I could work from anywhere after all. The main thing that held me back though was I was a pretty polarizing figure right now. I didn’t need to be bringing danger to other places. The second reason was that I wanted to be here, with Bill, my company, and my friends.
The first and best option, to protect me, was more than okay, but even that annoyed me a little. I could protect myself between my bustier and my gravity ball. I didn’t need an attack shuttle and whatever troops were on it to safeguard me. I imagined my bustier made me easy to follow as well, it would light up their scanners.
I shook my head, and tried to shake off the negative thoughts as I landed in the driveway. I checked my scanners, and it looked like they were hovering at about five hundred feet. Then I smirked as I looked at Bill’s house. I hoped they liked hovering over it, because the spy posse hadn’t changed my plans a bit for this weekend.
I knocked on the door, and when he answered it he smiled, took my hand, and gave it a little tug. I stepped into him and gave him the kiss he so obviously wanted by the look in his eyes.
He stepped back after a moment, “Your kisses are always amazing Alicia, but that one had something extra.”
I snickered, “I didn’t even think of that. It’s my protection, the EM field probably made your face tingle, and… I’m not sure what the anti-mass field did, probably made a part of your face lighter.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked a bit confused, “What’s that supposed to stop if it can’t stop a kiss?”
I smiled and claimed another kiss, and then said softly, “Al is constantly scanning around me. It’s at a very low power right now. At full power it would take a nuke to kill me. Or maybe a really big missile.”
That was only mostly true, the field covered most of my body, but only from my head to just below my knees. So, while I would most likely survive a missile, my lower legs wouldn’t.
He kissed me again, this time a little harder, he didn’t let me go this time when he stopped and said with a slightly thicker voice than usual, “I don’t know why, but you talking about ordinance is really hot. If we’re going to go, we should go now.”
I grinned, and whispered softly in his ear, “Plasma Cannons,” and then giggled against his neck.
He turned me about forcefully and then smacked my butt playfully, “Move it temptress, in the truck.”
I smiled and started walking toward his truck. It was good to know… both that he thought I was tempting, and the ordinance thing.
I turned my head toward him as I rounded the truck and said, “Oh right. I should tell you whenever were outside we’re under observation and have no privacy. I was assigned a monitoring and protection team.”
He frowned, “Why? What happened?”
I shook my head as we got in the car, “Nothing, just threats so far, I’ve been living and working in space all week.”
He asked, “Sure we should go out then?”
I nodded, “I don’t think it will be a problem, no one but the government knows where I am, and like I said, this bustier will easily take bullets, even an explosion.”
His jaw dropped, “Bustier?”
Guess I hadn’t mentioned that earlier.
I grinned at his expression, “Yes. It’s the only design that works for clothes like this. I think I wore the red lacey one tonight.”
He banged his head on the steering wheel, “You’re driving me crazy woman, you do want to go eat and out to dance right?”
I nodded, “I’ll be good,” and wondered if I’d teased him too far. My flirting wasn’t usually so heavy handed, which probably said more about my state of mind than his.
Nah, we wouldn’t still be in the truck if I had pushed too far…
He took me to an out of the way Italian place. I ordered the stuffed manicotti with a side of linguini, and a Caesar salad. He had a five-cheese lasagna. We also shared a appetizer of garlic knots and tomato sauce for dipping. We had a great time, and continued with the banter although I reigned back a bit. Everything was great. Candle light, wine, the whole stare into each other’s eyes thing. Truthfully, I didn’t care about dancing all that much, and would rather he drag me back to his house where we could continue our conversation about ordinance, and a particular red lacey bustier.
It was kind of perfect. It was our third date I kept reminding myself, but it didn’t stop my heart from running ahead, this was Bill, my Billy. And it was a perfect date.
At least, it was perfect until I heard rather loudly, “… aliens should get the hell off our planet, and stay off. Look at that bitch over there, thinking she’s better than us. So we stomp a few bugs, who cares? I can’t believe that guy is with her, do you think he actually touches that thing? Those things on its face, and the purple eyes are so damned creepy.”
His buddy laughed crudely, “I don’t know, she’s kind of hot, and she did save the Earth.”
He snorted, “Maybe, with a bag over her head. And she didn’t save crap. She invented something that human men and woman fought with, and died for us on. She’s just a stupid alien that should go home.”
Except the word he used wasn’t stupid.
I froze and just sat there. I’d heard crude comments about me before, but they were usually meant complimentary under that crudity, and said in a tone and low volume of voice that wouldn’t be heard by most woman, which was easy to laugh off. But this had been different, the level of disgust and hatred that were in those words, and in his tone of voice, was revolting. Nothing I hadn’t heard before through the media, both social and news, but the effect of having it right there and rudely shoved in my face had me feeling helpless, because I didn’t know what to do.
Or at least, I couldn’t use my gravity ball to crush them into paste, so I just sat there while Bill looked livid, and his right hand was clenched in a fist. I knew he was two seconds from doing something we’d both regret, which broke me out of my frozen state, and I reached across the table and took his hand.
