Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.
To Return Home 2.1
Daddy pitched the idea of the five-person leadership to the others as if the idea was his own. I didn’t think for a moment, however, that the others believed it, but at least they were gracious enough to pretend they did.
I had suggested that I be responsible for preserving our culture, but now I found that, somehow, the medical aspect of our culture came under my purview as well. I guess it had to do with the need for good health for morale, or morale for good health: one or the other.
So it was that we became a five-person committee running the government. Of course, I figured that, under the circumstances, Paula's position as head of security was more suited to leading the rescue of the people downstairs. Still, Daddy had given the job to me, and our committee reaffirmed it.
Daddy's decision made each of us equal in rank, and the outline I gave of our sections of government were reviewed and voted on by the group. That's how I found myself overseeing medical as well as culture.
-=#=-
The next day, I delegated jobs to each of the people. John and Rashda were put to work, figuring out how we could piece the ship back together. Somehow we needed to be able to connect the halves. Of course, we weren't going to do that until we knew that Amos was neutralized, but it would eventually be done.
Rachel and Carla started working toward a routine to help the people downstairs once we could work on their psyches.
Marc and Daddy were set to work on the bots. They were developing a rapid method of replacing bots if needed.
Mama and Paula began working toward disabling Amos.
And, me? Well... I found I'd delegated myself out of a job.
So, I was sitting in my office, staring at a book on my desk, when my daughter, Pearl, found me.
"Whatcha doing, Mom?" She asked me.
"Reading some logs. And I'm giving some of Marc's computer toys a try. This one takes memories and turns them into text."
"And then prints them out? That seems like a waste of resources."
I laughed. "Not really," I said as I pushed the book to the edge of my desk. As it slid off the edge, it disappeared.
"Is that a hologram? That's cool!"
"Yes, although the feel isn't quite right. It requires such fine control of low-powered fields. It tingles a bit when you turn the page."
“It’s still cool,” she told me.
I smiled and nodded.
“So how does it convert the memories to written text?”
I shook my head. “I’m not really sure. Marc is a genius with his computer programming.” I laughed a bit. “I suspect that your grandpa helped with it too.”
“Can I?” Pearl asked. I nodded, and she moved the book to where she could see it. After reading a bit, she said, “This records every detail. Of everything!”
“That’s why I’m reading it. See that link at the bottom of the page?”
Pearl nodded, and I continued. “Pressing that takes me into the memories themselves. I think some nanobots are somehow linked into this. Don’t ask me how.”
“Who’s memories are you looking at?”
“Amos’ of course,” I told her.
“But you were in his memories, Mom. Why are you going through them again?”
“I’m looking at them like this because the text doesn’t miss anything, and when I look at things, I see it from his point of view. This is like being under hypnosis and being retaken through an experience. Everything is amplified so nothing is missed.”
Pearl looked confused for a moment. “Do you think that’ll help, Mom?”
I paused, then shook my head. “No, sweetheart, but I can’t sit here doing nothing.”
Pearl nodded. “You’ve delegated everything to everyone else. So you’re waiting for results from them. You’re a victim of your own leadership.”
“Ha, ha,” I said sarcastically. The problem was, I knew Pearl was right. What was I supposed to do? “So what do you suggest?” I finally asked.
Pearl smiled hugely. “Let’s brainstorm!”
-=#=-
A few weeks later, I had a surprise. Mama and Paula told me they thought they had a way of disabling Amos. They had been able to communicate with his bots.
Mama called up a recording they had made of the conversation, and across the room, the wall seemed to fade from view, replaced by Mama and Daddy’s living room.
For a while, nothing seemed to happen. We watched as Mama and Paula took each other’s hands. Every movement seemed to stop, and their breathing became almost undetectable. Suddenly both of them spoke in perfect unison.
“We are Amos. You are danger. You will be neutralized.”
A moment later, both said, again in perfect unison, “We aren’t danger. We are Paula Dodson and Bernie Richards.” It was their bots speaking.
“Dodson?” I asked, looking at my sister. “I didn’t know you considered yourself married.”
“I didn’t expect the bots to say that, but I guess they consider us to be married,” she replied.
Mama glared at us both and rewound the hologram a bit. “This is important, you two. Pay attention, Rose.”
“Yes, Mama,” we both said contritely.
“State your business to Amos,” the bots said through Mama and Paula. Mama reached out and paused the recording. It was apparent that Amos’ bots had his attitude.
“We are here to speak to Amos regarding the people and animals on this vessel,” stated Mama and Paula’s bots. It was evident that Mama and Paula left most of the dialogue to their bots. I suppose it made sense. The bots were likely able to communicate their intents easier to Amos’ bots.
“We are Amos. State your business.”
“Amos has harmed many people.”
“Negative. Amos has harmed no one.”
“Amos has harmed many people,” the bots repeated.
“Show Amos!” his bots ordered.
Paula shuddered, remembering the next few moments. “You won’t see this, but my bots pulled his into my memories of the time I spent as a pony and as a decoration in Amos’ palace.”
“And then,” Mama supplied, “My bots pulled them into memories I had of the things Amos made us do.” She paused a moment and seemed to be searching for something. “They also,” she said cautiously, “must have pulled some things out of your mind, Honey. They showed your memories of recognizing Belinda, and then of Amos gloating over killing her and...” she turned green at the thought, “eating her.”
Paula took over as Mama worked to get her emotions under control.“Our bots also took all of us through the memories of Amos programming the bots of each person downstairs to change them, then purging all records of their DNA from the computers.”
I could tell that there were things Paula didn’t want to say about the experience, but I decided not to push her for any information.
"Did he do them individually?" I asked.
"Some, yes. But not all."
I didn't dare get my hopes up, but I asked, "Did he see any DNA that we could use to turn people back into their own selves?"
Mama shook her head. "No, Sweetie. I wish he had, but he didn't."
I watched the rest of the holo, and it was enlightening. Amos’ bots were extremely arrogant. I'm not sure if he programmed them that way or something they picked up from his brain. Either way, it grated on me.
-=#=-
I was in charge of the rescue, but I still wanted others to look at my decisions and tell me if they agreed, so I asked the administration to meet with me. I also thought it wise to include Mama, Rachel, and Carla.
We used John and my Living Area for the meeting. While my office would hold everyone, the living room was much more comfortable and didn't place me behind a desk when speaking to the others in the administration.
Rachel and Carla were hesitant when they heard of the arrogance of the bots. They were concerned that the bots might be more under his own control than they seemed. I had to admit. The thought had occurred to me as well.
“Even if they are, they can't hurt us,” he commented.
“That's not exactly true,” Paula told her husband. I hadn't heard them argue since they bonded, so this difference of opinion was interesting. “When you and John figure out how to reconnect us to the downstairs, they will be able to.”
“I'm not so sure, Paula,” he said. He turned to Mama and asked, “Mom, can you search Amos’ memories and see if he can communicate with his bots?”
She answered, “I've searched, and I've found no evidence that he can, but that doesn't mean he can't, just that he never tried. You can only prove the existence of something. Not the non-existence.”
Marc nodded. “I think we'll have to try this. It seems like it'll be our best bet.”
I nodded, then asked. “What do you think, John?”
He shrugged. “I'm not sure yet,” he answered. “I don't think we can execute this plan until we have a way of joining the two halves anyway.”
“Daddy?” I asked.
“I'm with John on this. I don't think we can make a decent decision yet,” he answered. “I think we should put this idea on the back burner for now. We need to look at more information and see if we can find anything else out.”
“Paula?” I asked.
“This isn't a command decision, Sis. You're in charge of this operation.”
“I still want everyone's opinions,” I told her. “This could potentially kill us all. Or worse.”
She sighed. “My honest opinion is this might very well be our only option. I recognize John and Daddy’s reluctance, but this may be the only chance we have when the time comes. If it is, I'm willing to take it.”
“I didn't say I wasn't, Paula,” John told her. “Neither did Dad, but while we have the time to examine other options, we should.”
“That extra time is because of your project?” Carla asked him.
“We're sure we can do it. In fact, we're ironing out the bugs.”
“Will those bugs become more complicated now?” she pointedly asked.
I was immediately enraged. “Carla!” I shouted.
