by L. Fergus
“I…ah, sure,” said Daniel.
“There are four secure facilities, with a sixteen-hour view of the moon. The closest is the propulsion lab out in the Gulf of Mexico sector,” said Kristi.
Sven pulled it up on a map. He highlighted the Gulf facility and then extended the map to show its relationship with Triton. “Will that work?”
Daniel moved closer and squinted at the hologram. “It should.”
“I will send the facility manager a note in the morning that you’ll be needing space for a few days, sir,” said Kristi.
“Thank you. Is there anything else you need, Daniel?” said Sven.
“Ah, dinner?”
“I’ll make sure he has a proper chaperone until he’s settled in permanently,” said Kristi.
“That’s a good idea. Thank you,” said Sven.
“Doctor Rhodes, please gather your equipment. A car and chaperone will meet you at the security desk,” Kristi said to Daniel.
“Ok. No problem.” He hurried and shoved his drive into his bag. When he finished, Kristi shooed him out of the office.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” Kristi called from the door.
“No. Go home and get some sleep,” Sven said good-naturedly.
“I plan on it, sir.” She took a step out of the door and stopped. “Oh, sir?”
“Yes?”
“Whoever this woman is on the computer, she may be crazy, but she is a keeper for Jane.”
Sven grunted. “The more I deal with her, the more I think you’re right.”
“I hope to see Jane soon. She does liven up the place.”
Sven laughed. “That she does.”
“Good night, sir.” Kristi closed the door behind her.
Sven looked back at the screen on his desk.
“Kita, are you there?” he typed but received no reply.
He agreed Kita was a good match for Jane, but wouldn’t want to be between them in a fight.
Sven arrived late to the office, choosing to work at home and let the contractors install the radiation shield on his windows. Entering through the front door, he raised his eyebrows when he saw Daniel sitting in the lobby. His eyes were puffy and darted back and forth. Looking around, Sven didn’t see his chaperone. He walked over to the young scientist.
“Daniel, is everything all right?”
Daniel looked up and blinked. “Yeah. It’s set up and ready.”
“It’s two thirty in the afternoon. I didn’t expect you to be ready until tomorrow. Where’s Noel? She is assigned to you, isn’t she?”
“Huh, who? You mean the girl? I didn’t like her looking over my shoulder, and I took the train instead.”
“I see. If you don’t like your chaperone, I can assign you someone else.”
“I don’t need anyone. They just get in the way.”
Sven switched to a sterner tone. “She’s there to make sure you’re taken care of. If she encroached on your personal space, you just need to tell her. Let’s go up to my office, and we can talk more once we’re in the elevator.” Sven steered Daniel through security and to the elevator. Once inside the elevator, Sven spoke again. “If things are ready, why didn’t you call me? I’d have come to you.”
“That’d look funny for you to come to me, just to watch a calibration test of a mineral scanner. I expanded and encrypted the remote connection, so that you can send the message from your office.”
“What encryption did you use?” Sven said, concerned.
“My own. I can install it on your computer.”
“I’d be more comfortable if you use one that we’ve developed.”
“Mine’s better.”
“Has it been tested?”
Daniel shrugged. “I use it to keep my research and projects secure.”
“With your permission, I’d like to have it tested. If it’s as good as you say we can help you get a patent. The company might even choose to lease it from you.”
“Maybe…” Daniel shrugged.
“A mineral scanner is a clever cover. How are you planning on sending the signal?”
“I’ve added extra wavelengths to the scanner’s array because I don’t know the type of equipment she’s using to receive.”
The elevator doors opened. Sven led Daniel through the antechamber to his outer office.
“Good afternoon, Kristi. I hope the work crew didn’t upset you too much?”
“No problem, sir. I took an extra-long lunch.”
Sven chuckled warmly. “Good for you.”
“Mister Rhodes, it’s good to see you again. How’s your project?” said Kristi.
“It’s ready.”
“Excellent. Sir, a new message came in this morning from our prankster.”
