by J. S. Morin
“Chow time,” Ned announced.
Kaylee’s stomach growled. Alan stirred and straightened in his seat. The theater kept a few snacks on hand. Kaylee could have gone for one of the granola bars just then.
Instead, school children filed into the audience, coming down the steps at the sides of the stage. Each bore a tray with a freshly cooked meal. The smells of the meats were tantalizing. None of the young waitstaff could have been over the age of ten.
“Get moving,” Ned ordered, spurring the youthful workforce to quicken their pace. “No talking. Keep it moving. Just drop off a tray and get outta here.”
Kaylee smiled a silent thanks for hers, which turned out to contain a shaved steak sandwich with cheese, mushrooms, and onions. It was already cut in half, and there was a plastic cup of fruit juice set into a holder at the side of the tray. No utensils. No food that required them. Someone on the outside was thinking, at least.
But as she chewed the first bite, Kaylee realized what this meant. The Chain Breakers weren’t planning on letting them go anytime soon. When the young tray-bearers came back minutes later, they were carrying plain white blankets for each hostage, still warm from the cloth-o-matic.
Alan was stuffing his face with his sandwich when Kaylee caught his eye. He reached across the seat between them. Kaylee squeezed his hand.
There was no telling what Ned had in mind, but they were bargaining chips. That much he’d made clear. What sort of bargain he was looking for, Kaylee had only grim guesses, none of them appealing. Worse, she wondered what the Chain Breakers would do to her, Alan, and the rest of the hostages if Ned didn’t get what he was looking for.
Chapter Thirty
Hours had passed uncounted. The Chain Breakers had left no computers of any sort for the hostages. The theater had no windows and no clocks. The roughest estimate Kaylee could cobble together was based on how often she needed one of her captors to escort her to the washroom.
She hadn’t worked it out to an exact science, but Ned seemed to have ordered his men to allow them one visit apiece every six hours whether they used it or not. But it was only guesswork based on estimates piled upon assumptions founded on yet more estimates.
At least they had relented and allowed the captives to mill around. So long as they kept to the front center section of seating, Kaylee and the others were free to roam.
Down the rows, bare feet slapped on concrete. Kaylee’s, Martha’s, Fatima’s, Casey’s… they all made the same public-shower sound pacing the aisles.
Kaylee kept her hands off her collar. Every time they let her use the washroom, they hurried her in and out. But every time, she saw the device reflected in the mirror. The scientist in her demanded she study it, understand it, take control of it. However, with one good eye and scant seconds to wash up after using the toilet, she couldn’t begin to unravel the mysteries of the homemade device threatening her life.
“It would be just like me to figure this out and still blow my damn head off,” Kaylee muttered.
Alan shushed her. She’d walked too close, and he’d overheard.
“Don’t you even start,” she snapped in a harsh whisper. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if not for your amateur heroics.”
Glaring plasma torches up from his seat, he spat back, “I just wanted to help Mars! You’re the one who wanted to come live here in the first place.”
“You two,” Ned yelled from the stage. “Shut up!”
“Hey,” Kaylee shot back, no longer lowering her voice now that they’d been caught. “It wasn’t my idea to play Donnie Brasco like you were a theater student at rehearsal.”
“Lower your voice,” Alan warned.
Kaylee was having none of it. “Don’t hide behind these stupid bombs around our necks. If they wanted to blow us to kibble, they’d have done it by now.”
“I said knock it off,” Ned ordered. Two of his goons were coming.
Alan scooted down in his seat and put his hands up. His eyes pleaded for Kaylee to quiet down.
“This is not the last word on this subject,” Kaylee warned as two men lifted her and dragged her down the row. “Put me down. Calvin, you are so fired when this is over.”
“Aw, just blow this one collar,” Calvin whined to Ned up on stage.
“Oh, just knock a few teeth out,” Ned suggested as an alternative.
Dulled to the persistent threat of an exploding collar that had yet to go off, Kaylee felt a renewed pang of terror. She’d still be useful as a hostage so long as she was breathing, and there was a long way to go between healthy and dead.
It was a spectrum she didn’t relish exploring.
Kicking out with her bare feet, she tried to gain leverage to free herself from the thick-armed captors who held her aloft. Before any of her efforts bore fruit, a fist full of knuckles caught her in the nose and mouth.
Kaylee blacked out.
Chapter Thirty-One
The English countryside shone brilliant green late May. Grassy hillsides and leafy forests gave way to the lovingly curated modernity of Oxford School. Red brick facades concealed the most advanced educational facility in the solar system. Two thousand years past, Oxford had educated the academic and political elites of its day. Now, pre-pubescent children with intellects far beyond those ancient scholars filled those dormitories. The parents of two Oxford students were speeding toward the school on an errand neither of them relished.
Lucy Chase fidgeted in the passenger seat of the skyro as Dr. Toby piloted them in for a landing. “What should we tell them?” she asked.
Dr. Toby shrugged, hands steady on the controls with robotic precision at odds with the all-too-human appearance of his chassis. “The truth? Would that be out of line? They’re ten and eight. What’s the cutoff for telling an unemancipated kid the unvarnished truth?”
