The Mechanic nodded and moved to the nano keg. “I’ll start building nanos for Will.”
Wait. That wouldn’t work. “He can’t own nanos yet because he doesn’t have the communication nanos installed. He needs to understand what’s happening before he wakes up with a panoramic video screen in his mind.”
The Mechanic snapped his fingers. “That’s a great point.” He scrunched up his face in thought. “I’ll code them to Adam. During the Aliomenti raid that’s coming up, it was Adam who turned Will’s room into… what did he call it? A flying bobsled?”
They all laughed.
The keg took twelve hours to produce the nanos required to form a full-sized dwelling. After the Mechanic activated the production process, he, Fil, and Adam left to get some sleep.
Angel stayed. She used her own nanos to form a reclining chair near her father’s bed and reached out to take his hand. She left her Shield down; the direct contact would continue the flow of Energy into him. She felt the smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep.
“You stayed here all night?”
She startled awake, blinking. “I guess I did.”
The Mechanic nodded. “You should go get some fresh air, Angel. I’ll be here with him while you’re gone.”
She realized the air seemed stale and wondered if she was comparing the local air to what she’d breathed on the island paradise the day before. “I will. Thanks.”
He nodded at her as she disassembled her chair and walked through the wall.
The outside air was crisp and clean, and she breathed deeply. She had to compose herself. The emotional reaction was understandable, but she had a job to do as well. That job demanded that she avoid an excessive emotional attachment. She could and would be friendly, help her father learn his future heritage and history, and help prepare him mentally for the immense journey he’d face. The more emotionally attached she became, the greater the odds she’d slip up.
“He’s Mr. Stark, a nice man caught up in something he doesn’t understand. I’ve never met him before.”
“Anything I can help with? Or do you often talk to yourself?”
Charlie was there, arms folded, smiling.
Angel rushed to him, let him wrap his arms around her. “Sorry. It’s… it’s been more difficult to manage than I’d expected.”
“You’ll be fine, Angel. Your motivational speech is exactly right. You don’t need to forget your compassionate nature. Just… tone it down to normal levels.”
She nodded. He was exactly right. “Thanks. I needed that.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I have to get to work.”
“I know you do. And you’ll be fine. There’s nobody in the history of the world who could do a better job at what you’ve been asked to do.” He gave her a smile. “Now go get it done.”
She offered a salute. “Yes, sir.”
She visited the shower facility—a room that sprayed a fragrant effervescent mist that left skin and hair deeply cleaned—and headed back to the Mechanic’s quarters. She took another breath of the fragrant outside air and a final kiss of sunlight upon her skin before she moved through the wall.
Adam and Fil had joined the Mechanic in her absence, and all three looked up as she entered. “Good night sleep?” Fil asked, a faint smile upon his face.
She smacked him on the shoulder as she moved to sit at the table. “Delightful.”
“We have several key activities to complete over the next six hours or so,” the Mechanic said, reviewing a checklist. “We’ll need to create the memory blocks. Fil, that’s you. We’ve got the list of memories to locate and block here.” Fil nodded, looking decidedly uninterested in the prospect as the Mechanic pushed a small tablet computer across the table. “Adam, you have the new allotment of nanos. You’ll be in charge of building Will’s room. Don’t forget the bed in the middle.” Adam nodded once. “Angel, you and I will handle bathing Will and getting him into fresh clothing before Fil finishes the memory blocks.”
She nodded. It seemed an odd thing, especially since his skin was still tender from the extensive burns. But they needed to clean the blood and debris and dead skin before the healing nanos graduated from the internal injuries to the exterior.
Adam headed out moments later to the site of Will’s home in the camp. Fil tapped the screen on the tablet and began scrolling through the list.
Angel surrounded Will’s unconscious form in Energy and lifted him off the table. She levitated him toward the wall… and his feet bounced.
The Mechanic snapped his fingers. “My fault. I already set up the security with the tattoos. The room won’t let him out.” He glanced back at Fil. “Shield your eyes, it’s going to get bright for just a moment.”
Fil turned around and glanced up at him from behind the mirrored sunglasses, an ironic smile on his face.
The Mechanic snorted. “Right.”
The room vanished as the Mechanic disassembled the structure. Angel floated Will outside the space and, once she’d breached the old perimeter, the building reformed behind her. They moved to the shower facility. Angel felt awkward peeling the clothes from her father, and cringed as they forced strips of clothing away from his body through the dried blood plastering them in place. The Mechanic floated Will into the shower facility to remove the last few articles of clothing and complete the washing cycle.
Angel waited outside. She removed her shoes and flexed her toes in the grass. She’d have to do an introductory talk with her fa—with Mr. Stark. He’d still be in pain. She’d give him the next vial of fluid. She frowned. They’d already given him the nanos. The new vial would probably be another sleeping formula, then. She’d prepare that once they got him situated in his room. She knew they’d need to do the Purge in the next three or four days and her nose wrinkled. They’d eliminated the painful attributes of morange by easing people into it with increased dosages of zirple first. Mr. Stark didn’t have the luxury of time. She was happy that they’d already put the healing nanos in him. She wondered if the Purge would flush the healing nanos out. She’d need to make the observation to the others and see if the idea had merit.