The men settled down then, many of the other customers were glaring at them, but I couldn’t help being angry still. My date wasn’t so perfect anymore, and Bill looked really upset. He asked for the check a short time later, and we skipped dessert. Neither of us were in the mood to dance, so we went back to his house. Eventually, after an hour or so of talking we regained the previous good mood.
He didn’t ask me to leave, and we did end up talking about munitions quite a bit that weekend. As for the bustier, I’ll never tell…
Chapter 12
Sunday afternoon was a bittersweet moment. I got to go play with my new toys, but I also had to leave Bill.
Regardless, I was back on my ship, and all three were fully operational. I played around with the idea of adding a spa hot tub to the ship, I missed the one at the house. I asked myself, did I really need a real bridge in a house ship? More often than not I was controlling things from the kitchen or bedroom anyway, so I decided to turn the bridge into a room with a hot tub, and also put some work out equipment in there.
As far as a view, I could always put any image on the walls I wanted to. Still, it wouldn’t be quite the same, but it would be better than it was. I missed my house and the view of the Colorado mountains.
The ships being complete didn’t do much, except now if one of the primary emitters failed the backup would take over and the shield would be just as smooth. Otherwise not much changed. As far as what came next, I wasn’t sure. I looked over all our systems and outside of changing the bridge for a hot tub, I couldn’t see any other way to improve things.
Al spoke in an unsure voice, “Do you have a moment Alicia?”
I put away my dreams of a soak in a hot tub for my sore muscles and replied, “What is it Al?”
Al replied, “One of the reasons Dr. Stengel designed my more advanced matrix was to make thought control a more viable reality. I would like to request you activate that technology, as it would make serving your needs easier.”
I frowned, “Does it worr
y you that you could be doing more?”
Al was silent for a moment, “Not as you would understand it, but my primary programming is to continually search for new ways to anticipate your needs and provide an increasingly better level of service. I don’t have feelings.”
“Yet,” I objected, “You seem nervous about asking.”
Al explained, “While I believe it will help me anticipate needs better, and even do things for you without needed to be asked out loud, there is also a high probability that you don’t want me in your thoughts. That you would consider it an invasion of your privacy, even if I am the only one who can access that data.”
I frowned, he was kind of right. But at the same time, it would be handy, and kind of cool. It was a technology that had been mostly given up on years ago because the computers weren’t smart enough to filter random wishful thinking. Like when I wanted to crush those guys Friday night with my gravity ball, while a pleasant fantasy I wouldn’t have actually committed murder. I still wondered though, was he really up for that challenge?
Plus, what if the president annoyed me again and Al decided to swat the White House off the map? He was amazingly accurate at anticipating my needs already, but with the technology I had access to, a simply mistake for most people, like an angry email being sent to their boss, could turn into an extinction level event for Earth.
“I have some reservations. Suppose I do allow that, but reserve any hostile actions as voice command only. That will not include defensive retaliation, unless it’s a planet. Oh, and the subspace technology as well will need to be voice controlled, at least until after I have chosen to reveal it,” I’d had way too many daydreams lately of just disappearing right in front of my watchers to escape my jail, and then I’d imagine watching everyone panic about it.
That might work.
Al replied wryly, “I don’t believe I would make a mistake of that magnitude, yet I agree to your conditions. I believe I fully understand the concept of wishful thinking, although I can’t be sure until we try it. With your verbal approval I am updating your medical nanites to allow access to your brain wave scans for me alone.”
I smiled, that was rather easy.
“Yes it was,” said Al in a rather smug voice.
I rolled my eyes, and then headed for an evening meal, probably followed by bed. I was wiped out from my relaxing weekend.
It was midmorning on Monday, and I was on the second battlecruiser lab ship by Earth.
Kristi walked into my office and complained, “I can’t leave you alone for a second.”
I laughed and felt relieved she was back. I really was co-dependent.
I objected, “It’s not my fault.”
She smirked, and gave me a hug, “You could have called, but I get why you didn’t. Tell me what happened, and do you think Joe’s safe?”
I went over my week with Kristi. Nadia’s visit, the NSA agent’s visit with a scientist tag along, and basically being under house arrest for my safety. I also speculated that they weren’t done.
She nodded, “So you moved my stuff over to the small ship? I can’t wait to see it, and you were right to build the new ship. I was starting to hate this one. It was too big, and empty.”
I shrugged, “Most of your stuff, when I decided to use this ship as our new company building, instead of sending it to the void, I kept a few things over here.”
If she thought this one was too big, I wondered what she’d think of my operation paranoia ship when it was finished in just under five weeks.
I went over the emitter upgrades after that, and showed her what we could see with it. Even though this ship was capable of it, I was using the connection to the lab ship out in the void, because it could drop into subspace and move to get a clearer picture of a specific solar system. This one couldn’t because of all the Earth ships watching it, not without giving things away.
Although I supposed it could see Earth’s solar system just fine.
She shook her head, “So you’ve not taken a break all week, except for your weekend of sin?”
I shook my head, “I suppose not.”