“But what good’s worrying going to do them?” Lucy asked. “I mean, what if we came up with a plausible white lie? Wouldn’t that be kinder?”
“Like what? It’s not like they don’t have Solarwide access. Unless the teachers blocked coverage, they’re bound to have heard something by now.”
“You can’t imagine…”
“What? That Nora109 would let on that evil isn’t consigned to the history books? That humans are a danger to one another?”
“That their parents might be killed by a madman,” Lucy said. “There’s no educational value to that. Quite the contrary. They’ve got their whole futures ahead of them, even if it comes to the worst. What’s the use of taking their concentration from their studies?”
“Do you want me to turn this skyro around and head home? I can head home if that’s what you’d rather.” The vessel banked to the west, the force of the turn pushing Lucy down into the cushion of her seat.
“I didn’t say that!” Lucy replied. “What if they haven’t told them anything yet?”
“We could call and ask,” Dr. Toby suggested for at least the tenth time.
“NO!” Lucy exclaimed. “That would be the worst way for the poor dears to find out that their parents are hostages. And we can’t check with the school to know; if it wasn’t a faculty decision, they could have found out from practically anyone.”
“You’re over-thinking this,” Dr. Toby said calmly. It was easy for him to say. He had literal coolant for blood. He didn’t have to deal with fear for the fragile little psyches of their grandchildren. He could look at everything rationally if he chose. “Let’s just show up and hug them.”
Lucy snorted her opinion of that plan. Child psychology was hardly invented back in the Human Era. The barbarism of his own upbringing prior to his brain scan was the stuff of nightmares. That he’d turned into a decent, productive member of society was a testament to the human spirit and ability to overcome adversity.
By God, they’d forced him to play piano against his will.
There was no time for regressive thinking. Not now. Lucy had raised Alan to be a sound, rational young man, and he’d raised his own
children the same way. Kaylee’s free-spirited streak notwithstanding, Athena and Stephen were on solid footing to deal with whatever tragedy might befall their parents.
The skyro parked in the visitors’ lot at Oxford amid a sea of similar models. Some curmudgeonly mixed robots might not upgrade their skyro for twenty years or more at a time, but any parent with children at Oxford wouldn’t be caught in anything older than a few years.
Lucy and Dr. Toby made their way to the dormitory main entrance and checked in at the visitors’ kiosk. A quick ID scan allowed them access to the student level where Athena and Stephen both roomed in opposite wings.
But they didn’t have to split up or choose which child to visit first. They were right in the common lounge between the girls’ and boys’ wings. They looked bigger every time Lucy saw them, impossibly shaping into closer and closer doppelgangers of their own parents.
At the sight of them, both youngsters came running. “Grammy Lucy, Grampy Toby!” they shouted.
Left in the childrens’ wake, another pair of grandparents accepted their displacement with casual aplomb. Wendy Fourteen raised a hand. “You should have called. We could have come together.”
As the two sides of the family came together, Lucas Truman shook Dr. Toby’s hand. “Shouldn’t take bad news for us to get together.”
Lucy ignored Wendy and gathered Athena and Stephen in her arms. “You two been good for your other grammy and grampy?”
“Yeah,” Stephen assured her.
“I’m always good,” Athena bragged, casting Stephen a look implying that he clearly was not.
“How are they taking it?” Dr. Toby asked quietly, but if Lucy could overhear, so could the children.
Wendy heaved a sigh. “We’ve done our best to prepare them, but there’s never anything that can stop it hurting.”
“She’s a trooper, though,” Lucas said, his wan smile making a vain attempt at reassurance.
Lucy scowled and didn’t try to hide it. “Alan’s every bit as tough. Beneath that sensitive exterior, he’s got a core of iron.”
“Just like the Earth?” Stephen asked, obviously having studied geology recently enough to recall the Earth’s ferromagnetic interior.
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing,” Wendy said, raising one eyebrow. “We were picking them up to go visit their great-great-grandmother in the hospital. She… asked for them.” By Wendy’s hesitation, Lucy knew that boded ill for the old chairwoman’s prospects.
Dr. Toby cleared his throat. “We’ve come about the… other situation.”
Lucas chuckled. “Don’t worry about that business on Mars. Nasty stuff, but it’ll blow over. Heck, I’ll build them a damn reactor if that’s what it takes.”
“Violence is destructive and counterproductive,” Athena recited, straight out of the Oxford Code of Conduct.
“They… know?” Lucy asked warily.
“It’s OK,” Stephen reassured her. “They sent Great Grammy up to Mars. When she gets there, she’ll fix it all.”
This was the first Lucy was hearing of an envoy being sent. “That’s not on the news feeds. Who told you this?”
“Mom sent me a just-in-case list, things to take care of if she’s… gone a while,” Wendy said. “But I’m sure she’ll handle everything just fine.”
“Woman her age ought to get waited on hand and foot,” Lucy said, not without the smallest bit of self-interest. She’d greatly appreciate some pampering some forty years hence. “You’d think an interplanetary trip would wear her to the bone. What’s to say those hooligans aren’t in the mood for clever chatter?”
