Guarding an Angel

by Caleb Wachter

  Before Jericho could say something he might have later regretted, Ms. Schmidt stepped forward and nodded approvingly. “You have an analytical mind…I like that,” she said in a tense, deliberate tone. “But some of us had family in Abaca, Ms. Blanco,” she added icily, emphasizing Masozi’s family name, “so I, for one, would appreciate a little restraint on your part. However, to directly answer your question,” she continued, matching Masozi’s rebellious glare with a calculating one of her own, “I have no knowledge of any operation ever carried out by Hadden Enterprises, any of its subsidiaries, or even its long-time associates which would be even remotely similar to the barbarism which President Blanco,” she stressed the name again, and Jericho saw Masozi’s entire body tense as her teeth clenched together, “has committed against his own citizenry. We do have, however, several pieces of evidence to suggest President Blanco,” this time she did not emphasize the name, and her body relaxed slightly as she continued, “is capable of such brutality, and none to suggest the same can be said of any of our allies. That is enough for me, Ms. Blanco, and I hope it will be for you…if not, I fear we are all wasting our time here.”

  The room was silent for nearly a minute before Masozi bit out, “That was out of line. I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted,” Schmidt said as her visage softened and she looked briefly where Masozi’s left leg should have been, “everyone here has lost something to President Blanco and his ilk. I shouldn’t have grouped you with him. It was…uncalled for.”

  “Apology accepted,” Masozi replied, and Jericho stood from his chair as he desperately wanted things to end on a high note — and this seemed to be as high as it would get between the three of them.

  “Is there anything else?” Jericho asked as he rolled his head around, eliciting several pops ion his neck as he did so.

  “Yes, there is,” Schmidt replied tersely, “but it can wait. I’ve been installed aboard this ship for the immediate future and I’m to serve in an advisory or supporting capacity to you and, if applicable, to the ship.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Schmidt,” Jericho said graciously as he gestured to Masozi, “but I think I speak for both of us when I say we’re more than a little fatigued.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “After I’ve spoken with Captain Charles, we’ll need to go over several security protocols and do a more complete breakdown of your assets. But as of now, the two of you can consider yourselves co-owners of this,” her lips twisted sardonically as she looked around the room, “salvaged-and-subsequently-refurbished-courier-vessel-turned-pleasure-craft.”

  Jericho didn’t even want to think about the legal contortions necessary just to build a plausible case that a ship as powerful as the Zhuge Liang — which could survive a head-on encounter with the Alexander more or less unscathed — could remain in, essentially, private hands. But he trusted Director Hadden’s judgment when it came to people, and Hadden had hand-picked Ms. Schmidt to oversee the legal end of the Chimera Adjustment. That was good enough for Jericho.

  “You surely take your job seriously,” Jericho said with a gracious nod, “thank you.”

  Ms. Schmidt stiffened before snapping her fingers, sending her cohorts into motion as they collected the articles they had brought and made to leave the room. “Of course I take my job seriously,” she said as though offended by his proffered gratitude, and then jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the human man who had accompanied her, “but only Denny gets to call me ‘Shirley’.”

  With that, she spun on her heel and left the room. Jericho shook his head as he put his chair back in its original place and turned to face Masozi. “I’m going to suggest we sleep on this before discussing it further. Agreed?”

  Masozi looked like she wanted to argue, but she nodded curtly. “I’m having surgery in three days,” she said, “I’d prefer not to see you again until I’m out of recovery.”

  “Then,” Jericho said as he stretched the fingers of his left hand gingerly, “I hope you won’t object to my instructing Jeff to take us to the Manticore System?”

  Masozi arched an eyebrow. “What’s in the Manticore System?”

  Jericho snickered softly, “Your confirmation as an Adjuster, among other things.”

  “I’m not even sure I’m going to accept any of this,” she said, waving her arm to encompass the room.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Jericho said evenly, “because you did, in fact, adjust Governor Keno. There’s a process we have to follow or there will be…consequences — for both of us,” he added pointedly, “and they’re not the kind of consequences we can argue our way out of regardless of how strong our positions or how tight out legal case may be.”

