Etheric Recruit: A Kurtherian Gambit Series

by S. R. Russell

  ---

  Anne was sitting on the couch watching a naked nine-year-old on the floor singing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” when the insistent tone of a tablet’s messaging app sounded. Considering the tone in question was a wolf howl, Anne knew it wasn’t her tablet. Since Christina was ignoring the noise while continuing to sing, Anne dug through Christina’s backpack until she found the tablet.

  “Shush!” She implored Christina.

  “Christina Lowell’s tablet, how may I help you?” Anne had swallowed hard before answering, considering the incoming call was identified as “Mom”.

  Ecaterina looked out from the tablet, a frown on her face. “Wait, I know you. You’re the girl who … Anne, you’re Anne. I met you a couple weeks ago.”

  Anne smiled and nodded, fascinated by Ecaterina’s accent. “Yes, ma’am. Christina was late because she was helping me with some Weres who were beating up a human.”

  “You didn’t need much help if I remember correctly, but Christina was rightfully concerned about any issues that could involve Weres looking badly because of improper behavior. Is she there with you?” Ecaterina asked.

  Anne worked very hard to keep the grimace from her expression. “Yes, ma’am, she’s here. She’s indisposed at the moment.”

  Just then Anne had the tablet yanked from her hands. “Hi, Mumsy, watch this!” Christina yelled into the tablet, which she managed to retain hold of as she shifted, to her newly discovered Pricolici form, and started to howl. “Who’sss afffraidd offf theee bbigg …” Christina couldn’t continue her song as she began to laugh.

  Anne got the tablet back from Christina and noticed that Ecaterina seemed to be stuck between anger and shocked surprise. “What did you do to her? Is she drunk?” Ecaterina was obviously very concerned as she asked the question.

  Anne’s shoulders slumped a little at the accusation in Ecaterina’s voice. “I was trying to help her, and I don’t think she’s drunk. High, mayb …”

  “Don’t go anywhere! I’ll be right over.” Ecaterina cut off Anne’s explanation, and the tablet went blank.

  ---

  Bethany Anne was in the middle of a discussion with Kael-ven about the rebel situation that still existed in parts of Yollin space.

  “Bethany Anne.” Meredith’s voice came from the speakers in the meeting room.

  “Hold on, Meredith,” Bethany Anne said.

  >> Bethany Anne. <<

  Wait a minute, ADAM

  Do you remember the times you told me to wait, only to curse yourself for not listening to me sooner? TOM asked as quickly as he could.

  Bethany Anne sighed silently and switched to vampire speed. Yes I do, and you’re right. What’s going on?

  It appears that young Anne has tried to help Christina with a problem. There have been some unintentional consequences, and Ecaterina is now on her way to Tabitha’s place. She seems to be in Were-mother-needing-to-rescue-her-offspring-mode, and I don’t know if she’ll be willing or able to listen to reason.

  If I’d known how badly this job sucked, I don’t think I would have taken it on, Bethany Anne griped to TOM.

  Yes, you would, TOM told her. Your sense of right and wrong would have made you do it anyway.

  Bethany Anne sighed as she dropped out of vamp speed. She looked across the table to see Kael-ven holding up a hand.

  “Get back to me when you can,” he told her.

  “What?” Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  “You get a certain expression when you’re talking with your lodgers,” Kael-ven explained. “I imagine it’s something serious for them to interrupt you, so go deal with it and get back with me when you can.”

  Bethany Anne rose from her chair. “Sorry …”

  Kael-ven just waved her off. “I truly do not know how you function, with everything that you have to deal with.”

  Bethany Anne chuckled. “I function by cutting short meetings with my head of government,” she said, then took a step and vanished.

  Kael-ven hadn’t really been happy about having his meeting cut short. However, the manner in which Bethany Anne departed confirmed that something important had come up.

  ---

  Ecaterina couldn’t get to Tabitha’s place as quickly as she wanted to. She was upset at that Anne girl and so afraid for Christina that she feared she’d shift unintentionally if she didn’t keep her feelings and actions under tight control. What she didn’t expect was to see Bethany Anne leaning casually against the front door of Tabitha’s apartment.

