Chapter 32
When I woke up the next morning, my hand didn't hurt at all. Lying in bed, I held it up before my face and wiggled the fingers experimentally.
"You'll find it's still a little stiff," came Wizzit's voice from the overhead speakers. "We'll let it go for a couple of hours, but then I'll do one or two more healing comas, and after that you should be right as rain."
Trina was the only one in the kitchen when I went in for breakfast. "How is your hand?" she inquired, sipping her tea.
"Better, thanks," I said as I began rummaging around in the refrigerator. I was famished; my stomach was reminding me that all I had eaten the day before was just a single banana. "I guess it was a pretty tricky job healing it up; Wizzit spent most of the day yesterday on it." I grabbed three eggs and some ham, then straightened and looked around at the empty room. "Looks like everyone else is sleeping in. Late night last night?"
"It wasn't too bad," she replied carelessly. "We got in a little after midnight. It took a long time to clear all the stragglers out, and then all of us had to help shut the place down."
"So the base is now . . .?"
"It's completely dead. All the computers have been wiped and turned off; the power has been shut down and the generators rendered unusable. Close to zero percent chance of Enclave resurrecting it, according to Wizzit." She gazed at me over the rim of her cup. "I suppose this means that we're done."
"Done?" I repeated.
"Our job is complete. Enclave has been destroyed; there is no more reason for the Primes to exist."
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "I guess you're right," I said. In fact, I had been so preoccupied with Lily's problems and my own injury that that hadn't even occurred to me.
It had apparently occurred to everyone else, though. As my friends drifted in one by one for breakfast, everyone began wondering out loud what was going to happen next. I think most of us had mixed emotions. I know I did.
I mean, it was great and all that we had just defeated this group of aliens who wanted to conquer Earth, but being a Prime had been my whole life for the past four years, and I found I wasn't quite ready to give all that up yet. I couldn't imagine what it must be like for Angela. She had looked forward to becoming a Prime for months, and now, after only a few weeks, she might be finished with it for good.
I don't know who first spotted Shelley hovering in the doorway, but within half a minute, all talking had ceased and we were all looking at her expectantly. Mike said, "It's good to see you're back to normal, Commander."
She smiled, and I could tell she was smiling because she was not Prime Gold at the moment. "It's good to be back to normal," she murmured. She glanced around to make sure she had everyone's attention, then said quietly, "Let's meet in the office in ten minutes." Then, looking at my sister, she crooked a finger. "Angie, come with me, please."
Angie looked only a little apprehensive as she followed Shelley out of the room. The rest of us just stood and stared at each other. Eventually, I grabbed my dishes and Angie's and took them to the sink to wash them. That was the signal for everyone else to hurriedly finish their meals. I washed, Trina dried, and Toby put everything away. When we were done, it was time for the debrief.
Aside from Shelley's usual spot behind the desk, I counted eight chairs in the office. There would be seven for us regular Primes, naturally, which left one chair next to mine for someone else. I hadn't yet gone to the lair that morning to check on Lily -- I think part of me was afraid of what I might find -- but seeing the extra chair gave me some cause for hope.
Shelley was there waiting for us. As we settled into our seats, she said, "I told Bill and the others that we wouldn't need them for this meeting. We have some decisions to make, just the members of the main team. Our first order of business, though, is to introduce everyone to our newest teammate."
The door opened and Angie came in. She stepped to one side, flung out her hands with a flourish, and sang out, "Ta-da!" just as Lily entered through the door.
I heard a few murmurs of surprise as Angie led her to the front of the room, and I'm pretty sure one of those murmurs was mine. Angie took her seat next to Padma, leaving Lily standing by herself beside Shelley's desk looking a little nervous. She was wearing the same blouse and skirt she had worn the first time Shelley and I encountered her, the only outfit I had ever seen her wear besides her black Enclave jumpsuits. Maybe it was the only other set of clothes she owned.
Regardless, it was a pretty outfit, and she looked pretty in it. Angie must have helped her brush out her hair and apply just a touch of makeup. I thought she looked quite fetching.
She clasped her hands nervously in front of her, gave us all a tentative smile, and said in a quiet, clear voice, "Hello, everyone. My name is Li Lin-fa. Wizzit has asked me to join your team as Unity White, and I have told him I would be happy to do so. Trevor and Angie have told me many things about the marvelous group of friends they have, and I am pleased to meet each and every one of you."
I don't remember jumping up from my seat and running over to embrace her. I must have done so, though, because the next thing I knew, she was in my arms and I was saying, "Li Lin-fa, you have managed to escape your cage? I am so happy for you!"
She held me tightly for a moment, then looked up with a self-conscious smile. "Perhaps we had better speak English," she said, and I realized that without thinking, I had addressed her in Cantonese.
"Uh, yeah, I guess that would be a good idea," I said sheepishly, adding, "but I thought it gave you a headache."
She shook her head. "It doesn't any more. There's no more strain." Taking my hand, she turned to face the others. "I understand that most of you were acquainted with my sister-self, Lily Lee, who called herself the attack doll."