In a complete reversal of how we did things as ’kids,’ Paula came to her defense. “Wait a minute, Rose.” She turned to our little sister. “I know you want that bastard dead, Carla, but John isn't that kind of person. He's not going to delay his project because he doesn't like what we're doing when it's done.”
Carla didn't say anything for a bit. For several minutes she stared at Paula with fire in her eyes. I didn't think Carla would back down, but finally, she turned to John and me. “Sorry,” she said simply.
It took me a few moments to calm down, but John held her gaze for a moment, then said, “Apology accepted.” He turned to me. “Give me a deadline.”
“Say what?” Marc asked. “I've got to replace a lot of wiring, and I'm not sure what it looks like over there!”
“The electronic connections between the two sides aren't important for the physical joining,” John told him.
“I beg to differ, John. We need to have control of the entire downstairs so we can segregate Amos from everyone else.”
“I may be able to help you there,” Daddy interjected.
“How?” I asked.
“The entire ship can be controlled by the command center, correct?”
“Of course, Daddy. You know that.”
“Then, what if we were to design a bot that could make its way to the command center and fashion a remote control device. Give us the ability to control everything from here.”
“And then while we're joining the halves, we let it loose,” Marc said. “That's intriguing.” He thought about it for a few minutes. “I'm wondering if it would be simpler to build a relay system in the command center, or program the bots to repair everything where we blew it loose.”
“I don't know much about the control systems, but you know what needs to be done in the command center. You haven't seen what needs done at the connection points,” I offered.
“Not to mention,” Daddy said, “you wouldn't need to fish through the connection points on this side. You could simply build the sending and receiving units here.”
“Why the receiving unit?” John asked.
“From my point of view, it will be much simpler to have the bots disassemble a premade unit, then reassemble it over there.”
John nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. They won't have to look for material to build it with.”
“That's part of it. Also, I won't have to program the entire unit into them. They'll do that as they disassemble it. It's actually how the bots learn lots of things.”
Marc was nodding. “That sounds great, Dad. I'll go that route, but once I'm done constructing the units, I'm going to continue rebuilding the connections on this side. As a backup.”
“Good idea,” Daddy told him.
“It sounds like we have a plan,” I said.
“I still need a deadline,” John told me.
“That's not necessary, John,” Carla said apologetically.
“I want one anyway,” he told her. “I want that skunk dead. He killed so many people, including our parents. He needs to be removed from our lives.”
Carla shook her head. “Have you any idea how many women he's had as furniture or decorations? Light fixtures suspended from ceilings. Statues in his ‘palace throne room?’”
“That’s why I want him dead,” John told her.
“I want him to spend time as he treated those women,” Carla explained. “I think it’s only fitting.”
Please remember to comment and to leave kudos!
--Rosemary
Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.
To Return Home 2.2
"I don't give a damn who it is, Bernie! I don't want you linking with anyone down there again!"
I stopped on my parent's porch. I had been reaching out to open the door, but now, hearing Daddy yelling, I wasn't sure I wanted to walk in on them. All three of us girls had a standing invitation to simply walk in, as did all of them, including Mama and Daddy, at our homes.
I had a particular reason to not want to walk in on this particular squabble. Mama was doing a favor for me. Apparently Amos was able to connect to others again. It frightened all of us. What was to stop him from trying to control us? I was very much afraid. Controlling me was something he might want to do to get to John.
I sat down on one of the bamboo chairs arranged around the umbrella table on their porch and pondered the problem. I could understand Daddy's anger. He was concerned. But I also knew he would agree that we had to go to great lengths in this situation.
I heard Mama's voice, but I couldn't understand what she was saying.
A moment later, Daddy was exploding. "Rose asked you to?!? We'll see about that!!!" Oh. That’s what she was saying.
I heard him stomping, and then the door swing open. He stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him. He didn't look back, and I should have kept my mouth shut. I really should have.
"I'm right here, Daddy."
I was kicking myself as soon as I spoke. He turned, and his face was beet red. He was furious.
He stomped toward me, and I could see his anger as if it was oozing out of every pore in his body. However, there’s something about a daughter that no daddy can compete with. He dropped into the chair opposite me, and let out a big sigh. I knew he couldn’t stay angry for long, and so did he.
His face was still apoplectic as he stared at me, but I could see the red disappearing as I sat looking at him. I’m sure the dissipating ferocity was intentional as well as an unconscious response to his daughter.
Finally, in a quiet voice, he asked, “Why?”
Had I been Paula, I would have been smug and asked, ‘Why what?’ And as much as I had picked up on my older sibling’s example over the years, I decided to forego the temptation and Daddy’s resulting reaction. “We needed to know, and Mama is the only one who could get the information for us.”
“And did you think of your Mama’s wellbeing?”
“I almost didn’t ask her because of that. Then I thought of the reason she’s able to get that ‘intel’ and knew that she would never forgive me if I didn’t ask.”
Daddy seemed to deflate. “I know, Rosie.” I sighed in relief as he called me Rosie instead of Rose. “Your mama’s strength of character is one of the reasons I married her.” He gave a sudden laugh. “You know it took me forever to get her to call me ‘Vern’ instead of ‘Vernon?’ She didn’t think it was dignified to use a nickname. She preferred being called Bernice too.”
“She’s almost always called me Rosie,” I said, referring to the nickname.
“Yes, even when you were Gene.”
Suddenly, I laughed as well. “I do remember everyone calling me Gene, but with Mama I was always Eugene.”
“Yep. Prim and proper was her way. I think a lot of her easing off of a lot of that was when we realized you were Rose; not Eugene.” It seemed as if Daddy’s anger was gone. I didn’t want to bring it back though, so I just let him lead the conversation.
“She told me once that Paul and Fred were so close that if one had been a girl, they would have married.”
“They did,” I nodded.
“Yeah, they did.” He got a thoughtful look on his face. “I wonder if they would have, without the bond?”
I giggled. “I think they would have, Daddy. Mama was right when she said that.” My mirth quickly faded though, as I thought about Fred and how he had died.
Daddy seemed to read my mind. “Yeah. You’re right. We need to stop this animal. He doesn’t give a shit about anything. I’m so sorry that he and John are twins. Neither deserve a brother like that.”
I nodded in understanding. John was an incredible man. I’d had no idea that he had recognized me as a girl when we were kids, although when I thought about it, everything fell into place – things I hadn’t noticed at the time, but in retrospect, made perfect sense. Amos was beyond anything I could comprehend. Even having experienced his memories, and his motives… No. That wasn’t true. I hadn’t ever experienced what he was really like. I knew what Carla felt when she was controlled by him, but I experienced it from Carla’s perspective. She was only a passenger.
The only one who truly experienced Amos’ thoughts was Mama.
For a moment I shivered as I thought of Mama understanding what made him the way he was. Did she understand? Did she approve?
No! She couldn’t. She was working as hard as we were to stop him. Or was she?
Wonderful. Now I was second guessing everything again. I sighed as I considered what I knew, or thought I knew.
We sat for several minutes, saying nothing. After a bit, Daddy got up and pulled one of the other chairs to right beside mine. He sat down, and put an arm around me. “I’m sorry for getting so upset, Rosie. You are making the hard choices.” He chuckled. “I told you I knew you could, but I got mad when you did.”
I smiled as I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Thanks, Daddy.” I’m afraid, however, that my smile was only on my lips. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mama experiencing my mad brother-in-law’s thoughts.
-=#=-
The five of us in leadership roles set up a kind of town hall meeting after awhile. John, Marc, and I had done a similar thing while we could, on N21. After Amos’ program, one he apparently named ‘total_fun’, started, the fear between men and women prevented that.
We planned the town hall meetings on a lunar cycle, so once a month. Although we really had no year, or months on board the ship. We had it artificially, through Trent Carr’s holographic technology, and John’s arranging the ship to mimic the cycles of Earth.
Thus, a few nights after Daddy and I talked on his porch, we had a town hall meeting.
Vic Winston came forward. He was joined by Trent Carr. Both of them had been working on different sides of the holography technology. They had come up with an interesting method of using Vic’s force fields to give the feeling of reality to holographic constructs. Listening to their talk about what they had invented reminded me of the old Star Trek episodes where they had holodecks on board the ships – except we couldn’t produce matter with ‘replicators.’
