“They and ‘Mother’”—Leon still couldn’t use the term without snickering—“and a consortium of other supersentiences. Honestly, Crumley, I think you overstate our value.”
“Nonsense. It’ll be a cold day in hell before they retire me. The sheer thought that the universe can last a moment longer without me is—well, it’s insulting is what it is.”
Leon smiled ruefully. “Can I interest you in a drink?”
“Now that those pesky do-good nanites aren’t swimming around inside me to erase alcohol’s every blessed effect, you bet you can.”
Leon poured them a whiskey and handed Crumley the glass. He gestured at Leon like “What the hell?” Leon glanced down at himself and realized he was still naked. “Shit, it’ll take me a while to realize I just can’t think ‘clothe me’ anymore and expect my nanites to find another assignment for themselves on top of the thousand and one others they’ve been tasked with.”
Crumley downed his drink, gasped, and held out the empty glass for a refill. “What do I care? I’ve seen men naked a hell of a lot more than I’ve seen women naked in this life, I’m ashamed to say.”
“You know, we could do something about that?”
Crumley gave him the face he usually reserved for serial killers pleading innocence. “Just what are you getting at?”
“I mean maybe it’s time you stopped fearing that any woman who falls in love with you is just days away from killing you. The past is no indication of the future.”
“Says he to the man who barely escaped multiple murder attempts on his life by the fairer sex only by way of his special ops training.”
Leon sighed. “Why don’t you let Natty and Laney whip you up the perfect girlfriend the way they whipped up the nun?”
“Have you seen what that nun can do? Don’t do me any favors. In fact unless I miss my guess, I’ve already found my next girlfriend.”
Leon laughed, poured his friend another drink. They downed this one in tandem.
“Leon!” It was Corin screaming for him. She was hoarse, which suggested to Leon that this was not her first outburst. Leon, still soaking in the Samadhi tank, must have missed the prior few outcries. He was surprised they hadn’t cracked the metal-glass on the tank. She would have had to have a way with the atmospheric nanites to project her voice so effectively into his inner sanctum.
“Talk about bad timing,” Crumley said. “You sure you don’t want to crawl back in that tank and reverse the reaction? Don’t much like your odds otherwise. You know what they say about a woman spurned.”
“I don’t know; a man spurned isn’t much better; might explain my strategic brilliance as your unit commander.”
Crumley—who had grabbed the bottle out of Leon’s hands for fear of it dropping on Corin’s ear-piercing scream, poured himself another drink, and started downing it—squirted the burning liquid still in his throat out his nose at Leon’s remark.
He watched his friend lumber toward the sliding doors. No surprise he wasn’t beaming himself straight to Corin’s cabin. Even a special ops soldier needed time to build up that kind of nerve.
Even after their nanite delousing in the tanks, none of them were truly nanite free. The remaining nanites were considered the minimum needed to survive the Nautilus’s interiors, and to maintain COMMS with her. Still, it beat the hell out of access to any number of augmented realities none of them wanted right now. And, while still difficult, it was now possible to get drunk, as Crumley was intent on proving with another glass filled to the brim from the decanter. Let’s just hope for Leon’s sake, his nanites are still good enough to duck whatever Corin throws at him.
***
“Well, the good news is,” DeWitt said, staring into the jungle before him occupying the Nautilus’s central courtyard, “I’ve decided we are a go with selling the film rights on this latest escapade. I’d originally given up all hope after the monkey massacre on…”
“The what?” the Rhesus monkey that was scampering all over his head and shoulders said, interrupting his “tree climbing.”
“The point is,” DeWitt emphasized to make sure they stayed on track, “the studios can afford to cut out any offending footage and there’s still more than enough material for a summer blockbuster, hell, for a mini-series.” DeWitt became conscious of the monkey jumping from shoulder to shoulder and fishing about inside his ears to pull out something, then masticating away. “What the hell are you up to?”
“Pulling ticks. They’re quite delicious.”