“Oh? Let’s go into my office, and you can tell me,” said Sven. He opened the door and led the others in. He put his briefcase down on a small round side table. “Daniel, you can plug into my screen.”
Daniel opened his bag, took out his server, and placed it on Sven’s desk. He sat down in Sven’s chair, which caused Kristi to frown.
“So, what did Kita have to say?” Sven asked Kristi. “I’m surprised she didn’t contact me directly at home.”
Kristi smiled. “She’s still mad at you, sir. She said the information she slipped to the Political Bureau has phoned home and is currently in their lab in Paris.”
Sven frowned. “That’s interesting, but has probably tipped our hand. They’ll have detected an unidentified packet leaving their networks.”
“She also said to have faith and to trust her. She’s been doing this for more than a day.”
Sven sighed. He hated not having control and whatever Kita was up to worried him. The Empire had among the best network security systems and personnel anywhere.
“Sir, seeing what she’s done so far, I’d believe she can do what she says she can do.”
Sven raised an eyebrow. “That’s not why I’m worried. It’s that attitude of hers that has me worried.”
“She seems to be a good sort, sir.”
“I can’t say the same.”
“Sir, I had a very long conversation with her this morning. I believe she has your and Jane’s interest at heart. And yes, she was very frank and upfront about what she believes and what she’s done in the past.”
“I’m surprised that doesn’t bother you more.”
“She’s more extreme and ruthless than any company we’ve ever competed against, but compared to the Empire, she’s on par with the best and worst of them. It was her honesty I found refreshing, sir.”
“She is that.”
“I believe she’s a friend. Otherwise, we’d never know she was here, sir.”
Sven rolled his jaw, as he mulled it over.
“Sir, I’m ready,” said Daniel.
Sven walked over to his desk.
“Just type what you want to say in the box and hit enter. The scanner will commence, and the message hidden in the beam will loop until we tell it to stop.”
Sven took his seat and typed a quick message for Sarin and hit enter. He sat back in his chair and sighed. “I guess we wait and hope she’s listening.”
“Why did she go there anyway? There’s nothing there,” Daniel scoffed quietly.
“Exactly,” Sarin said, appearing in the middle of the room with Athena’s ball. In her hands, she held her large sniper rifle, still smoking.
Sven looked up as his jaw dropped. Daniel stared at her blankly. Kristi raised an eyebrow.
“All you had to do was say, ‘Jane, please come home,’ and I would have heard you. You’re the only other equation I’m monitoring right now,” Sarin growled with an annoyed look on her face.
“I, ah, didn’t know that,” said Sven, standing up. “I was worried.”
Sarin fluffed her feathers angrily. “If that’s the reason you wanted to talk to me, to the Crushing Depths with you.”
Sven didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t have been good. “I
’m allowed to worry about my daughter. It’s my job.”
“I don’t want your concern.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“You can be concerned for me, but not accept who I am? You know what? Go slag yourself, Daddy. I don’t have time for this.”
“Mistress Logine,” said Kristi to the towering Angel.
Sarin spun around, hitting Sven with her wing. “Kristi, I’d have thought you were smart enough to leave this place behind.”
“It’s an exceptional place to work. Not all of us are cut out to be a soldier or a Vicereine.”
“Who have you been talking to?” Sarin snarled, looking over her shoulder back at her father.
“Kita. She’s been popping up around the office over the last couple of days.”
“I thought she’d glitched. Did you fix her, Athena?”
“No, Mom. I didn’t see a self-repairing routine in her code, but she could have been reset.”
“That is an incredible VI,” said Daniel. “How did you develop such a realistic voice system?”
“I am not a VI, human. I am a nonorganic Angel. What if I called you an animated corpse?”
“I…ah…what?” said Daniel, looking at the floating ball with a confused look on his face.
“Humans are not the pinnacle of evolution, human,” Sarin scoffed down at Daniel.
