Helena waved her judgment away. “A woman's needs don't disappear with the advent of motherhood, my dear.” She rolled her eyes at the expression Giselle failed to suppress. “Now, where are Yuane and I staying?” She flounced off down the walkway, pausing at the exit to look back at Giselle and a nonplussed Yuane. “Well, come on! We haven’t got all day, and I want to see my grandchildren.”
Yuane trotted after her mother like a good little trophy husband.
Giselle took a deep breath and hurried to catch Helena before she caused a catastrophe. She got ahead of her mother in the corridor, but only because Helena didn’t know which direction to take.
Helena stood at the interactive station map, where one of the many facets of CEREBRO was running her through the most-visited parts of the station. “Just how big is this place?” she asked Giselle incredulously.
CEREBRO had the answer. “The QBBS Helena is large enough to contain over four hundred thousand occupants, although the actual number is lower than that since we have provided environments for a number of species that require something other than the standard oxygen-nitrogen-based atmosphere to survive.”
“I think it looks like a hand holding an axe,” Yuane offered.
Helena ignored her husband, turning to Giselle with her hands clasped to her chest. “Did you really name the station after me?”
Giselle nodded and smiled. “Of course. I wanted it to feel like home.”
They were interrupted by a shipwide announcement from one of CEREBRO’s more calming and authoritative voices. “Calling all hands of the fleet. This is not a drill. Report to the shipyard. I repeat. All hands of the fleet. Report to the shipyard. This is not a drill.”
Giselle’s head snapped toward the speaker. “Oh, fuck.”
“Giselle!” Helena exclaimed. “Is there any need for that kind of language?”
Giselle winced at her slip. This place was rubbing off on her. “That was the call to war we’ve been waiting for. I won’t get a chance to say goodbye to Bart before he leaves.”
Helena flapped her hands at her daughter. “Then why are you still here? Go say goodbye to your husband.”
Giselle was torn. “I can't just leave you and um…”
“Yuane, dear.” Her mother supplied.
“I can't just leave you and Yuane here alone. You just got here. What sort of daughter does that to her mother?”
Yuane turned at the sound of his name. “Huh?”
Helena shooed her again. “Go! We can find our way with the help of the EI.”
Giselle waved over her shoulder as she sprinted toward the exit. “Thank you, Mother!”
Immersive Recreation and Training Scenario: Meteor Madness
Bethany Anne dropped the link, and Michael touched his comm button to speak to the Alexis, Gabriel, and K’aia. “Bring it in, children. It’s time to leave.”
The scenario dissolved, leaving the four of them standing in the equipment room. They had the privacy settings on, so there was nobody else around.
“But I thought I couldn’t leave until Eve was done putting the nano-things into my body?” K’aia asked.
Michael nodded. “That is still the case. You are being taken in the Vid-doc to the ship we will be traveling on.”
“What about us?” Alexis looked at Michael with concern. “Can we stay in here with K'aia?”
“K'aia will join us once we're aboard the Izanami,” Michael told her. “There will be time for play. We had Vid-docs installed aboard the ship for your training.”
Gabriel turned to K’aia. “Will you be okay on your own?”
K’aia chuckled at the concern her young human companions showed. “I’ll be fine. I saw a Library in the scenario list, I’ve wanted to know what goes on in those places for a while now.” She made hand gestures until she got the one that brought up the menu, and her avatar winked out.
Michael nodded, satisfied that the young Yollin was being truthful. “Eve, begin the rejuvenation cycle, please.”
Eve was in the process of preparing K’aia’s Pod for transport when Michael’s Vid-doc opened.
She looked up from her task when Michael emerged. “You have one hour and fifteen minutes until Bethany Anne leaves, and you will need every minute of it.” She pointed out into the corridor. “There is a roamer waiting in the charging alcove outside to take you over to the shipyard.”
“Thank you, Eve.” He helped Alexis and Gabriel get their docs open and the three of them left the Vid-doc room in search of the roamer.
