by Eric Warren
“That’s what he did to me,” Jonn said, perhaps a bit too quickly for her liking.
“Cause from the way Arista tells it, you were arguing for him. Telling her about the benefits of dying at your hands rather than his. That doesn’t really line up with what Frees experienced.”
“I guess he had a different experience.”
“Yeah, I guess he did.”
They reached a room with a long table and ornate, high-backed chairs. It was a sort of meeting room, though Blu imagined it had once been used by Royalty to discuss the needs of fellow nations, or perhaps to host diplomats from around the world. And now it was little more than a room with fancy furniture.
“Here,” Trymian said. “Please take a seat.”
Everyone obliged, Blu made sure she stayed next to Jonn. With Frees gone he was her responsibility now and if he did anything odd, she was the first line of defense for the others. Never did she think she’d actually meet an AI much less have to defend herself from one.
“Our first priority is to find Frees,” Arista said. “Otherwise we risk the possibility that he is captured, killed or worse.”
“What’s worse than being killed?” David asked, removing his glasses to wipe them on the tails of his shirt.
“Trust me, I can think of a few things,” Jill mumbled.
“While I agree you should be looking for your friend,” Trymian said. “The bigger threat is Charlie, and he must be stopped. There’s precious little I can do from here. My avatar isn’t the spriest and as you can see we have no spare husks for me to transfer into.”
“We don’t even know how to stop him, do we?” David asked, turning to Arista. “You said he could body jump without an anchor. It seems he’s inhabiting all the bodies at once.”
“He’s got a master somewhere,” Trymian said. “Moving his entire cortex from one husk to another is too dangerous. He’ll have set up a permanent husk somewhere.”
“Does that mean he’s back in Chicago?” Arista asked.
“Not necessarily. He could be anywhere. And if he knows you’re after him it’s a good bet he’s choosing his location at random. We need some way to track him down.”
“Frees would know how,” Arista said. Blu glanced at her, wishing she could do something to make her feel better. But Arista wasn’t exactly the best candidate for comfort. She only seemed to feel better when she had something to do.
“You said something about Peacekeepers,” Jonn said, startling Blu. It was the first time he’d spoken up since they’d arrived.
“Yes, he’s trying to eliminate them as well,” Trymian said.
“So they must know,” Jonn said. “They’re not just going to let him come after them, are they?”
“I suppose that depends on how much autonomy they have. If they’re operating with a wide net, maybe not. But if they were newly ‘minted’ then they might still be loyal to him, and just allow him to destroy them on command.”
“What are you thinking?” Arista asked.
“If he’s not using the Peacekeepers for enforcement and instead is hunting them as well, wouldn’t they have formed a resistance? Just like the humans?”
“Seems plausible,” Trymian said. He raised his hand in a gesture. “But where are they? And how would you find them?”
“When I was back…working for Charlie, I had to train a group of three hundred Peacekeepers. I think he brought them in from all over the country.”
“Train them?” David asked, his eyes wide. “To do what?”
“To change their own internal programming, to change their eye color so…” He hesitated. “So, Frees and Arista couldn’t tell they were Peacekeepers.”
“Is that what that was?” Arista shouted, pushing up from her chair. “Why all those things attacked us in the factory? I knew I checked to make sure they weren’t Peacekeepers before I went after you.” Blu sat back, her mouth agape. Something seemed to have been ignited in Arista. “I was there to save you; did you know that? I was trying to get you out of there. Instead, you turned on me, tried to convince me dying was a better alternative to the world I’d have to face. Well guess what, the life I’ve had ever since then has been hell on earth, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” She pushed her chair back and it rocked on its back legs, tipping over, and crashing to the ground. She rounded Jill and Blu and came face-to-face with Jonn. “And if you ever try to tell me what to do again, I won’t hesitate to make sure you’re one with oblivion.”
Blu’s eyes widened as Arista pressed her thumb and pinkie finger together and brought her hand close to Jonn’s face. He didn’t flinch, though he did lean back slightly, his eye shifting between Arista and her hand.
There was a tense moment where no one moved, then Arista dropped her hand and strode from the room.
“Just a sec,” Blu said. “I’ll get her.”
“Blu,” her dad began but she waved him off.
“Keep throwing out ideas. We’ll be back in a second.”
She made her way out into the hallway, just as Arista disappeared into another room further down the hall. Blu trotted to catch up and rounded the corner into the room. Arista stood off to the side, near the window looking out. Blu was about to say something until she got a good look at the room, decorated in all manner of ostentatious and extravagant design. Marble columns along the walls had either gold inlays or some kind of gilding and the chandeliers above them had to be the most intricate pieces of glasswork she’d ever seen.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Arista said, not breaking her gaze from the window. “I never have.”
“What, because Jonn tricked you?” Blu asked.
“I was never meant for this,” Arista said, hanging her head. “I was supposed to live a quiet life. With my parents, moving from place to place. I was good at that. I’d gotten so good I even believed I could do it forever. But I was just fooling myself. Now look where I’ve gotten us.”
“You mean this awesome palace?” Blu smirked.
