Damien had pulled his overstuffed holographic chair several feet further back from its previous position. He sat in it while Charlotte continued to rail against him. Finally, she stopped.
“Are you done?” he asked.
“For the moment,” she growled back.
He nodded. “Well, then, perhaps I should answer those questions before you build up another head of steam.”
“Perhaps you should,” she snarked, “but don’t expect me to—”
Howard interrupted her. “I am a remnant of the only human who had the power to save his species. Your parents gave Howard-Prime the right to do this to you. He enhanced the effectiveness of your brain’s synaptic transmission by using a modified virus to edit your DNA while you gestated. In addition, several other more modest enhancements were made to both your physiology and neurology.”
“My parents would never. I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, you do.” Howard replied softly. “Your father was a cobbler and your mother a school teacher. Life is hard in Kenya, but not for you or your family. Tell me you never wondered why.” Charlotte drew her lips to a line and slammed her arms against the chair as the hologram continued, “Yes, I know you wondered. Your parents told Howard-Prime of your questions. They desperately wanted to explain it all to you, but their contract with Howard Technologies was crystal clear.”
“You’d take back the money,” she hissed, “You gave them money to mutilate me, and you threatened to take it back, didn’t you?”
“Not mutilate…enhance, but no, it wasn’t the money that would have been forfeit.”
“Then what?” she asked.
Howard steepled his fingers in a decidedly professorial manner. “Why, the enhancements, of course.”
Charlotte stared at him for several beats and her eyes widened with understanding. “But, wouldn’t that have—”
“Killed you? Oh, most certainly. It is hard enough to muck around with DNA while a human is still cooking, doing so after birth is a whole different kettle of fish.” His voice lowered and the hologram’s eyes bored into her own. “Out of the billions who live on our spinning blue sphere, your parents were two, of perhaps twenty, who I made aware of the peril facing humanity. Coleman and I developed genealogy programs to entice people to submit DNA and—”
“Ancestry? That’s you?” asked Omandi.
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Ancestry, 23andMe, CRIgenetics, Howard Technologies owns them all. Better to compete with oneself than risk letting one of the diamonds we sought slip through our fingers, so-to-speak. Your parents were one of three couples who matched above the survivability threshold for the Captain profile.”
“Wait, what?” sputtered Charlotte. “You did this to two other children in addition to me? Are those the brothers you mentioned earlier? Where are they?”
“I’ve done…” Damien gestured expansively in Omandi’s direction, “this, to far more than two other children. You saw the replay of my interactions with Nerr’ath in the cavern. I know you puzzled out the meaning of her parting words. Humanity needs a ship. The ship needs a crew and the crew needs a Captain. You are the preferred choice for that role. The other two, your Howard-brothers, they are backups. As for where they are, I suspect they are home having dinner while blissfully unaware of all that you now know.”
“Good, go call one of them and ruin their lives. I’m no Captain. I don’t like space. Do you know, that I turned down a free trip to the Lunar colony? Does that sound like Captain material to you?”
“You turned it down because you wanted your slot to go to a young medical researcher who had interned with the Omandi Institute several years before. You turned it down because that researcher needed extensive access to test equipment in a low-g environment. You turned it down, Ms. Omandi, because you believed that young man would cure the Lewy Body disease that robbed you of your grandmother.”
“Fuck you!” she yelled.
“I’m over one-hundred-seventy years old and a hologram, Ms. Omandi. Your offer seems neither timely nor realistic.” Howard smirked at her and waited.
“It…was not an offer,” she said.
“Of course it wasn’t, but mine was. Be the captain. Recruit your crew. Lead them and save our species.”
“You are completely insane. What part of, I’m not qualified, still mystifies you? What part of I don’t want to do it, remains confusing?”
The screen behind Howard blazed to life at some unspoken command. Images from Charlotte’s past flashed across in definition so high, she thought she could reach out and touch them.