“Oh. In that case, carry on. I must admit my hearing has greatly improved of late.” He waved at the sentient tree flaunting her nudity his way, her trunk as shapely as any woman’s. Apparently she hadn’t wished to draw his attention, and as soon as she realized he was glaring, she promptly turned herself around. Her root system shuffled about her base like one of those dresses that women paraded about in that flared at the bottom and polished the marble floors of the swank residences they were meant to be worn in. He decided that staring at her derriere was a small price to pay for losing the frontal view, and continued gaping and smiling.
His expression quickly changed affect. “Wait a second? I’m currently dead and this is my avatar. Ticks in my ears? Oh, that’s way too much reality for a simple avatar. When I get my hands on that supersentient bitch and her back-from-the-dead-ritual-magic-cookbook…”
***
Starhawk walked through the Nautilus’s sliding doors into the gym looking nonplused. “How the hell did I end up here?” He took one look at Patent mixing it up with The Fantastic Four comic book heroes and gulped.
After exchanging some heartfelt punches with the Thing, Patent delivered a punch to the solar plexus so hard that the man of stone shattered into so many smaller rocks. Mr. Fantastic, stretched about Patent next, determined to keep him from raising another arm or leg to lash out with, was summarily stretched past his limits where he too burst into so many rubbery parts.
The Human Torch had been blasting away at Patent the entire time, as the Invisible Woman continued to trip Patent up, causing him to land face down even as he moved aggressively toward the Torch.
Patent caught sight of Starhawk uttering, “Oh, shit” after taking in the little scene between Patent and his play things and attempting to slide back out the room the way he’d come in. “Stop right there, soldier!”
Starhawk froze in his tracks, the grimace on his face suggesting he was choking on his own bile. “That’s enough for today, guys, thanks,” Patent said, as The Fantastic Four team regrouped, The Thing and Mr. Fantastic pulling themselves back together before disappearing.
“You’re beating up on The Fantastic Four, sir?” Starhawk had a pained expression on his face as Patent threw his arm over his shoulder.
“I thought if I was ever to get you kids to relate to me better, I better start reading more comics. Glad you’re here. You’re just the person I wanted to see. Gotta love this new era of heightened group dynamics the Nautilus is trying to bring about.”
“Gotta love it,” Starhawk said through a plastic smile.
“How come I don’t see more of you, kid?”
“Frankly, sir, you scare the hell out of me.”
“Nonsense, I’m a complete teddy bear. Been wanting to speak to you about a weapon I’ve been designing, but I just can’t seem to get my mind around how to actually make it happen.” The empty mat area designed for sparring matches filled up with the latest holovision made real with the aid of the atmospheric nanites—or at least given “flesh and bone” so to speak.
“Whoa!” Starhawk said.
“Isn’t she wonderful?”
“What is that?”
“I got the idea from watching Cassandra on her hoverboard taking out the enemy en masse. God that woman can kill with style and flair like none other. I think I’m in love. Pity she has her eyes set on Leon.”
“Don’t you mean, pity Leon?” Starhawk put his eyes back on the hovering whatever-it-was. “What’s it
supposed to do?”
“I thought that much was obvious. It’s meant to surf different dimensions, so you can pop in and out of them at will to befuddle the enemy. We carry them like backpacks until they need to be deployed. If we’ve thrown everything at the enemy we have and we still can’t stop them, then we engage this baby. Once it jumps to another dimension, it can easily go back in time to kill the bad guy in the womb, so back in our time, our enemy just dissolves before our eyes.”
Starhawk’s jaw dropped. “That idea is so sick, so twisted, so crazed, and yet so brilliant. I’m surprised you didn’t call me sooner.” He pulled off his wristband and stretched the flexi-screen flat and widened and elongated it so he could scan the interior of Patent’s design. “Did you speak to Solo, our interdimensional guy?”
“Oh, yeah, he gave it the thumbs up, but said he really couldn’t help me with the engineering. Too many variables that were simply beneath him to sort out, like how the hell the rider stays alive on top that thing while getting squeezed through so many different dimensions.”
