by Jessie Wolf
I will never lie to you Fuyuko, but this is one time you might not want to know the answer. (Damia)
“Is she in danger of going crazy?”
No, she is not going crazy, as you so bluntly put it. (Damia)
“Then, why does she have two?”
(Heavy sigh) She has two because she was already starting to lose her mental faculties when she entered her secondary configuration cocoon. If she had not gone through her transformation when she did, she would right now be in a mental hospital waiting to die. The only reason she has the two is because of the fact she needed the two AIs to support her mind and body at that time. It is the only reason why she is the only secondary configuration Death Dealer to have survived for more than twenty-four hours. (Damia)
“You mean to tell me she would be close to dying right now if she hadn't been changed?”
Yes, or very close to it. That is why she has such drastically different AIs. One is her old self and the other is her new self. That is the best way I can explain it. (Damia)
“Thank you, Damia. Now I know why she is so confused at times. Do you think it’ll get worse as time goes on?”
I have insufficient data to make that prognosis. (Damia)
“Thank you for what you have told me, Damia. Goodnight.”
Goodnight, Fuyuko. (Damia)
Fuyuko turned out her light and curled up in her bed going to sleep. For some reason she felt relieved with what Damia had told her about Maiha. If the AIs weren’t worried about her then she won’t either.
Early the next morning, Maiha and Alice’s room……
Whoever was knocking on my door at this time in the morning was in for a very rude greeting. I don’t give a shit, who it is. I was nice and comfy snuggled up to Alice’s warm and cuddly body. “Go away! Come back in a half hour.”
The bounding on my door returned, only this time accompanied by a voice claiming some kind of authority. “Mrs. Nakatoma, please answer your door. This is Chief Bronson with school security. I need to talk with you about something.”
“I said go away and come back later.” I have never been a morning person, but even for most people zero five forty-five in the morning is unreasonable. I tried to go back to sleep, but whoever was at my door was not going to go away like a reasonable person they started pounding on the door again.
“Mrs. Nakatoma, this is Security Chief Bronson, if you do not open your door I will use my override codes to enter by necessity.”
Groaning I sit up and look at the door contemplating using my plasma pulse laser on whoever was on the other side. Fortunately my better judgment kicked in and stopped me just short of actually deploying it. Reaching over and shaking Alice to wake her up. “Bab, you need to get up and into your house coat we have guests.” Hollering out to let the Security Chief I was up. “Give us a moment Chief to get decent.”
Alice gave me a look of ‘what the frack?’ as she climbed out of bed to put on her house coat. “What in the name of all that’s holy and unholy does he want at this time in the morning?”
“Shit, I don’t know, but he threatened to use his override codes to enter if we don’t let him in. Whatever it is it better be Goddess damn important is all I can say. Now hurry and get your house coat on.” I was already in a foul mood and being woken up before I have to be just pissed me off even more. After wrapping my house coat around me and tying it off I head for the door. Opening it up I find a very tired looking Security Chief and dorm mother. Ok something was up, and it was big. “Would you like to come in, Chief? Not that my telling you to come back later did any good, but I don’t think the rest of my dorm mates want to be disturbed at o’ dark stupid.” I let every ounce of my anger color my voice at being waken at this time in the morning.
“Thank you Mrs. Nakatoma. I’m sorry about waking you and your wife at this ungodly hour, but I have a situation, or I should say situations, on my hands and I need your help.” I could see he was visibly upset about something. I waved for him to continue. “I currently have twenty-five very upset and embarrassed young ladies in the infirmary. Also there are currently five members of the Death Dealers two nineteen Provost Marshall Battalion in my office saying they have been assigned to this school for additional security. All of whom have orders signed by First High Lady Maiha Nakatoma for extended operations with no expiration date. Then there is one Ichiro Longfellow, wanting to know why four of our students that he is sponsoring were attacked and what we’re going to do about it. So you can see my dilemma here.”