Charlotte as a late teen emerging from the mouth of a Nairobi cavern system, bloodied, bruised, and with a young man slung across her in a fireman’s carry.
“Where? How did you get that?” she asked.
“An ill-fated, yet school-sponsored, event,” he began while ignoring her question, “The caverns flooded due to unpredicted rains. Your teacher left and tried to reach help. Who took charge of those seventeen children? Who kept them calm, and reasoned her way out of a dire situation? Who ferried them, one-by-one, through submerged passageways, completely unconcerned for her own well being? Who managed to repeatedly share the one lung full of air she took with her during that process?”
Charlotte looked down and whispered, “I knew I could have gotten out. I have always been able to hold my breath an obscenely long time.” She paused and glared knowingly at the hologram, then added, “but I couldn’t leave my classmates to die.”
“Just so,” clucked Howard, “but what about the terrorist attack in Kashmir?”
Charlotte felt herself rock back against her chair. “That’s impossible, I was there on behalf of a client that demanded I travel under an assumed identity. Did you have me chipped or something?”
Howard shrugged, “Nothing so mundane, but how we found you is immaterial, as is the fact that on these two occasions, and many more, we never interfered. In Kashmir, you led your colleagues and staff to safety. You directed security teams to where the terrorist defenses were weakest. You stayed with the bomb disposal unit and relayed instructions because the person whose job it was had—”
“…been killed breeching that room,” she finished. “Fine, you’ve demonstrated I have exceptionally poor judgement in friends and colleagues. That doesn’t make me Captain Janesway of the Starship Enterprise.”
Howard smiled and it seemed completely genuine. “My dear Ms. Omandi, it was Captain Janeway, not Janesway, and she led the USS Voyager, not Enterprise. James Kirk captained the Enterprise. As luck would have it, we do need more of a Janeway and less of a Kirk in this particular case. Now, shall I go on? There was the incident in London just after the November 5th riots in 2032 or, perhaps you would like me to remind you of Syria in 2039.
Charlotte’s face darkened. “That’s a great example. Eight people died because of me!”
“Ten,” corrected the hologram.
“Ten?” asked Omandi with a resigned sigh, then said, “Even worse, ten people who lost their lives because of my mistake.”
“And over thirty-thousand people in an adjacent town who did not die of radiation poisoning because of that same decision. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” He smiled and winked at her, “at least most of the time.”
Howard stood and his chair vanished. He crouched down before her and stared into her eyes. “I’ve watched you since the day you drew breath. You are the best of the three. You are humanity’s greatest hope. You don’t need to know everything. That isn’t your strength. Your strength is in how you lead others. You unerringly make the best decision possible even when faced with impossible situations and equally impossible amounts of ambiguity.”
Charlotte inhaled deeply. “What if I say no? What if I say test the other two and, if they prove unable, then come back to me? I suspect one of them will do far better than I have done, or will do.”
Howard hung his head for a moment, then looked up. “You have no idea how critical it
is that we keep this project within the family, so-to-speak. If either of the other two were offered this role, and they declined, they would not leave this room alive.”
“That’s ridiculous,” shouted Omandi, “What makes me so much more special than them? Why do I get to decline and still leave unharmed? That’s what you said, isn’t it? If I didn’t want this gig, I could leave and no more would be expected of—” She stopped and felt the blood drain from her face. “No more would be expected of me…because I’d be dead?”
“Regrettable, but necessary…” replied the hologram.
“Then what choice do I have?” she shouted. “Take this ludicrous role or be murdered? Ok, fine, that makes it easy, I’ll take not being murdered, please. Now, as your captain, I order you to remove these shackles.”
The Damien hologram rose and looked down at her. “I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that. You see, this truly is the final test. It’s a test that, of all your crew, only you must endure. I’m sure they will be tested as well, but none will face as stark a choice as you have now. They each will have you, Charlotte, and your innate gifts as a leader to soften the blow. Still, if they were told, or simply intuited, the full measure of humanity’s current situation, it would be incumbent upon you to ensure secrecy at any cost. I am sorry about that.”
