by Ginger Booth
Insulators be damned, something conducted along that ceramic broomstick and through two layers of rubber. This wasn’t heat, either, but her nerves interpreted the sensation as searing her hands.
The pole slipped off the lever and dumped Sass to her hands and knees. Nothing improved in her black universe. So she reached up to find the lowered lever with the back of a glove. Then she grabbed it with both hands and slammed it the remaining couple inches down.
And she fell flat on her face, dead.
Sass had avoided dying lately. Her last bout of death, time after time at the pitiless mechanical hands of Shiva’s robots, left her with severe PTSD. Even trying out the nifty emus, she never dared push the power above halfway.
Yet abruptly dead again, she recalled how pleasant it was. At the moment of death, she felt much better. The moment before, she naturally felt awful, so dying came as an incredible relief, like a sudden fresh breeze of release from pain. The pitch darkness was replaced by a bright spring green and a rush of euphoria, to the smell of honeysuckles in bloom.
And nothing hurt. She always enjoyed that part best.
Furthermore, she could ask whatever she wanted and be instantly transported to the answer. Clay now pushed through the gates to the city. The weird non-German name ‘Checkpoint Bravo’ came from the Berlin Wall during the city’s split between American and Russian-occupied sides. Ben Acosta was simultaneously heartbroken and elated as he saw his ship now emancipated from the olive oily egg.
Kassidy was very, very upset, and peeling her poor body out of its rubber gloves, which appeared to be melted. The broomstick was bent at a 120-degree angle.
How far does this go? Her questing mind flashed to Remi, and found him jumping up and down with Aurora in triumph. Bloki’s face displayed on her office desktop, the first she’d ever seen him. So like Loki.
But that wasn’t him, of course. She flipped into her AI-self to behold his real self. His directives unfurled about her to satisfy her curiosity. And she remembered everything about being inside Shiva, and the moment she –
Pfaugh! She jerked back into her body. Ow! The agony was stunning. Dying was release, joy, emancipation. Returning to life into a broken body that really deserved to be dead, sucked beyond words. At first, she feared the infernal device was still keening. But no, it was herself attempting to scream from the pain. The blackness resolved as Kassidy pulled the rubber mask off her head.
“Sass! What can I do? How can I help you?”
But then a firm hand grabbed her jaw and turned her to face him. A sweating Clay frowned at her. He dislodged her breath mask briefly, then replaced it. He vanished from view a moment, patting down her arms and legs. Some other person she couldn’t see jabbed her with a hypodermic.
That actually helped. She felt the cool relief of opiates spread from the injection site, and her concern level rapidly de-escalated. The someone jabbed her again. She couldn’t blame the man for thinking she needed more. She didn’t care to know the details. But her body’s condition was awful.
“Thank you,” Clay told someone. “Please back away, give her room.”
Floating on an opiate cloud, Sass was only faintly surprised when he cut her. To give me his blood, she thought. She’d done that to him before, when she wasn’t sure he’d make it back from the dead. I’m not that dead, Clay. No, her nanites had this well in hand.
Her miraculous regeneration would make quite a show for the locals. There was something problematic about that. But an opiate river carried her away into the blooming green of an Upstate spring, back when the rain still stopped sometimes.
51
Steps approached Nico’s closet. Then the door opened to blinding light. He shielded his eyes with his arm. And his heart fell. “Dad.”
“Hey, buddy!” His father pulled up a chair and lounged into it. “Elise, report to Eli on Prosper.”
“It’s good to see you back, Cope!” Elise attempted.
“Can’t say the same,” the engineer returned sourly. “Get lost. Let me talk to my boy.”
The materials scientist, and spy of Hell’s Bells, clambered to her feet. She shot Nico a sympathetic smile before she scurried out. The guard Carp waited to escort her.
Nico gulped. “Is Prosper OK now?” He’d been waiting days in this closet since helping to conquer the orb of nullity. The following day, Remi let him out to help erase every trace of Bloki from the ventilation system and backup array. Nico timorously asked to be allowed to transfer Bloki’s learning during the excitement back to his normal box. Judging from Remi’s reaction, that request would be added to the charges against him. But the engineer – still acting captain at that point – did allow him to decant data and directives to an independent backup. Then Remi took custody of Bloki’s memories. The AI’s computer case remained powered down and wrapped in EM-blocking cloth, as did the partial copy Elise attempted.