The corridor leading out of the training and rec level was beyond busy. The whole level was emptying out in obedience of CEREBRO’s looped announcement from Bethany Anne.
Gabriel made a left outside the Vid-doc room. “The roamers are over here, Dad.”
Michael paused by their roamer when they reached it, his hand on the door. “The ride will give us the opportunity to discuss a few things.”
Alexis and Gabriel exchanged a glance.
“What things?” Alexis asked.
Michael opened the door and climbed into the roamer. “We can start with your duties aboard the ship.”
The twins slumped into the roamer seats with identical expressions of consternation. “Chores?” they chorused.
Michael gave a shrug, sitting back with his hands laced behind his head as the roamer reversed out of the charging alcove. “You can choose to see it that way if you want to.”
His eyes flashed, the old Michael still there. “I suggest you apply the concept of duty instead.”
QT2 System, QBBS Helena, Concourse
The concourse was loud with a hundred thousand mingled voices.
The station employees, nonmilitary personnel, the families of Bethany Anne's brave troops. The young and the old gathered beyond the enormous curtain in the center of the concourse to wait for word from their Queen.
Bethany Anne stood behind the curtain, staring at the names carved into the rock and counting down until the moments the roamer she was tracking arrived with Michael, Alexis, and Gabriel.
She looked to her left, registering a twitch of the curtain in her peripheral vision. “Tell me my fleet is ready, Admiral.”
Admiral Thomas nodded. “Your fleet is ready, my Queen.”
Bethany Anne placed a hand on the smooth stone of the monolith. “It fucking kills me that there will be more names on this memorial before this is over.”
“Names of heroes who sacrificed themselves to enable others to live without fear,” Michael stepped through the curtain as he spoke. I believe you owe a forfeit for that f-bomb.
Bethany Anne laughed in Michael's mind. I’m not paying a forfeit for that, you sneaky mother—
We can hear you, Mom. Gabriel snickered as he pushed through the heavy drapes.
“Mom, that’s definitely a forfeit,” Alexis agreed, popping through the curtain behind her brother.
Admiral Thomas looked at the four of them in bemusement. “What’s the forfeit for?”
Bethany Anne covered her face with a hand. “Nothing.”
Alexis snorted. “If we hear Mom cursing, she has to do a forfeit.”
Gabriel nodded. “We found out about it when we were eleven, while we were in the game world.”
Bethany Anne walked over to the thin gap left in the curtain by the twins. “Yes, and haven't you both just gotten the biggest kick out of trying to catch me ever since?” She opened the gap a smidge with her finger and peered out.
Michael chuckled along with the twins. “Something in my bones tells me you’re rolling your eyes at us right now, my love.”
“So hard,” Bethany Anne confirmed. She removed her finger and turned to Gabriel and Alexis. “I have a few words to say to everyone, and then we’re leaving. Your Aunt Jean wants to see you both in the armory aboard the Izanami. Make it quick, so Aunt Jean has time to get off the ship. And if you hurry, you can be there when K’aia gets out of the Vid-doc.”
Michael remained by Bethany Anne's side while A
lexis and Gabriel ran off to find Jean. You have something prepared?
Bethany Anne's eyebrow twitched. I only decided to move the unveiling forward an hour ago. She ducked through the curtain and walked out onto the temporary stage. Something will come to me.
The crowd noise doubled when she appeared.
Long before he loved her, Michael had recognized that Bethany Anne would give her life before she gave up on a call to Justice.
Her Justice.
The Justice where everyone got exactly what they deserved, honor be damned. Then again, Bethany Anne had always been more than happy to bring a whole lot of “oh, fuck” down on anyone who thought she was going to allow things to go any other way than what she decreed.
Equally, she stood before these people—her people—to offer comfort and hope despite the agony Michael knew damn well she was feeling about ADAM.
I can feel you admiring my ass. Bethany Anne held up her hands to quiet the crowd.