She snorted, “I’m not killing anyone. Not for you and not for dead-Howard’s snake-faced girlfriend.”
“You will,” said Damien quietly, “if it is required of you and assuming you pass the final test.”
Charlotte shook her head. “What final test? I already agreed to take on your quixotic mission.”
“You agreed in order to save your life, that’s not a sufficient reason. I told you before, Charlotte, I know what you are thinking before you do. I can tell when you are lying or attempting to deceive.” He gestured, and she felt the cybernetic interface lower onto her head.
“What are you doing?” she yelled, thrashing.
“I’ve created several simulations of what your next several months might entail, from assembling a crew to, ideally, making first contact with Nerr’ath and saving our species. At the end of that simulation, you will either be our captain or you will be dead. I wish you the best of luck, Ms. Omandi, for all humanity’s sake.”
Charlotte leaned forward and rested hands on thighs as she fought to control her breathing. She reached up and dragged a hand across her forehead. It came back damp with sweat.
That was one hell of a simulation, she thought. Then said, “Howard, you bastard, I’m going to throw up. How long have I been in here? No more!”
She rose and looked around. The virtual walls and floor appeared black with pale green grid patterns tracing in every direction.
“Interface!” nothing happened. She tried again. “Interface!” still nothing. “Are we done then?” she asked to open air. “I assembled your crew for you. What more do you want? I got every one of them to agree. Howard? Damien? Do you hear—”
Omandi broke off as the room began to take on texture and a chair formed beneath her. “No,” she cried, “No more. You said a few simulations. That means three. I completed three. Get me out of here.”
“Captain?” came a voice from her left. “Excuse me, Captain, get you out of where, exactly?”
She stared at the young Asian man and took a deep, calming breath. She’d seen him in the last simulation. His name was Chao Keung and she’d traveled to the lunar colony to recruit him as her first officer. Charlotte swallowed hard as she pushed hard against the command chair’s reinforced arms. “I was talking to myself, Commander, as in, get me out of this chair. I need to move, you know I think better when I’m moving.”
“Aye, sir, you do, sir.”
“Incoming transmission, from the alien vessel.” Charlotte recognized this new voice as well and she turned to meet the gaze of a very young blonde woman. She had high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes. Her hair spilled down around her shoulders in loose curls and Charlotte wondered absently if that hair met whatever regulations were in play on the virtual ship. The woman continued. “It’s a narrow-beam with visual data. Do you want me to put it on the screen or in your salon?”
Salon? thought Omandi, What the hell is that and where would it even be. “I’ll take it here, uh, Ensign,” replied Charlotte, then added, “I don’t see any need to keep messages from my senior staff.”
“Sir, if I may,” whispered someone so close that their breath tickled Charlotte’s right ear. Omandi barely controlled herself as she turned to face Misha, who smiled and cocked her head slightly. “Good to see you, again…Captain.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened and she never wished more for a pause button than she did in that moment. She took in the woman’s uniform and mentally contrasted its emblems with that of Keung and Sorenson. They were different. No help there. “Walk with me,” said Charlotte stiffly, as she took several steps toward an unmanned corner of the command bridge. Misha circled around to stand directly in front of Charlotte, effectively blocking the others from seeing their Captain’s face.
Misha smiled. “I’m real, Captain. Just jacked in from a different terminal.” The security officer pointed past Omandi and said, “They…they are obviously simulations since you haven’t actually met them yet, let alone convinced them to join us. My rank insignia that you tried to puzzle out is a Lieutenant pip. As you may recall, my surname is Sokolov. You would normally address me as simply Lieutenant or, Lieutenant Sokolov,” She smiled more broadly, “or if you were pissed, just Sokolov.”
“How?” sputtered Charlotte.