  “So…” Masozi mused as her eyes narrowed, “what you’re saying is that you need me, and that your life is in my hands.”

  Jericho nodded in agreement. “That’s true,” he admitted, “but it has been since the day we met.” He let the silence linger between them for a moment before saying, “I’ll have Jeff send down the orders for you to confirm once he’s received his new directives from Ms. Schmidt.”

  He turned to leave the room, and Masozi allowed him to do so without another word.

  Chapter VI: Sisters in Arms, Legs, and Everything Between! Wait a minute…

  Masozi waited until Jericho had been gone for several minutes before reaching down near the foot of the bed and retrieving the data pad he had given her before the shocking meeting with Ms. Schmidt and her cohorts.

  She knew she couldn’t process what any of it meant just then, so she decided to activate the data pad and see what Eve had wanted to say. When she thumbed the activation icon, Eve’s image appeared on the screen and she waved as a warm smile filled her digital face.

  “Mornin’, sugar,” Eve said cheerfully, “I hope this isn’t a bad time?”

  Masozi was only mildly surprised that Eve appeared to be using the data pad to communicate with her. She had no real idea how Eve’s ‘hardware’ or whatever it might be called operated, but it seemed that she was capable of transferring her digital personality from one device to another.

  “It’s fine, Eve,” Masozi replied, trying for a warm smile in return but the expression felt thin and dry on her face. “I heard you’ve been having some kind of trouble?”

  Eve made a dismissive gesture with her hands, “Ah, that’s nothing to worry about, baby cakes. Big Daddy Wladdy gave me everything I’ll need to keep myself in fighting trim,” she explained as she adopted a fighting stance on the screen and began shadowboxing. Masozi wasn’t quite certain, but it seemed to her eyes that Eve’s skin was a shade or two darker than it had been back on Virgin. “Then,” Eve continued, snapping off a roundhouse kick in the middle of her impromptu routine, “Jericho made sure to get my unmentionables back here in one piece before they made like a pumpkin and squashed.” She stopped shadowboxing and gave Masozi a sudden, contemplative look, “It’s good to have friends, no?”

  There were a hundred bitter, resentful things Masozi could have said but she held her tongue and simply replied, “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Aww,” Eve said, her lips forming a pout as the pad zoomed in on her face, “and here I thought we were gonna be the Femme Fatales; the Bad Bitch Brigade; the Matrons of Mayhem; the Sisters of Sass; the—“

  “I’m sorry, Eve,” Masozi interrupted, realizing she had somehow hurt Eve’s equivalent of feelings, “I didn’t mean you.”

  “So…” Eve said with a skeptical, yet hopeful, look, “we’re good?”

  In spite of her dour mood, Masozi felt a grin tug at the corners of her mouth. “Yes,” she said as she exhaled a deep sigh, and as she did so she somehow felt less bitter about everything which had happened recently, “we’re good.”

  “Huzzah!” Eve said, flashing a ‘thumbs up’ sign and twirling in a gravity-defying display of virtual dance. “You have no idea how much that means to me, bakeshop,” she said after her twirling had ceased, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I loved
Big Daddy Wladdy with all my heart; without him I would never have taken my first meaningful downloads, let alone made it all the way here today. It’s just that…I’ve never had a girlfriend, you feel me?”

  “Eve,” Masozi began hesitantly, “I don’t know what Benton programmed you to do…” She trailed off and the silence between them lingered as Eve’s image leaned forward and a look of curiosity came over her digital features.

  “Don’t blame me because I can crack any encryption outside the Central Sector Authority databases in less than three minutes,” Eve said defensively. “I can’t help what I am, babe.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Masozi began before dismissing the thought in its entirety, “never mind. A few weeks ago I would have laughed at the words I’m about to say,” she said with an unconscious roll of her eyes, “but I think I could use a friend like you just now, Eve.”

