are they still themselves?”
White studied the computer walls. “If I assume the lights on these boards are similar to what we use in the isolation chambers, then their brains are still active.”
Lizzie stepped closer to the boards and examined them. “The uncles used to say that even the most complicated computer in the world has an off switch.”
“But if we turn the machines off, the guys may die.”
“Or they may wake up.” Lizzie looked at me. “We have to do something.”
Before I could reply, the walkie crackled. “Kitty, we have a situation, over.” Abigail sounded tense.
Lizzie handed me the walkie. “So do we, what’s your sitch? Over.”
“Several of the hostages aren’t doing well. They need water and medical treatment. As in, we have to get them to a hospital pronto. Over.”
“She lives here,” I said, not into the walkie but to the others with me. “That means she has food and water here. Maybe first aid stuff, I mean, there’s enough medical here. The androids don’t need any of that, but Stephanie does. Scatter. See what you can find.” Went back to Abigail as the others took off. “Searching to see if we can find anything helpful. Over.”
“What’s your situation? Over.”
“Um . . . we’ve found Joe and Randy.” Gave her a fast update. “So, I don’t know if we turn off the machines or what. Over.”
While I waited for Abigail to respond, I tried to focus. I could ask ACE what to do, but Jamie would be awake and that meant I’d be asking my little girl to make a life or death decision for two men she loved whose children were her friends. Out of the question. Naomi couldn’t really intervene here—she was being watched by the Superconsciousness Police, and taking direct action here would be something they’d really hurt her, and probably us, over.
“I don’t know, either,” Abigail said finally. “I just know we need to do something. Over.”
“Yeah. I’ll keep you posted. Out.”
Went back to thinking. Algar was already helping me, probably as much as he was willing to, which had been an amazing amount, really. We wouldn’t have found the flyboys and Field agents without his musical clues. But as I thought this I realized that my music had stopped once the R.E.M. song had finished. Checked my phone. It had turned off. Now wasn’t a great time to run out of battery.
The others arrived, laden with water. “We found her stash,” Lizzie said. “She has tonnages of water and food and supplies.”
“It’s definitely a bunker here,” Adriana agreed.
“Great. You guys get that water to the others. Don’t argue—we have people who are in terrible shape. Let’s not lose the people we came here to save. I’ll be fine down here. Just, you know, come back as soon as you can.”
White didn’t look happy, but logic won out. Adriana emptied her backpack and they filled it with water bottles. Lizzie ran off and came back with a box of food bars and another case of water. White put the backpack on and took the case of water in one hand, Adriana took the box of food bars from Lizzie, then she took one of Lizzie’s hands while White took the other.
“We’ll be right back,” he said. “Try not to cause me to regret having to do this.” And with that they took off.
Did a fast run through the entire giant room. Realized I was thirsty as well as stressed, so I grabbed a water bottle and drank it down.
Tried to wake Joe and Randy up again. Didn’t work. Tried to make myself unplug their computers from the walls. Couldn’t do it. Contemplated turning on my iPod but figured I might need it later and if my phone had run out of juice, it wasn’t unlikely that my iPod would, too.
Took a look at my iPod, though, just in case. It was on. And the song that was playing on repeat was Oingo Boingo’s “Return of the Dead Man 2.”
CHAPTER 64
“ALL PRAISE the Great God Algar,” I said under my breath. “And yes, I’m kidding. But only sort of.”
Didn’t need to hear the song, it was an instrumental. It was clear what Algar was telling me, based on the title. Took a deep breath, focused on the Inner Me, then took a look at the light boards behind Joe and Randy.
The lights meant nothing to me, but I ignored that. Instead I looked for patterns, to see if there was something different happening. As far as I could tell there wasn’t.
This meant that I just needed to either try harder or think right. Per ACE I always thought right. So, without the assistance of our benevolent observer and with only one musical clue to go on, had to determine the right course of action to bring my two dead men back.
White, Lizzie, and Adriana returned. “We need to bring more supplies to the others,” White shared. “I’m pleased to see that you haven’t done anything rash in our brief absence.”
“Don’t expect that to last. Um, do you need Lizzie for the next run?”
“Why?” Adriana asked.
“I think I need help here.”
“With what?” Lizzie sounded confused, not that I could blame her.
“With waking Joe and Randy up.”
The others exchanged the “oh dear” look. “Are you sure you should try?” Adriana asked gently.
“Yes, I am. Look, I just want someone to bounce ideas off of, and Richard has to provide the hyperspeed. And, in this case, I think Lizzie will help me more than you, that’s all.”
White nodded slowly. “Just remember that your choices will have ramifications.”
“They always do.”
He gave me a quick hug, then he and Adriana went off to get more water and such and I turned back to the guys.
“They look dead,” Lizzie said quietly.