The Mechanic moved out of the shower facility with a clean—and clothed—Will Stark floating behind him. He looked far better. The burns and bruises were still evident, but the lack of blood and dirt made him look far more human and alive. She smiled at the Mechanic. “Nice job.”
“All credit or blame goes to the shower itself. Shall we see if Will’s new home is ready?”
They moved through the camp, floating Will along in his repose. The other residents watched and chatted with them. Most sensed her internal struggle and offered encouragement as she worked in the coming days and weeks with Mr. Stark. They found the completed dwelling at the designated spot and moved through the wall. Adam was there, concentrating, and she watched as the narrow bed formed in the middle of the space. The room was pure white on the walls, floor, and ceiling. Other residents, with more control over their nanos, added rooms and color to the interior. Adam kept things simple. They didn’t want Will worrying about furnishings and decoration during his time with them.
The Mechanic set Will down upon the bed. The trio exchanged glances and then left the room.
“How long until he wakes up?” She needed to be there when he did.
“Probably two more hours,” Adam said. “You’ve got time to get a bit of rest.”
Angel didn’t need to be told twice. She headed back to the dwelling she shared with Charlie before stopping just outside the walls. She needed to perform her role properly. That meant she had to live in the correct building. With a sense of deep regret, she headed to the building where Fil lived.
He wasn’t there, of course. He was altering their father’s memories to forget he’d ever met important people in his life. He’d partitioned the interior into three rooms: one central living space and two small bedrooms. She could sense lingering Energy in the room to the right and moved to the one on the left. The
room was empty. She formed a bed of nanos and settled down for a short nap.
“Sis, you need to wake up.”
She sat up, startled. She’d always been a deep sleeper, but she’d fallen asleep instantly the last two times she’d settled down to rest. The mental fatigue and stress took a toll. She needed to get through the next two days and then let her body and mind recover.
She knew why he’d woken her. “Thanks, bro.”
He tapped her on her shoulder as she tried to walk by. “Don’t forget these.” He handed her the pair of glasses he’d snagged from the kitchen counter during the trip back in time and the vial of sleeping potion.
She nodded and moved through the wall and to Will’s chamber. He was awake.
The conversation felt awkward. She gave him the glasses so he could see. She stayed positive, giving him a simple overview of their group and the fact that he needed to heal his body. His focus was single-minded. He wanted to get back home and use all of his immense resources to launch a search for those who’d attacked his home and killed his family.
She’d seen that same attitude in Fil.
She calmed him down with her Energy and gave him the sleeping potion, telling him it was a potion to complete the healing of his remaining injuries. It would keep him asleep for at least thirty-six hours.
She took advantage of the respite and slept as well.
She woke, famished, and headed to the dining hall. They’d reproduced the automated machinery of the Cavern here. Robots collected local fruits and vegetables. Eva, Charlie, and others in the camp went fishing and hunted local game. She smirked. That was what they called it. In reality, they traveled to the closest human settlement, three hundred miles away, and purchased most of their food. She didn’t care where the food came from. She gave her verbal order and felt her mouth water as the aromas wafted over her. She closed her eyes, allowed her mind to anticipate the textures and tastes of each item she’d ordered. When the machine finished production, she had to restrain herself, slowing down to chew each bite thoroughly.
Her second session with her father was better in many ways. He was healthy. He’d woken feeling better than he could remember feeling in his life. His curiosity about what had happened had deepened. Fil entered and made it clear that returning to human society was no longer an option; he’d be suspected of planning the events that had happened, regardless of his protestations of innocence. He accepted his fate and asked what he could do to help stop the men who’d taken away his family from hurting others.
Angel smiled. Always looking to help someone else.
She warned him about the Purge. It would be painful; they didn’t know how painful it would be. She told him they didn’t know because they didn’t have people undergo the Purge who’d had his years of exposure to all the contaminants now in his body. That wasn’t completely true. While most new recruits were younger than Will, none of them suffered as they worked up to taking a full dose of morange. When she left the room, he’d agreed to undergo the Purge, even though he understood it might kill him.
She hoped her warning was just a warning.
When she arrived back at the Mechanic’s quarters, he and Charlie were fussing over a mixture of fluids on a table. She recognized the coloring of the component fluids. “So you’re mixing the Purge then?”
Charlie nodded. “The problem is, the mixture isn’t the right color. Remember the memory? Will described the mix as looking like blood. He thought we were vampires.” Charlie shuddered.
“Your eyes do sparkle, you know.”
“Only when I look at you.”
“Let’s dispense with the gag-inducing one-liners for just a moment, shall we?” The Mechanic looked at her. “We’ve mixed together the morange, zirple, and ambrosia, but the coloring is wrong. We’re trying to determine if we’ve got the proportions right. We can add coloring but don’t think that’s likely.”