Now I have had a lot of things dropped in my lap before, but this is totally outside of my realm. However I did have some answers. “First off, sir. Those Death Dealers are indeed assigned here by my authority as the First High Lady. The reason for this is you have over two hundred high profile students and little or no protection for them. So yes I went over your head and the heads of the Board of Regents in assigning them as security guards to this school. Oh, and by the way there’ll be an additional forty-eight Death Dealers from different Provost Marshall Units across the planet. When it comes to Mr. Longfellow and the girls he is sponsoring, that is related to something that happened off campus. If I am right about this not only has he come here seeking that information, but also to have a word or two with me. I am sorry that this had to happen here on school grounds, but if I’m right he sees the school as a neutral area. As for the twenty-five students I have no idea of what you’re talking about. Can you give me a little more information?”
“As I said there are twenty-five very upset and embarrassed young ladies in the infirmary, all of whom belong to the social group known as the ‘Heathers’.” I hold up my hand and stop him right there.
“Sir, those young ‘ladies’, and I use that term loosely when it comes to them, are a pack of over indulged spoiled rotten bullies, not some social group.” I was not going to let the staff here give those bitches any form of credibility.
“Mrs. Nakatoma, I agree with you on the point they have been given way too much leeway in their practices, but they are still students at this school. Now that the security department has been given the go ahead to start investigating this type of activity we can put a stop to it. Unfortunately our first investigation is into what happened to the ‘Heathers’.”
“Fine, go ahead and investigate, but you look somewhere else for your perpetrator’s. Both Alice and I were with the Headmaster from ten minutes after dinner for about an hour and a half. You were there for about twenty minutes of that, sir. What I would like to know is why you would come to me and my wife for answers to those questions?”
The man had the grace to chuckle at my comment. “Yes, I know where you and your lovely wife were at the time of the incident, you are not anywhere near a list of suspects. However, your younger sisters are not, nor are any of the other students at this school. My questions for you is are your sisters like you and your wife, are their AIs active, and do they have the training to pull off this kind of operation.” The man was accusing me or my family out right of doing whatever it was, but it still pissed me off that he would be looking at us first.
“Just what are you implying sir?” I let my displeasure creep into the tone of my voice.
“I am not implying anything, Lady Maiha. I am wondering if your sisters are second generation Death Dealers and if they have the training and active AIs needed to pull off an operation like this. Now do they have the needed requirements?” the man was like a dog with a bone, and not going to back down.
Sighing I look up at him. “Yes, they are second generation Death Dealers, but they do not have the training or active AIs. As a matter of fact I have gone out of my way to keep their AIs from becoming active and no they do not have the training.”
“So they could not have done this?”
“No, whatever this is, they could not have done it.” Taking a deep breath. “Can you maybe tell me what happened that has you looking at my family and why you might have called Mr. Longfellow over?”
&nb
sp; “Oh sorry, I should have told that from the start.” Over the next ten minutes he gives me a run down over what had transpired during mine and Alice’s time with the Headmaster and afterward. When he gets to how the Heather’s were found bound and gagged I almost burst out laughing. The surprise was how Bethany and her group were found in the gymnasium that and the fact they were blaming the rest of the ‘Heathers’ for how they were found.
“I can see how you would have thought of my family being the first ones on your suspect list. While both Alice and I have the needed requirements, we were with the Headmaster as you know. However neither one of my younger sisters has an active Death Dealer AI or B the training to have done this. Like I said when it comes to Mr. Longfellow, that is a little on the complicated side.”
“You can say that again.” Alice mumbled. I shot her a dirty look. “Well, it’s the truth. If you had let me handle the problem he wouldn’t be here now, but noooo, you had to go and let them handle their problem child. Why didn’t you just shoot the dumb son-of-bitch and put him out of his misery?”
