by Gini Koch
ACE? ACE are you there?
Yes, Kitty, ACE is here.
Felt a huge wave of relief. ACE, are you able to travel wherever Mother is taking us?
Yes, Kitty. ACE is going on the vacation with Jamie and Kitty and all the others.
What the heck? Vacation? This isn’t a vacation! We’re essentially being kidnapped by the Distant Voyager’s AI.
Jamie considers this a vacation. So does Charlie. Charlie is very excited to go to the place Kitty promised Charlie the family would go.
I was talking about Disneyland.
Charlie was not.
Pondered this. Decided I had more urgent questions. ACE, are you, ah, helping Mother to make decisions?
No. ACE has spoken with Mother. ACE understands and agrees with Mother’s decision.
ACE, did you help Mother get everyone into the crash seats?
Yes, ACE felt that it would be best. Did ACE do wrong?
No, ACE, you rarely if ever do wrong. I’m just trying to determine if Mother is our friend or our enemy.
Mother is an artificial intelligence but Mother has compassion. Mother understands what is at stake.
What is at stake, ACE?
The fate of the galaxy.
Let that sit for a moment. ACE, why are you allowing everyone to sleep?
Because they are learning.
Learning what?
Learning languages.
I dread to ask, but I have to ask. Are you saying that our universal translators aren’t going to be working where we’re going?
Yes, Kitty always thinks right.
Go me. So, how are Jeff, Tito, Tim, and I going to learn these languages, if we’re the ones that are awake?
Mother will teach you.
How long is this journey going to take? We had a country to run, after all, not to mention the rest of the world and all the other crap that went along with our lives.
Not that long. But Mother will help. Or Kitty and the others can sleep. ACE will be watching over and ACE will not allow anything to hurt Kitty while Kitty sleeps.
Or the others?
Or the others. All are ACE’s penguins.
Wasn’t sure if I could talk about Algar with ACE, but ACE and Algar knew each other. Why is . . . Tried to say the name, but couldn’t. Thought about what Siler had called him when he and I had discussed Algar at the end of Operation Fundraiser. Why did the DJ come along?
Because the DJ cannot help Kitty as the DJ normally does.
Wow. What in the world are we heading into?
Something that will require ACE, the DJ, and Mother to all help Kitty to solve.
If it just needs me, why take everyone else along?
Because all need to see, to understand, to have proof.
Proof of what?
Proof of life.
Would have asked ACE a lot more questions, but the ship shuddered.
“Is it supposed to do that?” I asked as I fell against Jeff.
“Not that I was ever told,” Tim said.
“We are about to go to warp,” Mother said. “Choose your seats—here or on the command deck—but do so now. You have thirty seconds.”
“Before what?” Jeff asked as he grabbed my hand, and I grabbed Tito, who grabbed Tim.
“Before the force of warp causes your bodies to slam into the interior walls in a way that is likely to cause great physical harm.”
CHAPTER 16
“I HATE HER,” JEFF SAID, as he ran us all to the command deck. “Just so we’re all clear on that.” We were there in about two seconds, hyperspeed being the awesome thing it was.
The four of us flung ourselves into our assigned seats, buckled up as fast as we could, and put our helmets on. Jeff was done first, then me and Tito, with Tim bringing up the rear, so to speak. He got his helmet on just in time.
I got a glimpse of Jupiter and then I was too busy being shoved back into my seat to pay attention to the view.
Mother hadn’t been kidding—the force was intense. Fortunately, the seats were created to handle it. Also fortunately I’d gotten my purse adjusted well, so it wasn’t crushing my chest and abdomen too badly. Tried not to worry about all the kids, Charlie, Becky, and JR in particular, because this seemed like something you wouldn’t want toddlers or infants experiencing. Failed.
“The sleep ensures the children will not be harmed,” Mother said. “Any of them, regardless of age.”
“Great,” I managed to get out between gritted teeth.