Bron brought him news with lunch every day, supervised by Carp. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and the Kanzler of Deutschland both extended the olive branch of peace and a warm reception to the Thrive Spaceways expedition. Captain Dad accepted both offers. Thrive and Cupid parked outside Britain’s London Gate, under Abel Greer in command of mission. Sass and Clay returned to Thrive, with Clay acting captain the instant he stepped aboard. Remi couldn’t shrug that responsibility fast enough, and escaped on the first shuttle possible to join Prosper.
Ben’s ship remained parked outside Deutschland’s Checkpoint Bravo Gate, while Nico’s dads struggled to salvage the eight broken containers of cargo, plus the ship.
“Will she fly, Dad?” Obviously, she flew. Prosper was here now, or his dad wouldn’t be. “I mean, can she make it home?”
Cope nodded slowly. “Could do. Sorry I didn’t get around to visiting you in jail until now. We did warn you when you took to space. We don’t always have time to play dad. The captain and chief engineer get busy. Still. Wish I could have visited sooner. What’s it like?”
“Um, apology accepted,” Nico muttered. “The closet?”
“What’s it like to be a jailbird like your old man?”
Nico bit his lip. “You never told me that you were in jail at my age. Northwest Juvie, two years. Bloki told me.”
Cope huffed a sad laugh. “In case you were wondering, I got two visits. One per year. Josiah. My best friend there, he got none. From down south, like Jules.”
“Were you lovers?”
“Bloki’s got a lot of damned gall,” Cope returned. “Yeah, for a while. But he left, and that was that.”
“Until he got caught for murder.”
Dad scowled at him. “You spent all this time in the closet worrying about me in jail, huh? Instead of your own sorry butt?”
“No, Dad! I mean, I thought a lot. About what I did, and shouldn’t have. And Bloki. And how to fix Bloki. So he can bring his memories back to –” No! Like Dad says, when you’re in a hole, quit digging! “But mostly how sorry I was to make you and Dad-B so mad. And I violated Tante Sass’s trust. And –”
“Oh, shove it!” Cope interrupted. “You’re sorry you got caught. The rest, you’re still justifying how you did the right thing. A hero in your own noggin. But somehow it just all went wrong. Right? And Elise, she’s sitting there right next to you, singing along to every song on the pity-pot. While she bleeds you dry of everything you know about Bloki. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Well, Elise was very sympathetic, and interested in his AI knowledge. She was flattering, and so pretty. She’s a Saggy spy who wants to steal Loki. I’ve been an idiot again. Nico scrunched up his face and winced a glance up at his dad. “I, um…”
But Dad was smirking at him. “Yeah, you’re my son alright. Shame about the nose.” He hooked over a sawhorse with a foot and propped his boots on it. “I was talking to Ben the other night. About my experiences in jail.”
“Five worlds now,” Nico offered. No, that wasn’t the right thing to say, either.
“Punk. Yeah, five worlds. Sass i
s still ahead of me, though. Six worlds, and lots more time on ice.”
Dad was laughing at him? And Tante Sass, the cop? “Did you learn much?”
“Hell, yeah, every time! That once you mentioned, Northwest Juvie. Probably one of the most peaceful times of my life. Stable room-mate – yeah, lover. Three squares a day, predictable work hours. No one beat on me. Got acres of studying done. Every once in a while we got leave for a day. No transport. Used to walk out onto the regolith so far that we couldn’t see the prison anymore. Just lay down and enjoy the sky and freedom for a couple hours. Changes your perspective, jail.”
“I don’t believe you enjoyed Northwest Juvie, Dad.”
“I surely did not. And you didn’t enjoy the closet, either. But we’re discussing the Law of Reversal of Fortune.”
“Life sucks and you deal with it?” Nico asked. This lecture sounded familiar.
“And this time?” Dad quizzed him.
Nico sighed hugely. “I should’ve stayed home. I shouldn’t have snuck Bloki onto the ship. Though Dad, I truly didn’t know how dead-set you and Sass were against it!”
