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PCrunched into a nastily uncomfortable looking sprawl, Bruno was obviously in
a bad way. Elli looked at the tangle of arms and legs and wondered what she
should do about it. If the acceleration couch security released, she might never
get the guy back in there, so she restricted her attention to the placement of
his limbs. Despite lacking confidence in the results, she tried - hard - to make
him a bit more comfortable. In the end she achieved little and so she flicked a
quick sneer at the slightly reduced tangle of his arms and legs. She decided
that she had done as much as she could./P
PMadison DeSoto spent time staring into space, not that there was much to see,
the girl remained strapped inside a tin cigar with windows that showed empty
space. The globe of the planet lay beneath the fuselage. Both of it's moons
might be out there somewhere, Elli thought, but she had no idea at all whether
the woman would be able to see it through that porthole. But then again, she
obviously has a lot to think about./P
PElli floated over to the compartment where their bits-and-pieces supplies
were being kept. After a fight with the latching, she broke out the medical
system and then peered at it thoughtfully - far from happy with what she found.
She floated back to Bruno and began searched around the acceleration couch for
the interface socket, found it under the chair and then struggled to get the
unit plugged in. It was a tight fit and fought her efforts for a while. /P
PInstructions loaded into her ear-eye./P
PShe fitted a series of bulging bladders to a clamp on the couch and then
began plumbing them together by matching iconic representations. All complete,
she hit the go icon and watched while a display unfolded to become a holographic
image in the air above Bruno. It delivered a series of read-outs that made no
sense to her. In fact they weren't in a language that Elli recognised. /P
PShe blinked at the display for an uncomprehending instant./P
PThe only good part she made of the display was the fact that none of the
read-outs were presented in red, although a few of them were amber. She took
that for a positive sign. Maybe…/P
P"Admiral," she transmitted to the cockpit while staring at the read outs
again and frowning. "Where did we get the shuttle fitted out for this
jaunt?"/P
P"Old Earth. Indian subcontractor."/P
P"So this language here would be Hindi then?"/P
P"Oh… Right…"/P
P"So why've we got a med kit in a foreign language that we can't understand?
Like that would make it pretty useless."/P
P"We need to speak with our Quartermaster."/P
P"As soon as we get back to the fleet."/P
PAn hour passed in tedium. Elli spent most of the time hovering by Bruno's
side, willing the med-kit to give off positive news. Nothing much changed in his
situation. /P
PMadison DeSoto spent the time just drifting about and nursing whatever demons
she carried. Nothing much changed there either./P
P"Elli," Miles intoned. "Get up here. I've got something to show you,
something that you might want to see." /P
P"What?"/P
P"I've run a few things through a sim, based on the shape and positioning of
those implants of hers. Looks real interesting."/P
PThe urgency in his tone caught her ear. "Yeah, in a sec," Elli replied. She
turned in the air and faced back towards Madison. The other woman watched Elli
intently, her manner suggesting a question. "We'll see if we can get to the
bottom of what's going on here for you."/P
PMadison nodded, but said nothing./P
PElli pulled herself through the bulkhead and into the cockpit. Rearranged her
arms and legs so she could tumble into the cushioned confines of the co-pilot's
couch./P
PMiles had a holo-display floating in the air in front of him for her benefit.
/P
P"What is it?" she asked./P
P"Enhanced image of the thing in her head," Miles said. "It's still way short
of detail, but this is the best that the microwave radar could get us. I think a
heap of it's biological."/P
P"How can you tell?" /P
PMicrowave radar could not distinguish between one bodily organ and another,
and they hadn't brought MRI security gear up to orbit, too long a lead-time to
get it fitted./P
P"I can't really. I'm just guessing. Looking at the way it's internal circuits
appear to extrude i/o gear and extrapolating which parts of the brain are
interfaced."/P
PElli shook her head, not fully understanding what they were looking at, even
struggling with the implications. "So what are you going to do?"/P
P"Ask her to participate in a few tests," Miles suggested buoyantly./P
PElli grinned wryly. "You mean for me to ask her."/P
P"Please."/P
PElli heaved a heavy sigh and assented. "But only because you asked so
nicely."/P
P"I only said please, because I want that elf. Only nine more brownie points
to go."/P
PElli's face broke into a tired, sad smile. "I love elves myself," she said
darkly, "but I couldn't eat a whole one."/P
PMiles gave a sickly grin that was more an honour guard for her joke than any
real representation of amusement. "Run a detailed diagnostic check on Bruno for
me while you're back there, and also over the geek. I don't have nice news on
the vital stats read outs from either of them."/P
P align=center*/P
PMadison DeSoto looked long and hard at Elli but she seemed to be considering
the request. "What would it involve?" she asked finally./P
P"I'm not sure," Elli answered. "But I can tell you that Admiral Naismith
doesn't do anything to hurt people unless there is no other way."/P
P"This is the same guy who mined the passages of the space station where I
grew up?" Madison asked. Her tone conveyed a touch of disbelief./P
P"OK, yeah there was that, but I don't think anyone was hurt."/P
PMadison looked significantly at the reclining bodies of Bruno and the geek.