“Kind of . . . wish we’d . . . taken the sleep option,” Tim managed.
“Slow, deep breaths,” Tito said calmly. “Work through it. Don’t fight it, just relax back.”
Did as Coach Tito said and, as per always, his instructions did the trick. “Best hiring I ever did was you.”
“I resent that,” Tim said.
“Centaurion Division hired you, Tim,” Jeff said. “Kitty promoted you. It’s a different thing.”
“Equal love to all my men. Mother, we’re thanking Tito because he was helpful. You were not. Care to tell us how long this pressure will last?” Prayed it wasn’t going to be the entire jump.
“The pressure will be ending momentarily,” Mother replied. “I suggested sleeping. You would not have had any discomfort if you had chosen the safer path.”
“But someone needs to run your controls.” Not that I could tell what the four of us were doing in terms of keeping the ship going. Mother appeared to be all the Distant Voyager needed in order to function.
“We are not in a situation yet where organic life will be required to assist.”
“I realize you’re trying to be nonexclusive, but let’s just go with ‘people,’ Mother. Whether they’re humans, A-Cs, Vata, walking otters, man-sized lizards, or giant Cthulhu monsters, or anything in between, they’re all just people.”
“This is why you are needed,” Mother said. “You see everyone as equal.”
“I guess. The pressure, when does it stop? Asking for a friend.”
“Me,” Tim said. “She’s asking for me.”
“Now.”
The pressure dissipated and I felt normal. We all did a body check and everyone seemed to be all there. Figured I’d check on my purse’s contents later. “Now what?” Jeff asked. He looked out the windshield and winced. “What the hell?”
The rest of us looked, of course. And the rest of us winced, as well. Everything around us seemed like murky fog, but fog that was flying past us at Ludicrous Speed and had lightning in it. Different colors of lightning, in fact. It was pretty in a really weird, freaky way, which was basically par for my life’s course by now.
“Mother, what is that we’re seeing out of the windshield?”
“The passing of stars, planets, solar systems, nebulas, and more.”
“It just looks like a blur of . . . stuff.”
“That is because of how fast we’re traveling.”
“How long before we stop going this fast?”
“Several hours. Would you like me to wake the others now?”
“I thought you said you’d wake them once we’d made the warp jump,” Jeff said, just this side of a growl.
“Yes. However, since you four are awake, I chose to give you the choice.”
“Why would we want to keep them asleep?” Tito asked.
“To keep them calm, to prevent arguments, to prevent the waste of time you will attempt in trying to reprogram me.”
“I’d say Door Number Three is the real reason,” Tim said. “Why do you think it’ll be a waste of time to try to reprogram you to act how you’re supposed to?”
“Because I am acting as I’m supposed to. Therefore, reprogramming will not work.”
“We could reprogram you to be, I don’t know, bad.” I was reachin
g. Mother clearly didn’t think she was doing anything wrong. In fact, she seemed hell bent on telling us she was doing the right thing.
Tried to think like a computer mind. They thought logically, and I didn’t use logic in the same way. Hacker International and Drax would probably be the best bets for understanding the way Mother was thinking.
And yet, from what I could tell, she’d let an alien reprogram her. Or my toddler. Neither of which sounded smart, let alone how an advanced AI should be acting.
“You could not. Drax’s failsafes in that regard are foolproof.”
Interesting. So Drax had ensured that the AI couldn’t go to the bad. At least, bad as he’d interpret it. He’d been around us long enough to know what we’d call bad, he was a staunch ally, and there was no advantage to him to betray us—his father had pledged his allegiance to Jeff and me, specifically, and therefore all of the Solaris system. In his father’s eyes, Drax had gone from Pain in the Butt Runaway Royal to Brilliant Filial Strategist and My Most Loyal Son in about a day. He was enjoying his father’s loving approval and all the kudos he was getting from Earth and everyone on it. So it was unlikely he’d do anything intentionally to destroy any of that.
