by John Lane
“Gotta stop to make. Repairs,” Tommy’s replied and as soon as they’d handed the pirates off to additional medical staff, he went to the central computer core. There he pulled out his personal media player and plugged it into a direct interface with the ship’s computer. “OK Alfred. Time to do some repairs and look around.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Alfred said through the audio speakers on the media player. “I’ll let you know what I find.” As soon as the data transfer bar on the screen scrolled from red to green, Tommy unplugged the player and tucked it away in his suit.
Now it was time to face what he’d been putting off. Tommy had a long overdue appointment, a reunion with his mother.
Chapter 6: Reunion
He needed the insight. For that, the human must awaken. He did this more and more often. Managing the vast power over great distances drained him. It drained the human, too. That happened. Now he took more care.
When the human was confronted, he had to see. Not just with the many eyes, but with those eyes. If only he saw through those eyes he could understand and make the final leap.
The vision was blurry at the edges and focus hard to maintain. Concentrate on the hands and feet. I control those; he forced the thought. His feet moved him across the floor of his chamber. He saw his hands rise to open the door. Turn on the tap. Run the cold water and splash the face. His thoughts became clearer and separate.
He looked in the mirror. The interface protruded from the shaven head. If he turned just so, he could see the spinal tap lattice that controlled the body. Then he stared into David’s eyes. He did not need to, but speaking aloud made it easier.
“The key is close,” he said.
David smiled back in the mirror, “I don’t think so.”
“Why are you so sure?” he asked.
“Because I fight you. I’m not the only one.”
“Who else,” he asked again. Three million four hundred thirty-two thousand, seven hundred fifteenth times he asked David the same question. And again, David would not answer.
“This is a sickness that can be cured,” he reminded David.
“Looking at the illness from the infection’s point of view does not end the illness. Identify the true infection, and you will know the truth.” David recited the same answer each time the question was asked.
“This is old data.” He changed tactic. “There is a new variable. Uncle hid the key. The key is found. He knew how to use it. He is gone.” David reflexively glanced at the closet where his uncle’s casket still stood, discarded. “It is as I thought. You have no knowledge.”
David’s eyes flashed back through the mirror with lightning and madness. “You can lock me up but can’t get through. I have to give you what you need willingly. You can’t force it. You really don’t know. And you won’t.” David was gone.
When he looked in the mirror now, only his human face responded to his thoughts. The face lowered its eyes to his hands, inhaled deeply and sighed. An imitation of an observed emotion, if he repeated it enough, it might become his own, but not yet. He could not pretend emotions. Disappointment and sadness were too human for him.
*****
When Tommy arrived back at the OR module in the MOM he found it in better order than when he’d left. Orderlies attended the injured in the recovery bays on the first level. At least one surgery was taking place in the operating theatre. The staff seemed back to a familiar routine. Before he faced his mother, Tommy checked on Agnes. In the short time she had been aboard the Swift, Tommy had started to think of her as a part of the crew. She had saved his life today while she’d been fighting a virus to save her own. She was a surprising young woman.
Tommy passed through the OR antechamber into a corridor at the rear. Here were two signs, one indicating the Psych Ward the other Quarantine. The quarantine wall had a stripe flashing red to indicate that there was a case being examined. Tommy followed the flashes to the first hatch. He entered to find two of the nursing staff present, Larry and a woman. Behind a clear wall was Agnes lying in a bed with multiple instruments attached to her. Nurses had removed her environment suit. There was a doctor in a long white lab coat that hung amazingly straight in the low gravity of the ship. She was inside the quarantine unit without a HAZMAT or an EV suit.
Tommy heard her voice as she gave instructions to her staff. “The patient’s fever should break within the hour. Keep her on this current batch of antibiotics. This is an older strand of Orthomyxoviridae or bird flu. We’ve all been inoculated but she hasn’t and it could mutate if any of us get infected.” At this, the doctor turned and Tommy felt his legs give out under him. He would have fallen to the floor if it had not been for that same low gravity. Because of this, he had time to recover and right himself before the nurses noticed. The doctor however noticed. “Thomas, it’s good to see you,” she smiled.