“Lady Allison, the young ladies of this academy do not use such langue.” Mrs. Beesly growled. “You should know better, but seeing as it rather early I’ll be lenient. That’s five demerits.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll watch my language.” Looking over at the Chief. “However, I must agree with my wife, when I say you could have waited another half hour, Chief Bronson.” Oh boy, my baby was starting to get pissed at being woke up like this. Thankfully the chief had the good sense to know the danger signs of a young woman on the verge of a full blown hissy fit.
“I’m sorry for this, but I really couldn’t wait for you ladies to wake up at your normal time.” The look he gave me and Alice was one of understanding. “But, I have a time sensitive situation here and I need answers now.”
“Alright, forget about it Alice.” I stepped between the two of them. “Chief, please explain why you have such a time crunch?”
Sighing, the big man looked at all three of us women. “What I’m about to say stays in this room, understand?” he waited for all of us to nod our heads in understanding. “Ever since the school was founded there has been an understanding of neutrality between the Law and the local Yakuza, when it comes to this place and the other academies. If the local LEOs find out that one of the Yakuza heads is here on school grounds they’ll be compelled to send a representative as well. That is just the type of BS stunt they’d pull so they can take control of this academy’s security, saying it was for the safety of the students.”
“Which would give them an excuse to roundup all of the children of said Yakuza, plus those that they sponsor. That would in turn force the Yakuza families to retaliate, which would quickly escalate into an all-out war between the Law and the Yakuza. Great, just great.” I took a very deep breath and started to figure out how I was going to deal with this mess. One that I had not even known was there. “All right this is what we’re going to do. Get Mr. Longfellow off school grounds, I don’t care how you do it just do it. Use the new security guards to remove him if you have to. Tell him that I’ll meet with him at his place of choice, which should appease him for now.”
“I’ll get right on it, and thank you, Lady Nakatoma. I know that this is not really your problem, but it seems that your sisters were quite insistent that we contact you when it came to these problems, something about you being the System Governor.” The Chief had a very perplexed look on his face.
“It figures those three would point you towards me for some of these problems. Yes, Chief I really am the System Governor; also I have an agreement with the planetary Yakuza. Just tell Longfellow that I’ll meet with him off school grounds and to send me a wave as to when and where.” It wasn’t even six o’clock in the morning and the day was already looking to be a real pain in my ass.
“Of course, until later, good day Ladies.” The Chief turned and left our room taking the dorm mother with him. Once we were alone I turned to look at Alice. There was this very thoughtful expression about her.
“What’s on your mind, pussycat?”
“I was just thinking about how the ‘Heathers’ were all taken down at the same time. I hate to say this, but could Fuyuko and the twins have pulled this off? I know that their AIs aren’t active, you’ve gone out of your way to keep that from happening, but could they have still pulled it off with just what they can access? You know their weapons and other automatic reflex stuff? You and I both saw how pissed off they were yesterday, and ready to pound someone into mush. Can we really rule them out?”
“And just how do you think they went about?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. After all they are our sisters, we know they won’t stand back and do nothing. Even when you give them a direct order those three have a bad habit of doing what they think is right, and dam the consequences.”
“That is true. Let me think about it while we get ready for breakfast and class. I need a shower to finish waking up.” I reached over gave a kiss and headed for our bathroom. Alice quickly joined me and we began to get ready for the day. The more I thought about the problem the more I realized that my younger sisters could have pulled it off. There was only one catch, none of them had the computer savvy to screw with the security cameras. With their AIs only being in passive mode there was no way for them to knock out the cameras. They would need the help of someone like Susan or Lisa to pull it off. With those three being on their best behavior on pain of paddling there was no way they would even think of helping them out. Mama had seen to that fact before we left for school two days ago. So it had to be someone else and I needed more information with only one place to get it. Thankfully I had access to two of the most powerful AIs known to man.
“Ok troops, fall-in.”
You called oh great and wise one? (Dee De)
By your command. (Charlie)
There are times when have those share my head can be a real pain in the ass, and this was one of them.