Arista looked up with accusing eyes, but when she realized Blu was joking she smirked back. “You know what I mean. I just don’t know what to do anymore. We need Frees, he’s my anchor.”
“We’ll get him back,” she said. “He’s out there waiting for us right now, just biding his time. It’s like I said before, you guys are survivors.”
“I’m not so sure anymore,” she replied. “I don’t even know if Jonn should be here.”
“That’s my fault,” Blu said. “I was the one who convinced you to bring him along.”
“No. I mean, yes, you did. But it was my decision. I can’t help but think it was a mistake. Have you noticed how quiet he’s being?” Arista pushed off from the window and turned to face Blu. “Do you think we can trust him?”
She shook her head. “Not really. I think he feels guilty, sure. But I think he’s got something else going on under the surface. Whether that’s revenge against Charlie or something else, I don’t know. But I do know we can’t turn our backs on him.”
“Despite the fact we just left him alone in a room with your dad,” Arista said.
“Oh shit, you’re right. We gotta—”
“Hang on,” Arista said, putting her hands up. “I’m just joking. He’s not going to do anything here, not with Jill in there. Trust me, she’s a force unto herself. You do not want to challenge her.”
“What do you want to do?” Blu asked. She seemed sad but determined. But also angry and frustrated at the same time.
“I want Trymian to drop the shield and to go find Frees,” she said. “And then figure out what to do.”
“Then that’s what we need to do,” Blu said. “Let’s go tell the others. And if they don’t agree, then they can stay here.”
Arista pursed her lips. “You know, you have a way of making very complex things very easy.”
Blu shrugged. “It’s my specialty. See how cool it is to have a sister?”
“Yeah, it is pretty cool.” She came up be
side Blu and they left the fancy room behind, headed back for the meeting. Blu had done it.
She knew she could.
TWENTY-THREE
“Everythin’ okay?” Jill asked as they made their way back into the meeting.
“Fine. Sorry for my outburst,” Arista said. She wasn’t sorry, but she wasn’t going to delay them any longer with her tantrums. Jonn’s revelation about plotting so closely with Charlie had made her angrier than necessary. Knowing he’d trained a bunch of Peacekeepers upset her more than him taking a missile to Frees’ apartment building.
“It’s okay hon,” Jill said. “You’re under a lot of stress. No one expects more of you.”
“They should,” she replied. “Because we’ve wasted enough time in here. I’m going out there to find Frees and once he’s safe, we’ll go after Charlie.”
“But we still don’t know where to look for either one of them,” David said.
“Frees is close; he wouldn’t have gone far. As for Charlie, I’m going back to Japan,” Arista said. “To talk with Mitsu and Takai. Even if they’ve been thrown into a blackout as Trymian suggests, they’re our best bet to find him. It’s either that or start searching cities one by one and we don’t have time to do that.”
“You keep sayin’ ‘I’ a lot,” Jill said.
“Because I can’t keep everyone safe if they come too. This needs to be a small operation. I’m taking Blu because I might need her skills. And she’s small and fast. But the rest of you stay here, where its safe.” Blu’s face lit up at the mention she was going.
“I don’t suppose I get a say in whether my daughter goes or not,” David said, irritation in his voice.
Arista crossed her arms. “No, you don’t.”
“But—”
“This isn’t up for debate. David, I want you here because I think you might be able to help Jill find out what the humans were doing to my parents. Besides, we only have two refractors. I don’t want another incident where we come out of a gate into an ambush.”
Jonn raised his hand.
Arista sighed. “Yes?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“What did I just say?” She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him.
“What if something has happened to Frees? What if he can’t move under his own power? Take me with you to find him, if he’s hurt I can carry him back, then you can go on to Japan. Otherwise you risk the chance of finding him and not being able to do anything about it.”
She rolled the thought around in her mind. Was bringing Jonn with them the best idea? It would allow her to keep an eye on him. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have the ability to stop him if he turned on them. But it meant he’d be an easy target without a refractor, though, out of the three of them she’d rather he be out in the open than her or Blu. And if they found Frees unharmed, he could escort Jonn back here anyway, to keep an eye on him. They could meet up when she and Blu got back from Japan.
“Okay,” she said. “The three of us will start our search for Frees. Hopefully he’s right outside the gates waiting for us.”
“He’s not outside the gates,” Trymian said, standing. “I’ve got nothing on my feeds.”
“What about swarms of husks?” Arista asked, hating the uncertainty in her voice.
“They seem to have dispersed. I’m not reading any large gatherings anywhere inside my own range.”
“How far does that extend?” Arista asked.
“About half a mile in each direction from the palace.”
“Can you pipe that feed to Jonn?” she asked. “He can then compare it to any other machines he might pick up on his scanners.”
Jonn stood. “What if he’s outside a half-mile radius?”
“He won’t have gone somewhere we can’t find him. If he’s not close to the palace then he’ll be near the gate, in hiding.” Arista surveyed the room one more time. “David, hand me your refractor.”