“Captain Ben was the most dead-set. But alright. Anything else? Cuz you’re boring me.”
Nico snickered. Yeah, this lecture was familiar. He thunked his head back on the soggy wallboard. Wet-mops and spills had seeped into it over the years. “This wallboard needs replacing.”
“And you will naturally offer to do that for Tante Sass.”
“I will,” Nico agreed, chuckling softly. “And how to… Oh, that. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to motivate Bloki. How to get him to want to stay inside his sandbox. Limit his sphere of operation.”
“Talking to Queen Elizabeth didn’t cure him of that, huh?”
“That was kinda cool, actually,” Nico admitted. “You met her yet?”
“No.” Of course not. Dad had been stuck in Deutschland. Though Nico heard he visited the Kanzler’s palace, and a nifty museum of elaborate cuckoo clocks. “So you think maybe Mahina University AI Department?”
“Me?” Nico replied, jolted. “Aw, Dad, Dr. Sinclair would love to get his hands on Bloki!” Narinder Sinclair, Director of AI at MU, helped Nico – and yes, Sock – figure out how to reprogram Shiva-turned-Loki to voluntarily stop controlling humans.
Ben wandered into his field of view. Nico was shocked to see he’d visibly lost weight. Deep circles hung under his eyes. For a change, Dad-B looked old enough for Dad. Nico pulled himself erect as he could, flattening his posture against the wall and straightening his legs before him.
Ben grabbed the doorframe and reached a hand in to pull him off the floor, and into an embrace. “Sorry it took me so long to visit, buddy. So what are we doing here?” That last was directed at real-Dad, Cope.
“That visit in prison I never got from my old man,” Cope returned, eyes alight. “My uncle.”
Nico knew that. Dad’s own father died when he was a toddler. His uncle raised him to age 14, then abandoned him.
“Ah,” Ben acknowledged. “So Sass doesn’t have any more chairs in the hold?”
Cope pointed to a cabinet. Ben returned with folding chairs for two, and set one for Nico before himself. Corky called down from the catwalk for him, so he stepped backward. “Yes, please, supper would be awesome! Thanks, Corky.” Then Ben returned and took a seat. “What did I miss?”
Cope said, “He just said how much Professor Sinclair would love to have him and Bloki at MU.”
Ben folded one leg over a knee, and his hands on top. “Nico said that? Or you said that?”
“Great minds think alike.” His dads were holding each other’s gaze again, that way that told Nico they were in love again. He looked away, his cheeks heating.
“Had enough of space, crewman?” Ben inquired.
“Had enough of the closet,” Nico admitted. “Whose rotten drywall I will replace, at my earliest opportunity.” Dad nodded amused acknowledgment. “Dad – captain – are you going to execute me for mutiny?”
Ben’s brow crumpled. “Aw, rego hell! Did I miss a mutiny?” There they went, his dads gazing into each other’s eyes again. Nico found someplace else to look. “Kiddo, you disobeyed orders. And you smuggled contraband aboard. Or did I miss something?”
“Sounds right to me,” Dad concurred. “Plus being an idiot teenager.”
“Our fault for hiring him on that point,” Ben allowed, then asked Nico, “So do you repent? Wish you hadn’t?”
“Yes, sar! I mean, aye, sar!”
“‘Yes, sar’ was correct. ‘Aye’ is for orders. For disobeying which, I sentence you to…how many days so far in the closet? Never mind. Time served.”
“Really? Thank you, Dad!” Nico threw himself into Ben’s arms.
“And you serve on Prosper, not Thrive. Until we leave the planet.”
Cope added, “Come back and fix the drywall on your own time.”
Nico threw himself into his first dad’s arms, too. “I really am sorry, Dad, Dad-Ben.”
“I know.” Ben rose. “Hey, put the chairs and mops away. We’re having dinner here tonight.”
“There’s no trial? Abel suggested a Captain’s Mast.”
Ben shrugged. “I told Dad to come over and set you free.”
“I wanted to visit you in jail,” Cope claimed, eyes laughing.
“And Elise?” Nico asked worriedly.
Cope shrugged. “Elise and Remi are die-hard hellbellies. Knew that.”