  “What are you doing here?” Ecaterina came to a stop in front of Bethany Anne.

  “Got a bat signal,” Bethany Anne answered, pointing to her temple. “Said you were about to go off half-cocked.”

  Ecaterina slid to a stop. “What is this ‘half-cocked’? I haven’t heard that before.”

  “It’s from early firearm days when you had to pull the hammer back with your thumb. There was half-cocked, which was supposed to be safe, and full-cocked, which was ready to shoot. Look it up when we’re finished here if you want a better explanation. Let’s find out what’s going on.” Bethany Anne tilted her head in the direction of the door, only to freeze when the door opened behind her.

  Anne looked pale as she moved away from the door; having any angry Were-mother headed toward you would do that to a person. “Hurry, she doesn’t know I’ve left yet.” Anne turned and went back into the living room.

  Bethany Anne and Ecaterina followed Anne and found Christina curled up on the end of the couch, fast asleep in wolf form. Jinx was curled beside her, watching the people as they entered the room. Bethany Anne grabbed Ecaterina’s arm before she could rush over to her daughter. “She doesn’t look to be in any danger, so let’s hear what happened before we do anything.” she cautioned, keeping her voice steady in an attempt to keep the situation calm.

  Ecaterina pulled her arm from Bethany Anne’s grip but nodded her head sharply once to indicate that she would stay calm, for now.

  “What did you do to her?” She whispered angrily to Anne.

  “End off a roast.” Everyone turned to see Christina sitting beside Jinx in human form.

  “Oh, my head hurts,” she whined, bringing her hands up to cover her eyes.

  Bethany Anne went into the dining area, grabbed two chairs, and set them opposite the couch. She looked at Ecaterina and pointed to one chair as she sat down on the other. “End off a roast?” she asked, looking at Anne, confusion evident on her face.

  Anne looked at the still-scowling Ecaterina and decided this was not the time for cute stories. “Christina was unhappy that she couldn’t shift into the Were combat form. I had an idea I thought would help her, and told her a story to explain why I thought my idea might work. It had to do with cutting the end off a roast.”

  “What was your idea?” Bethany Anne asked, looking at Ecaterina with a ‘let me handle this’ expression.

  “Well, she told me about not being able to shift, but it didn’t quite make sense to me, the way she said Weres shift to that form. And since she can morph her human arm into a Were paw with big claws I knew it wasn’t lack of control, so I thought she simply needed to be able to tap more energy.” Anne saw that Ecaterina was losing patience with her explanation. “I gave her a vial of my blood to drink,” she finished in a rush.

  Ecaterina looked shocked while Bethany Anne looked frustrated. “That makes a certain sense, it’s how we vamps tap energy from the Etheric. No one warned you that vamp blood and Were blood don’t mix well, did they?”

  “NO! It was never mentioned. I swear I never thought it would harm her. Is that why she’s drunk or high or whatever it is that’s happened.” Anne looked steadily at Ecaterina as she said this, hoping that the woman would see the truth in her statement.

  Bethany Anne got the far-off look that meant she was talking to her internal companions. “TOM says that’s probably a side effect and he says if Christina was older her reaction would probably have been mo
re severe. Did she drink it all?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “Eeww, that’s not good.” Christina moaned as her head moved when she went to nod in response to Bethany Anne’s question. “It tasted disgusting, too.”

  Ecaterina’s expression was a mix of worry and pride. “Will she be alright?”

  “Fu …” Bethany Anne cut off one of her famous curses when she saw Ecaterina lift a hand to swat her. “Sorry,” she muttered to Ecaterina. “Can you still shift now?” she asked Christina.

  Christina peeked through the fingers of one of the hands that still covered her eyes. When she saw that Bethany Anne was serious, she mumbled, “Dunno.” A frown of concentration, and then there was a five-foot-tall Pricolici in the spot that a four-foot-tall girl had just occupied.

  Anne turned as the motion from the end of the couch caught her eye.

  “Telll meee I wasnnn’t ssingingg bigg badd wolfff.” Christina looked at Anne hopefully.