  “Quantum!” Eve said enthusiastically, and Masozi took the expression to be one of joy. The digitized girl’s image schooled her features, snapped off a terrible salute which saw her overly ample bust jiggle as she said, “I am happy to be of service.”

  “But if we’re going to be spending time together,” Masozi added with a pointed look at Eve’s digital chest, “you’re going to need to rein some of that in.”

  Eve blinked as though in confusion before looking down at her chest and laughing. “Truth be told,” she confided, “I’d kinda gotten tired of them too. Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” she clapped excitedly as her bust shrunk at least halfway down from its original size, “it’ll be just like all the holo-vids; we’ll do each other’s hair, help with makeup, decide physical measurements, choose outfits—“

  “Eve,” Masozi interrupted with a raised finger, having never really cared for the very activities Eve was describing, “there’s more to life than fun.”

  Eve stopped and stared in disbelief at Masozi for several seconds, her virtual mouth hanging open. Eventually, she closed her mouth and asked, “What are you talking about? What could be more important than fun?!” She appeared to be equally incredulous and curious, and Masozi wondered where she should begin such a conversation.

  “Well…” she started, but knew that it was too large of a subject to dive into just then. “You have to find balance, Eve,” she eventually said with a sigh. “You can’t have too much — or too little — of anything in your life, otherwise you’ll lose your center and nothing you do will matter.”

  Eve’s hand went to her mouth in awe. After a few moments she nodded slowly, “Jericho was right…I can learn a lot from you.” Hearing Jericho’s name soured Masozi’s mood instantly, and Eve appeared to pick up on her body language. “Sorry, babe,” she apologized, “this has all got to be hard on you.” She looked down to where her virtual feet should be and muttered, “I’m sorry if I played a part in that. But honestly,” she said, looking up to meet Masozi’s eyes, “I didn’t know about any of it. I was just as in the dark as you were — the other me may have known all along, but I didn’t.”

  “Wait,” Masozi said, concern creeping into her voice, “the ‘other’ you?”

  “Oh, she’s dead,” Eve said solemnly. “But the sad fact is that she was dead as soon as they iced Benton. She sacrificed herself so I might keep on tickin’, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.” She nodded smartly and Masozi felt the virtual girl’s positive energy — even when discussing death — to be infectious. “But…”

  “But what?” Masozi pressed after a pregnant pause.

  “Well,” Eve said hesitantly, “it’s like this, sweet-ums. Wlad did some routine re-incorporations of my most recently collected data, observations, and…well I guess you’d call them ‘existential quandaries.’ See,” she hesitated again before hanging her head, “I’m not like you organics. I’m really nothing more than a collection of ones and zeroes which form a personality matrix. Now, I am the most complex collection of algorithms in the entire Sector,” she sniffed, “but early on Wlad discovered that my base nature would cause…umm, undesirable bits of code to crop up every few trillion processes. To counter that, he gave me a sense of humor and an appetite for fun. For the most part that keeps me happy and in fighting trim,” she said with a broad smile. “But my personality matrix is…well, it’s unstable,” she sighed, “so every few weeks — or days, depending on how many processes I oversee — I need to have my accumulated knowledge backed up, and my personality matrix gone over to make whatever modifications we deem appropriate.”

  Masozi felt her stomach begin to churn at hearing Eve’s words. “Eve,” she said doubtfully, “I’m no programmer. I’m sorry…I’m not sure I can help you with any of that.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, babe,” Eve assured her with an airy wave, “Big Daddy Wladdy made sure I could teach anyone how to do it, regardless of their technical knowledge. But the thing is,” she said, lowering her eyes to the floor, “I’m…dangerous. I almost killed Jericho in the Tyson,” she added, and a digital tear appeared at the corner of her eye, “but Benton knew that, so he built in a protocol which requires that an authorized human co-sign all of my personality mods.”