“They do not appear to have anything worthy of our time, Mom. Let’s leave and not tell them our destination,” Athena suggested spitefully.
“Let’s box Kita up first. I’m sure that’s why she’s causing trouble. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” said Sven. “She seems to come and go as she pleases.”
“Of course she does,” Sarin muttered.
“Jane, I called you here for more than that.”
“Oh? You have until Athena tracks down Kita. So, make it quick. She runs on quantum time.”
“General Lyakhova came to visit me a few days ago.”
Sarin’s lip curled. “And what did that traitorous bitch want?”
“Be careful, Jane. The walls have ears,” Daniel whispered.
Sarin turned to him. “You do not call me Jane. To you, I am Sarin.”
Daniel gave her a curious look. “Why would you wish to be named after an ancient chemical weapon?”
Sarin put her sniper rifle on her hip and held up her free hand. “Come find out.” She puffed out a small blue cloud from her hand.
“Mom,” Athena said halfheartedly.
“I’ll just shoot him instead.” She held out her sniper rifle like a pistol. The barrel of the six-foot weapon didn’t waver from Daniel’s head. The man’s eyes opened wide, and he shook. Sarin pulled the trigger, and a loud click echoed in the room. A dark spot appeared on Daniel’s pants and ran down his leg.
“Jane!” Sven yelled.
Sarin laughed wickedly. “Looks like he needs to develop a backbone.”
Kristi stepped forward. “Misses Logine, please. Your father has important things you’re going to want to know. It concerns your daughter, Lina.”
“What do you know about my daughter?” Sarin hissed.
“Kita has told us quite a lot about her predicament,” Kristi replied, standing tall.
Sarin walked over to her father’s shelf and with a wave of her hand, knocked everything to the ground, and placed her rifle on the empty shelf. “So, what did Galina want?”
“She must have sensed our absence or she would never have ventured into our neighborhood,” Athena said with a chuckle.
“She seized one of my facilities on Earth after Kita planted files on how Lina’s electrical generation works. She said she planted it to help Lina,” said Sven.
“I would assume Kita put in undetectable errors until they tried to duplicate the research?” said Athena.
“Yes, and she included an invisible tracker in the research as well.”
“I hope it will lead us to her,” Sarin replied with a sad frown. Her face flashed to anger. “Galina is going to suffer forever.”
“Someone might have already beaten you to it,” said Sven. He tapped on his Arcom. The big screen on the wall flashed and a picture of Galina taken from his office security camera appeared.
“What in the Crushing Depths happened to her?” Sarin exclaimed, moving closer to look. “And how come I didn’t get to do it?”
“I don’t know, but I may have a clue.”
Sarin raised an eyebrow. “You have my attention.”
“Jack contacted me concerning purchases made on a personal expense account I didn’t know existed. Apparently, your personal assistant did it,” Sven said, looking at Athena.
“I may or may not have illegally accessed your contacts to create an unauthorized personal account for Kita.”
“That was a good idea,” said Sarin. “What’s this have to do with anything?”
Sven tapped on his Arcom again. A spreadsheet appeared. “Take a look at this and see what you think.”
Sarin looked at the screen. “That’s a slag of a dinner bill.”
Sven opened up the consumer purchase receipt from an electronics store.
“Someone is setting up a powerful mobile system,” said Athena.
“Interesting,” Sarin said, looking over receipts from some other stores. “They know their hair products. And forty bags of synthetic meat jerky in four different flavors, four backpacks, seventy-seven protein packs,” Sarin’s eyes went wide, and she fixated on the screen, “and six boxes of sugar cookies. It can’t be,” she whispered.
“The probability of it being Kita is ninety-nine percent,” Athena said hopefully.
“I know it’s her,” Sarin retorted. “I didn’t think she was paying attention to what I used in her hair.” She looked at Sven. “Where’s this from?”
“A new station built about ten years ago around the moon GX-30CB. It’s the transfer station to the new immersive medieval city under the sea, Angelica, where you can experience a great part of our history authentically without any modern amenities,” Sven said, reading the brochure.
