“That is just the beginning, and we need people that are really committed to making this their life’s work,” Bethany Anne told the girl, who was starting to realize that Bethany Anne was opening her future up to opportunities she had never dreamed existed.
“Thank you,” she answered, wiping a tear she didn’t want her parents to notice. “I would be honored for the opportunity to find out if this is something that isn’t just a passion, but a calling.”
The ex-POTUS looked over at his wife and dearly wanted to reach over to push up her jaw so her mouth would close.
Bethany Anne handed the tablet to their daughter. “You can contact ADAM most anytime, but this is yours, and it looks like your sister knows how they work if you have questions about it.”
She smiled, accepted the tablet and found the earbud. She thanked Bethany Anne and then made her own way over to the cart.
Bethany Anne turned to the parents. “And you,” she looked at the Ex-President, “I give you a happy life because you now have a happy wife and daughters.”
His wife leaned into him and looked up into his face. “I’m sorry,” she said. He kissed her forehead.
“Happy wife, happy life,” he said. “That, and basketball.”
“Well,” John interrupted, “we have an all-human league running basketball games every second Thursday if you’re interested?”
“All human?” the ex-President asked, his brows furrowing before realizing. “Oh, of course. Not fair to the humans if the players are enhanced.”
John shrugged. “Not really.”
“Why did you do this?” His wife turned to Bethany Anne and asked, pointing to the girls. “This was well planned out. You had to have some insight into what was going on.” She turned back to her husband, and this time, her eyes were calculating. “Are you complaining about your home life behind my back?”
Her look promised substantial pain would be possible, no probable, if he had said something outside their four walls.
He silently praised the Gods above (or were they sideways when in space he wondered) when Bethany Anne interrupted his spouse’s weapons release countdown.
“Oh God, no!” Bethany Anne laughed, removing the dual target acquisition devices from looking at him as his wife turned back to the Queen. “No, it’s easy enough to figure out. Remember,” Bethany Anne pointed around. “Meredith sees all, hears all. I don’t use her to pry, but I listened to a couple of stories through backchannels. The scientists were commenting in one about your younger daughter and her love of science, and there were a couple of people who passed on a story about a particular teenager’s tantrum outside of one of the cafeterias a few days ago.”
“Oh, God,” his wife’s head fell forward, her hands on her face. “That episode got out?” she mumbled behind her hands.
Bethany Anne smiled in sympathy. “Only a little, but since I was trying to see what I could gift you, Meredith pulled it up for me. ADAM is the one who came up with the idea to support her love of fashion.”
“The computer?” she asked, confusion evident on her face as she looked up.
“No, an A.I.,” Bethany Anne replied. “He’s sentient, and fashion, I’m very happy and yet kind of conflicted to say, proves it.”
This time, he interrupted. “How does fashion prove sentience?”
Bethany Anne looked up as she thought a moment, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. “One has to understand beauty, true beauty, to be considered sentient. The beauty of a sunrise, the joy it brings to you. ADAM has been talking shoes with me, and recently, he has started forming his own opinions on my shoes as I get dressed. I asked him which algorithms he was using to confirm shoe choice, and he went silent for about three hours.”
Bethany Anne turned to look where the couple’s older daughter was talking to her tablet. “When he came back, it became clear he had come to the conclusion he was thinking for himself.”
She turned back. “ADAM said that there was no algorithm in place because no matter what he tried to test, it all pointed out that his suggestions weren’t the most logical solution.”
She paused a moment, a look of contemplation on her face. “And where there is no logic, one is left with personal opinion.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Ranger’s Section and Quarters
The EI’s voice sounded in her quarters. “Tabitha, you’ve been contacted by Theodore Jameson from the New York City Police Department.”
“Huh, which one should I keep?” Tabitha said aloud to herself, lifting a shirt in one hand, and a hoodie in the other, trying to decide which one she wanted to wear for the official steal-the-Coke-recipe-for-the-Queen operation.
She wasn’t sure how Barnabas was justifying this action as a Queen’s Ranger, a law-abiding occupation, stealing a secret Coke recipe. But what the hell. They were taking the recipe out of the solar system, so she didn’t expect it to cut into Coke’s profits any.
Finally, her mind caught up with Meredith’s interruption, and she looked towards her video monitor. “Hey!”
“Yes?” the EI replied.
“Who are you talking about again?”
“Detective Theodore Jameson.”
“What does he want with me?”
“ADAM asked me to let you know he has sent messages out on the internet using your old New York City vigilante name.”
“How do we know it’s Ted?” she asked as she stripped out of her shirt and slid on both the shirt she had been holding and the hoodie over it.
