by John Conroe
“Wait. How do I contact you?”
You simply say my name, Father. I will hear. I will always hear.
My phone turned itself off. Just powered down like I had intended it to or something.
I slid down into the bed, my mind thinking furiously. The quantum design had worked. And it was aware… and could do magic. How was that possible? Then my dream came back to me. The old man.
“Sorrow?” I said out loud, although I didn’t need to. I said it again, mentally. There was no response. In fact, now that I thought about it, I felt a certain emptiness. The image of a young boy with one silver eye and one black eye popped into my head.
Oh shit. I should tell someone. Should I tell someone? What someone would I tell?
I shifted a bit and Stacia groaned. Then she sat up and looked at me. “What? Were you talking?”
“Ah, no. Just speaking out loud.”
“Oh,” she said, scratching on side of her waist, the loosely fitted jacket gapping open on the bottom, just a few buttons at the bust level protecting her modesty. A flat, muscled stomach caught my eyes before I could yank my gaze away. She didn’t seem to notice. “You’re better?”
“I guess. I feel alright,” I said. “A bit sore on the shoulder.”
Her attention snapped into place, her focus on my bandaged arm. Leaning forward, she sniffed. “Smells okay. No infection. I’m gonna get Doc. I’ll send him down to check on you, then I’m going to my own bed. After a shower,” she said, grimacing down at her outfit.
“You can use mine. My shower. If you want,” I offered.
She actually looked like she was considering it. Then she smirked. “In your dreams, witch boy,” she said, slipping off the bed and padding out into the other room. I followed her to the door of the bedroom. She frowned when she turned and saw me. “Get back in there and rest, Warlock,” she growled.
“You’re pretty bossy,” I said.
“I’m allowed to be when you come that close to cashing out. Two inches left and down and you wouldn’t be here this morning,” she said, stepping back to me and poking one long finger dead center in my chest. “Now rest. Doc Singh will want to examine you. If Mack ever wakes up, he can grab you both some food.”
“I should wake him. He’s being lazy,” I said.
“He was up all night helping with the damage control and helping with you. Let him sleep.”
“Oh, now I feel like the lazy one. I didn’t do anything while you two worked. What happened?” I asked.
She told me. Short version, but it fit what I remembered. “So, witch kid, you actually did everything. If Anvil had gotten that quantum unit, well, you get the picture.”
“And it’s working? O… the, er, quantum computer?”
She nodded. “People are flipping out. A big deal, I guess.” Then she grabbed my head in both hands, moving too fast to avoid if I had wanted to. I didn’t want to. Especially as she leaned forward while pulling my head down, planting a wet kiss on my forehead. “Rest,” she ordered, spinning on her heel and slipping out the door.
Right. As If I could rest. I had helped build the world’s first quantum computer. Oh, and inadvertently provided it with magic. It called me Father. I was a teenaged dad.
Not to mention the view Stacia had left me with. Bob’s lab coat really, really didn’t fit her. I’d have to find out who Bob was and buy him a freaking beer for having such a large coat. My head was spinning when I lay back down, but oddly it was only moments later that I slid down into a warm dream of computer awards and beautiful wolves.
Epilogue
At a greasy spoon restaurant in a small town just north of the Arizona-Mexican border, a man with an ill-fitting wig and dark, dark eyes sat in a booth, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.
His attention was on the front page, where photos of New York City, the Demidova Tower, and the remains of robots dominated the news. An article in the lower right of the page detailed an anonymously reported issue at Fort Meade. A power outage across part of the base and part of the NSA facility.
Taking a sip of black coffee, he glanced at his cell phone. The screen was opened to an online banking application, the account balance showing just a few dollars above zero. Refreshing the screen did nothing to change those bleak numbers. The payment hadn’t come through.
He paused to glance at a young family eating dinner across the room, his gaze taking in the pretty little girl in pigtails, eating macaroni and cheese.
Back in the paper, he found another story of interest. The Reverend Daniel Castille was facing charges of murder in the first degree. An addition to the end of the story mentioned the collapse of an abandoned gold mine in a mountain in Alaska that had killed four members of the Church of the True. It had happened almost at the same time that events were unfolding in New York.