“That despicable bitch,” Sarin hissed. “Galina built Kita a prison. You’d better not have a stake in this venture, Father.”
Sven shook his head. “Not beyond selling them materials. I passed on the project. It had too much government control around it. Now I know why.”
“Then that is where we’re headed,” said Sarin.
“You can’t go. It’s quarantined, because of—”
“I don’t fear disease. I can be there in a matter of weeks.”
“Jane, will you let me finish?” Sven snapped.
Sarin crossed her arms in agitation. She opened her mouth to say something, but Kristi spoke first.
“Stop, both of you. If you keep going like this, one is going to kill the other, and I don’t mean figuratively. Sir, you’re approaching your daughter all wrong and Misses Logine, this applies to you as well. With all due respect, sir, I know you are used to getting your way most of the time as the head of a multi-planetary company, but your daughter has been the Vicereine of an entire planetary government and is used to getting her way, always. You are not going to change her. She’s been doing this for a millennia or more, maybe much more.
“You both need to recognize the other’s position and stop fighting over who is in charge of whom. Misses Logine, you wouldn’t treat your daughter this way and, sir, you should treat her as an adult who’s made her own life decisions longer than the two of us combined. We don’t have to like how she chooses to live her life, but we must respect it.
“We have worked with plenty of notorious individuals and companies before. If we must work with one, your daughter is the one I’d choose. She is trustworthy, loyal, and will do everything in her power to make sure no harm comes to the company or us.”
Sarin cocked her head to one side. “You’ve been talking to Kita a lot, huh?”
“Quite,” Kristi said tersely.
“All right,
Daddy. I’m willing to start over if you are,” Sarin said gently.
Sven held back his gut reaction to tell her no. Still, he couldn’t say yes, either. The thought of his daughter killing her mother wasn’t going to be so quickly forgotten or forgiven.
Sarin went over and gently touched his arm. “Daddy, I’m sorry for killing Mother and for the way I did it. I was upset about the way I saw her treating you. I was also upset because I saw myself in her, and how it reminded me of all the horrible things I’ve done. I have hurt Kita and others badly. Kita has always been quick to forgive, even when I haven’t deserved it. I’ve been lousy at reciprocating. I’ve put in a lot of time and learned some painful lessons trying to change those behaviors and habits I learned from Mother. I like to think I got all my bad habits from her and all my good ones from you.
“I know I’m not what you expected to get when you picked me up, but this is who I am. I’m mean, evil, and downright wicked at times. I’m self-centered, self-absorbed, and callous. But, along with that came intelligence, wisdom, kindness, and most importantly love. I wouldn’t change any decision I have made. Not killing two hundred people to save Kita, throwing my guns down and becoming an addict because I killed a child, learning to be a mother the hardest way possible, or taking on a partner who by all definitions is insane. If I could, I’d bring Mother back, but I can’t. I’m bound by rules I didn’t get a say in.”
She looked down at the ground and spoke softly, “I thought you’d be happier without her. You looked so sad that morning she came in. She didn’t deserve you, Daddy, but it wasn’t my choice to make.” She kissed him on the cheek and wiped a tear away as she went to stand next to Athena.
Sven stood still, while an internal contention raged inside. He wanted to say she was forgiven and move forward, but a part of him was reluctant. How much of what she said was true and how much was manipulation? Could he work with her if he couldn’t trust her? He’d worked with plenty of people he couldn’t trust before, but they could be watched. She couldn’t. According to Kita and Jane, loyalty and family ran deep, but blood wasn’t a binding tie. He wondered how someone earned the trust to become an Angel. It was a hard choice. He loved Kisha and Jane dearly. The question took a new form: If he didn’t trust his daughter and she was left to her own devices, what kind of monster would he be unleashing on everyone else? Was he a heavy enough counterweight to balance Jane? Probably not, but if he squeaked long enough and loud enough, she had to listen to him.
