Dr. Sonberg kept in lockstep beside him. She was quick at picking up his meaning and intelligent enough to play along.
The man from the bar had taken the long path to tail them, zig-zagging through the tables to the restroom door and out the back to connect with them on the outside. He had a weapon, but the safety was on, and his vitals suggested fear rather than attack. But fear could also cause irrational reactions from humans, which could lead to death.
Before Dr. Sonberg could respond, Den whirled on his heel and grasped the man. Even though the officer had a good ratio of muscle and professional training, Den was stronger and faster. Thankfully the man was alone, and he’d been captured before being able to use his suppressor. Den pinned him. He pulled the man into a space between buildings before one of the ever-scanning eyes of the drones could pinpoint what was happening.
Dr. Sonberg faced their captive with a narrow-eyed look of fury that Den knew well. “Why were you following us?”
“I-I just wanted to help. I have kids too.”
From his heart rate, Den could tell the man was under stress but didn’t seem to be lying. He inclined his head to the doctor, who thrust her chin slightly upward—a signal for him to release the man.
Their captive rubbed his throat and looked back at Den. “Definitely a droid.”
“That’s not the issue. The issue is my daughter. Do you know where she is?” Dr. Sonberg crowded forward with more anger and emotion than Den had ever seen. The stress of Ionia’s disappearance seemed to be leaking into her behavior more and more.
“Tell your fleshie boyfriend, to lay off. I’m trying to help you.” A tiny nod between them, and he released the man. His emotional chip wound his joints tight. The officer’s hands were within range of a suppressor and a gun, so they were both in danger.
“Chirag still has friends on the force. I know he’s been in contact with the station recently. I don’t know if he has your daughter, but it sounded very suspicious. Ask Faheema. She’d know, and she might even tell you where he is.”
Den searched his files and found only one Faheema. “Officer Mattu. She was one of the officers who arrested me.” He felt a native dislike of the woman. His human based emotions urged him to reject anything to do with this enforcement officer.
The small man exchanged glances with both of them. “She lives three blocks from here,” he said.
“Show us.” Dr. Sonberg’s order left no room for discussion, and he was a man used to taking orders. But Den wondered if this was the proper treatment for an ally. Her outward strength belied her internal, bio-feedback. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, and her adrenaline was elevated to a fight-or-flight degree. He hypothesized that she would fall on the fight side of the equation.
The officer led the way out of the alley. His eyes between them and the bar. He inhaled deeply and sprinted away into the crowd. Den automatically followed and sensed Dr. Sonberg at his heels.
Den didn’t want to run at top speed because he feared detection from the patrol drones at every light station. Any moment, the officer could go for his suppressor, and Den would be locked in his body again. But the only way to find Ionia was to catch this man, and that was what he was going to do.
***
“Hold her down!”
“I can’t. She shouldn’t be this strong. What the hell did you do to her—?”
“She can hear you!”
Ionia could, but none of the words made real sense. None of what she was seeing or doing made sense. All she felt was the need to fight back.
A sharp jab into her arm and she went numb. An avalanche of panic descended on her chest. Nothing compared to this feeling of immobility. This helplessness.
Aunt Sera and the cyborg guy, Chirag, stood just in her line of view. All she could see were the edges of the gruesome twosome and the lights above. Her vision and hearing seemed to be back to normal, but her entire body was unresponsive. Was this how Den had felt when the enforcement had applied their suppressors? Trapped alive? Unable to move or speak? Terrifying.
“I’m sorry, Ionia. No. That doesn’t begin to even cover… Let me start over. I was only trying to help. I had no way of knowing just how badly—” Her aunt’s syrupy voice made Ionia want to shower.
“Pull it together, Sera. We have to make a decision on what to do. Our reputations depend on it.” The emphasis on our deepened Ionia’s sinking feeling. This Chirag had something on her aunt, and they were both trying to cover it up. Something to do with her. Damnation. Why could things never just be easy?