“We each have gifts granted by Howard-Prime’s DNA unzipping viruses. I’m your security officer. I see threats other people do not. I’m also strong as shit, so anyone who wants to get to you, has to go through me first. As for how I know you would call me Sokolov when you’re pissed. I’ve reviewed over a thousand video hours of you in various situations. I have an eidetic memory. I probably know you better than you know yourself. In fact, you are about to—” Charlotte rubbed her right eyebrow with her middle finger as Misha continued, “yeah, you are about to do that. Don’t ever play poker with me, Captain, it’s a pretty bad tell.”
Omandi peered around Misha and noticed that Keung had glanced her way, then made a point of adjusting his gaze. “Okay, who are the other two?” asked Charlotte. “I remember them from the earlier recruiting simulation, but not their names. Damnit, I don’t have an eidetic memory.”
“You don’t need one, sir, you have me.”
“Fine, what are their names, and why are you calling me sir?”
Misha arched an eyebrow, “Because you are my superior officer, how should I address you?”
“I don’t know. I never had any military-like rank until you abducted me. Ma’am? Isn’t that the—”
“Doctor Howard did not want gender in rank. All superior officers are, sir, regardless.” She leaned closer and whispered, “I think he got it from a television show called Battlestar Gallactica.” She winked, then added, “Your navigation officer is Lieutenant James Branson and your communications officer is Ensign Linnea Sorenson. Nice guess on the rank earlier, by-the-way. See, you’re a natural at intuiting the right things to do and say.” Misha nodded then took a step back and said loud enough for the room to hear, “Very good, Captain. As you say.” She then retreated to a glowing bank of terminals situated just behind the command chair.
Sorenson gestured to the screen questioningly and Omandi nodded. A moment later it lit up with a rotating geometric symbol that spun silently for several seconds before fading. It was replaced with Nerr’ath’s reptilian face. The alien’s eyes swept the room, lingering on each person in turn.
“Which one of you is the Captain?” she asked. Four pairs of eyes fixed on Omandi and she felt her stomach do somersaults.
Just a simulation, she thought as she squared her shoulders and walked to the centre of the command deck. “I am Captain Omandi. It is nice to finally meet you Ch
ief Xenologist Salmix. I’ve watched replays of your previous interactions with Doctor Damien Howard and have been fully briefed on—” Charlotte faltered, unable to remember the specifics from Howard’s first encounter with Nerr’ath. She glanced to Chao. “Commander, refresh my memory. What was the specific legal foundation used by the Galactic Confederation to threaten us with genocide?” Her peripheral vision caught the barest of smiles as it played across Misha’s lips but it vanished a moment later.
Keung lifted a hand terminal and glanced down, tapping, “Confederation Diaspora Act of 2842, sir.”
“That’s it,” said Omandi returning her attention to the screen. “I’ve been fully briefed on CDA 2842. As I understand it, you want to confirm—”
Salmix interrupted her. “Is your vessel capable of faster-than-light travel, Captain?”
Charlotte faltered for the barest of seconds before responding with a confident, “Of course it is. I wouldn’t be out here if it weren’t. Now, abort your attack on my planet.” She glanced briefly to Misha who gave an almost imperceptible nod of affirmation.
Nerr’ath shook her head and affected a reptilian frown. “I am sorry, Captain. Truly I am. However, my pod will not respond to local commands until CDA 2842 has been satisfied. I simply cannot abort the launch.”
“Captain,” Misha said warily, “increased energy output detected from the alien vessel. I believe, it is preparing to—” Misha broke off for several seconds as her hands flew over various controls. She looked up at Charlotte. “Captain, I’ve detected multiple projectile launches.”
Omandi felt her stomach lurch, but controlled her reaction as she turned to face the view screen. “Nerr’ath, what is the meaning of this? We have satisfied your requirement. What have you done?”
The Chief Xenologist shook her head. “All verification tests needed to be complete and validated prior to your grace period expiring. As I said, I am not in control. The pathogen cylinders launched at exactly 5:30 a.m., July 16, 2045, local time.”
Paradigm 2045- Trinity's Children Page 7