Once they had finished, I wondered if we could use the tech for our rescue of the people downstairs. When I asked, they explained that they were considering different ways. One was a portable generator that would mimic some ponies and a chariot. I got a distaste in my mouth at the thought, but it might be necessary.
"Will it be able to carry a person?" I asked.
"I believe so," said Trent.
“That's very interesting,” John commented. “But, I thought force fields needed a huge generator for power.”
“We've been able to do a tradeoff. By upping the wattage, we've been able to create a sufficient field.”
Marc was very curious. “We couldn't do that before,” he stated. “What have you changed?”
“We're using the photons of the holograms to create the fields.”
there was a lot of murmuring in the hall. Lots of people couldn't seem to believe that light would be able to seem solid. I think Marc spoke for all of us when he said, “That's impossible!”
Vic and Trent we're standing at a lectern in the center of the auditorium. Trent hadn't said much since they arrived. In fact, I don't think he’d said anything. Now, Vic seemed to be fiddling with his watch, and Trent opened his mouth as if to speak. Then he picked up a glass of water from the lectern and took a drink. Vic looked back up and asked, “Why do you say that, Marc?” Trent took another drink, finishing off the glass.
“The amount of power required to make photons solid... Would literally be astronomical!”
“You think so?” He gestured up to the projector hanging from the ceiling. People who had ideas to present to us used it for holographic slideshows. I saw that the green light that showed it being on was lit. What was he doing? There were just the two of them there.
Vic touched his watch again. Trent flashed out of existence and we heard the water he had drank, splash the floor. I glanced at my brother-in-law and he was starting wide-eyed at Vic. None of us suspected that Trent had been a hologram. Trent touched his watch again and Trent was standing beside him again. All five of us were out of our seats in an instant, hurrying to the lectern. I reached out and touched the faux Trent's hand, then face. He felt as real as any person. Except... “It's cold,” I said to Vic.
I heard Trent's voice from the doorway. “We're working on a way to make a person seem warm to the touch. Not to mention an AI smart enough to control him.”
Vic continued. “We've got a way to warm it, but this projector doesn't produce enough power. Needless to say, we need enough power to create the necessary amount of heat. We probably could have warmed it gradually, but we really need to be able to produce more power to make it truly effective.”
“This…” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I finally settled on, “This is incredible!”
Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.
I’d also like to apologize in advance for the bending of physical laws in the following chapter. I suppose in my defense, I’ve been watching some lectures from the Royal Institute lately, and maybe it’s gotten me thinking a bit more – sideways?
John and I were in The Heavens Rose and I was trying to think, which was something I always did better in my kitchen. He had offered to help me, but was instead sitting on a stool placed in a corner where he could see me. It wasn't that I didn't want his help, but that we’d found that I would process things better while cooking, rather than explaining what needed done..
John wasn't just sitting watching me, though. He was explaining how he was hoping we could use the solid photons Vic and Trent had discovered.
“Really, Rose. I'm not sure you understand the gravity of the situation,” he said with a smirk on his face.”
I stopped what I was doing, and put my hands on my hips, glaring at him. “Would you care to enlighten me?” I knew there was something more to what he was saying... Probably one of his horrendous puns. I decided I'd figure it out soon enough, so I didn't push it.
He turned serious, and I knew he was going to tell me something with relatively little humor in it. “Do you remember what you read about the engines?”
I gave him a strange look and pointed to my necklace which was sitting on a small shelf by the kitchen door.
“Okay, Hon. Did you understand it?”
I glared and asked, “What do you think? Physics has never been my strong suit. I understand chemistry, so I understood the old reaction engines. But these? Hardly.”
He nodded and proceeded to explain, but in a way that I could grasp the simpler concepts.
The power for the ship came from the engines, but in a rather unusual way. The old stations converted to ships, N21 and N22, utilized reaction engines, although very powerful ones. When the new colonization ships were built, however, it was realized that there was no way to provide enough fuel for reaction engines to speed up and slow down more than twice.
Neo22 was built when people were desperate to make strides that had never been made before. There was no way for people to live on Earth, so changes had to be made. One of the areas that had made huge progress was the understanding of gravity. Of course, even before N21 was built, there was enough understanding to give any satellite, or ship, artificial gravity.
But the new strides allowed much finer control than had previously been possible. When coupled with the ability to produce a gravitational field through a relatively small amount of power, it allowed the use of gravity to produce safety measures in different areas of the ship with the low amounts of energy available.
Another remarkable discovery that became an integral part of the engine was dark matter. Not dark matter itself. We'd known about that for hundreds of years, but how to harness it, or more exactly, harness our ship to it. By increasing the gravity of dark matter pulling on the side of the ship in the direction we wanted to go, we were able to make the dark matter pull our ship. That alone wouldn't make it move very quickly, but by reversing the polarity of the gravity behind the ship, we would be both pushed and pulled in the direction we wanted to go, turning two slow methods of propulsion into one fast enough to be usable.
From there, the uses expanded even more. Gravity generation became the backbone of so many functions on board the ship. They weren’t just our engines, or letting us walk on the floors, we had a containment field of sorts, we had anti-gravity tractors.
“The thing is, Hon, whenever we expand something one way, we lose something in another. We can make a gravity field extremely powerful, but when we do, we have to focus it tighter.”
I shook my head. Maybe I was missing something. “What do you mean by focusing a field?”
“Okay. We have two types of fields that we use with gravity, depending on how we want to use it.”
I decided to take a break for a moment, so I sat down facing John.
He continued. “The first type of field is what I described for our propulsion. We sort of turn the ship into a ‘gravity magnet’ with a ‘north and south pole’. Normally, gravity doesn’t work that way, but somehow, physicists have made it work. But doing this, narrows its effect, which in our case is fine. We want to only project normal gravity in front of us, and anti-gravity behind us.”
I nodded. So far, so good.
“But we need it amplified considerably. That’s where the dark matter comes in. To amplify it to the extreme we need, we have to focus it so much that it only affects things in a very small space.”
I nodded. “I’m not sure I understand, but continue, and maybe I’ll make the connection when you’ve given me a bit more information.”
“Well, what do we do if we’re nowhere near a planetary body, or a star? What do we grab onto to move?”
I wondered if his question was rhetorical, but he seemed to want me to answer. “Dark matter?” I asked hesitantly. I mean, it seemed like a logical answer, and apparently, it was correct.
“Right. Dark matter is pretty much everywhere. There’s almost six times as much dark matter as there is regular matter in the universe. So even though we might not be able to lock onto something that’s visible, we can do it to the invisible. We can’t accelerate as fast by using dark matter, but we can still slowly speed up.” He paused for a moment. “I remember the idea of propelling a ship with solar winds, which seems like a great idea, but it would take so long to accelerate that it would take millions of years to accelerate. Granted, you could eventually be going nearly the speed of light, because the photons that make up the winds travel that fast. I suppose if we were in intergalactic space, it would take awhile to do any maneuvering, even with dark matter, but it would be possible to do it, where with solar winds, it would be almost impossible.”
“Uh huh.” I love the man, but he can get so distracted when he’s talking about sciencey things. “It sounds interesting, and it obviously works as we’re moving pretty fast. How does this help us now?”
He looked sad. I guess he was wanting to continue his explanations. It wasn’t often that I let him wow me with tech talk. I guess I needed to do it more often. I have to say, I was having fun listening as well. “I’m sorry for cutting you off, John. Please continue.”
He smiled a bit, and as he continued speaking, he seemed to gain his good mood again, and was soon speaking with as much feeling as before. “We get our electricity in much the same way. Our generators are in a vacuum, and we use a gravity generator pulling an armature around a stator to produce power. It uses only a little electricity to produce a lot more.”
I couldn’t help myself. “But that sounds like a perpetual motion machine!”
His smile got bigger. “It’s not. We convert gravity to electricity. We’re also using gravity already existing, and amplifying it. When we use the gravity this way, we lose the effect on other items, by amplifying it. It sort of narrows the beam. Sort of like how we can increase the voltage of electricity by sacrificing amperage.”
My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure how this was possible, but obviously, it was. We had plenty of power.
“The thing is, I think we can use this, as along with some of the other tech we have, and the solid light, to permanently disarm Amos.”
I stared at him. “How?” I asked in a small voice.