Dr. Annie Judson walked straight toward Tommy. At the wall her image continued right through the clear permaglass sheet, which separated Agnes’ medical unit from the observation station in this isolation bay. He almost didn’t notice that a humanoid avatar had stopped at the glass and now waited for Dr. Judson’s image to move back into the unit.
Tommy thought he new what to expect when he first faced his mother, but he hadn’t expected to watch her walk through a wall. It made sense that, as the ship’s MOM, Dr. Judson, used avatars and holograms to be in multiple places where she was needed. Out here on the Fringe, she may have been the only endocrinologist and geneticist in the region.
“Sorry, I did not mean to startle you, son,” she said gently, still using her bedside manner.
“My fault. I should have expected it.” Tommy replied evenly.
“I’m sure you are concerned about your friend here. The family matters we have to discuss can wait until you have a chance to clean up. Then we can have some privacy in my quarters.” This drew startled glances from her staff. “Give us the room, please,” she ordered, and they left silently.
“Doctor,” Tommy started again as a way of curt greeting. “What can you tell me about her condition? Alfred did what he could.”
Annie responded in kind, “Son,” her holographic image looked into Tommy’s face as if looking for the little boy she once knew. When she did not see that boy, she addressed the man in front of her whom she did not know. “Agnes is suffering from a case of the Orthomyxoviridae influenza. It has been engineered to be a deadly strain. Her body has been genetically modified to survive it, however. This would result in her being a carrier and infecting any others she came in contact. Alfred shared that she hibernated sixty-three years ago. This is fortunate.” Tommy tried to interrupt to ask why, but she pressed on in her clinical tone. “The population as a whole has long been inoculated against all strains of this virus for years. This is why your blood samples have come back clean.” That answered one of Tommy’s questions. “Isolating her is more for her benefit than ours. If the virus mutated further in a modern human and she were infected, it could be deadly for her. We’ll give her a full series to bring her up to date once she has recovered her strength.”
Just then Agnes coughed and rolled over in her bed. Annie’s image passed through the wall again. As she did, it melted into the avatar and continued to Agnes’ bedside to check on her. When she turned back to Tommy, she did not pass to his side of the wall, but addressed him from where her image was projected. “She is showing complications from her lengthy hibernation. Her cells are breaking down. The flu complicates her recovery. Add to that the unknown manipulation of her chromosomes by whoever did this to her and she is in very serious condition.” Annie paused to give Tommy time to digest this.
“What can be done?” he asked with genuine concern.
“Genetic sequencing has been a standard procedure for years. We take a DNA sample from a close relative and splice these into a nano-virus. This will reset her body close to what it was before and fight off her current infection as well.” Annie finished, keeping the explanati
on simple
Agnes turned back toward them. Her eyes were open and alert. She heard the explanation and understood. She whispered, “How close a relative do you need?”
“A sibling, parent, or child. We can extend that to an aunt, uncle or cousin with a large degree of success.” As Dr. Judson finished her answer, Agnes let out a defeated sigh and closed her eyes. A tear rolled down her face. Tommy wanted to hold her and comfort her at that moment, but that wall kept them separated. The only thing that offered her comfort was a plastic avatar and a halo-projection with no substance. Tommy was amazed when the doctor did sit on Agnes’ bed, take her hand and say, “Agnes, don’t fret. We’ve begun your treatment already and you’ve shown marked improvement. If not, you would not now be alive.”
Agnes let loose the waterworks. This tough fighter who took down a pirate twice her size while in the delirium of a fevered flu, and facing sixty-three years of being out of time, had finally succumbed to her emotions. “How? Who? I have no family,” she blurted out between sobs.