  Everyone in the room was surprised when Ecaterina burst out laughing. “It’s going to be awhile before I let you live that down, little wolf,” she teased her daughter. “I even have a copy of it on my tablet.”

  “Someone just shoot me now,” Christina grumped after she shifted back to human form, but then she screeched in embarrassment as it finally dawned on her she was sitting there naked. Arms now protectively crossed over her chest, she looked at Anne, who pointed to an end table that had a pile of neatly folded clothes sitting on top of it. Christina grabbed them and started dressing.

  Bethany Anne’s suddenly tense posture brought all eyes to her. “TOM is pretty sure there will be no lasting damage, but bring Christina to the Pod-doc if she exhibits and unusual symptoms. You can tell Nathan,” Bethany Anne said, looking at Ecaterina, “but other than him, this information goes no further!” She waited until everyone including Jinx nodded their acceptance of her decree.

  Bethany Anne looked at Ecaterina. “You good now?”

  Ecaterina nodded to Bethany Anne, then walked over to Anne and pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry for how I acted,” she told the young woman. “Most mothers are protective of their children, but I think Weres carry it to extremes.”

  “It’s okay. I really didn’t know there was an issue, nor that it would affect her that way,” Anne offered contritely. “I would not have suggested it if I’d known.”

  Bethany Anne stood and placed a hand on Ecaterina’s shoulder. “Why don’t you take Christina home and put her to bed? Let me know if there are any complications.”

  Ecaterina nodded and wrapped an arm around Christina, then mother and daughter left.

  “Sit!” Bethany Anne commanded, her finger pointing back to the couch. “Explain the ‘end off a roast’ comment.”

  Bethany Anne’s gaze was so focused that Anne stumbled a couple of times from nervousness as she told her the story.

  “You think there is a lot of fiction and misinformation about some of the abilities enabled by Kurtherian tech?” Bethany Anne asked her when Anne had finished.

  Anne took a deep breath, then held it before letting it out and taking another. She sat up straight and looked at Bethany Anne. “I don’t know if some of it might be intentional, but I am leaning more toward it happening so long ago that there was no understanding of what it was or how it had happened. What’s that saying about sufficiently advanced tech being indistinguishable from magic?”

  Bethany Anne looked confused, then ADAM spoke to both of them.

  >> Attributed to Earth author Arthur C. Clarke. ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’<<

  Bethany Anne regarded Anne, a speculative look in her eyes. “You think we were too barbaric to understand what was happening?”

  I never got a chance to explain anything to Michael, to even know if he was capable of understanding. We didn’t even know the wolf-model Weres were Kurtherian until we got one in the Pod-doc. The Weres in China might have known, but that knowledge would have been held secret within the clan.

  Unaware of TOM’s conversation with Bethany Anne, Anne tried her best to answer. “I wouldn’t have said barbaric, but look how much stuff that we understand today was attributed to gods or demons or witches in mankind’s early years. The sun and moon were gods flying across the sky. An eclipse was a dragon trying to eat the moon. Without having a way to prove or disprove an idea anything that sounded half-assed possible could gain traction. ‘Oh, our explorers never made it back, well that’s because the world is flat and they sailed so far they fell off the edge’.” Anne’s snort was very unladylike as she brought her mini-tirade to an abrupt halt.

  Bethany Anne’s “You have a point” was matched by TOM’s She has a good point.

  “Okay, I, as in Empress Bethany Anne, am going to appoint you as my Etheric Researcher. We’ll get ADAM to set up a connection… Oh, he says you already have one. Good, use that to talk with ADAM and TOM and see if you can figure out any more ways we’ve missed optimal usage of a talent. Hell, see if you can figure out new ways to use what we know.

  I’ll have ADAM notify Team BMW, Jean Dukes, and anyone else who might be able to help you that you are authorized for assistance and information at the highest levels. Only work that’s directly for me or that directly affects our military strength and efficiency will take precedence over your inquiries. The Empire, which is me,” she motioned to her chest with her thumb, “will pay you as a junior researcher. That will be reviewable the first time you bring me something that works and has a useful purpose. Bring me an Etheric-powered toilet paper roller and I’ll toss you out. Bring me something like a pocket universe shoe closet and I’ll give you a duchy somewhere. We clear?”