“What if we could target every bot in his body, and crush it with gravity?”
I couldn’t even fathom that idea. Could it be done? “Can you target through his body without hurting him?”
The look he gave was almost apologetic. “Rose. It hardly matters if we hurt him or not. The only reason I want to target each nanobot is so none of them are left. I don’t think it would be prudent to leave any of them alive.” He let that sink in a bit, then explained a bit more. “I say that it hardly matters that it will kill him eventually, regardless of whether we attacked him directly or just the bots. It would be a terrible death as well. Someone dying, ravaged by disease and old age. We haven’t seen that for years.”
“He wouldn’t have any immune system.” I tried to ignore the fact that we were talking about killing someone in cold blood. Removing what we knew would be his defense against a slow and painful death. I pushed that thought from my mind. I knew it had to be, and there was no way out for him. He had brought it on himself.
-=#=-
At our next meeting of the five, we discussed John’s plan. He went into much greater detail than he had for me directly. That was fine, as I wasn’t of a very technical mind, unless it had to do with a mixing bowl or a musical staff.
We were in Daddy’s home, and John had the floor, so to speak. We were seated around a table that had materialized in his office, rather than his desk. It was an oval table, and Daddy was at one end, while Paula and I sat opposite Marc and John.
It wasn’t a real table, but made with a hologram and force fields. Soon, the system would be replaced by a solid light hologram. It would take much less power then, and seem much more real, but the current ‘table’ worked for now.
John had a tablet on the table in front of him, and as he touched a control, a hologram appeared above the table. It showed the two halves of the ship pinwheeling along side by side in the void. I thought of the explanation John had given me of the engines and wondered how we compensated for the spin of the ship. Oh well, obviously we did.
“What I propose we do is slowly bring the ships as close together as we can, then bridge them using a solid light bridge. I think if we can tap into the projectors inside, we should be able to make a construct that can carry a gravity generator to Amos.”
“What would the gravity generator do?” Paula asked, clearly intrigued.
“I propose we map where every nanobot in his body is, and focus the generator on them at high power. Then we crush them. Literally.”
“We could do the same thing from here,” Marc said.
“Too risky. I don’t want to target the wrong person.”
“Why use the… Oh. Never mind,” Daddy suddenly said.
“Why use what?” John asked.
“I was wondering why we don’t use a force field sled to get it to him, but with the solid light, you can make it pretty well undetectable.”
John nodded. “Right. We can sneak it in. With the gravity generator completely encased inside a solid light box, it’s invisible if we cloak it in the same way as one of our cloaking suits. And using the already present hologram generators, we can avoid contact with any person. The chance of them noticing the power drain would be negligible.”
“Who will we have to inform of our plans?”
“Well, Vic and Trent, obviously. The Docs. Marc and I can handle the mechanics of it.”
“I can make a virus for their computers that will build the control system for the sled and grav generator,” Marc said.
“How can we map the bots?” Paula asked.
“That’s where we’ll need the docs. I got the idea from when we looked inside Rose’s brain. We could see the bots that were transmitting her memories to and from her crystals.”
We sat digesting the information for a while. Finally, Daddy said, “All in favor?”
The other four raised their hands, so it hardly mattered if I did, but I slowly raised mine as well. I felt sick to my stomach, although I knew that my feelings were based on reading his fake memories.
“Let's do it, then.” Daddy said.
I noticed that I didn’t have any duties in that plan, so I turned to John, “What will you need me to do?”
“Figure out how to help those people. They’ll be without a leader.”
I must have gone several shades of white as my head seemed to spin. “Okay, John.”
Please don't forget to leave kudos and comment!
Thanks!
Rosemary
Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.
I’d also like to apologize in advance for the bending of physical laws in the following chapter. I am aware of MOND, for those of you who are as well, but I suppose I don't like the theory, so I decided to ignore it in this book. Author’s prerogative, I guess. In my defense, I’ve been watching some lectures from the Royal Institute lately, and maybe it’s gotten me thinking a bit more – sideways?
I have been enjoying some documentaries on gravity also. They were heavy.
John and Marc got busy maneuvering the ship to a position where we were in line to reconnect with the command center and downstairs section. I wasn't sure I liked the idea, but it seemed to be the only choice, under the circumstances.
Mama was monitoring Amos’ memories while our ship accelerated slightly and drew alongside. At the same time, Daddy was monitoring her very closely, and I think he was ready to pull the plug if anything should go awry. So was I.
“What's happening, Bernie?” Daddy asked.
“Nothing, Vern. All I see happening is a celebration. Some type of praise for the ‘Emperor.’”
As I watched Mama, she started to turn absolutely green. I suspected what was happening, and asked her, “Do you want us to stop so you can check out of his memories for awhile?”
“Rosie,” she said. I appreciate it, but remember. I'm experiencing his memories, so they're in mine as well. I can't forget anything he does. I don't want anyone to be... You know what I'm saying, Rosie.”
I nodded. “Okay, Mama.”
I turned to look at John, and it was apparent he had seen Mama's expression. He turned back to the controls on his desk and flipped a switch. He had told me what everything did, so I knew we were now locked into position beside the downstairs section.
As if to confirm, he and Marc glanced at each other and nodded. Then Marc looked at Paula. “Okay, Love. It's your turn.”
My sister stepped forward and John pressed a button. The entire desktop flickered and changed, becoming another complete system.
Now, it was a security board, with a single monitor where John could make sure we stayed in place. Paula touched a few controls and we watched the large display showing where the connection from our central ring to a “U tube” could be clearly seen. Or rather, what had been a connection. Several feet of the tube was gone. It was now a mangled mess; pieces of metal superstructure twisted this way and that. The tube was completely stationary in our view, but we could see the starfield tumbling beyond the ship. We were aligned perfectly with the downstairs section, exactly where we should be, but with no physical connection.
Paula slid her index finger very slowly on a touchpad, and we saw some of the crumpled metal move out of the way. It was as if a tunnel was being inflated in the opening, pushing the destroyed structure back together.
There was something that was almost, but not completely, out of the range of my senses on the screen that was widening as she moved her finger. I knew what it was, but it was beyond belief. She was projecting some solid light into the opening, and it was creating an anchor point. As she strengthened the field, the light became more and more tangible, and soon, it looked exactly like the passageway that had once been there. She repeated the process three more times, and we were connected back to the command center and downstairs.
That connection was tenuous, though. Unlike the real “U tubes”, if we had a power fluctuation, these could be lost, or even destructive to the rest of the connection.
I turned to my mother. “Can you tell us exactly where Amos’ fail-safe is?”
She nodded. It was very apparent that she was sickened by what Amos was doing. A few minutes later, she said, very quietly. “It's in the number one U tube, next to the upstairs ring.”
“Where?” Marc asked.
He touched a contact and another control panel shimmered into existence. He manipulated it, and a 3D display appeared above Daddy's desk. The display showed the sealed door into tube 1. I watched fascinated as we seemed to move through it. We saw where Paula had repaired the curved access way. Slowly, we made our way toward the downstairs section. We came to the J tube that led to the command section and Marc stopped the advance.
Looking toward Mama, I was surprised. She looked confused.
“Bernie?” Daddy asked.
Mama shook her head. “I didn't see the spot.”
“We've passed it?” John asked.
“Yes. But I didn't see it.”
Marc made our viewpoint turn around, and we slowly made our way back. We were almost to the door when Mama said, “Stop!”
Immediately, we stopped moving.
“Turn to the right.”
The image panned right, and Mama looked confused again. “It should be here,” she said.
“I had to repair this part, Mom,” Paula told her.
“There was an access panel that was here. The dead man switch was installed in there behind the door motor.”
“I didn't remake the door motors because the doors are welded shut. We’ll have to cut a hole to get through.”
“So it's gone.” Daddy said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I don't think so, Vernon,” Mama said. “It was in a very secure case. The only thing that could break it is the thing inside. It hasn’t exploded, but it hasn’t disappeared..”
“Just a moment, ” Paula told us. “Before we jump to conclusions...” We watched as above the table, we saw a replay of her repairs to the tube.
“I don't see it,” Mama said after we watched it for the third time, “but that doesn't mean it's not there.”
“What do we do, then?” I asked.