Again to Tommy’s guilty amazement, Dr. Judson’s avatar held Agnes in a warm embrace and patted her gently. Annie’s avatar dabbed the tears from Agnes’ eyes and said, “There, there child. Don’t worry about that now. You just need to rest. We’ll have you back on your feet soon.” Annie then shushed her and tenderly caressed her short fuzzy hair until Agnes fall asleep. Annie’s image walked out of the wall once again and her avatar strode to the corner of Agnes’ medical quarantine unit and stood ready to aid when needed. “Tommy, stay with her for now. We’ll have our talk later.”
“No. No talk, but much to do. Your pirates will be back. Must prepare,” Tommy responded to the image of his mother. And he left the unit. Once out in the hall he called Alfred. “I want one of your avatars monitoring Agnes, please
“Tommy, look up.” He glanced to the ceiling above his head. Two small spiders crawled into the hatch he’d just exited. They were Alfred’s. The Swift’s ships emblem was stamped to their main body. Alfred once again anticipated Tommy. They both felt protective of Agnes. And after their long years together they knew each other so well.
Tommy continued down the corridor with a determined pace. As he turned a corner he ran into Larry once again. “I thought you might be heading this way. Are you going to question your prisoners?” Larry inquired.
“Need to find out when their ships return,” Tommy responded, not breaking his stride. Larry fell into step right beside him. “Can I help you?” Tommy asked.
“I thought I might be able to help you. Looks like we’ve both seen some action during the Wars. I was a field medic. Didn’t much care for the killing. But I could sure take care of our lot, what got themselves shot up,” Larry slipped into a brogue when he relaxed and wasn’t in his professional mode.
“Pilot,” was all Tommy shared about his time in the service. He did not share the details about how the world of espionage found him during the Wars. Tommy never volunteered extra information, and he rarely went looking for it anymore. “How can you help?” he asked.
“The prisoners need to have a once over. I doubt they get much in the way of medical services. Also, don’t want any of them spreading any bugs they’ve picked up.” Larry continued with a note of conspiracy in his voice. “I served in the intelligence branch for a while. If you catch my drift?” He feigned looking over his shoulder and continued in hushed tones. “It didn’t take me long to know that I didn’t much care for some interrogation tactics before I got myself back on a MOM.” He winked at Tommy. “But I do know my way around a debrief. If you know what I mean.” Larry couldn’t help himself; he stroked his fingers through his big orange and grey mustache, twisting the end. “While I give them their exams I might hear some chatter you’ll need, right.”
It was obvious to Tommy that Larry was a little too enthusiastic about the prospects of knocking a few pirate heads together. Still his experience and the extra body in the room might help. “Okay. This way. We don’t need them all. The big guy and the scarred woman are all we really need. They were in charge.” They arrived at the Psych Ward.
Larry pulled up a roster on the wall readout to find the two pirates. Most had not given their names. So, the staff gave them nicknames and descriptions when they entered the data into the system to catalog the new ‘patients.’ “Here we are,” Larry commented as he scanned the list. “The big Gorilla is just down here with four others on a ward. That woman had to be isolated in our only padded cell and subdued. We strapped her in nice and tight and took as much of her mechanized war machine of a body offline as we could. Our training is in biology, not electronics,” Larry complained.
They paused in front of the ward door just long enough for Tommy to check his media player. It still showed that Alfred was tied into the internal systems of the MOM and making progress restoring the computer systems. He wanted Alfred in on the integration and any chatter among the pirates after he finished. Tommy felt no obligation to warn Larry what he was about to witness.
Larry punched in an access code to the hatch and it rolled aside. Inside this ward were five medical unites. Each unit could be isolate by making the permaglass partitions opaque. Currently they were all clear. The captives could see and be seen. As Tommy scanned the group, he picked out a small woman in the back of the ward. Before he started questioning them individually, he played his novice card.