Michael scanned the concourse as a matter of habit, locating Eric, Scott, and Darryl by the energy they gave off. Then you must have been channeling Tabitha, because I was “admiring” your strength as a leader. He nodded when he spied John looking down from the security booth above.
Suck-up.
Michael’s deep chuckle reverberated through her mind.
Bethany Anne walked over to the lectern and placed her hands flat on either side of the microphone. She leaned in to look out over the sea of color representing most of the peoples she had gathered under her aegis over the years. “Thank you all for being here to honor our fallen. I appreciate that you came at such short notice.”
Her voice carried to the farthest corners of the concourse without any need for the mic, the contrast between her soft tone and the weight of the words reaching everyone there. “This ceremony was scheduled for a few days from now, but as you’ve probably noticed, about half the people on this station are about to depart. Before that happened, I wanted to remind everyone we're leaving behind why we’re doing this.”
She waved a hand and the curtain dropped, revealing the shining monolith. “Without any theatrics, because we will celebrate life once the dead have been avenged, I give you the Robinson Memorial. For Tessa and Calvin, and for every cherished life lost in this war so far.”
Bethany Anne paused a beat to let her words sink in, then swept a hand back to indicate the two long columns of gold script on the black rock. “So far. Make no mistake, these names are not the last we will carve on this wall. Again and again, the Ooken have brought us pain. We’ve given it back in equal measure, but it has cost us dearly.”
Bethany Anne stepped out from behind the lectern, spreading her hands wide in front of her. “The losses have hurt us, but they have not broken us. Thanks to the hard work and support of everyone aboard this station this last few months—and believe me when I tell you I know exactly how hard it’s been—we are ready to repay the Ooken tenfold for that pain.”
Bethany Anne heard the murmurs of comfort and felt the shared emotion and pain in the air. She lifted her chin and let the tears fall for all to see, and they wept with her. The bond between her and her people would never falter, never fail. Not when they knew she would shed tears for any one of them. That she would fight until the end of her days if it meant they were safe from harm.
She moved to grasp one side of the lectern as the connection she felt with the sea of faces took her with it for a moment.
Should I dial your emotion down so you can concentrate? TOM inquired carefully.
No, she told him. I want to feel every bit of this. She composed herself and continued. Her eyes began to glow, her hair rising around her as her feet left the stage, walking into the air. “This war, these deaths—it’s all on me. I thought I had made it clear to the whole damn universe what happens when you mess with what’s mine, but I will address my failure to communicate.”
The tension around the concourse ratcheted as Bethany Anne's eyes flashed her incandescent fury. Hair, hackles, nerve pulses, and all sorts of other biological reactions went up as the rage of the Queen was revealed to them.
“The Ooken came here for a fight and we sent their sorry asses home to lick their wounds.” Bethany Anne laughed without a single hint of empathy. “When we turn up on their doorstep looking to resolve our grudge, they’re going to be even fucking sorrier.” She looked around. “Prepare for battle, because we only have one response to the murder of our own…”
Bethany Anne rose higher, flashing her red eyes at them as her hands curled into fists by her sides. She uttered two final words before vanishing.
“Total annihilation.”
Chapter Twelve
QT2 System, QBS Izanami, Rec Room
Alexis paced in the space between the Vid-docs. “How long, Izanami? Did it go as planned?”
“I’m about to put K’aia into the rejuvenation cycle,” Izanami replied. The AI’s avatar vanished in a spray of pixels, reappearing on the other side of the Vid-doc in almost the same instant. “And yes, the process was successful.”
Gabriel looked up from his half-drawn sketch of Izanami, considering the difference between Izanami and most of the AIs he knew.
The aura Izanami projected sparkled and glitched. The apparent malfunctions highlighted her inhumanity, which Gabriel thought was a perfect juxtaposition to the hidden emotion the AI's deliberately poised body spoke to.
He touched his stylus to the screen, making gentle, sweeping lines to recreate the way her hair floated around her. “Izanami, why do you do that?”
Izanami phased in and out a few times. “That is a broad question, Gabriel. Can you clarify what you wish to understand?”