Paula was way ahead, however. She was speaking to some of her security people. “We’re going to need to inspect outside our connection to U tube 1. I need Carstairs and Fonzarelli.”
“We need to talk to Vic and Trent too,” Marc said.
“What are you thinking?” John asked.
“If that thing is out there, we need a way to contain it.”
“The feedback loop,” John stated.
I had heard them talking about the possibility of a field powered by an explosion, which to me sounded like some sort of wonderful idea, but to me it seemed ridiculous. How could you make a field to stop an explosion with the explosion itself? “Guys, is this really possible?” I asked.
John looked at Daddy and explained their idea. “If that thing goes off, the energy is going to go somewhere. We’re thinking of simply diverting its force.”
“How?”
I had watched John devour books and tapes – every bit of information he could find, about gravity – as if he was a gravity well himself. He was a brilliant structural engineer, and the ship we were traveling in was a direct descendant of one of his own projects. For a few thousand years, he had studied the effects of gravity and how it worked. His own ideas boosted our engines by reshaping space / time, so everyone knew he was the best expert we had in the field.
When he tried to explain to anyone what he was wanting to do, only Marc had any idea what he was talking about. He looked at Marc with a, “please help” look.
Marc said, “John’s idea seems to be the best one I’ve ever seen, Dad. There really isn’t any technology involved which can fail. It’s all based on physical laws, which can’t.”
Daddy nodded. He knew Marc was probably speaking the truth, but it would never sound like that to anyone else. “Okay?”
Marc explained. “You understand that the force from an explosion in space will follow a straight line until it’s stopped, right?” Mama rolled her eyes at that. Daddy just fixed Marc with a stern look. “Silly question, right,” my brother in law said, hastily.
“Gravity deals with warps in space time. I won’t get into the equations that we’ll use to create this, as some of them are incomprehensible, but the general idea is this. We propose to reshape the curve of space-time around the explosion if it occurs.”
“How would that help?” Daddy asked.
“Time runs faster in the presence of gravity. Actually, it’s why gravity occurs. The more space-time is bent because of matter, the faster time will have to run. What we’re proposing is the increase of gravity inside the explosion. What this will do is burn out the explosion in an eyeblink. It will never be able to do any damage to anything else, because the force of the explosion will run its course in the faster time.”
“So won’t that make the explosion simply expand faster?” This was from Mama.
“No. To shift time that much, the gravity will be too extreme. The explosion will actually be closer to an implosion.”
I stared at my husband, and rather than asking my brother-in-law, I asked John directly. “So will this be time making the explosion run its course too fast to affect us, or gravity imploding the explosion?”
I saw the sides of his mouth twitch up. “Both, Hon. Either way you look at it, one effect causes the other. Which one actually stops the explosion doesn’t matter.”
Daddy seemed to consider. “Okay. It’s obvious that you two are for this procedure,” he said to the men. “Paula? Rosie? What do you think?”
I trusted John completely. I knew how many times he went over the figures he would use in this. He liked acting in a way that made people think he was not as smart as he was, but I knew he was a genius. I nodded my head. “Yes,” I said.
It wasn’t necessary for Paula to say anything, as my vote sealed it, but she agreed as well.
“Five out of five,” Daddy said. “I wouldn’t normally agree to this, but if it goes off in our vicinity, we’re done for.”
-=#=-
It didn’t take very long for the preparations to be made. The bomb shield was simply a component of our engines, set to boost its power by the explosion. As soon as the power level increased, it would start diverting more and more power to the gravitational field it created.
I wasn’t happy that John needed to go out with them as they searched for the explosive. I stood over the hologram in Daddy’s office, watching as John and the two ‘red shirts’ made their way through the area, meticulously checking for the thing. I felt like Princess Leia, listening and watching watching as the Rebel Alliance Pilots tried to stop the Death Star from destroying their rebel base. I could hear John and the other’s voices as they talked, and I could see them as they moved around the superstructure.
Suddenly, John stopped. He slowly moved to what looked like a simple box, but it clearly didn’t belong. It was connected to the U tube by a power cable.
“If we cut that cable,” Mama told him, “It’ll go off.”
I wondered how many megatons the warhead was. I knew it was a simple design, similar to a massive version of the test bombs set off at the Marshall Islands millennia before.
“Gotcha,” John said. He moved the box closer to it, and turned it on. As he flipped the switch to activate the shield, I watched as the wires leading to the bomb seemed to melt away, as if they aged beyond belief. John made an adjustment on the device, and the wires parted. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, as the bomb detonated, then everything went black as all light was pulled into the vortex.
-=#=-
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– Rosemary
Cover image from Unsplash
The room started to spin as the blackness enveloped John. I felt as though my body was being ripped apart, piece by piece, each molecule separating from all the rest. I lost all sense of what was happening around me, and my mind focused on the link with him. Suddenly, it simply disappeared. I don’t know what happened with it. One moment, I could feel it, and the next there was simply nothing.
For a long time, I stared at the hologram in horror, but there was nothing to see. It was entirely black. Was my husband still there? I couldn’t tell from that at all.
I looked around, and found everyone staring at me. Dumbly, I asked, “Could the tricam have burnt out? That was a bright flash.”
For several minutes, no one answered, then Marc said, “No. The tricam doesn't use any standard light sensors. It measures the light differently. There's no way to overload the sensors.” He took a deep breath. “There isn't anything to see there, Rose.”
My legs got weak, and I couldn't think of anything to say. My father must have thought I was going to faint, so he grabbed me. I sensed time passing, so I don't think I did, but my next real moment of awareness I was in my bed, crying.
Strangely, I found myself wondering if my bots would take it upon themselves to protect my mind from the death of my husband. Then, I realized we'd convinced the damned things not to do that. We needed to face our bad memories as well as our good ones. They made us who we were.
I reached out, fervently hoping to sense the bond between us. I couldn't sense it, but I couldn't sense it's absence either. There was just... nothing.
My door opened and Carla entered. She seemed to be trying to gauge my awareness, so I said, “Hi Carla.”
She smiled, then sat down beside me. “I was worried,” she told me. “You've been unresponsive for several hours. We had a huge argument with your bots.”
What? I should have known about that. Had my bots blocked my memories?
“Why?” I asked.
“You were unresponsive. The memories of John were intertwined with your entire life. Blocking them took so much, you were catatonic.” So they had tried to block them!
“What am I going to do without him?” I asked.
I saw a tear in her eye. “I don't know, Rose.”
I was tempted to look away, but what was the use. If blocking my memories of John almost turned me into a vegetable, they knew how much I was hurting.
While I wept some more, Carla quietly left the room. A little while later, Paula entered. She sat down in the chair that Carla had been in and took my hand, not saying anything for what seemed like hours, until I felt I had no tears left in me. My head ached from the weeping, but I was able to look at Paula finally.
“How?” I asked.
“Do you deal with this?”
I nodded.
“You've got to accept it, Rose.”
“How?” I asked again.
She looked at me with such love and sympathy. She knew what I was feeling. “Sweetie, it's hard, but you need to hold onto what you had with him.” She took a deep breath. “I know the severed bond is painful. It's a physical pain.”
“I don’t feel a severed bond,” I told her.
She looked at me strangely. “I find that hard to believe, Rose. You and John loved each other more than I think anyone on this ship did! If anyone is going to feel the severed bond, you are.”
I shook my head. “I'm not trying to argue, Paula. I just don't feel anything like a severed bond.”
I thought about it for a little while, then asked her, “Could the bots have removed the feelings from the bond?”
“Can you remember the bond?”
“I believe I can,” I said, “but how can I know? The bots can change everything about me.”
She nodded in understanding.
I leaned back and closed my eyes. The tears welled up in me again. I was utterly overwhelmed by the pain, not of a severed bond, but because I had no idea what was happening. I couldn't feel anything.
I slipped into a dream world, and I could hear my bots talking.
“Have you blocked my bond from me?” I called out to them. “I need to know!”
“We have not,” they responded.
“Then why was I unconscious before?”
“We were going to. You witnessed your husband die. Your sisters convinced us that would not be a good thing to do.”
I felt the tears again. They seemed that they would never end. “But I didn't feel a severed link!”
“The reason is unknown.”
“What reason?” I asked.
“We have discussed this with other bots. You should feel a severed link, but you do not.”