"Yeah, you could say that," Toby muttered. "What happened to her?"
"She no longer exists," Li Lin-fa replied simply.
"She's dead?" Nicolai said.
"She has . . . returned to her source."
Seeing the puzzled looks on everyone's faces, Li Lin-fa frowned in thought. "It's difficult to explain," she said. "Maybe I can describe it like this."
She reached down and pulled out the tail-end of her blouse from where it was tucked into her skirt. "Pretend that this material is me," she said. "Using some sort of Enclave technology . . ." She held up a circle made with her thumb and middle finger for us all to see. ". . . Oswald was able to impose a large number of compulsions upon my mind, things I had to do and think and believe. Using them . . ." With her other hand, she poked some of the material through the circle and drew it out the other side. ". . . he created a completely new self within my mind, whom he called Lily." She indicated the plume of fabric sticking out from the circle of her fingers. "See?"
She looked around at everyone as if to make sure they were following her and was rewarded by nods of understanding. "When Trevor and I were alone together in the Enclave base," she went on, "he inadvertently discovered a way to release me from all those compulsions. After he did that . . ." She opened her hand, and the material fell from her fingers to become all one piece.
"She became part of you again," Trina said softly.
"Yes," Li Lin-fa affirmed. "Of course, she always was."
"But when I left you," I protested, "you were . . . well, you weren't all there. It was like your mind was a blank. I was afraid you were going to be that way forever. How did you manage to come back?"
"I can answer that, Trev," Shelley said. "I thought about it after you left, and it seemed clear to me that, even if Lily was gone, Li Lin-fa was still around. So I took her to her cage to allow that personality to rise to the surface, and I guess it roused her from whatever fugue state she was stuck in. After a minute or two, she looked around and started talking to me, first in what was probably Cantonese, and then in English. She told me her name was Li Lin-fa, but sh
e also recognized me as Prime Gold, whom Li Lin-fa had never met. She has been Li Lin-fa ever since then."
Mike had stood up and was shaking her hand. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Li Lin-fa," he said. And with that special dazzling grin he reserves for really pretty girls -- or, at least, really pretty girls who are not active enemies of ours -- he introduced everyone by name and color. "I don't mind sayin'," he said to her, "that Lily was an awful thorn in our sides for a long time. I'm hoping that you'll turn out to be as big an asset."
"I hope so, too," she said demurely. "I find I have inherited all the abilities and knowledge that Oswald imparted to Lily, and they are considerable. I can speak English now, of course. I have an eidetic memory, and I also know what the word eidetic means. I can heal myself from nearly any injury or illness, and in a fight, I would be the equal, or nearly so, of the best of you. I understand how to operate and repair every machine in his laboratory. I also have an encyclopedic knowledge of Western history, literature, and philosophy, and I even have perfect pitch." She gave us all a wry smile. "I'm not the same girl who was taken from her village near Shanghai seven years ago."
Then her smile softened. "Most of all, I remember the kindness and compassion that all of you showed me -- that you showed Lily -- even when I was your sworn enemy. You fed me, you took care of me, you spoke gently to me when I was frightened, you pulled me out of harm's way, and you even saved my life more than once. I'm very grateful, and I hope to repay you all someday."
"Yes, well, I can certainly see how you might give Trevor some recompense," Trina said with a knowing wink. "I'm not sure how you would be able to repay the rest of us, though. It seems to me that the Primes are done. We have fought our last battle." She took in everyone in her gaze. "Isn't that right?"
"That's actually our next topic of discussion," Shelley said. She indicated that Li Lin-fa and I should sit down. I led her to the seat beside mine. Her fingers curled themselves around my hand and held it tightly.
"Aren't we going to go over the mission first?" Mike asked. "We usually do that before we talk about the larger issues."
"It's up to you, Mike," Shelley replied with a shrug. "Wizzit said that in this case it's not necessary. We can if you want, though."
Mike looked around at the rest of us. "I don't want to go over the whole mission," he said, "but I do have a couple of questions."
Shelley nodded. "Shoot."
"First of all, how did Wizzit know where Trevor and Lily -- er, sorry, Trevor and Li Lin-fa --"
"Actually, she was Lily at the time," I interjected.
He rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently. "Fine. Lily, then. Keeping track of these names is very confusing."
"I will happily answer to either one, if it helps," Li Lin-fa offered. "Each of them feels familiar enough to be my name. And since we're all friends now, you do not have to use my family name; just call me Lin-fa."
"At any rate," Mike went on, "how did Wizzit know where they had gone? Everyone knows you can't track a teleport, and once they were inside the base, their transponders would be blocked."
I raised my hand. "After JB Swift's old lair was ransacked, I found a set of coordinates on the teleporter there. I'm guessing that's where Wizzit sent you guys."
"Correctamundo!" Wizzit chirped. "After Trevor described the circumstances under which he discovered those coordinates, I was fairly certain they described the location of Enclave's Earth base."
"'Fairly certain'?" Toby echoed incredulously. "You mean, you sent us off blind to a spot that you were 'fairly certain' was the right place?"