“Okay. Okay. Let me examine her and see if it’s reversible.” An incessant alarm chimed, coming from Sera. “Another life-or-death wave. From Anabel of course. You’d think after the first two hundred, she’d figure out I wasn’t going to answer. But that’s not my sister. She never gives up.”
From what Ionia could see, Sera’s face was a mask of worry, drawn and older than Ionia had ever seen her look. She would have felt sorry for her if she wasn’t holding her freaking prisoner. What did she think Ionia would do? The frustration grew, and her heartbeat took on a rampant flutter, sending a wash of blood into her head and face. Her breath became shallow.
“Damn—she’s having a panic attack. Calm down. I’m going to help you. We had to settle you down before you hurt yourself.”
“Or someone else,” Chirag muttered.
Ionia screamed inside. She wanted to tell them she was fine. They could let her go. She’d leave this place and never come back, but again, the feeling of being tied to the table and gagged was stifling.
Sera shook her head as she looked at the vitals. “I’m going to have to put you under again unless you can relax. I prefer to do this when you’re awake, so I can get a good response.”
Sera was treating her like an experiment. A damned test subject! The panic edged toward blind terror. But if she panicked anymore, her aunt would knock her out. She didn’t want to slide back into the void. If she was going to get out of this, she had to keep her head.
And there was a way out. Just like her dad had always said, if there’s a way into a situation, there’s a way out. She remembered what Zee had told her earlier about her breathing. What the hell? It might actually work. She focused on each breath and pushed the too-bright lights and the claustrophobia away. Let the air fill her lungs. Slowly.
Think of unicorns and rainbows and then the unicorn eviscerating these two. That thought calmed her a bit.
Her breath quieted, came in slowly, evenly.
“Good. You know Auntie Sera won’t hurt you.”
Screw that. Her aunt had drugged her and kidnapped her, and that was five shades of crazy.
Ionia let the feeling go and filled her lungs again. Willed her system to release. Be observant—some combination of something her mom or dad had said popped in her mind. Use what you find.
As Sera poked, prodded, and drew blood. Ionia scanned the room. Her super vision seemed to be offline, but she did hear Chirag on a coms call again, whispering just out of sight. He seemed to be asking for more time.
Sera moved in close to Ionia’s eye, and her attention snapped back to her aunt’s invasion. She attached a weird, claw-like instrument to keep Ionia’s eyes open. Ionia would have fought, but her lovely family still had her doped.
“This is amazing. I could spend years analyzing this, Chirag. It’s incredible. The nanobots are mimicking stem cells. They are becoming what her body needs as she needs it. I could spend years—”
“No time for your brilliant discoveries,” Chirag said. “They can’t hold the investigation much longer. Your sister is a one woman strike force.”
“Okay. Okay. The addition of the eye activated the nanobots. If I remove the eye, they may go back to working as lymphocytes.” She leaned over Ionia with a weird scooper looking tool in her hand.
Ionia wanted to close her eye. Even though an hour ago, she would have loved to get rid of the thing. Even with the enhancement and reaction, she could see in
proper 3D. She didn’t want to lose her eye all over again.
“It will ruin everything, everything if they see her. Neither of us will survive the fallout,” Chirag said.
She wanted to pull back, to close her eye, to beat the damn scoop out of her traitor aunt’s hand. But all she could do was listen to her racing heart jack up the monitors that displayed her vitals with various beeps and chirps. Ionia’s mouth dried as her aunt swooped down. She tried to focus on anything to distract her from the on-coming grossness.
Her aunt paused.
Please don’t. Please stop. She willed her aunt away. Tried to force the words out of her mouth. Tried to somehow drive her aunt’s hand away with her spirit.
But there was nothing Ionia could do, and the tool came down.