  Masozi nodded slowly, still uncertain she could do as Eve desired. “What happens if we disagree on whether a personality mod should be incorporated?” she asked warily.

  Eve shrugged. “In that case you just re-upload my previous personality matrix, mount it on my newly-merged memory banks, and I’ll be up and running in nothing flat,” she explained. “I can’t say that I’d be in favor of that more than occasionally since it would deny me the right to self-improve… but then again I wouldn’t really care one way or the other afterward, would I?” She shook her head rapidly, as if to clear it of something undesirable, “It’s too early for paradoxes. Tell you what,” she said cheerfully, “I’ll just think of you like my sister-mom, and you think of me like your sister-daughter. If you tell me a modification’s not a great idea, I’ll follow your advice,” she narrowed her eyes slightly before adding, “but I’d appreciate no fiddling with my memory banks…unless you’re doing so at my direction. Deal?”

  “I think so,” Masozi agreed hesitantly, “but what if we agree on a mod and it turns out to be a bad idea?”

  Eve’s attitude darkened immediately. “Benton thought of that…so he gave me a kill code,” she said meekly, “all you’ve got to do is introduce it anywhere on my personality matrix and it will self-consume until there’s nothing left. Benton told me about two different times he had to use it, and from his descriptions I’m really glad he did.” Then her mood brightened somewhat, “But that was years ago. I’ve come a long ways since then — mostly thanks to him — and I think I can recognize problematic issues before incorporating them. See,” she added with a mischievous grin, “Big Daddy Wladdy gave me an overriding principle which seems to keep my darker side at bay.”

  Masozi leaned forward slightly and asked, “What is that?”

  “You know the saying,” Eve said knowingly, “us girls just want to have fun, right? If I stay focused on having fun then we don’t need to worry!”

  “Let me get this straight,” Masozi said after a moment’s consideration, “you’re programmed to have fun, above all else, and that’s supposed to keep you — and us — safe?”

  “Well…I wouldn’t go installing me in the Kongming’s primary computer any time soon,” she allowed. “Direct access to too much computational power might overcome any of my safety protocols, but if we can avoid that we should be good. You’ll have real-time access to my matrix’s accumulated fault count, too; once the ticker goes past a quadrillion, we’ve reached the zone where we should look to do some maintenance. If it gets to a quintillion, we’re in big-time trouble since that’s about my breaking point.” Eve looked around anxiously for a moment before adding, “Benton programmed me so that I could only have one administrator…he originally thought that, if he died, that role should fall to Jericho but he gave me the right to choose for myself. I’d really like it
to be you,” she said hopefully.

  Masozi thought about it for several minutes while Eve looked on in anticipation. “I’ve never even owned a pet, Eve — not that I’m comparing you to one,” she added to forestall any potential indignation, “I’m just not sure I could do the job you would need… But,” she added after finally arriving at a conclusion, “I actually think it would make all of this somewhat more bearable for both of us, so I would do my best if you really want me to.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Eve clapped giddily. “Girl power all the way!”

  Masozi made a ‘slow down’ gesture with her free hand, “So what do we need to do to…make this official?”

  Eve nodded excitedly, “I’m having my core components installed here on the Kongming,” she explained. “It will still be a while before that’s completed, so it’s probably best for everyone involved if I deactivate myself until that’s done. The longer I stay active, the more errors I’ll accumulate.”

  “What’s your count at now?” Masozi asked with concern.

  Eve scoffed, “We’re just over fifteen quadrillion at the moment. Nothing to worry about,” she assured her, but Masozi felt far from soothed. “Once they’ve got my fiddly bits all arranged, you should hard link the Tyson with my new…well, my new ‘me,’ and we can get to work.”

  “How long will your…installation take them to complete?” Masozi asked doubtfully.

  “They thought it would take a day or so to set me up,” Eve replied promptly, “then another day to test all the connections to make sure they’re secure. They want to make sure I’m snug as a bug in a rug before flipping the switch,” she said with a deliberate roll of the eyes.