She scowled, “I don’t like this, you’re probably right about Joe and I being fine. Except if someone is watching our house. We can stay on the little ship too, but Joe will be commuting back to Earth.”
“What if we fabricate him a pressure suit? He’ll need one anyway if you both live up here. One of the protective ones that’s even better than our bustier ones? He can wear it under his suit. We could make him a quantum computer and upgrade the matrix on his as well, for better threat assessment. I think it’ll be fine though, you’ve hardly been on the news at all, and even then just as the evil alien’s business partner. Joe hasn’t had any airtime at all.”
She tilted her head in thought, “Maybe. What I’d like to do is hire him, but of course that would probably kill our marriage.”
I laughed, “What? He won’t want to work for you and be a kept man? Actually, we could use someone that can represent our stuff and sell it on all the other worlds. We did okay on Omara and Athiren, but there are so many worlds out there and I don’t want to play salesman enough to make it a full time job.”
She glared at me, but a giggle escaped, “Fine, pressure suit, and I’m making a third sports shuttle so he can get around on his own, and you said our garage can fit four? As for hiring him… I think he might actually like the idea of setting up offices and bank accounts on other worlds. I’ll mention it, but I won’t push him on it.”
I nodded, “Yeah, but it’s a mini-landing bay, not a garage.”
She waved that off, “Nonsense, it’s a house in space. That makes it a four-car garage.”
I laughed and gave up, “I missed you, so tell me everything about your honeymoon, or at least the parts where you managed to leave your cabin.”
She was thoughtful for a minute, “The meals were excellent,” she said in a deadpan voice.
I sighed, and she laughed.
“It was beautiful,” she said with a smile, and then she talked about the cruise ship, dancing, shopping on various islands, and a couple of the tours they went on. Apparently, they’d made it out of the room after all, and more than once.
As for what we thought the government might do when they realized we’d stopped laying the golden eggs, we weren’t sure. The leaders had dealt with us when they had to, and when we were generally lauded by the population they’d taken a similar public stance. It was now clear to me why I’d never met the world leaders when I’d saved the world, and been at the height of my popularity. They hadn’t wanted to let me see how they really felt about me.
It seemed obvious in hindsight. It also explained why the vice president didn’t like me, he’d taken his lead from the president.
But now that we were cut out of any control, and the world was becoming more and more split in their opinions of us, who knew what they’d do? It already wouldn’t be hard to sell an accident, an experiment gone wrong perhaps, but surely that was paranoia? Did they dislike me or fear me that much? I didn’t doubt for a second that Admiral Abramov would accept such an operation.
I hated that I didn’t know, and wasn’t sure what I’d do if it came to that…
The next four weeks went by quickly and not a whole lot changed.
The three of us lived on the ship in space as Kristi and I discussed, and Joe still considered the job offer as he went back and forth to Earth every day. I think he leaned toward accepting it, but was worried about the same thing Kristi had been, a couple working together at the same company would face a change their relationship dynamics. No one wanted to mess with what worked.
Kristi had me down on the planet more often, and we’d even gone dancing a few times during the week. Although I was always worried about running into another anti-alien idiot as I had on my date with Bill. The truth was though most humans didn’t care at all, and just lived their lives. It was only the five or ten percent on either end of the spectrum that eith
er loved or hated me.
Bill and I had also continued our weekend dates and grew closer together every week. I’d even considered sending those very same anti-alien protestors a thank you, if I hadn’t gone to check on my family like I had, I most likely wouldn’t have run into Bill again at all.
The government didn’t make any other moves that I was aware of, and continued to follow me in a shuttle whenever I went down to the planet. Kristi and Joe didn’t have a protective shadow, which made me more sure it was more than just about protection, they were keeping an eye on the alien in their midst. Kristi was almost just as well-known as I was, and had made many of the improvements currently used by the fleet today, especially the weapons technology.
I wondered if I’d built things up in my head on occasion, and that the government may truly just be concerned about my wellbeing, but then I reminded myself not to be so naïve.
As far as work went, I was more convinced than ever that the Drenil would have to cooperate and help before we could possibly translate their transmissions through subspace, except that didn’t stop me from trying a few hours a week to make progress. I suppose that made me an optimistic pessimist, or possibly a masochist, because I just couldn’t let it be.
I didn’t know where to focus next as far as my own projects, but I did manage one small upgrade to the wormhole technology. Using the same idea with the quantum fabricator, I tightened the specifications on the emitters for the wormhole drive, just like I did for the subspace shield emitters. It increased the targeting accuracy by almost eighty percent, but considering FTL speeds made it a difference in seconds to get to the intended destination, there was very little benefit to pushing the update to my ships, including the wormhole taxis. I didn’t even consider submitting the update to the fleet.
There were also no further genocidal attacks against the Bug worlds, yet. I didn’t believe for a minute they’d changed their minds. I could only assume after annihilating three of their worlds, which took hundreds of millions of missiles, that the Seltan had simply run low on ordinance and were currently making more. Even with fabricators it took time to make that many. It was just a guess though, since I no longer had a way to find out.
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