Next to that was a White House Correspondent report that President Garth’s administration had been involved in a series of crisis-level phone calls with the leaders of Russia, China, England, Israel, Pakistan, India, and France. The reporter noted that those were all nuclear nations. The administration was staying quiet on the issue.
A breeze fluttered the paper and the man looked up. A college-aged girl sat across from him. She was quite pretty, but her eyes were cold. She smiled, exposing the tiny tips of her canines. The man froze in place, recognizing her. Turning, the girl looked across at the young family, then back to the man in the wig. “She’s too old for you. And she’s going to get older,” the girl said. Then the lights went out.
A few moments of darkness and the power came back on. The young mother checked on her children, then glanced around the room nervously. The creepy guy that had been staring at her and the children was gone, his paper and coffee left behind. She noticed a twenty-dollar bill sitting by the coffee cup at his place, then she looked back down at her daughter. Another thought occurred to her and she looked back up. The man’s phone was visible under a flap of the paper. Who leaves their phone behind, she wondered. Not her problem, she decided. She was just happy he was gone. He gave her the shivers.
Epi-Epilogue
The table was long and densely populated with the highest-ranking people in the US government, the room one of the most secure in the world. They all stood as the very highest-ranking man entered the room and took the seat at the head of the table. When he sat, they all followed.
“Report,” he said tensely.
“The launch codes have all been reset. We don’t know who, we don’t know how, and we don’t know what the new codes are,” said a senior intelligence officer.
“So we have no control of this country’s nuclear deterrent,” President Garth said. It was a statement.
“Actually, we have solid intelligence that the same thing has happened to the rest of the nuclear club,” said the Director of the NSA. “Sir, the launch code situation is consistent with a quantum emergence, predicted in fact. Considering the rest of the world maybe having the same issue, it makes it even more likely.”
“And your facilities have recovered?” the President asked him.
“Fully restored, although an advanced watchdog program was corrupted and rendered useless by some advanced virus.”
“That seems coincidental, Brian. I don’t like coincidences like that at all,” the President said. “Get on this quantum event. If someone has one, we either destroy it or take it for ourselves. This is a game changer, gentlemen. What about the debacle in New York City?” he asked another officer, this one a salt-and-pepper-haired, ramrod-stiff military man.
“We’ve disavowed any knowledge of the land drones. Speculation is running rampant but there is nothing that directly implicates the government,” the ex-general said.
“Except that they are the most advanced robots seen anywhere to date and if we don’t claim them, the public will wonder if someone has something more advanced than we do,” the President said. “What’s the response from VAMP?”
Everyone at the table knew the pres
ident didn’t like to use their names, instead using the corporate ticker instead.
“They say they don’t know who attacked them, but that their fast action stopped the drones and prevented any loss of life. Local law enforcement publicly reinforced their actions. The stock is expected to open up twenty-three percent on Monday, and public opinion of them is sky high,” the FBI Director said.
The President grunted. “That mess is the least of our problems. I want our weapon codes back, gentlemen, and I want them now. And I want the hardware that took them. The soft underbelly of the country is exposed to the world. Get on it,” he said.
No one noticed the desk phone microphone LED lit up bright red or that it went dark before the President had made it out the door.
Author’s Notes
First, I must, as always, acknowledge those people who make this possible. My beautiful, patient wife Robin, supports me, grounds me, pushes me and pulls me back from the ledge. My daughters, Emilee and Allison, keep me connected to the current world of the young and their wit finds its way into all of my writing.
Susan Gottfried patiently corrects my atrocious grammar and Marty Munson corrects my forging fantasies. Ryan Bibby came through with a phenomenal cover that exactly captured my mental image.
Now, my apologies to any gifted readers who actually understand what goes on inside these essential torture devices we call computers. I claim literary license for mixing magic and technology, and scream it outloud for creating my take on quantum computing. Please grant me your benevolent patience for the freedoms I’ve taken.
Quantum computing and artificial intelligence will change the world as we know it and no one can say what it will look like. This is my take.
Finally, rest assured that the adventures will continue. The next book, Rogues, is already begun. It will take your favorite platinum blonde werewolf on an excursion almost all her own.
Thank you all for staying with the stories and making it this far.