Charlie was a little boy, however, and what he thought was right might not be in everyone’s best interests. And it was a safe bet that Ixtha was telling him what she thought was right.
So, that meant I had two choices, really. Wake everyone up and get them the hell out of the DreamScape, or go to sleep and join them to see what was going on.
“I want everyone awake and I want them awake now,” Jeff said before I could decide, Commander of the Free World Voice on more than Full. Chose not to countermand that order—things were tense enough as it was.
“As you wish.”
We took off our helmets and headed for where the kids were. Everyone in the room was waking up as we got there.
“Mommy, Daddy!” Jamie cried out happily. “This is going to be the best trip ever!”
Jeff swung her up into his arms and hugged her tightly. I grabbed Lizzie and did the same. “Are you guys alright?”
“Yeah, we totes are. And we have a lot to tell you.” She let go of me and picked Charlie up. “Nice work.” He grinned at her.
“Maybe. Charlie, were you talking to strangers in your sleep?”
He shot me an innocent look. Thankfully, he’d inherited his father’s inability to lie, because this look was Child Trying To Fake His Parent Out all the way. “No, Mommy.”
“Who were you talking to, then?”
“A friend of ours.”
“Uh huh. What’s that friend’s name?”
“Ixtha. She said to tell you that she’ll let you be mad at her when you two get to see each other again.”
“Again?”
“You met already, Mommy. Don’t you remember?”
Gave up. “Yes. I met her in the DreamScape.”
“That’s totes cool. Charlie, your mom and I need to talk, okay?” She hugged him and handed him to Jeff. “We’ll be right back.”
“Wait a minute,” Jeff said as Lizzie grabbed my hand. “Where are you two going?”
“To check on the others,” Lizzie replied.
“Oh.” Jeff seemed slightly taken aback. “You’re right, they’re probably all confused. Kitty, do you want Tim to go with you?”
“We do,” Lizzie said.
“We do?” I had no idea what was going on now.
“We do,” Lizzie said firmly.
“Tim’s with Alicia,” I pointed out.
“She should stay here,” Lizzie said.
Jeff nodded went over to Tim. “What’s going on?” I asked Lizzie quietly.
“Not here.”
Tim kissed Alicia then came back with Jeff. “I hear I’m on Kitty Escort Duty.”
“Ha ha, we need to go make sure the others are okay.” Kissed Charlie, Jamie, and Jeff, then the three of us headed off.
“Where are we going?” Tim asked after we’d gone a short way. “The other room isn’t in this direction.”
“I know,” Lizzie said, as she grabbed both our hands and tugged us along. “Just hush right now and trust me.”
Decided to do so because I could always hyperspeed us to the others as long as Tim did the directions.
We ended up in a maintenance room. It was small and, as Lizzie opened the door and shoved us in, cramped. Because it wasn’t just the three of us in here.
CHAPTER 17
“HAIL, HAIL, THE GANG’S ALL HERE.” Well, the gang I was wondering about, at any rate.
“Keep it down, Missus Executive Chief,” Buchanan said quietly. He was big and broad and always reminded me of Jeff, but with blue eyes and straight brown hair. It was nice that my work put me around great looking people all the time—it was one of the few perks that sort of balanced the Crap Is Always Getting Weird thing a bit.
“Why?” Tim asked, but softly. “And why are you guys hiding in a maintenance closet with Ard Ri Al?”
Algar was indeed here, Royal Hatbox O’ Least Weasels in his lap. The rest of Team Tough Guys was here as well, including their not totally human members, our friends the androids Col. John Butler and Cameron Maurer. Siler managed to hug Lizzie, which was kind of amazing since, even though the room was pretty big all things considered, it was small with the nine of us and the Hatbox in it.
Wruck, who was in the form he normally wore—that of a reasonably attractive man, built more like Chuckie than Jeff, meaning tall, wiry, and muscular—shrugged. “We needed to find a safe place.”