Something nagged at her. A memory. Something her mother had mentioned. She snapped her fingers. “It’s the ambrosia.”
“We need more?”
“You need to take it out of the mix. Mom said Dad realized when they found it originally that we’d not given him any. Said that if for some reason in any time loop they’d not found it, he’d have no reason to stick around for a thousand years because Mom would be dead before the end of the twelfth century.”
The Mechanic smacked his head. “Of course. How stupid of me.” He glanced at the mix. “I’m about due for a refresh on my essentials anyway, so that won’t go to waste.” He looked at Angel. “Is he ready?”
She nodded. “Mr. Stark is aware of the purpose of the Purge and the potential effects upon his person. He accepts the risks.” She looked around. “Speaking of administering the Purge… where’s Fil?”
“He’ll meet you on the way back to Will’s quarters,” Charlie replied. “Putting all of those memory blocks in place took a lot out of him.”
Angel cringed. “Yeah. I don’t envy him that. He’s drawn a lot of the more distasteful parts of this.”
The Mechanic looked thoughtful. “He has. But I suspect Fil wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They completed the mix. This time, it turned a deep blood red. The Mechanic added in extra healing nanos without her remembering to mention it. “It’s going to be pretty awful, if memory serves. The more inside him that helps, the better.”
Charlie mixed everything thoroughly and poured it into a clear vial with a stopper. “Blood for our newest vampire recruit.” He smirked.
She took the vial and left without comment.
The Purge formula was as it should be, lacking ambrosia. She laughed at herself. Given the importance of keeping Mr. Stark’s blood clear of ambrosia, the fact that both she and Charlie hadn’t thought to keep it out of the original mixture was astonishing. Thankfully, Charlie remembered the commentary about the blood-like appearance of the mixture, saving them from making an unalterable mistake.
Her father would be healthy and his blood would be pure. She felt it was wrong to just take blood from him, though. It would be simple enough. But she wanted him to give it freely. At the same time, she couldn’t explain the reasoning until it was too late. She couldn’t tell him the cure for ambrosia in this time; they were meant to struggle in finding the solution. Nor could she just ask for a sample as a matter of protocol. Will would question the need. How could she enable him to give her the blood of his own free will, then?
The crash. The crash into the trees when they’d evacuate this site. In her father’s memory, she and Fil had crashed their vehicle after being hit by a blast from one of the Aliomenti. It hadn’t made sense. She’d know they were coming before they could fire a shot, as would Fil. She could teleport and phase into immateriality immediately. It was implausible that she’d suffer internal bleeding and require a blood transfusion.
But he didn’t know that.
But was there truth enough in the statement? She did need his blood. She was confident that her father, in his current incarnation, would want to help. Her younger father would want to help as well; she couldn’t tell him the reasons without altering history. Was this subterfuge acceptable? A means to an end?
She’d talk to Fil and Adam and the Mechanic about it.
Fil was waiting for her outside. “You realize that if I’m in that room he’ll try to hurt me when this takes effect, right?”
She snapped her focus back to the moment. “That means you’ve done your job well.”
He curled his lip. “Thanks. I think. I’ll go in with you, and once he’s through the stage where he’s able to inflict violence, I’ll be back.” He sighed. “I feel like a coward leaving you in there.”
“I can take care of myself, Fil. And he’ll understand why you did it one day.”
“Yeah. One day.”
The Purge itself was horrific. She’d thought the sight of her father freshly removed from the Hunters’ clutch was awful, but it was nothing to the screams of pain he unleashed
as the Purge took its toll. Fil was there in an instant, a steadying hand on her shoulder. She knew better; he was leaning on her as much as he was offering her support.
They carried him once more to the showers, both with tears streaming down their faces. He lost consciousness on the way, which emboldened the others in the camp to come to their aid. Charlie had gone pale. “You learn something about a man’s character when he allows something like this to happen, don’t you?” He shook his head. “I’ll never measure up to him.”
The Mechanic clapped him on the back. “Be yourself, Charlie. That’s all anyone can do.”
Angel smiled. “That’s all Mr. Stark has been doing, right? Suffering through burns, broken bones, and a Purge that nearly killed him. All because… because…”
She fell to the ground in tears.
XXI
Adam
2219 A.D.
Adam sat outside the dwelling. He’d built the room for Will, and was eager to turn ownership of the devices over to his new pupil. The mental burden was a challenge he’d not expected. He thought back, remembering when he’d gotten the first batch of communication nanos from the Mechanic. The enhanced sensory imagery the devices supplied overwhelmed him at first. In time, he’d gotten used to the new source of information, and was now quite comfortable with the technology. The doubling of nanos, though, was like starting all over again. He wondered if he’d feel somehow deprived when he handed them over to Will.
But that was the future. He had a new Energy student to train.
He’d done this before, and in part he’d done it before because he’d known he’d be handling this job now. He’d gotten more skilled at training pupils over time. He regretted not training Gena. Her inherent Energy ability would have been the best training possible for this situation, for Will Stark would grow his Energy skills at a rate they’d never before seen.
Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm Page 27