“Yeah, but they really aren’t. They’re sleeping like it, though. So, maybe we look at this as how do you wake someone up from a hibernation sleep?”
“No clue.”
“Tito knows how. He got Malcolm out of a sleep like this. Dammit, I wish we could get a call out.”
“I have no bars in here. I can try more number predials to see if we can get the phone system to work.”
“No, I’m sure the predial is long and complex, because to an A-C, having to punch in twenty numbers before you dial the real number you want isn’t that big a deal.”
“At least they don’t look sick,” Lizzie said, clearly trying for the optimistic spin. “The other people we’ve found don’t, either. I mean, they look like crap, but they don’t look like they have the Alien Flu.”
“Yeah, if they did we could keep them going with adrenaline.” Jerked. “Oh, wow. Think it could be that easy?”
“Well, if you have adrenaline and you want to give it to them, maybe?” Lizzie sounded doubtful. “But what if it hurts them?”
“I don’t think it will.” Dug around in my purse to find the container I always carried with me—the case that held adrenaline in case I needed to slam a needle full of it into Jeff’s chest. Happily, I hadn’t had to do that for a while, but the possibility was always there, and so I was always prepared. And I’d filled it up just the other day, because when it came to adrenaline, I lived the Boy Scout Motto. This stuff had saved the day during Operation Epidemic and I saw no reason why it wouldn’t save the day here and no
w as well.
“Choose who we try first,” I said to Lizzie.
“Huh? Why?”
“Because these guys are married to two of my best friends, and if I’m wrong, I want to be able to say that I didn’t make the choice.”
“So you want me to be the one who picks who might die? Thanks for that.”
“Oh. Good point. Never mind.”
“You’re in front of one more than the other, so that’s the guy to choose.”
I was more in front of Joe. Okay, Joe would go first then. And I prayed I was right and wouldn’t have to tell Lorraine that her husband was never coming home.
We went inside his glass room and took a closer look at things. “I think we want to unplug the android parts,” Lizzie said finally. “Just in case.”
“I agree.” The wires ran into the computer board. I ripped them out and that side of the board seemed to turn off. “Can you go do the same for Randy?”
“Sure.” She trotted off to take care of this and I readied my needle. White and Adriana returned again, but I ignored them. This was either going to work or it wasn’t, and any more delays helped no one.
Waited one more moment—in case the Various Powers That Be decided to send me some kind of sign to stop. There was no such sign. So, I did what I’d gotten really good at over the years—I slammed the needle into Joe’s heart.
Results were immediate.
His eyes flew open. “What the hell?” he shouted. Then he blinked several times and I saw him focus on me. “Kitty? Kitty, is that really you?”
“God, am I glad you’re not dead. Yes, it’s really me. Hang on.” Ran out of the room. “Mister White, get Joe unstrapped and unplugged.” Pulled out another needle, ensured that Lizzie had Randy’s android innards wires ripped out of the computer board, then slammed the needle into his heart.
Results were again immediate as Randy did pretty much the exact same thing as Joe had. Managed not to cry with relief, but it was a close thing.
White had Joe unstrapped and sitting up and came in and did the same with Randy. “I haven’t removed the wires,” he told me quietly. “I believe we want to be careful doing that.”
“I agree.”
“Where are my clothes?” Randy asked. “I mean that seriously.”
“No idea honestly.”
“I think I found them.” Adriana trotted in with what looked like the uniforms the flyboys wore when they were in the air on a mission, which would be what they’d have been wearing when Drax captured them. “They were in what I think is the room where she does the finishing touches on the androids.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?” Randy asked. He went pale. “Am I . . . am I still fully human?”
“Yeah, I think you and Joe both are.”
“Only just.” Lizzie pointed to the android innards lying on the bed next to Randy’s.
He shuddered. “Thanks, kid.”
“Oh, right, you haven’t met her. This is Lizzie.” Gave him and Joe, who was holding the tiny towel around him while White helped him into this room, the quick update on Lizzie though I left out what else was going on. They both seemed disoriented, not a shocker, and I figured they should take in all the happenings slowly right now.
Both of them still had the wires in them, too, but they didn’t mention it. “These are our clothes,” Joe said, sounding relieved. He looked around. “Where are the others?”
“Jerry, Matt, and Chip are with the others we’ve rescued. We don’t know where Camilla and the princesses are.”
“On the ship,” Randy said. “The helicarrier. They were hard for our captors to control, and I remember seeing them in stasis. The last thing I remember is hearing someone say they were leaving them there because they didn’t want to risk letting them escape.”
“I heard that, too,” Joe confirmed, “and it was a woman talking.”
“Stephanie.”
They both nodded. “Probably,” Joe said. “So, uh, can we get dressed?”
“Oh! Yeah, sorry. We’ll turn around.” We all did. The glass was reflective. “And close our eyes. We’ll all close our eyes.”