“Well,” Wendy said with a forced-friendly smile. “Well, I imagine that’s why she had Charlie7 bring her. Kaylee and Alan are walking out of that Martian theater one way or another. Those so-called Neddites… Mom’s their best chance.”
Lucas herded the kids toward the exit. “C’mon. We told Great-Great-Grammy Eve we’d be there by noon, Philadelphia time. Don’t want to keep her waiting.”
The two children picked up the pace of their departure instantly. “Why can’t she be in the hospital in Paris?” Stephen asked.
As the other half of the family disappeared beyond audible range, the last comment Lucy heard was Wendy’s flippant reply. “There are still a couple things Great-Great-Grammy Eve can’t order around. And believe me, she tries.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The sonorous hum of the spacero’s engine was the only sound during the interplanetary transit. Abby knew that they’d have been accelerating harder if Charlie7 had been alone in the cockpit. For the latter half of the trip, they’d have to turn the vehicle around for the decelerating force to press her frail human body against the seat cushion rather than strain her neck and dig the safety restraints into her chest.
“You awake over there?” Charlie7 asked casually.
“My eyes are open, aren’t they?” Abby replied. “Hasn’t been that long since you were human, has it?”
“Well, Eve has the same implants, and she sometimes—”
“I’m not Mom,” Abby replied. “These are just eyes. Same hardware, maybe, but I don’t keep them hooked into every bodily system and the Solarwide to boot.”
“I always assumed…”
“Because I never talk about it,” Abby replied. “Last thing Mom needs is for the anti-roboticists to add a ‘but her daughter has the same cyber eyes and doesn’t use them as a terminal.’ I let people gossip. Never hurts an artiste to have an air of mystery, no matter how slight.”
“Anyway, since you are awake, I was going to suggest you eat something.”
“Rather you keep accelerating,” Abby replied. “I’ll eat later.”
“It’s a long trip. You’ll need at least five meals.”
Abby shut her eyes. It lessened the desire to fix a glare on the busybody robot, which would have required more neck strength than she possessed as the spacero shot through the void. As it was, at best she might strain a muscle trying.
“Or nap,” Charlie7 said. “Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”
“Either you think I’m sleeping, and you should cut power to your voice modulator, or I’m just resting my eyes, and you can stop patronizing me. I’m old, not incompetent.”
“Fine. You’re awake. Maybe it’s a good time to start planning a strategy.”
“Showing up and negotiating is the strategy.”
“Well, broadly, I suppose. I was thinking of perhaps taking it one step deeper and coming up with obstacles and countermeasures.”
Abby sighed. Despite Charlie7 upping the oxygen mix in the cockpit, the force pressing her against the seat made it work to breathe. “My plan is to ask them what they’re after—really after, not the ridiculous list they sent to goad us—and work to see how little of it I can give them to release everyone unharmed. If they give me any guff, I intend to be charming as hell until they can’t stand it any longer.”
“That… might work.”
Abby wasn’t some young kitten to have a string dangled in front of her. “If you want to say something, say it. I am, as you might imagine, a captive audience.”
“Do you plan on meeting them face to face?”
“If possible. I find the stage more engaging than any recorded performance. More like stand-up comedy than a sitcom.”
“I never cared for your stand-up, if we’re being honest,” Charlie7 said.
“We all need to learn our strengths and weaknesses,” Abby countered. “Not all of us programmed ourselves to be perfect.”
“I’m just saying that we ought to consider the possibility that things don’t go smoothly. If you’re conducting in-person negotiations, we might need to formulate a rescue plan before they get one of those collars onto you and add you to their menagerie.”
“They’ve got my granddaughter. I’ll risk whatever it takes to secure her safety. No putting Kaylee and the others in danger. I utterly forbid you to try anything involving force.”
“I’m sure I can come up with a plan that involves minimal risk. If I convince the Martian colonial authorities to give me use of five or six of their construction drones—”
“Forbid.”
“But what if—”
“Look here, Rasputin,” Abby said darkly. “These are humans. Frail, ephemeral, infinitely valuable. They don’t get reloaded into a spare chassis if someone kills them. They didn’t back up their consciousness to a secret archive somewhere just before leaving Earth. Go ahead and deny it.”
Charlie7 remained silent but eased off the throttle a hair for her benefit.
“You see, I’ve got to weigh however many years I’ve got left against the innumerably more years those poor hostages might experience. And it doesn’t help that I might save my granddaughter only to lose my mother while I’m off on another planet. But I had to choose between possibly seeing my mother one last time and maybe being the difference in my grandbaby getting to keep on living.”
“I’m just trying to be objective.”
“Well, stop it,” Abby concluded. She opened her eyes, staring ahead into the star-flecked darkness. Mars was one of those tiny glows up ahead, though it was too soon to pick out which. “This is the time to feel out the humanity in another person, dig deep into the hurt that’s causing them to lash out, and patch up the differences. Corollary to getting all the hostages out alive is that I’ve got to find a way for all the hostage takers to come away satisfied.”
“You should still eat something.”
“Changing the subject is an admission of defeat.”
Abby closed her eyes again and drifted off for a nap, knowing that Charlie7 wouldn’t interfere with her plans.
Chapter Thirty-Three