“But I don't feel the link at all!” I exclaimed, despondent.
“This is true.”
Perhaps in a dream state, I understood things better. “From what I understand, a singularity was formed when the device was triggered. Could the gravity well block the frequency? Might that not explain my lack of feelings either way?”
Before they could answer, I awoke.
-=#=-
I wondered if what I had experienced in my dream was real or not, but when I looked at Paula, she was wide-eyed.
“Was that real?” she asked me.
“My conversation with the bots?” I asked for clarification.
Her eyes got even wider, and she nodded.
“I woke up before they could answer me,” I lamented.
I stood and told Paula that I wanted to be alone for awhile. I don’t think she wanted to leave me, but I needed some time alone.
Once she left, I sat down. I dried my tears, and made my way to the piano in the living room. I started to play, venting my emotions.
-=#=-
I stayed away for a few days, but eventually, I entered Daddy's office and it seemed to be in pandemonium. I simply stood and watched, getting the lay of the land, so to speak. His desktop was replaced by a console which seemed to have several different work stations.
The downstairs half of the ship was beginning to accelerate, and Paula was manning her controls, keeping our physicallight connections strong so we were pulled along with it. Why was this happening? It seemed that Amos was doing what he could to get away from us, but that capability wasn’t available to him anymore.
I walked slightly around the console, staring at the stations. Something told me to touch a spot on the area that would normally be up to John to control. A gauge sprang into being in front of me, and I made an adjustment.
Paula turned to stare at me. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know,” I told her.
Daddy and Marc were staring at us.
“It’s like we were suddenly locked into exact position relative to the downstairs section.”
“I saw that the gravity drives weren’t as strong as they could be, so I turned-- -them up.” It was all I could really say.
“How did you know?” Marc asked as he looked at the readouts.
“Something just…” I searched for the right words, but couldn’t find them. I ended up shrugging my shoulders.
-=#=-
Sometime later, I was in my home with my sisters glaring at me.
“What is going on?” Paula demanded.
“What do you mean,?” I asked, confused.
Carla wasn’t having any of it. “Rose, you’ve been in my mind just about as much as I have. I’ve gotten to know you pretty well.”
I looked at her standing there, her hands on her hips. She reminded me of a Captain, on a generation long voyage, trying to get her people home from the Delta Quadrant of the Milky Way. Interestingly, John and I had discovered that we were in that area of our galaxy not too long ago, while we were watching some ancient television.
“What are you saying?” I asked her cautiously.
“You’re not acting predictably.”
“I just lost my husband,” I exploded. “Would you care to explain what is predictable about that?”
She sat down, and her demeanor softened. “My bots aren’t able to predict how you’re going to react to things right now.”
Paula turned her attention from me to Carla. “Are you saying you can communicate directly to your bots?”
I was shocked as well. “How can you do that?” I asked. “I asked my a question a couple of days ago, but I could only talk to them in a dream.”
Carla appeared uncomfortable. “I suppose it’s something that I learned while Amos was in control.”
I shrank away in fear. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed, terrified. “Get away from me!”
“What’s going on!?” Carla was very confused now.
“He’s still here! He killed John, and he’s still in you!” I tried to back away having no control over my actions.
Paula grabbed me as I flailed my arms at my little sister. “Perhaps you should leave and let her calm down,” I heard her say.
I was crying uncontrollably now, the pain of the last few days taking over.
Please don’t forget to leave kudos and comment! I really appreciate your opinions.
Cover image from Unsplash
As it’s been a little while since I last posted any of this story, I’m going to give a “When we last saw our protagonist…”
From Chapter 2.5
“You’re not acting predictably,” Paula told me.
“I just lost my husband,” I exploded. “Would you care to explain what is predictable about that?”
She sat down, and her demeanor softened. “My bots aren’t able to predict how you’re going to react to things right now.”
Paula turned her attention from me to Carla. “Are you saying you can communicate directly to your bots?”
I was shocked as well. “How can you do that?” I asked. “I asked mine a question a couple of days ago, but I could only talk to them in a dream.”
Carla appeared uncomfortable. “I suppose it’s something that I learned while Amos was in control.”
I shrank away in fear. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed, terrified. “Get away from me!”
“What’s going on!?” Carla was very confused now.
“He’s still here! He killed John, and he’s still in you!” I tried to back away having no control over my actions.
Paula grabbed me as I flailed my arms at my little sister. “Perhaps you should leave and let her calm down,” I heard her say.
I was crying uncontrollably now, the pain of the last few days taking over.
While Carla left, Paula stayed beside me, and if looks could kill!
I knew she wanted to say something, so I just waited.
I was seated on my sofa, and Paula sat down beside me. “What gives, Rose?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked, hoping my voice would sound like I was innocent of anything.
It didn’t fool her. “Okay, little sister. Let me spell things out to you. You aren’t acting like yourself. You seem confused and unpredictable as Carla said, but that’s normal,. However, you don’t seem to be looking for a bond. That’s not normal. You should be desperate for one. You don’t even seem to be affected by men. If you put those things together, I have to ask. Is John really dead?”
I stared at Paula. “How can you ask that,” I ask in a small voice. “You know very well what happened to him!”
She shook her head. “I know what appeared to happen to him, but I’m questioning that.”
I stood up, furious! “Get out of here!” I shouted. “Just get out of here and don’t come back!”
She stayed where she was sitting. “No,” she said calmly. “You refused to leave me when I was down because of what happened to Carla. I’m not leaving you now. You’re my sister and I love you.”
I didn’t know what to do, so I contacted the one person I knew could help.
-=#=-
While I was fighting with my sister, her husband Marc was talking to Daddy and Mamma. My parents had designed some more bots that could relieve the strain of the holographic projections that were currently holding us to the downstairs section.
With the help of Vic and Trent, they came up with a novel approach to building the new ones. They connected a small holographic projector to a massive computer network. Hardwired, so no one could connect wirelessly.
When the projector was activated, it appeared as though nothing happened for a moment, then a cube of metal in an acrylic box, approximately a decimeter on each side, started to shimmer. Before long, the surface of the cube appeared as though it was eroding, and the air in front of itf started shimmering. Beside it, layer after layer of a sphere started forming,, as if it was coming from a 3D printer. Instead of a print head forming it, however, the shimmer seemed to be. It was much faster than a printer also, and within five minutes, a perfect sphere had replaced the cube.
When it was done, Daddy told Marc, “Go get your big projector and lets get on this.”
Marc left the room and in a few minutes, he returned. “I can’t find the projector, he told everyone. It’s just not there.”
-=#=-
In my house, I opened my eyes. “He says I need to tell you.”
“Who?” she asked suspiciously.
“John,” I answered simply.
She stared at me for a few moments, then asked, “Okay. What’s going on?”
I sighed. “John went downstairs to see if he could get Amos and bring him up here.”
For a moment, I thought Paula was going to bite my head off. “I’m sorry, Sis, but who did you clear this with?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound innocent.
“You realize that this wasn’t sanctioned by the command staff.”
I stared at her, not saying a thing.
Slowly, her face took on a very dark expression. “Was it Daddy, or Marc?”
I put my head down, and tried not to meet her eyes.
Paula slowly stood up, then grabbed my wrist.
“Oww!” I cried as she pulled me to my feet, then pulled me out of my house. It was raining outside. Pouring, actually, but that didn't phase her. I tried to pull my wrist out of her grip, but there wasn’t any way I could. She was very strong, and while my fingers were tough, they weren’t any match for her grip.
Finally, I gave up, and moved to her side, which was very uncomfortable. She had grabbed my right hand with hers, in my house, so I either walked backwards, or crossed my arm in front of me. I chose the latter.
In town, I tried to make it look like I wasn’t being pulled by my sister, but there wasn’t much I could do. It was quite apparent what was happening.
We entered Daddy’s lab, and Paula pushed me into a chair. My arm was sore!
My sister walked right up to Marc, who was explaining how he couldn’t find the large projector.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with John, would it?”
Marc stopped talking and looked at his wife with confusion on his face. “Huh?”
“Rose told me what John’s doing.” She sounded pissed!
Now it was Daddy’s turn. “What’s going on?” He looked at me. “Rosie?”