Pressure against her face. A tink of metal against metal, then another and another. “Well, I’ll be a chut ka maindak. They’re mutating to protect themselves. I numbed everything but her autonomic nervous system. And now this! This is unprecedented.” She sounded more awed than worried. Ionia only heard the word mutated and imagined what she looked like with some cyclops eye sprouting from her head or a metal plate.
“You have to do something.” This time Chirag’s voice held no softener. It sounded like an order. A frantic, panicked order.
“Chirag. You are not a doctor, and I have to say, I don’t appreciate your tone. This will take some delicate—”
“Someone is coming. I’m not sure who, but I’ve gotten advanced notice. If you can’t help her, then we need an alibi and within the next hour.”
“Then we’ll have to move her. I just need more time.”
“Don’t you understand? There is no more time. They are coming. Both of our reputations will be destroyed and your family broken.” His feet shuffled across the floor to stand next to her aunt. “Sera, we have to.”
Ionia had been forgotten like a bit of furniture. She kept trying to move inside her internal tomb. Thrashing, kicking, screaming, but nothing budged her still and cold mummy-body.
“Then…” Sera looked down at Ionia, moisture in the corners of her eyes. “Ionia has to die.”
***
The small man darted into a press of other humans. If Den was going to intercept him, it would entail physically ousting those obstacles. His systems pushed him to detain the officer and gain the information concerning Ionia, but again, his logic process interceded.
If he were detained, or if he inadvertently injured a bystander, his ability to help Ionia would be nil. Her mother was a force to be reckoned with in general, but in this foreign environment, she had lost much of her power. She needed his help, whether she wanted it or not. He had to remain free for Ionia’s sake.
Den made one last lunge for the officer but missed by a meter. Passersby paused to stare. He slowed and shoved his hands in his pockets, hiding the mark. Drawing attention was the last thing they needed. He stopped the fruitless chase and decided there must be a better way.
When he was inside the enforcement station, he had obtained a connection to the mainframe, and he had stored the information in long-term memory, just in case. He did a system search and reviewed his cloud data. He found his arresting officer’s name on the citation.
He backtracked to intercept Dr. Sonberg while doing a cross reference on employees, street names, and occupational organizations until he discovered what he needed.
“Droid! Where is he? Why didn’t you catch him?” she screamed. Her face was flushed with a flood of blood.
Heads turned. Even a passing street cleaning droid paused for an instant to ensure there was no violent interaction to avoid.
“Dr. Sonberg, I have located the information. But if you desire my assistance, please refrain from calling me droid, and I implore you to stop drawing attention to our situation.”
The crowd continued their endless forward motion as they stood like two stones in a river.
She bit her lip, possibly stopping the first thing that came to mind. “You’re right. What do you have?”
“Faheema Mattu lives five city blocks to the west of our location.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you figured it out. Lead the way.”
***
An apartment building stood at the 450 corner of Indro and Central. It rose through the clouds, over 330 meters high, connected by sky tunnels to three other buildings, creating a Quad. Quads were excellent for housing large numbers of humans in relative comfort and also maintaining complete stability. Green plants covered the building from the crops that were farmed using the solar panels and the vertical space.
The advancements in architecture had relieved some of housing crisis that had plagued the territory for its entire history. This was all he could DL legally from the Cortex about the building. He used some channels that were not as legal and turned to Dr. Sonberg.
“Officer Mattu is on the seventy-second floor, apartment L72 3B.”
“Then let’s go.”
“We cannot access the tower without the proper codes. Those I have not been able to procure from the system. We need to make a plan.”
Den reviewed his file on Officer Mattu that he hacked using the back channel he had established at enforcement central. She had a high degree of training and would have been sergeant if she had not taken an extended leave approximately two years previous. She had a good mind and training and… hated droids.
He called the elevator. They were getting into a quiet sync. Where Dr. Sonberg assumed some duties, he did others. Most physical tasks were assumed his domain while first contact with other entities seemed to fall into her category. It just made logical sense. And if he knew anything about Dr. Anabel Sonberg, it was that she was a creature predominately ruled by logic.