/P
PElli felt a flush of anger and a twinge of consternation. Neither emotion was
really justified, because the girl was right, and Elli already felt guilty as
hell without the reminder. "Just talk to him," she said, more angrily than might
be appropriate. "Don't agree to anything unless you know exactly what's
involved." /P
P"What is all this about?"/P
PElli shook her head. "As far as I knew, our job was just to collect you and
deliver you to the new owner of the data that you're carrying. That's all we're
obliged to do. Pick you, and your data, up and drop you off. Although what that
data might be…" Elli shrugged. The woman came on board with a bunch of flower
stick-ons and nothing else. So…/P
P"The implants?" Madison guessed./P
PElli pursed her lips and nodded. "Not the way it was told to me before, but
we're just about certain of it now."/P
P"That can't be it," Madison said heatedly. "I know what you're thinking. I
came along with you wearing a set of flower stick-ons. They're all of my worldly
possessions now. I don't have any data. Dad organised to get me out of GeoSync.
Me, not some data. Me."/P
P"Not the job we were contracted to perform."/P
P"So you just assume that it has to be the implants." Madison laughed
defiantly. "It wasn't like that. I told you how it was."/P
P"We'll see. That's all we're trying to do. Figure out what the hell is going
on here. Talk to Miles. Clear up the confusion for us. Besides, what else have
you got to do?"/P
P"Yeah OK." Madison conceded reluctantly and then made her way through the
bulkhead into the cockpit./P
PElli returned her attention to Bruno, loading a detailed diagnostic into the
acceleration couch processor. It ran a series of extrapolations based on trends
in biochemical data and fed the information back to Elli through the ear-eye
set. There was nothing she could do. The read outs from the couch were still in
either the green or in the amber. None of them had moved. What the hell was
Miles so worried about?/P
PThe geek gave another moan and lolled a bit. Elli allowed herself to float
closer so she could see to him. His vitals said he was still out, sleeping
rather than unconscious, which made a big difference. Probably wasn't concussed,
not too bad, anyway. Not that Elli had a lot of sympathy for the guy. She
wondered what he thought he was doing tagging along with her. /P
PHe was the one who made most of the contact, She reminded herself. So what is
he?/P
PElli turned so she could look toward the cockpit where Madison DeSoto was
holed up with Miles and then back at the geek. Something was not right about
either of them. Probably working together, she decided, and then experienced a
major chill./P
PElli shook it off. It was only someone walking over her grave, no biggie.
Instead she read the geek's data in a bit more detail. Miles had turned off the
sedative. He would sleep on for a while and then, when he woke, they would have
the chance to find out what his game was./P
PMaybe…/P
P align=center*/P
P"How long is this orbit?" Elli asked Miles. He had been cloistered in the
cockpit with the dolly for a long time and Elli felt pretty isolated. The vigil
at Bruno's bedside was also wearing a bit thin and Elli was not one for long
periods of inactivity. She was an action kind of girl and there wasn't a lot
happening. She was not the sort of girl who liked to be on the outside of the
communications loop, either./P
P"Twelve hours," he transmitted back./P
P"So then we're back at the station and getting our arses shot off?" she sort
of guessed. It didn't sound right, and she knew it as soon as she said it./P
P"No, actually. By then the station will be half the world away, and we
wouldn't catch up to it for another twelve hours. Before that happens we'll be
safely back in the atmosphere and under civilian air-traffic control."/P
P"Smartarse," she chided./P
P"Do I get an elf?"/P
P"You don't even get a brownie."/P
P"Guess not. How's Bruno?"/P
P"Not good. The acceleration couch and the emergency medical kit are holding
him together. 'Bout all it can do. Hold him. Lot of bloods gone missing and
there's not enough plasma to keep him running. The bleeding has stopped though,
which is good, but we need to get that wound stapled so it won't open again.
