Bethany Anne thought about this for a minute. “I can see that. He’s driven by challenges, and we haven’t given him any new challenges. He hasn’t been down here with us either. Ask Ecaterina to get legal representation that can get him out of the clink, and get his ass on a plane down here as soon as possible. Make sure he understands he is going to work off this fuckup.”
Bobcat’s shoulders slumped a little, some of the tension draining from them. Bethany Anne spoke again, “Mind you, he’s your teammate, so you’re going to work off this fuckup as well.” Bobcat nodded, he understood it always went uphill as well as downhill within Bethany Anne’s group.
She turned around and left him to deal with getting William down there.
10
San Andreas Island, East of Nicaragua
Both the Polarus and Ad Aeternitatem had arrived near the San Andreas Island during the evening. William had been flown down to the island the previous night and was waiting to be picked up. Personnel on both ships were looking forward to a little R&R and enjoying themselves over the next couple of days. Ecaterina had made sure that both ships would be properly protected while personnel got a chance to go play in the sun and the surf.
Both ships made quite a splash with the locals, often some of the smaller yachts came out and people waved as they took their time checking the sleek lines of the ships. A couple of the ship’s personnel had to ignore the requests from the boat bunnies who were trying to get on board. Although they smiled, they explained to the attractive ladies the owner of the ship would not permit anyone on board, and that they were very, very sorry about that. One particularly attractive woman broke a couple of hearts with her pout.
Ecaterina talked with Nathan the previous night. Both of them had something to say about how they had acted. Nathan admitted to Ecaterina that he had gotten a little bit too protective and had to rein in his efforts in that regard. Ecaterina conceded she would try to understand Nathan’s protectiveness, and that it came from a good heart. They agreed to make up for their missed time the next chance they got. Both finished the phone call with smiles on their faces and anticipation in their hearts.
Bethany Anne, Ecaterina, and Bobcat were planning on taking one of the boats over to the pier in order to pick up William. John and Eric would go with them as the protective detail. Bethany Anne wasn’t so happy that her father had escaped from his detail, but she understood that all four of the Queen Bitch’s Guards needed to be on ship when the Wechselbalg had arrived. She would get even with the old man as soon as she could.
It didn’t take too long to get to the pier, tie up and locate a taxi. Ten minutes after their arrival, Bethany Anne got a phone call from Gabrielle. She asked if it was okay to bring the boat back and start ferrying those that had shore leave due them. Bethany Anne didn’t mind, if she got stuck here on the island they would just go to a restaurant for a while and relax.
When they caught up to William, he had the good grace to be embarrassed as Bethany Anne dressed him down. She let him know, in no uncertain terms, that the next time that he failed and got drunk he not only wouldn’t remember doing the drinking he would probably not remember the last few months of his life. William understood the security breach he had caused. Yes, he had been lonely and having the woman shaft him so publicly at the club had been embarrassing, but he agreed the proper response would have been to go home. Bethany Anne sent William and Bobcat off to find the machines William would need to help fabricate Bobcat’s design. The two ladies then went to find outdoor spaces Ecaterina would enjoy exploring. John and Eric had to keep up with the two women as best they could.
By the time Bethany Anne’s party made it back to the pier, their boat was back and available. They met Chief Engineer John Rodriguez, Gunnery Officer Jean Dukes, Todd Jenkins from the Ad Aeternitatem and two others from the Polarus. The five of them were dressed as any tourist might be. Bethany Anne waved to the group as they passed and the five of them proceeded to go back to the Polarus.
“I’m not really feeling good about those guys over in the corner...” Todd said to Jean Dukes under his breath. She looked around the room, acting as if she was looking for shipmates and spied the men Todd was talking about. She turned around. “Why, because they’re Middle Eastern?”
The three of them had split off from the other two crewmen from the Polarus and found a bar.