“Knock it of you two. I need info and I need it now. I hope you have been following this morning’s goings on, because I need to know if my younger sisters could have pulled off that stunt last night.”
……………. (Dee De)
……………. (Charlie)
“Did you two egg heads hear me?”
Um… Yes. (Dee De)
Affirmative. (Charlie)
“Well, what’s the answer?”
(Heavy sigh) Maiha, honey you know I’ll never rat out another Death Dealer or their AIs. So please don’t ask me to answer that question. (Dee De)
I must agree with my sister AI on this matter commander. (Charlie)
“Just what the hell does that mean?” I was starting to get pissed. “If you two know something you better tell me what it is and now!”
Last evening I detected the awakening of three brand new Death Dealer AIs. (Dee De)
When I investigated I found they belonged to your younger sisters, Fuyuko, Nanase, and Nanami. (Charlie)
So yes your little sisters can and did do what they were accused of by the Security Chief Bronson. (Dee De)
“You have to be shitting me! I thought I told you two to make sure that their AIs couldn’t be activated by accident? What the hell happened?!”
They did something we had not thought to counter. They accessed their AIs just like every other Death Dealer for the first time intentionally. (Dee De)
“You mean to tell me that you two clowns didn’t think to block their access to their AIs and they activated them just like every new Death Dealer would? Is that what you’re saying?” when neither Dee De nor Charlie answered I had my answer. “Of all the stupidest things to allow to happen. Damb it you two I made a promise to mama to keep them from having full access to their AIs until they were ready. Now what do I do? I just can’t deactivate them. That would leave my sisters defenseless.”
I would suggest telling your lovely wife before she figures it out or asks her own AI, D
arcie. (Dee De)
Looking over at Alice I could tell that I was already too late as she did a face plant into the shower wall. “I take it that Darcie just informed you of the fact that our little sisters pulled an end run and activated their AIs?”
“Oh, man, we are in so much trouble when we get home next weekend. Mama is going to snatch our heads bald, when she finds out.” She looked over at me and was near tears. “What are we going to do? You know she’ll find out the minute they get near her. We promised to not let this happen.”
“Calm down love, lets handle one crisis at a time. First, we need to figure out how they activated their AIs. Then we need to find out why. After we get those answers then we’ll deal with what we tell mama. However if they did what I think they did, I’ll tan their hides myself, and then turn them over to mama.” By the time I finished speaking my voice was almost a growl. I was pissed, but not at them activating their AIs, but for going after the ‘Heathers’.
“Ok, I’ll accept that, but you’re telling mama.” For some reason I had the feeling that I just got the short, and smelly end of the stick.
Chapter 8
After getting ready for the day Alice and I headed off to breakfast. First though we had to have a word with my younger siblings. I was not in a good mood and neither was Alice. Our little sisters had gone and put us in a very difficult position. One that I didn’t want to be in under any circumstances, and they had questions to answer. As we exited the building I stopped and tried to regain my composure.
“Baby, what did you stop for?” Alice had kept going but stops when she realized I wasn’t right beside her. “You’re not thinking of just letting them get away with this?”
“Oh no, my dear. I just don’t want to give everyone the impression that I’m upset.” I looked at her and could tell by her stance she was pissed off. “I hate to say this, but if we go charging in there like a pair of Drill Sergeants we’ll be accused of unladylike behavior. So take a few deep breaths, calm yourself down, and then find your center.” As I was telling her this I was doing it myself. No way was I going to let anyone here accuse either Alice or me of being anything, but proper young ladies of House Nakatoma. Seeing where I was going with this Alice quickly followed my example. Once I had my emotions under control I opened my eyes and had look of serine peace on my face. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes I looked as if I was carved from stone. In short I was the perfect example of a House Nakatoma Lady. Looking over at Alice who was doing a very good job of impersonating a statue herself. “Shall we go have a word of wisdom with our younger sisters?”