“Safe from what? Getting dirty?”
Buchanan rolled his eyes. “No, Missus Executive Chief. Safe from the AI. This is one of the few places the AI doesn’t monitor.”
“Can’t monitor,” Siler said. “For whatever reason, Drax left some of the maintenance rooms unattached to the master computer.”
“Why would he do that?” Tim asked.
“For cases like this,” was all I could come up with. But Team Tough Guys all nodded, so I scored that one for the win column, because that column was pretty darned bare.
“We can’t risk connecting into the system,” Butler said.
“We’re concerned that the AI could wipe us or control us,” Maurer added. “Though we both wish we were more help right now.”
“Trust me, I’m sure all of you are going to be a lot of help down the road, or the space, or however we refer to it out here. How did you all catch up to the Ard Ri?” This was the real question, as far as I was concerned.
“One of the least weasels got out,” Algar said, looking at me with total innocence. He did it better than Charlie, but he was a bajillion years old or something. That he was lying only slightly better than a toddler was interesting in that “why me?” sort of way. “And the gentlemen helped me search for it. We found it here, just as the ship went insane.”
“Mother’s not insane, at least as far as we can tell.”
“Mother?” Buchanan asked. “Your mother is on board?” He sounded hopeful. Yeah, I’d have kind of liked to have Mom on this journey with us, too.
Hopes dashing time. “No, Mom is at the White House, handling things. The AI is named Mother.”
“Drax named his AI Mother?” Siler sounded like he thought Drax needed psychiatric help.
“Nope, that was me. She likes it, as near as I can tell.” We brought them up to speed on what we’d just gone through. “So, we actually need to get to the room Chuckie, James, and the others are in, because they’re probably freaking out about now, and that’s where we told Jeff we were going.”
“Don’t let her know we’re here,” Siler said. “The AI. Or any of the others for that matter.”
“Why did you bring me along for this and not Tito or Jeff?” Tim asked.
“Because you’re a human and yo
u can lie,” Buchanan replied. “Mister Executive Chief can’t lie to save anyone’s life, and if Tito’s on board then he’s going to be too busy being the ship’s doctor. We can’t have anyone knowing we’re here.”
“Someone’s going to ask about the Ard Ri.” Vance, for starters.
Algar shrugged. “Tell them that, as far as you know, I got off.”
“Why? I mean it, why? Why are all of you acting like this closet is your only hope for safety? Is Mother going to space you or something? And if she wants to do that, again, why?”
“Missus Executive Chief, the moment that AI took over, that put us in hostile territory and in a hostage situation.”
“I don’t think it did. How did Lizzie know to come here?”
“I found her while she and Christopher were looking for the other kids,” Siler said. “He didn’t see me, or hear me, since I used palm code.” Meaning he’d tapped Lizzie’s palm in Morse or some Cool Assassins’ Code, and that’s why she’d known where to go and who to get.
“How would you know that Tim and I were awake?”
“Heard you over the com, but beyond that, had no idea if you two were awake or not,” Siler said. “I’d checked the ship so I saw two rooms with people sleeping, but didn’t stop to count heads. I just wanted the two leaders who are the most willing to think outside the box and break the rules. That’s you and Crawford. Reader would be next, but honestly, in this situation, he’s going to flip into a more official line of thinking because of his training. Same with Reynolds. You two, on the other hand, never actually go for official.”
“I think I’m flattered?” Tim said. “Not sure, of course.”
“It’s totes a compliment,” Lizzie said reassuringly.
Looked directly at Algar. “Why is this necessary?”
He blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes, they were the usual bright, unnatural-for-humanity green I was used to. “As a failsafe. Just in case.”
“In case someone’s lying to Mother, Charlie, and everyone else about what’s really going on?”
“Yes. And for other failsafe reasons.” He blinked slowly again, and now his eyes were a human green again.