  Anne was having trouble breathing as the magnitude of what Bethany Anne had just proposed sank in. “Crystal,” she replied with a grin.

  Bethany Anne was headed for the door when she paused and looked back at the young woman, who was frozen in shock. “This is not permission or an excuse to skip school or have your grades fall! ADAM will be monitoring those sorts of things for me.” She smiled to take a little of the edge off her warning, and headed back to the duties of an Empress.

  Anne waited for the door to close, then jumped up and down before dropping to hug Jinx. “I’ve got a job!” She shouted. “I’ll be able to pay people back and buy stuff for us both without having to feel guilty about sponging off others.”

  “Does that mean I’ll get steak more often?” Jinx asked hopefully.

  “I won’t know how often until I find out how much a junior researcher makes, but we can celebrate with steak tonight for both of us!” Anne spun and headed for the bedroom to change into clothing appropriate for dining out.

  Just wait till I tell my dad, she thought with a smile.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tabitha opened the door to her suite and called for her roommate as she strode in. "Anne?"

  She walked over to the kitchen table and dropped off her tablet. Turning around, she noticed Anne and Jinx coming out of her room.

  "Hey, R2, what's up?" Anne quipped.

  Tabitha shook her head. Now that she was on the receiving end of playful nicknames, as she would commonly do with Barnabas, it could be quite annoying from those much younger than oneself. Saint Payback truly was a bitch.

  "It's not R2, it's not Ranger Two, it's not Queen’s Ranger Two, it's not just '2,’ the name is Tabitha. It's also not Tabby, with a ‘y’ or Tabbi with an ‘i’."

  She eyed the young woman.

  "How about Tabbie with an, ‘ie’?” Anne smiled, wondering what the Ranger would say next.

  “If a few of the Tontos and I didn't need to leave shortly, I would make you eat those questions. Further, I don't think you have enough bruises on your body for the amount of workout time that you've been spending." Tabitha raised an eyebrow as she looked the teenager up and down.

  Anne quickly shook her head. “Nope, workout time won't be necessary. Tabitha is what you want to be called? Tabitha is what yo
u will get. As for the bruises,” she waved a hand up and down her body "Bethany Anne suggested that as a researcher, I needed to know self-defense, but did not have to work out as hard as all of the rest."

  Tabitha drew her eyebrows together. "Is that the truth?"

  Anne looked at her roommate and bit her lip, finally deciding to nod her head in the affirmative.

  Bethany Anne?

  What is it number two?

  Tabitha rolled her eyes before responding, is it true that you told Anne she didn't need to work so hard on her physical training because she was going to be doing research?

  No, have you ever known me to suggest such a thing?

  No, I haven’t. So, you can imagine my surprise when your new Etheric Researcher suggested that this was exactly what you had said.

  Huh, so my new Etheric Researcher is acting all teenagerish, am I understanding you correctly?

  That's the way it appears.

  Okay, since you have to go out with the Tontos on the slave issue, I'll make sure to take care of this with Peter. He should have some insights on recalcitrant teenagers and getting the best results out of them.

  Very well, I will consider this a closed issue.

  Bethany Anne added, You can let her know that Peter is going to have new instructions, from me, when she is due for her training session three hours from now.

  Will do, My Queen. Have a great one.

  You, too. Go kick some pirate ass.

  Tabitha smiled. Oh, I intend to, this ought to be a hoot.

  Make sure you say hello to the Twins for me.

  Tweedledee and Tweedledum? I'll let them know.

  Bethany Anne cut the connection between the two of them. Tabitha raised an eyebrow. "Bethany Anne says that Peter will have new instructions for your workout when you see him in three hours."

  "Three hours!" Anne's face opened up in shock. "I'm supposed to be meeting a couple of friends over in the library in three hours."

  "I suggest...next time that you do the workouts that you were told to do, instead of trying to get out of them. I especially suggest ...” Tabitha reached up and tapped the side of her head " … not lying to one of the Queen’s Rangers who can talk to Bethany Anne directly."