Except where Ionia was concerned. They had that in common.
A red light flashed, and a soft voice sounded. “Please submit bio proof of residency or guest pass.” The side control panel allowed thumb, voice, or optical scanning options.
“Damn. This place uses bio-identity screening. It’s not as if she’ll buzz us in,” Dr. Sonberg said.
Den found it ironic that she seemed to place the responsibility for how their search was proceeding directly onto him. If they failed, the cause was the droid. He was programmed not to take it personally, but at times, his emotional circuit overrode his basic protocols.
A group of pre-pubescent humans, all female with dark hair, ranging from 1.2 to 1.5 meters in height, huddled near each other entering the lobby.
One of the girls seemed to be the leader. Den took her image and did a quick search of his database of facts. He scrolled through public and private school records until he came upon the perfect nugget of intel.
“Ms. Haasan.” He tuned his voice into enclass lecture frequency so it would have the correct effect.
The girl straightened and turned as if he had accosted her. Dr. Sonberg looked lost but followed him. Her gaze darted between him and the girl.
“How did you know my name?” she said. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” Some of the girls crowded around her and appeared concerned. The rest affected a bored demeanor.
“I have a package from—” It took a millisecond to find the name of the teacher. “Mr. Khan about today’s enclass. I was told to give you this. He reached out and offered her his hand. He hoped that human curiosity would outweigh caution.
It did.
She took the small object and yelped as he took a tiny sample from her palm. “It bit me.”
“I apologize.”
“What is this?” Her large dark eyes increased in size, then narrowed. “This looks like old food rations.”
“Yes. He said you left it in his room.”
“Eww. I soooo did not. Gross. Did Tila put you up to this? Come on girls.” The pack of young humans moved away as a group, like a school of sardines, and disappeared into their prospective doors.
He released the tension that his emotional chip had pumped into his j
oints. A scowling Dr. Sonberg approached.
“You best be grateful that none of the girls reported you. What could you possibly…? You…” Dr. Sonberg raised both eyebrows and tilted her head as if connecting to the Cortex, then nodded vigorously. “Of course. You got her DNA. You can replicate it?”
“It is one of my functions, and now we can enter the building.”
“I’m really starting to understand your usefulness. Let’s go find Ionia.”
They walked side-by-side into the building. With his replicated DNA matching the girl’s family, he was allowed access with Dr. Sonberg. At the express lift, he stated in a perfect imitation of the girl's voice, “Plus one.” And the double doors opened. “Level 72.”
The building had video and auditory surveillance, but since the advent of DNA certs and glamor appearance mods, those defenses had become lax. They moved down the .5 kilometer hallway searching for the officer’s apartment, and after many minutes of scuttling in silence, they arrived.
But what they would find on the other side of these doors, he could not guess. Each apartment came standard with a scan deterrent. Den scanned the unshielded floor. Within the protective walls, he could sense the number of humans and living creatures, the exact density of the building materials, the location and status of weapons, each apartment exactly 365 square meters but no exact details.
He worked to connect to the local Cortex hub that would allow him access to coms within the building and some scanning capacity within the complex.
He wished it was not illegal for a droid to be armed without permission from both their owners and the local government. Antarctica had significantly lax rules on droids and armaments. If he had a weapon, the process would be much faster. Then his emotional circuit might stop harassing him about time and Ionia and the need for a swift end to this investigation.
They found Mattu’s door. She had not endorsed droid freedoms nor seemed to have any affection for him during their last meeting. If she saw him, their quest could be over before it started, and Ionia was in danger. He conducted virtual scenarios to verify his conjecture.
“I ran 520 potential outcomes, and the majority ended our incarceration. The best option from my deduction is for you to approach alone. You seem non-threatening. You can gain access. Then I will join as needed.”
Vagabond Souls: The Ionia Chronicles: Book 2 Page 24