“Well, you are kind of human in appearance, but you also have an unreal quality. It’s the way you move.” He paused. “No, that’s not quite right. It’s more in the ways that you don’t move.”
Alexis nodded, pausing in her pacing to look at the avatar. “Yes, exactly! I think it’s like someone drew you in a comic. You move from frame to frame without any actions to join them together.”
Izanami tilted her ghostly-pale face to smile at Alexis and Gabriel. “What is movement but the expression of emotion and intent? Each step, each touch, each glance is revealing. I can choose whether or not to emote, unlike most biological life forms,” the AI explained. “When I do move, it has meaning.”
Izanami was lit by a soft golden glow, the folds of her dark kimono billowing as the invisible wind snatched at her long white hair, whipping it around her. Her eyes were filled with galaxies as she spread her arms wide and rose a few more inches off the floor. “Besides, am I not glorious?”
The twins nodded, awestruck as the stars spilled from Izanami’s hair and eyes and her avatar burst into a million shining lights.
“Even prettier than Aunt Eve,” Alexis agreed in a whisper. “But don’t tell her I said that.”
Izanami’s presence grew, and her voice came from the speakers for a moment while her freeform avatar swirled around the room. “I am not restricted to one form, nor am I bound by needing to express myself physically. I admit that this display is mostly for your entertainment.”
Alexis gazed at the starbursts dancing in complex patterns around her, her smile growing by the second. “So why have an avatar at all?”
Izanami returned her avatar to its previous serene form and directed her smile at Alexis. “I choose to retain my nature while still appearing in a form that is conducive to communicating with organics.”
The Vid-doc lit up and Izanami looked down. “K’aia has completed the rejuvenation cycle. Please step back, Alexis. She may be disoriented when she emerges due to the changes in her physique.”
Gabriel tilted his head. “I didn’t think she was having stage three enhancement?”
“She did not,” Izanami clarified. “However, the repairs during stages one and two were significant. K’aia is now in peak condition for a female Yollin of her age, which she was limited from reaching
by poor nutrition and years of hard labor.”
The Vid-doc opened and K'aia stretched, blinking slowly. “Did it work… Oh. Oh!”
Alexis was done giving her new friend space. She rushed to K’aia’s Vid-doc and climbed the side to get a closer look. “What is it? Are you in pain?” she asked, eyes darting up and down the space where K’aia lay.
K’aia rolled one shoulder, then the other. Then she stood up inside the Vid-doc. “The opposite.”
Gabriel grinned. “That’s awesome. Alexis, get down from there so K’aia can get out.”
Alexis rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah.”
She hopped down and gave K’aia room to move and test her repaired body.
K’aia looked around in amazement as she slowly put her weight on the rear left ankle she’d injured in a rockfall years past. Her mandibles tapped in surprise. “I’m pain-free!” She looked at the humans. “How long will this last?”
Alexis chuckled. “Forever, or near enough that it doesn’t matter.”
K’aia’s mandibles dropped open. “That’s…dangerous technology. What if someone tries to take it?”
Gabriel’s mouth turned up at the corner. “I don’t see that being a worry,” he assured her. “Mom has some experience dealing with those types of situations.”
Alexis snickered. “We need to get going. She wants to see us all on the bridge.”
K’aia nodded to Izanami and followed Gabriel and Alexis out of the rec room. She looked around as she walked. “Where are we? This doesn’t look like the Helena.”
Alexis turned to answer. “We’re aboard the Izanami.”
K’aia nodded. “Another location. Okay. And that was the ship EI in there?”
“AI,” Gabriel amended. “Izanami has free will, to a point.”
“The ship and the AI have the same name? Why?” K’aia wanted to test her body’s limits but resisted the urge to run the length of the corridor because she felt so full of energy. “I’ve met a few artificial intelligences—”
“Digital life forms,” Gabriel supplied. “AIs are people, too.”
The Kurtherian Endgame Boxed Set Page 84