Todd smiled. “Well, while that certainly could be an issue, it’s not my main issue. My main issue is that they keep looking over here at us pointedly, as if they were trying to pick a fight.”
Jean started to turn back but was able to stop her natural confrontational response. Fortunately, she never went anywhere without packing heat. She hoped Bethany Anne was as good as her word from the original introduction. She might have some explaining to do pretty soon.
The Chief Engineer arrived back at his chair and sat down smiling, bringing two beers with him. He set one of them in front of Jean. “Come on Jean, we’re off the boat, let your hair down a little bit.” He raised his beer to Todd at the same time, and then took a swallow as if to show them how it was done. John looked over her shoulder and Jean turned back around to follow his eyes.
The three men that Todd had been watching were coming right at them, obviously looking to talk with them. She heard Todd adjust his chair on the floor, probably to get a better angle in case he had to get up quickly. Jean casually turned her chair around and rested her hands across her chest, one of them near the shoulder holster under her light jacket.
The three men disregarded Jean, one of them paying attention to John who had stood up, the other two looking at Todd. Not a bad decision when you considered how big Todd was. The man in the middle, probably early middle-aged if Jean could judge, spoke to the three of them.
“Are you three from the big yacht, Polarus?”
Todd didn’t like the sound of the question, or the look on their faces. Had it only been the three of them he probably would have tried to defuse the situation by lying and just leave. But Todd was aware there were going to be multiple parties coming onto the island and he needed to deal with this situation one time only. He spoke to the man in the middle while keeping the other two in his peripheral vision. “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Because, we knew the previous owner and our boss would like to have a word with you.”
Todd waved his hand at their table. “Not a problem. I was hired by the new owners and would be happy to talk with him. Or is it a her? Either way, invite them over.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t think so, our boss doesn’t visit dives like this.” He looked around at the somewhat seedy bar. He adjusted his coat with his right hand showing the butt of a pistol stuck in his waistband. “He would prefer the three of you come to him.”
Todd shook his head, a smile starting to play on his face. “I don’t think we’ll be visiting him today, tomorrow, or anytime in the near future. In fact, I’m sure my boss would be very upset if we allowed anybody to force us to go somewhere she wouldn’t want us to go. She is very adamant about rudeness like that.”
Jean had a hard time keeping the smile off of her face. She inched her hand a little closer to her pistol. Fortunately, it had nine shots and there were only three men. Jean was having a hard time not making a comment after being ignored as a second-class citizen by these morons.
“Your boss is a woman?” The man turned to the side and spit at Todd’s feet. “How do you pull your pants on each morning, allowing a woman to tell you what to do?” He nodded to the man on his left and then to the man on his right. Both moved their hands near their waists. He turned back to Todd. “Which is it going to be? Come with us willingly, or don’t leave this place at all?” Jean noticed a couple patrons had been quietly grabbing their beers and stepping away from her party.
Jean turned her mouth slightly towards Todd. “Todd, are we going to dance soon or not? This conversation is pushing my patience.”
Todd chuckled a little bit. “J
ean, I would love to dance. You lead or me?”
The man in the middle turned back to Jean and reared his right hand back as if he was about to slap her. As she said “Me,” she kicked out, breaking the kneecap of the guy on the left. He screamed as he fell. Todd kicked back his chair and swung a hard left into the gut of the man on the right. Jean pulled her pistol and aimed at the middle guy, who had his own pistol out, Jean’s shot just beating his. Jean’s shot holed his forehead, splattering his brains over patrons behind him. His shot missed, but she heard the sound of someone getting hit behind her. Todd had just finished cracking the man nearest him over the head and laying him out. Jean quickly went to the man grabbing his knee and stuck the pistol between his eyes. He stopped cussing and paid close attention. She muttered to herself, “Dammit, I’ve never studied their language.”