“Easy, we send your avatar, that way you can keep fighting until the end to give the avatar time to do its work.”
Patent nodded and gave Starhawk an affectionate squeeze behind the neck. “Uh, I think you’re breaking my neck, sir,” Starhawk said wincing and bunching his shoulders.
Patent eased up on the show of affection. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“You’re quoting from Casablanca? You could just try killing the enemy with your one-liners.”
FIFTY-TWO
ABOARD THE NAUTILUS
Leon and Crumley were strolling one of the circular halls surrounding the inner courtyard of the Nautilus, on deck three. Leon was more interested in getting lost in the labyrinth of halls to clear his head. Crumley was more interested in being expansive after their adventures on Agemir, looking to fill Leon’s head with philosophical notions on the nature of reality as quickly as Leon could empty his mind as part of his constitutional-slash-walking meditation. He was tempted to tell his friend to get lost, but if Crumley had found him at all, it was likely that “Mother” had signed off on their visit.
Both their heads craned toward a commotion going on within one of the metal-glass-walled chambers housing a Theta Team member. “What the hell?” Crumley said. From his voice, Leon could tell he was escalating into warrior mode.
Leon grabbed him by the arm. “It’s some kind of dispute between the two Theta Team members. The third party looking to referee the match is one of our ambassadors.”
Crumley gulped as he recalled his wrestling match with Asger on Eresdra; this one between the two Theta Team members looked far more deadly. The one Theta Team member shapeshifted every time his opponent got him in a painful pin from which there was no escape; once within the new body, the hold was easily shaken off. His pissed-off opponent, on the other hand, didn’t look like he needed to rely on shapeshifting for lethality; even without a bodysuit, he was more armored than an armadillo girdled lizard. As to that poor ambassador trying to broker a peace, Crumley didn’t like his chances for survival at all. With his slant physique and his professorial come-on with those glasses, and a head shaped like a life buoy, he seemed genetically engineered to be non-threating. “We might want to consider giving our ambassadors Special Forces training if that’s what passes as a diplomatic mission aboard this ship.”
Leon thought about it. “Not a half bad idea.” They continued their stroll, adjusting their compasses in the direction of their original intent for taking the walk in the first place.
***
Cassandra pushed her way into Leon’s private chambers—after clearing the male lion sentry that jumped off the door to sniff her and then decided she wasn’t worth risking his life over, so just jumped back into two-dimensions, re-embossing himself on the sliding doors by taking full advantage of his nano makeup. “Caught this son of a bitch roaming the ship.” After releasing her grip on his neck, she practically threw the Theta Team operative in Leon’s face. “Turns out he doesn’t have a chamber of his own, and no room the Nautilus will let him into. Now why is that, I wonder? My guess is he’s both a spy and a saboteur.”
“He’s an ambassador, Cassandra.”
“A what?”
“There are quite a few of them on board. The Nautilus has voided their need for sleep and their capacity to fatigue and keeps them circulating the halls to help put out any fires erupting between the Theta Team operatives. Theta Team’s unique alien-hybrid DNA makes it easy for them to provoke one another unintentionally. The ambassadors help to smooth things over. They love their work and relish the idea of doing it twenty-four seven, something they couldn’t manage on their home worlds.”
“You’re telling me these are not genetic rejects who didn’t make the final cut and somehow manage to crawl out of the recycle bin with a score to settle?” The way her eyes were bulging at Leon, he’d think she just contracted an advance case of Graves Disease.
“You can read the same output from the Nautilus’s chief AI if you just relax enough to not block out her transmissions, Cassandra. Though I appreciate you maintaining high alert status at all times for our benefit. Technically, that gives you more in common with the ambassadors than with the rest of us, so you might consider cutting the guy a break.”
Cassandra seemed to be doing an acapella tune strictly off of panting breaths in an effort to counterbalance her own seething with a forced sense of calm. She turned to the ambassador. “Well? What do you have to say about this, Porcupine Face?” The guy was covered in porcupine-like quills from head to toe.