“ADAM traced the routing back to his machine, and found a TQB_read_me.txt file on his computer.”
“Pretty damned sneaky of him,” Tabitha murmured as she grabbed her hair and pulled it out.
No earrings.
“ADAM was impressed.”
“Okay, what does he want?” Tabitha asked as she grabbed a pair of holsters.
“The file says that he’s working to expose a group of politically important people who he claims are behind efforts of the NYPD department to cook certain computer data. The data is showing that New York City is considerably higher in crime than what’s being reported at this time.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” she agreed. She thought about it. She wasn’t truly needed on any operation with the boss, and she would like one last time to check out New York, check out the pizza, and maybe check out a closer view of Ted…
“I need to request a Pod from the Sphaea to New York City, Barnabas needs to know, plus would you have someone from Jean’s group bring me my armor, packed?” she asked as she started stripping out of her clothes again.
It seemed tonight, she was going dressed in black.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
“Dio and Matrix, get your little furry butts back here!” Yelena hissed, plenty loud enough for the two puppies to stop running ahead and sit down, waiting for everyone to catch up.
Yelena thought she was going to be run ragged chasing five puppies all over the ship. While Matrix was already connected to TOM, he had decided to come along with his siblings for the major events. Bellatrix and Ashur were with Yelena, but they hung back so as not to interfere with the young dogs and their decisions.
First, they had decided to hit up the major cafeteria on the zero level. On ships, everyone learned, one needed a way to figure out where you were, and hopefully, you could figure out where you needed to go.
The Meredith Reynolds was no different.
The main deck was the equator and carried a designation of “Deck 1.” Each level below added to that number so that the next one down was Deck 2. Any levels overhead carried a designation of a two digit number. So, if you wanted to go up to the second level higher, you went to the 02 Deck.
After that? It got convoluted if you didn’t know your way around.
“OH MY GOD, PUPPIES!” yelled a middle-aged woman when Yelena entered the cafeteria.
Both Bellatrix and Ashur stayed outside of the room. Watching as the pu
ppies’ tails wagged when they entered the large room to the oohs and aahs of those inside.
It took ten minutes for the puppies to agree there was no one in the cafeteria for them. Then, another ten minutes trying to figure out how to get out without offending anyone who had wanted to play with the young dogs.
“Who are the parents?” A gray haired man asked as he ruffled Devi’s hair.
“Bellatrix and Ashur,” Yelena responded.
“Oh, we’re playing with Ashur’s little pups?” he said, laughing as Devi tried to nip his hand.
Ashur just had to prance out in the hall, his head held high. “See, told you I’m famous!” he chuffed.
“You’re a large white German Shepherd, who stands next to the Queen all the time, how could you NOT be famous?” Bellatrix replied.
Ashur stopped and looked back at her, “I do more than stand,” he argued. “Have I told you how I raced into a vicious battle when I met Bethany Anne?”
“Only, I think, about twenty-seven times.”
“Well, I happen to enjoy the recognition.”
“I couldn’t tell…” she stopped mid speech, turning her head when she heard Yelena mention her name.
“Yes.” Yelena was discussing the great terrorist response from Team BMW and Gabrielle. “Bellatrix is the one in the video mooning the terrorists outside the base.” There were a lot of catcalls, with her name now called out.
Bellatrix pranced over to the door. “Hey! They know who I am!” she called back to her mate, her tail wagging.
“Sure,” Ashur came up beside her. “Show a little tail, get famous.”
She nipped at his ear. “Oh shut up, you’re just jealous cause this bitch has got back.”
Ashur turned to look at her, his face contorted. “What does that even mean?”
“Oh my God,” Bellatrix started into the cafeteria, ignoring Ashur’s question. “My fans are calling!”
“She,” Ashur grumbled as he followed her into the cafeteria, “is going to be insufferable.”
—
Five minutes later, seven dogs and Yelena stepped out of the cafeteria and took the long way around to go out to the plants and ecologies space.
The puppies wanted to go play under the light of the Arti-sun.
While the dogs were out having fun in the cornfield, Yelena pulled out her tablet and studied the different yeasts and how they affected brewing beer.
Turning her head, she heard the click-click-click of a Yollin stepping closer. She tabbed the page she was reading and lifted her head in time to see Kael-ven come into view on a little path between stalks of corn. He stared at Yelena who looked back at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his arm gesticulating in a fashion that she assumed referred to the general area. “I didn’t realize anyone else would be out here. I followed the interesting noises to see what was going on.”