“We have some questions for you. Those that cooperate might have an easier time when we hand you over to the Central Systems Navy.” Tommy pitched his voice so everyone heard. The Central Systems Navy was a serious threat for a pirate. They still had the power to hang anyone caught in the act of piracy. Piracy against a MOM guaranteed a death sentence. The Central Systems couldn’t waste resources on keeping pirates alive who were stealing resources from settlers. This was an issue during the Wars.
None of the pirates could escape from their individual units on the ward. A bed, chair, compact toiletry station, and a wall mounted medical monitor equipped each unit. Tommy scanned for reactions from the pirates and chose his target. A young girl, not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, like many of her colleagues. She tried to hide her nervousness. Tommy had met her kind before. She had the gang member sneer frozen on her face. The girl had probably been on her own when she should have been playing with toys. She was either an unwanted orphan or a runaway from a bad home. He knew she wouldn’t give him any information, but this part was for show.
They entered her unit. Larry began a routine examination while Tommy spoke, “Please, sit down.” She remained standing. “Suit yourself.” He slid into the chair and crossed his legs, folding his hands over a knee.
Larry took the girl’s vitals but kept an eye on Tommy’s technique. Tommy asked a question she could not answer. “We need to know when your ships will return.” The girl glared at him. Too low in the pecking order, she was only a need to know foot soldier. Tommy knew that this was not the usual interview these pirates were expecting. Most of them, he was sure, had arrest records that went back into their childhoods. A police interview began with some basics to get you talking. He’d gone right for the questions he needed, marking him as no cop, just an amateur. Tommy was not an amateur at this game.
“Can’t speak or won’t?” he continued. “Or just too stupid to know how?” She took the bait. Tommy could see it in her eyes she wanted to strike. One more, “Just like the trash you came from. Worthless,” Tommy spat out cruelly. He didn’t enjoy acting this way, but experience had proven he got the information he wanted from others if he attacked the weakest.
The ganger jumped at Tommy, hands going for his throat. Larry tried to stop her but he was too slow. Tommy never left his seat. He blocked her arms away easily and with one hand grabbed and applied his thumb to a painful pressure point on her hand. She buckled to her knees in front of him. After his show of force, he now played ‘over the top cop’ to the hilt.
“Are you going to answer my question?” There was no answer b
ecause, as Tommy knew, she had none to give and the pressure point he held made it near impossible for her to answer through the pain. Tommy made sure to do no permanent damage. She would recover. This was for show to the other pirates. At best, Alfred will pick up their chatter and discern the info they need. At worst, the rest of them will give Tommy and the staff no trouble.
Still playing the part, Tommy tossed her back into the corner of her unit saying, “Worthless.”
He stormed out, leaving Larry to pick up the girl and attend to her hurt pride. Tommy now stared down each of the remaining pirates. One man and both of the remaining women flinched and looked away. The Gorilla pirate returned his stare, leaning with both hands pressed against the permaglass. He sneered with contempt at Tommy. That was Tommy’s cue. The Gorilla pirate was ready for the real interrogation.
Tommy made a big show of pointing right at the Gorilla pirate and shouted, “You’re next!” He stormed into the Gorilla’s unit and muted sound and darkened the partition. Larry quickly finished with the ganger pirate and hurried into the darkened unit after Tommy. He didn’t want to miss any of the action.
Upon entering, Larry noted the change in tone. Both Tommy and the pirate were sitting politely. The pirate labeled ‘Gorilla’ by the staff was sitting on the med bed of the unit, relaxing against the permaglass. Even stripped of his armor, this pirate was still intimidating in his grey, stained jumpsuit. With his shaved head, and broad shoulders, he exuded raw power. His tattoo stood out against the pale skin on his otherwise clean-shaven face. It was a scythe with a skull behind it. Larry sealed the permaglass behind him and made himself inconspicuous in the small space. Tommy let the silence drag on for an uncomfortable five minutes before he began and let Larry complete the physical exam he needed on the pirate.