Paula didn’t let me speak. “Apparently, John, Rose, and my husband decided that John should sneak off to the downstairs side to catch Amos and bring him upstairs.”
Daddy looked at me, then Marc, then back at me. “Is this true, Rose?”
No ‘Rosie’ this time. I sighed. “Yes. But we had a quarum! Three of the command team decided.”
“We needed to know!” Paula screamed at me. “You don’t go off half cocked, no matter what! The command team needs to work as a team!”
“What she said,” Daddy said quietly, indicating Paula. I could tell he was trying his best to keep calm.
“We couldn’t risk it,” I cried. “We were taking a chance with just we three knowing what was going on.”
I heard Marc sigh. He was clearly in hot water now too, and not just from his father-in-law, but also his wife.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“That’s okay,” he said. He turned to Paula. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we had to do this this way too.”
“We’ll just be in our lab,” Trent said as he and Vic made a strategic escape.
Nobody answered. We were just staring at each other.
Mamma was sitting beside me, and I felt her hand start to rub my neck. “How’s your wrist, Sweetie?”
If looks could kill, Mamma would have burst into flame. Paula gave her such a dirty look that I could almost feel the heat.
“I’ll live,” I said. “It’s getting better already.”
“Good,” Mamma said, then she stood up.
“Under the circumstances, I think the three acted in the best way they could,” she told Paula and Daddy.
Daddy shook his head as if trying to clear it of cobwebs. “And how do you figure that?”
“Well, Vern, it’s strange that I should be the one who agrees with them, but I’ve been in connection with Amos. So has Carla. They needed to keep this a secret. You,” she said pointing at Paula, “are the head of security, and you came in here, spitting nails, and told me what’s going on! You may have compromised your brother-in-law’s well-being.”
Paula stood her ground. “I trust you, Mother.”
“Why?”
Now, Paula was flummoxed. “Because you’re my mother.”
“And that means you should trust me?” Mamma asked, shaking her head. “I may be compromised – you really don’t know.”
“So why are you lecturing me on this?” Paula asked.
“Because. I understand their reasons, and I know I’m not compromised. You can’t take that chance. Especially as head of security.”
“We don’t know that anyone isn’t compromised.”
“True,” I said, “but we do know about Carla and Mamma.”
“You, shut up!” Paula turned on me. “Right now, you and Marc can go to hell! I’m not speaking to either of you!”
“Paula!” Mamma scolded. “There's no reason for that!”
“I beg to differ, Mother! Right now, I’ll have to trust her and John, but after this? I’m not speaking to either one again.”
“Oh. That’ll go good for the command staff,” I said, sarcastically.
“I said shut up!” Paula screamed again.
I stared at her, then turned and walked away. I walked out of the lab, and back to my house. I was pissed! John and I had done what we felt we had to. Marc had been reluctant, but he understood why we were doing it, so he helped. We really needed his help, and honestly, John wasn’t sure he could do it without Marc’s help.
I was pretty sure Paula was just mad because we didn’t include her. But Marc, her husband, was in on the plan and hadn’t told her, so it wasn’t our fault!
I sat down at my piano and started to play. The music that I played was hard and sounded angry. After a little while, it started to sound despondent. I missed John. I felt like I was all alone at the moment.
I wasn’t, though. I focused and my bots strengthened the bond to where I was able to communicate with John. I wished the bond could be permanently strong enough for direct communication, but I couldn’t distract him as he was working downstairs. Even my emotions could distract him, and we couldn’t risk that.
The bots hadn’t been programmed for this type of bonding between a couple, but when we were discussing things with the bots, they offered this function. I was shocked that they could do that, but it helped me when John was downstairs. I could sense his emotions and know if he was nervous about anything. Most of the time, I just sensed determination from him.
At the time, I felt the determination, and none of the anxiousness I felt at times, so I carefully ‘said’ his name.
Hi, Rose, he said.
I explained what had happened with Paula, and he responded: You know she’s just getting rid of frustration, don’t you?
Yes, but it still hurts.
Yeah, I can imagine. I suppose I’m persona non grata right now? he said, sounding somewhat amused.
I wouldn’t take any food from her right now, I told him. I was starting to feel a bit better.
Ahh… Rose; I wouldn’t ever take her food over yours.
That seemed to make the hurt and frustration go completely away. John had told me that no food was acceptable for consumption, except mine. I knew he wasn’t serious, but it made me feel special.
I smiled, and somehow, through the bond, he knew it. That’s better. Don’t worry about it, Hon. She’ll understand when she starts to think about things rationally.
I know. I just had to talk to you about it. Daddy’s mad about it too. I was starting to feel alone.
I could sense him nodding. I get it. How’s Mom feel about it? We’re kinda singling her out.
Interestingly, she backed us up. I’m sure it hurt her a bit, but she was the one being rational.
Good for her! I felt something change in John’s attention and I heard him say, Gotta go, Babe. Won’t be long now. Love ya!
And then, the bond went back to normal, and I was sitting back at my piano.
I stood up, and had a strange thought. What if we could communicate with bots as easily as we can communicate with other people? I sat back down, and wondered if that thought came from my bots or from my own mind? Thinking about it, I could see how it would be an advantage. If they could have their own body… No, that wouldn’t work. Then they couldn’t continue as our immune system. Or could they? What if they didn’t have a flesh and blood body, but holographic? If they were able to remain in a person, but control a holographic body when they needed to talk to people – I wondered if that would be possible. I figured it would be worthwhile to check into, but I’d let my sister cool down before I brought it up.
Cover image from Unsplash
It was a couple of days later that I entered Marc’s lab.
“Whatcha want, Rose?” he asked, keeping lots of distance between us. I assumed he didn’t want my sister to know he’d been talking to me.
“She’s still mad at us?” I asked.
“I’m on probation. I’m not supposed to help you with anything right now.”
“So I suppose I should go talk to Daddy then?”
He chuckled and relaxed. “I love Paula more than anything, but I know she’s wrong here. I want to support her, but I guess I have to do what’s good for everyone. Whaddya need?”
I explained to him what I’d been thinking about. Partway through our conversation, Paula walked in. Marc looked cautious, but he stoically refused to back down. My sister moved a chair to a point forming a triangle with Marc and me. I hoped she wasn’t thinking that we were fighting over him.
As I was explaining, she seemed to be paying close attention to me. Finally, when I finished, she asked a couple of questions relating to material she’d missed before she entered the lab. I answered as best I could, and she looked to Marc. He nodded in agreement, and she turned back to me.
“How do you think this would help?”
At least she’s talking to me, I thought. “If we can communicate to the bots as easily as to one another, getting their cooperation should be much easier.”
“I’m afraid speaking doesn’t always convey meaning very well.”
“Not always, but it’s easier for us,” I argued.
“Do you think ‘easy for us’ means it’s better?” Paula asked.
Here we go again, I thought. She’s just not gonna be easy to get along with, is she?
“Let’s see. We don’t have to have a seance to talk to them. Everyone who is present can talk to them. I think that’s better,” I told her.
I looked at Marc, hoping for agreement, but he held up his hands. “I’m not going to get into this,” he said. I couldn’t really blame him.
Paula stared at Marc for a moment, then at me. “I suppose we have a majority on this, don’t we?”
“Do we really have to make this a political thing?” I groaned.
“I think we do,” she said. “This is something that could conceivably endanger all of us.”
“How?” I challenged. “We communicate with the bots anyway. We trust them to keep us alive. Even to think!”
“We have to!” she snapped.
“And there’s no way back!” I retorted.
“There are other uses for it also,” Marc said quietly.
Paula’s jaw set, and she slowly turned to face her husband. I knew he had just stepped in it, but I figured that was his decision, not mine.
“And what are they?” Paula asked.
“How about a hologram of someone that you’re able to interact with?” he asked.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but we can do that anyway.”
“Well, yes we can, but this might allow better control of such a hologram. Perhaps a connection where you’re not acting out everything at your own end.”
“What do you mean?” Paula asked.
Marc took a deep breath. This could piss off his wife even more than she was at the moment, but he had to point out the benefits. “Consider the situation John is in right now. He can’t communicate with us except through Rose. However, if he could control a hologram here, he’d be able to interact with us without saying or doing anything where he is.”