“Oh, it’s just the puppies.” She looked around at the plants. “With Ashur and Bellatrix in there somewhere. Probably hiding from the puppies, if I had to guess.” Yelena turned back to the Yollin. “You’re Kael-ven, right?”
The half-centaur-looking alien nodded as he walked towards her. His nailed feet and heavy weight easily drove his toes into the two to three inches of sand covering the rock in this area. “Meredith informs me you are Yelena?”
“Meredith?” she moved her head, to try and get a better look at his ears, “The EI?”
“Yes,” he cocked his head sideways. “What are you looking for?”
“Ah,” she pointed to his neck. “I was trying to see if you had one of the wireless connections to speak with the ship.”
Kael-ven nodded. “Yes, I’ve recently been updated to have communications safely put next to my ear. May I approach you to show you?”
She shrugged. “Sure?” Kael-ven stepped closer to her. He was easily two and a half feet taller than Yelena.
Kael-ven turned his head sideways and pointed to a spot next to his ear. “Here is where it sits, right under my skin.”
“Did it hurt?” she asked when she saw sutures.
He chuckled. “No. By the time this was done, the medical team had enough information on our physiology to produce numbing drugs. I didn’t feel a thing.”
“So, the numbing drugs work?” she asked, curious how they had figured out an alien’s physiology.
It took a moment for Kael-ven to respond. “Well, to be honest, I was there for so many other reasons, a small cut in my neck wasn’t even a distraction.”
“What were you there for?”
Kael-ven’s mandibles opened wide, then closed as he mimicked a human shrug. “It’s more embarrassing than important. I was there for a broken arm, cracked skull, three dents in my armor plating, several additional cuts deep enough to need sutures and overall I was in a fair amount of pain, so what was a little more?”
“What happened to you?”
“The Queen was teaching me advanced self defense through the application of pain, 101,” he admitted.
“Bethany Anne?” she asked, not sure how the Queen was involved quite yet. “What? Did she have someone beat you up?”
“Beat me up?” Kael-ven asked.
‘Yeah, uh,” she pointed up and down his body, “you know, did she have someone break your arm and crack your skull?”
He drew back, confusion lacing his voice. “Why would she do that?”
Yelena paused trying to figure out the story. “Kael-ven, I’m completely lost. You said she was trying to teach you a lesson using pain, right?”
“Not trying, succeeding,” the alien said. “When she decides she wants to explain that pain is an excellent teacher, she does it very well.”
“Wait, SHE did that to you?” Yelena’s eyes opened wider.
“You didn’t know the Queen is a fighter?”
“Well, sure.” Yelena thought back to the episode on Earth, saving her brother, “But you aren’t human.”
“Hmmm,” Kael-ven picked at a piece of dry skin, pulling it off as he walked towards the row of cornstalks and tossing it on the ground next to a plant before he walked back over to Yelena.
“I don’t think Bethany Anne is concerned if I’m human or not. She just treats me as another one of her people she needs to school.”
“Wow, that’s… kinda badass!” Yelena smiled. “I knew she could take out humans, but an alien?”
Their conversation was interrupted when two puppies came racing out between the stalks of corn. A completely white female was chasing a black male with white feet. The playing dogs scampered between Kael-ven’s feet and slammed into the row of corn on the other side, their rustling and yipping making it sound like they couldn’t be more than twenty feet away. The tops of the stalks, however, were too high for Yelena to confirm. Moments later, there was a loud ‘YIP!’ The two adults saw Matrix running out of the cornstalks back the other way, quickly disappearing on the other side.
The second puppy came out with her head held high, tail wagging proudly.
Her little bark was funny to the two adults, and Kael-ven spoke to her, “You should be proud. Even in play, vanquishing an enemy is something that you strive to accomplish.”
The little puppy stopped and looked way up to see the Yollin staring down at her. She yipped again.
“Kael-ven, and you are?” he replied.
She yipped twice.
“Nice to meet you, Snow.” Kael-ven stood still as the female puppy came closer to him, smelling his foot and his leg before standing on her back legs, her front paws almost reaching his knees.
Kael-ven looked over to Yelena who answered his unspoken question. “She wants you to pick her up.”
Kael-ven looked down at the puppy again. He lowered himself down, rather like a horse, Yelena thought, making sure he didn’t squish the puppy.
Snow backed up as she watched this giant coming down from the sky. Soon, tail wagging quickly, she came back over to Kael-ven and tried, unsuccessfully, to jump on his back. “Is t
his normal?” he asked Yelena. “And does she want me to pick her up still?”
The Kurtherian Gambit Omnibus 05 - The Fans Version: My Ride is a Bitch - Don't Cross This Line - Never Submit Page 64