“You’ve already seen them naked before anyway,” White said, sarcasm knob set to eleven.
“Blah, blah, blah. But that does bring up a good question. Um, guys? Can you confirm that you, ah, have all your important man parts?”
“I do not want to know why you’re asking that,” Randy said, sounding freaked out. “But yes, I do. Thank God.”
“Same here,” Joe added. “Should we assume we were about to lose those?”
“No, because you were supposed to infiltrate us and you couldn’t have done that if you took your pants off in front of your wives. But under the circumstances, just felt it was wise to check.” Cracked an eyelid. They had their underpants on. Good enough. Turned around. “Sorry about the bruising on your chests, by the way.”
“I’ll take it,” Joe said. He looked around and, like Randy, shuddered. “How long have we been here?”
“Probably about a week. Finish getting dressed. We need to formulate a plan for how we rescue the last of our team.”
“Wait to get dressed,” Lizzie said, sounding urgent.
The guys looked at me. “Okay, hold on,” I said, as Lizzie tugged at my hand and pulled me into Joe’s room.
“What’s up?”
“Tito has that thing that proves if someone’s fully human, right?” she asked in a low voice.
“Right, the OVS. It determines organic from inorganic.”
“Yeah. I don’t think these two guys are as organic as they were a week ago.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t think the stuff we thought were plugs actually are plugs. They didn’t unplug when I pulled them out of the board—they ripped.”
“So? I’m not following you.”
“It’s not plugs or needles or tubes, going into them. What’s in them are wires. Thin wires, like landlines use.”
“You know what the internal workings of landlines look like?”
“Yeah, most of the infrastructure out there is landline based, and the uncles wanted to be sure I knew how to tap a phone line from a distance.”
“Gotcha. And it’s a great skill. But I don’t see how these wires being thin wires like old phones use is relevant.”
She heaved an impatient teenaged sigh. “I don’t think this board is a computer so much as it’s a transference device. I think that the wires from the android side were being inserted into the human side.”
CHAPTER 65
“THAT SOUNDS IMPOSSIBLE.” But even as I said that, I knew it wasn’t. The Alpha Centauri system had things that were so advanced that to us they seemed like magic. What could a galaxy core planet have? Things that definitely seemed magic. And while this could be Drax technology, Marling had created realistic androids for years.
“Yeah? Then explain how the wires here,” she indicated the stuff that was making up the android innards, “are the same color and shape as the wires going into those guys.”
“There could be a noninvasive reason.” Though I doubted it. Our luck didn’t run that way.
“Well, I think that if we check we’re going to find out that they have wiring in them already.”
“How much?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea, but I don’t think we should let them pull the wires out or cut them or anything. They may have to be surgically removed.”
“If they can be removed.” Looked up to see Joe and Randy watching us. Took a deep breath and went back into the room they were in.
“How bad is it?” Randy asked before I could say anything.
“We know it’s bad,” Joe added. “We know you, Kitty, and your expression says it’s really bad.”
“We’re androids already, aren’t we?�
� Randy asked, sounding calm in the way someone is right before they totally lose it.
“No. See all those wires? They’re all supposed to be inside of you. You’re not a full android with all of that still outside of you.”
“But we’re partial,” Joe said flatly.
“Maybe. Lizzie suggested that we not remove or cut the wires that are in you guys. Just in case.”
Both guys looked ready to ignore that and pull the wires out. In fact, their hands were moving—Joe’s toward his inner elbows, Randy’s toward the back of his knees.
“I thought you said these guys were smart,” Lizzie said, her Derisive Teenager Tone set to eleven.
Both guys stopped and stared at her. “What?” Joe asked finally.
She rolled her eyes. “Your commander just told you to leave that stuff alone. Me, I’d totes love to see you guys, like, pull your brains out through your skulls because how cool would that be? But Kitty likes you and besides, we don’t have a camera, so I can’t take footage and be sure I can afford to go to any college I want.”
There were a long moments of silence while Joe and Randy stared at Lizzie. I’d known these guys a long time, and I had no idea what they were going to do right now. Also didn’t know how much wiring was already inside of them and how it might be affecting their thoughts and actions.
The silence went on, and I knew that it had to break in some way. Decided Lizzie had given me an opening and I should take it. “I’m ordering you both to leave that crap alone right now.”
They both looked at me now, but they straightened up and put their hands to their sides. “How do we get dressed?” Joe asked stiffly.
“Really?” Lizzie shook her head. “How are we a superpower? You wrap the stupid stuff around your legs and around your arms. We find a way to cover your heads and keep those wires covered and safe. How is it that you even have to ask?”
“Fear affects everyone,” Adriana said softly. “Even those trained for years to ignore it. I believe I’ve found head coverings.” She was holding two knit caps. “The weather is a little warm for these, but they should do what’s necessary.”