He did as he was told, but she sensed a coldness from him. No doubt from his feelings about her taking Blu on a dangerous mission. Part of her wished he’d stayed in the other universe. And if something did happen to Blu he’d never stop blaming Arista. Maybe he would take on characteristics of the David native to this universe and threaten her. Belittle her.
No, she couldn’t afford to think of him like that. He’d proved himself to be a valuable ally, and a good person. Arista just hoped he could forgive her if anything did happen.
She clipped the refractor to her jacket. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get moving.”
***
They’d taken an underground passage a few hundred feet down to a different structure. It was built as a secret exit should there be a bombing or some other disaster the royal family needed to escape. Arista wondered if that was what had happened a hundred years ago when the machines started killing. Had the royal family been whisked away to some secure location, only to die of starvation? Or had they made it to the colony, where their blood status no longer meant anything?
They’d left Jill and David behind in the medical lab to start working on figuring out what the humans had done to her parents. Even though it probably didn’t matter as far as saving them, Arista felt like she needed to know. What had Echo’s plans been for them? What was the point of the tanks? Arista couldn’t help but feel like Echo had done it more to hurt her than for any other reason, but that was what David was going to find out.
“It’s just up here,” Trymian said, hobbling along ahead of them. It was slow going, but he moved with purpose and determination. Jonn kept his distance from them. She was still having a difficult time reading him and there was no way she’d turn her back on him. Why couldn’t he have been the one stuck outside the palace instead of Frees? It would have made things so much easier.
“Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” Blu said, her eyes catching Arista’s.
She turned away, embarrassed Blu had seen through her again. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Uh huh, sure. How long are you guys going to let this thing go on?” she asked.
She tensed. “What thing?”
“Arista,” Blu hissed. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You had plenty of time back home to talk about it and you kept putting it off. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable?”
Arista sighed. “It’s…it wasn’t a good time. We were trying to get the gate open, and I didn’t know if we’d ever get back here and we couldn’t…” she was fumbling, and she knew it. The real reason was she hadn’t wanted to confront the possibility of what a relationship between her and Frees might look like. How would it even work? Was that even what she wanted, or was it just because he was the first person she’d ever met who hadn’t been part of some kind of plan or goal? Unlike Jonn, who had been a casualty of her attempts to infiltrate machine society and nothing more, despite what he thought. She and her mom had chosen him because of his social status; he was supposed to make things easier.
But Frees…he’d been different. She couldn’t have hated him much more when they first met, but there was something unique about him. And she’d felt a tightness in her chest when they’d been forced to leave him outside that hadn’t been present with anyone else. Except maybe Blu.
“If I were you,” Blu said, “I’m not sure I would keep it all bottled up like that. Even if it never leads to anything, you need to at least tell him how you feel.”
“That’s just the problem,” she admitted. “I don’t know.” She glanced over and caught Jonn eyeing her, but he averted his gaze.
“Here,” Trymian said, approaching a set of old wooden doors. “There’s an electronic lock on these, so you can’t get back through this way. Go through here and they will lead you to an underground garage. From there take the exits up to the street and you’ll be less than a quarter mile from the gate.”
Arista approached him, sticking out her hand. “Thank you. We’ll be back soon. I hope.”
“Best of lu
ck out there. Mind your surroundings and don’t let that bastard get the drop on you. I’ll keep an eye out for when you get back. Just come to any entrance, I’ll see you.” He leaned on his cane with one arm and used the other to clasp her hand.
Arista turned to Blu and Jonn. “Ready?”
They nodded. Blu tapped her refractor and disappeared.
“We’ll be right behind you,” she said to Jonn. “Wherever we come out, work your way back to the gate and keep an eye out for any evidence of him. If we get there and can’t find him, we’ll start a search in a circular pattern around the building the gate is embedded into.”
“Got it,” Jonn said, stepping toward the doors. Arista tapped her refractor and the honeycomb built itself up around her then turned transparent.
Trymian leaned over and placed his hand on the door, which clicked. Jonn pushed his way through. Arista left enough room for Blu to go ahead of her, then followed.
TWENTY-FOUR
They emerged in the bottom levels of an underground parking structure. Behind them the second set of doors they’d come through closed back on their own, sealing themselves and looking only like steel panels covering a wall. Had Arista not known they were there she’d never have been able to guess. All around them sat ancient vehicles, Rolls Royce and Bentleys if Arista remembered her cars correctly. All in a sorry state of disrepair. No one had used these vehicles in some time.
“It seems we’re seven levels down,” Jonn said. “We’ll take the stairs to reach the surface.”
Arista nodded even though he couldn’t see her. She wasn’t sure if Blu was ahead or behind her.
The parking structure was old, covered in debris and dust. The machines hadn’t used it for anything, which, if she thought about it, made sense. Because Trymian had taken up residence in the palace, it meant the machines hadn’t duplicated the royal family for inclusion in their society. But to leave such a large swath of the culture out of the experiment? From what Arista remembered, English life revolved around the Royals in more than one way. Removing them would have wide-ranging and extreme effects as far as the experiment was concerned. She made a mental note to ask Trymian about it when they returned.