“My species, when threatened, automatically ejects our needles at our attackers. Each one is doused with a different RNA viral cocktail meant to re-engineer you in an instant. We have a lobe in back of our brain that tells us which needle will do the trick, so we don’t have to expend our entire reserve on one strike. In you humans, or rather you humanoids, the right brain or gut-check intuitions do the same thing, process huge amounts of incoming information ahead of what the rational mind can do to pull a rabbit out of the hat in time to save you. You’ll notice I didn’t hit you with any needles.”
“Because you knew what I’d do to you if you did!”
The alien sighed. “Because everyone could use the human equivalent of a nuke in their back pocket, someone like you, Cassandra. Your presence here is well appreciated by the ambassadors who realize that we cannot always solve the situation with diplomacy. Most of us would fight to the death to protect you if only out of a distinct sense of self-preservation. I assure you, you don’t have anything to worry about from me or any of the rest of us.”
Cassandra continued to fume as if turning the heat down on the kettle wasn’t enough to keep it from whistling just yet.
Clearly not finished with Porcupine Face, Cassandra shifted her hateful gaze to Leon. “How the hell did ambassadors come to be on this ship? Are they more Nautilus newbies, taken out of their toy boxes for the first time?”
“Some of them are, yes. Others have requested reassignment from the Nautilus in other timelines,” Leon explained. “They were beamed aboard via the singularity phone that can transmit people as easily as it can any other data.”
Cassandra craned her head back to the ambassador, her hateful glare only barely diminished. “Alright, Porcupine Face, explain to me why in hell you would request transfer off one version of the Nautilus just to jump on to another? Thought you guys could talk your way out of any situation, so why such a desperate effort to jump ship?”
The alien sighed and lowered his eyes. She’d evidently hit a nerve. This was an admission he didn’t care to make and was deliberating his options: lie outright; stretch the truth a little, or come clean. When he raised his eyes it was hard to know which option he’d landed on—his being an ambassador and all. “In my time line, Natty’s mind is failing. Too much pressure bearing down on him, feeling like he has to protect this and every alterna
te timeline out there, all of them under any number of attacks. He’s more paranoid than ever, he rambles worse than a psych ward patient in a lockup unit. But his power of mind hasn’t diminished one iota. Some of us believe he’s opening gateways to hell-worlds just to confirm his own growing paranoid ideations; or worse, creating these alternate timelines just to practice thinking his way out of the traps in case he’s actually caught up in one. No offense, but I have my hands full dealing with real enemies. And that’s with everyone carrying their own weight. With his mind essentially off-line, and worse, his capacity to make demons real, I figured I’d take an early retirement to a relatively easy gig like this one, find myself a timeline where stressors weren’t quite so acute.”
Cassandra seemed all-too prepared to take him at his word this time and shift her concerned glare to Leon.
“Maybe you should have a talk with the rest of these ambassadors, Cassandra,” Leon said. “Politely; don’t force the situation; and none of your customary intimidation tactics. That’s the last thing we need is them clamming up for fears of being sent back to their original timelines to investigate things further for us, or being locked in a gulag for what they know.”
Her eyes lost focus for a moment as she ran the request through her filters. When they refocused on Leon, she said, “That’s one assignment I’m only too happy to take on.” She marched toward the sliding doors.
“Oh, and Cassandra,” Leon added, “take this opportunity to practice maintaining a calm enough state so you can filter even the b.s. coming from an ambassador. Not to mention, you’ll need to keep an open line to the Nautilus’s supersentiences if you do have to act fast.”
She snorted gruffly back at him, but he knew that was her conceding his point.
Leon shifted his attention back to the ambassador. “My apologies,” Leon said, “and my heartfelt thanks for cuing us on yet other possible vulnerabilities. Some of them we may not be able to do much about, but some of them we may be able to nip in the bud.”
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