"Well, no, when I sent you out there, I was more than fairly certain," Wizzit replied. "It's true that I can't track a teleport, but if I can zero in on one single set of coordinates, then I can detect residual energy if someone teleports there."
"In other words," Padma said thoughtfully, "if I asked you, 'where did that monster teleport to?', you could not tell me. But if I asked, 'did that monster teleport to such-and-such a place?' you could say yes or no, correct?"
"That's right, if I knew the place in advance and was already checking there. Once Trevor gave me his set of coordinates, I watched that particular spot diligently. Every time a monster, Zoink, or alter fled a battle, I detected incoming teleport energy there. By the time I sent out the team, I was certain it was the correct place."
"Well, all right," Toby said, mollified, "as long as you were certain . . ."
"I suppose that answers my first question," Mike said. "Now, I'm still confused about these super-weapons . . ."
"That's easy to answer," Nicolai said. "Wizzit cracked their code. He was able to discover their backdoor by analyzing the videos he took of the attack on JB Swift, and then Bill and Toby built that into a pair of weapons, that's all."
Mike thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right, that makes sense. But why was there such a big deal about our using them only once? Why couldn't we use them over and over again?"
Wizzit replied, "Because after we had used them on a single mission, it would become obvious what kind of weapons they were. Any future monsters that were sent out would have been built with a different backdoor code. I wanted to save those weapons until we could use them to deliver a knockout punch."
"Let me see if I understand this," Angie said. "By the time today's battle started, we knew where Enclave's base was, and we had the means to destroy them completely. So why did we wait? Why didn't we just charge in with our super-weapons and wipe everybody out just as soon as we could?"
"The reason for that, Angela," Wizzit said, "has to do with the nature of Earth's conflict with Enclave. We are not the aggressors in this war, and we never have been. That's why we must always wait until monsters have shown themselves hostile before we attack them. That affords us certain . . . protections which we otherwise would not have. If we had simply charged in without provocation, we would have lost that pure-defender status and -- you'll have to trust me on this -- your planet would be in deep doo-doo at this point."
He went on, "What happened instead was that I sent you on a rescue mission against an entire base that had proved itself hostile by kidnapping one or more members of your team. At that point, anyone in the base was fair game."
"So you set us up, then?" I asked suspiciously. I mean, I like Wizzit and all, but I sure didn't like what I was hearing. "It sounds like you deliberately sent Lily out there, knowing that Enclave would try to steal her away from us, and you sent me after her to make it two hostages instead of one, and then you used that as an excuse to send everyone else in to destroy the base."
"No, I did not." I had never heard Wizzit sound more serious. "I would never hang any of you out to dry like that. I'd hope you would know me better than that. I do not use the ends to justify the means, and I don't put my team in danger without making them aware of everything that could happen.
"We all knew the dangers that Lily faced. We all knew that Enclave wanted her back. Shelley and Mike decided to send her anyway because you needed Unity out there. We gave her as much protection as we could, and when that failed, I sent you to help, and when that didn't work, I sent in a rescue mission. Now, I was prepared for that contingency and I'm glad it ended well, but trust me, I didn't set anyone up."
Lin-fa was tugging at my sleeve. When I looked over at her, she smiled at me and said, "I believe him."
I nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do, too."
"Are there any other questions?" Shelley asked. "Before we get to the main one, that is?" She looked at each of us in turn. I gave my head a slight shake, and I was not the only one. "Okay," she said. "I'm dying to know this, too, because Wizzit hasn't told me yet." She looked up at the ceiling speakers. "So, Wizzit, what's going to happen now that Enclave is gone?"
"What's going to happen now," came Wizzit's voice, "is . . ."
"What?" said Toby impatiently as his sentence trail
ed off.
"Don't tell me it's another surprise," Padma groaned.
"No, not another surprise," Wizzit said. "I know you won't like this, though."
"Tell us anyway," Trina said.
"Very well. What's going to happen now is . . . an extended vacation. That's all. You're not done by any means." He paused, as if to let us all voice complaints before going on. No one did, although most of us made some sound of surprise. I think I heard a "Yessss!" from Angie, and I know I saw her pump her fist in the air.
After a moment, he went on, "What you defeated yesterday was merely the first wave of the invasion. There will be others, although I can't say how many. We'll have a respite while they attempt to establish a new presence on Earth, but the attacks will eventually resume, and I'll need you to be ready when they do."
"How much time do we have?" Trina asked.
"It's impossible to tell. Six months to a year is my best guess."
"That will be enough time for the planet to heal itself," Nicolai mused. "They'll be able to send out only one monster at a time."
Mike asked, "What do we do until then?"
"Whatever you like," Wizzit replied. "You can visit friends, set sail across the Himalayas, go backpacking along the gulf stream, or whatever you aliens do to amuse yourselves when you have time on your hands. I will continue to maintain HQ as usual, and you're welcome to stay here as much as you like. I will be available to teleport you to any location you desire, and I can provide you with some limited amount of pocket money. I'll insist that you keep in contact with me and each other, but beyond that . . . the world is yours!"
Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee Page 33