“Or,” I said as I started to see what Marc was driving at, “he wouldn’t have had to go downstairs physically. He could have sent a hologram down there to do the job.”
She whirled on me. “We were gonna do that anyway!”
“No,” I exploded. “We weren’t! We would have programmed a hologram, but we wouldn’t have had any real control of it. We could have monitored it, but with John down there, hidden by a holographic field, he has direct control!”
I stepped forward and squared off with her. “Look!” I almost shouted into her face. “You wanna get mad, fine. Just consider this! It’s my husband down there. I don’t want that! But I realize that it needed to be done. So you got left out of the loop. Big deal! I’m the one who could lose her husband!”
Paula stepped back, her face contorting as if she’d been slapped. I knew I’d pushed her hard – She’d lost Fred to that thing downstairs, so she had to know I was hurting through this. I might need her help if something happened to John, and if she kept acting like this, I wouldn’t be able to get it.
The surge of adrenaline I’d spent shouting at her ended almost immediately, and with it gone, I backed up and collapsed into the chair I’d been sitting in before she came in. I felt weak, and I dropped my face into my hands, and started to sob. I needed her strength to help me. Now that she knew, I wanted her on my side. Not taking every opportunity to wound me.
I suppose she could have taken my emotions as me acting again, but I was through with that. I was being completely honest now. I had no desire to pretend, and I think she realized that. She sat down beside me and wrapped her arms around me. I was grateful and then I completely lost it.
Very quietly, I heard her murmur, “I understand.”
-=#=-
It wasn’t long before Daddy was convinced by Mama that accepting what John, Marc, and I had done was the better course of action, and he forgave us for not including him.
A few days after Paula and my reconciliation, Daddy suggested that we rebuild Heaven’s Rose. “Maybe it will keep you from worrying about your husband,” he told me.
While I wasn’t sure that anything would accomplish that, I did feel that reopening the restaurant would be beneficial. For now, I was simply waiting. There was very little I was able to do regarding our people downstairs. The best thing I could do right now was perhaps be a ‘morale officer’ to those upstairs.
We were still moving toward the center of the galaxy relative to Earth. We had turned around, as had the downstairs section, but now we were sliding sideways as our ship continued slowing. It was like skidding around a corner in a car. The back wheels are spinning, trying to get you moving forward, but your inertia keeps you moving sideways. The remnants of the ship that had been the joints to the transparent outer ring had moved away from us, continuing their journey toward the center of the Milky Way and whatever awaited them there.
Marc built a new generator for his “bots” and they began rebuilding what we’d lost, which included Heaven’s Rose. Since we had lost much of the matter that joined the sections when we explosively ejected downstairs, it was decided that we would modify the actual ring, or rather, the “U” tubes that connected us to it. When we exploded the tubes to separate, our half of them were destroyed.
The old restaurant had been in the transparent “U” tube connecting our bay to the ring. Thus, the explosion destroyed it.
But now, since we were connected through the photonicly repaired center “U” tubes, Marc used his solid photons to create a temporary connection to the outer ring, and sent his bots down to the lower half of the tubes. They cannibalized its material, reforming them as smaller versions. The excess material was used to make new, smaller tubes on our side of the ring. Once each tube was done, the bots built a new restaurant in the ring rather than the tube.
Then I enlisted the help of some of the people who had helped remove my equipment from the kitchen, and we moved it to the new restaurant site.
-=#=-
The new site was roughly the same size as the old one, so we were able to use all the dining room furniture that was available.
I hadn’t cooked for so many people in a long time, but the people I had trained were happy to return to their jobs, and before long, we had a grand opening mapped out.
As we were preparing the meal, Mamma came to the kitchen. “That smells wonderful!” she said as she entered.
“Thanks!” I said, smiling.
“It’s interesting that you’re doing your grand opening today, Rosie,” she told me.
“Why?”
“Don’t you realize what today is?”
I answered, “Today is New Years Day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, it’s a perfect time, then,” I told her.
We talked about the menu for a bit, and Mama asked, “Why are you doing barbecue pork?”
“Because I don’t have enough pigs to bury and make Kahlua Pork,” I answered.
“Is there something…” Mama stopped as she looked toward my assistant. She abruptly turned on her heel and left.
I got back to work, seasoning pork, and I eventually started making potatoes. My assistant looked at me strangely when he saw me making some french fries.
“I thought those were John’s favorite, but you didn’t make them for anyone else?” he asked.
I stared at what I was doing. “I guess it’s just force of habit,” I told him. “I guess I’ll put these in the freezer,” I continued.
Only the command staff and Mamma knew that John was downstairs. The rest of the people thought that John was dead. “I like them too,” I told my assistant, but he didn’t look convinced.
I took the potatoes to the freezer, and put them inside a stasis field. The word freezer was really a leftover from years gone by. We actually stored things in stasis, so when we removed them, they were as fresh as when we put them in. Well, sort of. Something happened if we “froze” them completely, and the flavor was messed up, so we had to almost freeze them.
We allowed a very small amount of entropy to occur. John had explained to me that, in effect, we were slowing time to a crawl. It had something to do with our understanding of gravity and it’s relationship to time, and the folding of space. It wasn’t something that I was terribly interested in, and thus, I hadn’t bothered to try to understand it. I listened only because he was explaining.
-=#=-
We served the meal at seven PM, and people seemed surprised at the menu. I really didn’t care what they thought, however. I had a special reason for making what I did, and he entered the dining room at seven oh five.
John was leading a small, very white man by a leash and collar. Amos!
Amos’s arms were held behind his back in the same way mine had been while I was a pony downstairs. It was very obvious that he didn’t want to enter the dining room, but he had no choice as John led him over to a table. He made Amos sit down, and then came over to where I was standing.
I threw my arms around him, and he welcomed a passionate kiss from me. When our lips parted, he whispered, “I’ve missed you,” in my ear.
“I think we’re making a scene,” I whispered back.
“So?” he asked, then he gave me another kiss. This one was even longer than the last, and I gasped when we separated.
“Touching,” Amos said with a sneer and a loud voice.
John whirled on him. “Remember what I said about a gag, brother?”
Amos shut his mouth, and the sneer completely disappeared. Had he not been completely white anyway, I think every bit of color would have drained from his face. John never told me what he said to Amos, and now I wanted to know what scared him so badly.
I looked around the dining room at the patrons, and they all seemed to be alternately staring at John and Amos. It was as if they didn’t know which was more shocking. I held tight to John’s arm. I did not intend to let him leave me like this again.
Marc stepped up to my husband and said simply, “You got him.”
John grinned at him. “Did you doubt I would?”
“Well, no. I didn’t.”
“We should probably get him to a cell,” I told John. “I’m not sure people will have an appetite with him sitting here.”
“No?” he asked, surprised. “This is a barbecue, and January first. I would think capturing Amos would be time for a great celebration.”
I nodded, thinking about it. “I’m not sure it’s proper having a prisoner here while we celebrate. It sort of feels like the Philistines and Samson.”
John cocked his head while he looked at me. He nodded. “I can see what you mean.” Turning to talk to my sister, he asked, “If I turn him over to you, will you promise me not to ‘accidentally murder him on purpose’ on the way to a cell?”
“No,” Paula answered, quite honestly. “I have every intention of killing him.” She seemed to think about it for a bit then said. “No, I won’t accidentally murder him on the way to a cell. I want him to suffer for what he’s done. He killed Fred and Kari, and he made Carla do things that she would never do.” She walked over to Amos and looked down at him. “Death’s too good for him.”
She grabbed Amos’s arms and lifted him to his feet. Amos screamed as his arms were pulled up. I saw the left one slip out of joint, and he screamed louder.
I then remembered that his bots weren’t working very hard to heal him anymore. Ours had showed them what he was doing to people. Once they knew, they decided to keep him alive, but that was it. He would be hurting for awhile.
I wanted to feel sorry for him, but I didn’t. Anyone else, I would have, but not him. I couldn’t. I wanted him to feel everything he’d done to people. Real, living people who didn’t deserve what he’d done to them.
It was silent as Paula, Marc, and at least twenty more people from security who had stood up from their tables, led the monster out of the dining room. Then, someone erupted into cheers for John. Very quickly, the entire room was cheering. I couldn’t have been happier, but I was planning on cheering in my own way, later that night.