The man’s eyes were crossed, staring at the barrel touching his forehead. “I speak English, I speak English! Just get me a doctor, you will not have any problem from me. This was his idea,” he nodded his head in the now dead man’s direction. “We had friends on the boat, he lied, we don’t have any boss who wants to know anything about you.” Jean put her gun away, and made sure Todd was okay. That was when she heard John from behind her.
“Can I get a little help here?” Jean turned around to find John Rodriguez falling off of his chair, his hands covered in blood, trying to stop the blood flow.
The color drained from Jean’s face. Pumped up on adrenaline she had forgotten about John behind her. Todd was already speaking into a phone, getting help. Jean reached across and grabbed a cloth napkin. Quickly going around the table, she tied a tourniquet as best she could. It didn’t look like the bullet had hit any major veins in his leg, which was a huge blessing. Well, she would quickly find out how her new boss reacted to violence.
John had been moved back to the Polarus within twenty minutes.
Jean stayed to speak with the police. Once she got back to the Polarus, Jean made sure John was going to be okay, then she went to Bethany Anne’s suite. She wouldn’t wait to be called on the carpet like her experience in the Navy. John and Eric both nodded to her and let her go in.
Bethany Anne was working at the conference table. She looked up as Jean walked in and asked her Chief Gunnery Officer, “You wanted to talk with me?”
Jean said, “Yes ma’am, I wanted to give you my version of events that happened this evening.”
Bethany Anne’s face scrunched up, in concentration. “Didn’t Todd already provide the report to Dan? Did you have something to add to that?”
Jean’s mouth opened up, shut for a second, and opened up again. “Yes ma’am, he did speak to Dan. But I wanted to make sure you understood why I felt it was necessary to fire my weapon.”
Bethany Anne put down her pen, slowly stood up and walked around the table to stand in front of Jean. “Do you have your pistol on you?” John and Eric looked at each other; neither had considered the fact that Jean might bring a gun near Bethany Anne.
Jean nodded that she did, and handed it over to Bethany Anne who had her hand out in a ‘give me’ gesture. Bethany Anne pushed down on the top bullet in the mag to see if went down, made sure the pistol was still on safety, and handed it back to Jean. Bethany Anne walked back around the table.
Sitting down she grabbed her pen and looked up at Jean. “I would have kicked your ass if you hadn’t reloaded. Is this understood, Miss Dukes?”
Jean smiled, and was just able to stop herself from saluting. “Yes ma’am! I completely understand and my powder will always be dry.” She turned to go, John winked at her. Jean’s smile was bright enough he might need shades, he thought.
Bethany Anne spoke up, her head still looking down at her notebook. “Boys, make sure you never take away Jean’s guns for my sake, understand?” Both men told her they understood and went back to their jobs.
Las Vegas, NV, USA
Tom Billings watched as Jeffrey drove up in his car, and he and his two children got out. Jeffrey reached into the front seat and pulled out two sandwich bags and an iPad. Tom called out, “Is it national bring-your-children-to-work-day and I didn’t get the memo?”
Jeffrey smiled. “I’m not sure if it had anything to do with it being a national bring your children to work day, but when my wife hands me an iPad and two already made up lunch bags? I got the memo. I’m just going to put them into building three, make sure they’re okay, and we can discuss transferring the data. Give me ten minutes.” Tom waved at Jeffrey as he and the two kids went into building three.
Closer to twenty minutes later Jeffrey caught up with Tom in building two. Tom was sipping his second cup of coffee as Jeffrey grabbed his first cup. “So, have we confirmed how we’re going to move the data?”
Tom said, “Yes. I’ve installed three hot swappable arrays both in here and in building one for ADAM. We’ll be able to load up the hard drive, yank it out, sneakernet it over to building one and plug it in over there. It won’t require any special mounting or drivers loading each time. The system automatically recognizes and connects. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do this as fast as we can load up each hard drive and transfer the data.”
Tom marked a line across his list, crossing off one detail accomplished. “Okay, so what data will we start with?”