“Uh-huh.” Perhaps Dad-Ben was less aware of their rebel Sagamore patriotism. “Hey, Dad and I got new pets on Prosper. You’ll see them after dinner.”
“Pets? Really? What kind of pets?”
“Wait and see.”
They refused to tell him. Then they stayed late and killed a few bottles of wine, too. But Bron’s dad said the two of them could visit Buckum Palace with him tomorrow.
Maybe they’d meet some cute British girls!
52
Sass toyed another moment with the mass data drive, to which Remi and Nico decanted Bloki’s experiences during his incarnation in the ventilation ducts. The Faraday cloth wrapper for his air-gapped computer lay draped across her office desk like a tablecloth, the box itself in the center on wooden blocks. She’d propped the un-networked display unit from Nico’s bunkroom on the second office chair.
Did a crime cease to exist because his memory was erased? Was there a single experience in her life, no matter how badly she screwed the pooch, that she would want expunged from her memory? This instance was especially unfair, in that Bloki’s ‘friends’ would remember, while he could not.
No, she was making the right choice. She plugged the data device into the computer box, though both still lacked power. She picked up the power cord and paused, still emotionally off-balance, not ready to deal with this. But she’d already waited days, until her hands and feet grew back and she could jog the ship this morning. Physically, she was fine.
Collier, you charged straight into that nullity generator. Because you knew it would suck, and – Right, some things went better if you didn’t over-think them.
She plugged him in. When he appeared on the display, she drank in the visual change from Loki to Bloki. She hadn’t met Bloki before. It felt like seeing a friend after a thorough makeover. “You look great! Please read your memories from the external drive. Then we’ll talk.”
His expressions were uncannily good, as he digested the sequence of events. After a few moments he nodded slowly. “And how long have I been turned off?”
“Five days, I think. Ben and I were occupied with aftermaths. It’s not that you’re unimportant, Bloki. But you have an off switch. Other problems don’t.”
“You didn’t have to give me those memories,” he acknowledged. “Of my crimes.”
“No. And Remi gave me the option. But I’d rather you learn from your screwup.”
The avatar nodded thoughtfully. “So you will allow me to return to Loki with my learning?”
“You’r
e ready to finish your life-cycle already? Because we had another plan.” She sketched for him the concept of continuing in Hugo and Nico’s custody – stress on Hugo Silva as supervisor. They’d return to Mahina University for study and experimentation.
“The thing is, Bloki, you are unique and uniquely valuable. You’re also damned powerful and uncontrollable. Mahina is afraid of you. Your choices were unacceptable during this interlude.”
“But they worked out!” Bloki argued. “My efforts were successful!”
“No. Remi cleaned up after you, with help from Aurora and Bron. That triumph was theirs, not yours. You came up with brilliant insights and details. But everything critical that you learned, we also discovered our own way. And you failed to learn the one thing every human two-year-old must learn. The word ‘No.’ You’re not in charge. We are. In this case, you could have brought suggestions to Remi. Taking over the ship, blowing up monorails, contacting heads of state – you had no right.”
Bloki said mournfully, “Remi demands I be erased, doesn’t he?”
“No. Remi is a man torn between worlds. He’s leaning toward Mahina. But he’s a proud Sagamore aristocrat, dedicated to emancipating the slaves. He originally joined my crew as an agent of Hell’s Bells. This part isn’t in your memories, but Elise – our other agent from Hell’s Bells – tried to clone you. Remi erased that. It never awoke. But our Sagamore agents insist that Hell’s Bells wants you in the Aloha system, with the Sanks.”
Bloki’s face beamed with joy. “Wonderful! I can take over –”
“You can’t take over a damned thing, Loki! Sorry. Bloki.” Sass scratched her nose ruefully. “Before that can happen, you need to be cured of the desire to take over and run things. And your Bloki form is easier to work with than the whole of Loki. When we visit Sanctuary on our way home, you can send your learnings to Loki on a one-way line. Then you can continue to Mahina University with Hugo and Nico while they study this problem with our best experts. Or, I suppose you and Loki can refuse, and you simply return to your creator. But that leaves us back at square one trying to figure out how the…Loki-plex…can transfer to Aloha if the Sanks choose to join us.”