Jeffrey sat down across the table. “Do we have any ideas yet where to go? Do we start with history, science, ethics?”
Tom scratched his head with his pencil. “I’m not really sure it matters, at least not at this stage. We need to get a good foundation of information so that when it wants to dive in deeper, ADAM at least understands enough to classify what area of knowledge it needs more data for. So, I’m for giving it a foundational understanding of the cosmos at this time, and allowing selective uploads at a later date. Plus, we aren’t running the system right away anyhow, right?”
Jeffrey scratched his chin thoughtfully. “True, I don’t want the system trying to make heads or tails with a minimal data set. So, let’s load as much as we can, say equivalent to a college education before we go any further.”
Tom looked at Jeffrey, thinking back to what Jeffrey had said a minute before. “Ethics?”
Jeffrey nodded, “Sure, ethics is at the basis of all reasoning. It’s the one area where artificial intelligence breaks when someone considers Asimov’s three laws. The three laws are too simplistic to truly work with artificial intelligence. For example, the first law states the robot should not hurt a human, or through inaction allow a human to be hurt. But how do you tell the artificial intelligence what a human is? I suppose we could classify a human as Homo sapiens, but what would we do with edge cases? Even if we decided to classify humans by our DNA, at what point is the DNA not human anymore?”
Tom was a little surprised. “What do you mean at what point is DNA not human anymore? Like if someone is a mutation?”
Jeffrey smiled. “No, I’m not thinking X-Men here. I’m asking what about a dead person? Their DNA is human, but between helping a human who is alive with the right DNA, and a human who is now dead, I don’t want the artificial intelligence to get confused. Or, what happens if the human is recently dead and they could, through action, be revived?”
Tom stood up, taking his empty cup over to the coffee pot and filling it back up. “This day hasn’t started and I’m already getting a headache.”
Buenos Aires, Argentina
“Come in.” Anton hated waiting for the knock on his door. He could hear anyone approach his office; he thought it was a waste of time to wait. His butler, Jackson, stood there with a small envelope. Anton waved him over and Jackson approached the desk, and put the envelope on it. Turning around, Jackson left his office and closed the door behind him.
Anton picked up the envelope and opened it, taking a few seconds to read, and then reread the information it held. He smiled. It seemed that there was a large yacht that had been seen with a Black Hawk helicopter on top near Costa Rica. Perfect!
Now, all he
had to do was track down the name and he would have what he needed for the next part of his plan.
11
The Queen Bitch’s Ship Ad Aeternitatem
TOM, are we ready to do this?
Well, I can’t answer for you, but I’m certainly ready to crack open this thing and see what we created.
I never realized you had a little bit of Dr. Frankenstein in you, TOM.
Doctor Who?
Wrong character, although I can see a resemblance between you and Doctor Who as well.
Who the hell is Doctor Who? I’m asking about Dr. Frankenstein.
Bethany Anne grinned, she loved it when she could confuse the alien. Mind you, since he understood so little of typical earth popular culture it wasn’t much of a challenge. She would take her little joys where she could.
Never mind, let’s get this show on the road. Tell me what I need to do to open this.
Tom took her through the quick routine and Bethany Anne reached up and popped the lock manually to open the pod-doc. Tom had made sure the canine would still be asleep when the door opened. It took five minutes before the dog started to come around. Its big head lifted off of the bed and looked around until it spied Bethany Anne. It wagged its tail in recognition and took a couple of sniffs of the air. Bethany Anne talked quietly to the dog, scooped him up and quickly set him on the floor. She wasn’t concerned that the dog could maim her, but she had no desire to feel those claws scratching her skin.
The dog got up, and up, and up. The top of his ears reached above her waistline. She mumbled under her breath, “I sure hope we got enough meat.”
TOM, you are sure the dog shouldn’t affect my ability to translocate?
No, I am not a hundred percent sure. You have to give me points, though. I was right, we did make it to Miami and back.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 92