Re-entry might be a major drama. On top of that we're short of anti-bac nano,
and there's some wicked new stuff floating around out there now. Haven't heard
of anything new or nasty on GeoSync so he's probably OK now, but back on Earth,
it might get ugly."/P
P"Well aware Elli."/P
P"He needs a medic. A real one."/P
P"All we got is you. We won't be on the ground for a while yet."/P
P"Admiral… Miles, I'm doing all I can, but he's in a bad way. Is there some
way to short circuit."/P
P"No. None."/P
P"Damn…"/P
P"How's the geek by the way?"/P
P"Don't know exactly. His vitals are OK. He should be up and about, but he
isn't."/P
P"I was worried about that. I thought he might have been in a coma."/P
P"Possible I suppose, but there's nothing physically wrong with him. The guy
must have a head like a bowling ball, even sounded like one when he hit the
deck. Should have a fractured skull, but… No, nothing. Checks out just about
fine. Although his metabolic state is pretty sluggish, not like he was a sleep,
just a bit slow."/P
P"The more I think about this," Miles said slowly, "the more sure I am that we
should have left him behind."/P
PElli laughed. "Miles I seem to recall that you were the one that suggested
that we bring him along."/P
P"Yeah but if we hadn't then Bruno might have been OK now."/P
P"Water under the bridge Admiral. Can only do things that effect the future.
What's gone…"/P
P"Is gone. I should be the one who tells you that sort of thing Elli."/P
PElli thought of other loose ends. "What has the dolly decided?" she
asked./P
P"She's being tested as we speak. Be one of life's more interesting
moments."/P
P align=center*/P
PElli arranged herself so the axis of her body lined up with both Madison
DeSoto and also with Miles - rough enough. There was a dopey grin on Miles's
face, and like all of his expressions, it was an interesting one./P
P"All right Miles" Elli asked. "What is it? What are those things in her
head?"/P
PMiles turned from his blind contemplation of Madison and faced toward Elli.
"I think I've triggered something," he said. His tone was sort of apologetic,
like he had done something wrong. "I'm sorry about making a mess of it."/P
PElli looked between the two of them, confused. " We can have a bout of true
confessions at a later date, OK? What the hell is it in there?"/P
PMiles drew a breath to answer, and then shut his mouth like a goldfish. He
wasn't the one who answered Elli's question./P
P"The implant carries the personality of her father's former - and now
possibly dead - employer, and also my manufacturer," said Madison's mouth, but
the words came out in a voice that was ever so slightly not-hers./P
PElli blinked a few times before trusting her mouth. "Ah, ri-ight," she said
in a voice that carried a lack of credulity like it was a bucket./P
P"Isn't that amazing?" Miles said. He waited for Elli to do something or say
something, kick something or punch something. /P
PInstead she just stared at him. /P
P"I thought that sort of thing was impossible," Miles said. "But there it
is."/P
P"Oh wonderful," agreed Elli without giving any hint that she thought it was a
stupid idea other than the fact that her face radiated cynicism like a neon
light. "Maybe it is impossible," she said finally. "Perhaps this is nothing more
than a big chain-pull."/P
P"No. Sorry. See, I know what's going on here. Elli, meet Mayberry Lui.
Mayberry, meet Elli Quinn."/P
PMadison DeSoto bowed, a neat feat in zero gee. And yeah, it was a different
personality animating that body. Even cynical Elli could see that./P
PIt had been memories - not skills - memories that Elli had seen in action
when the girl was preparing for free fall./P
P align=center*/P
PA file scrolled past Elli Quinn's eyes, filling her head with theoretical
data that was being decoded and lased directly into her retina by little laser
projectors mounted in her ear-eye. It came in full colour, with illustrations
and animated displays and it made startling reading. If you could believe what
it has to say, that is, Elli commented to herself. /P
PShe knew the guys who set up and ran the site from which Miles downloaded the
data. They were pretty good, didn't often get things wrong, so she had to
concede that there was a good chance they were right this time as well. She just
had a hard time believing it; that was all./P
PMadison/Mayberry floated past Elli, drifting through the opening in the
bulkhead and back into the passenger compartment, claiming a desire to be by
herself. Which might have been a good idea, except…/P
PIt was not as if she could be by herself, not when she couldn't even be alone
in her own head. /P
PElli shook her head in sympathy before returning her attention to the virtual
dissertation about the technology that lay buried beneath that blonde hair./P
PAnd on a more practical note, there were a couple of things to be said for
getting Madison/Mayberry out of the way. Her absence at least left Miles and
Elli alone to discuss the issues associated with their snatch and run and the
mess that seemed to come down with it. /P
PBut there was also another, more personal reason why Elli felt happier to see
Madison DeSoto safely out of the way. It had more to do with the way Madison's
personality shift freaked Elli out. It was seriously spooky watching the way the
set of her face changed. /P
P"Does she realise what's going on, do you think?" Elli asked Miles She had a
hard time looking him in the eye. Most of her attention was focussed on
digesting the information that was still scrolling past her eyes. "This is
really heavy duty corporate garbage here Miles Really heavy stuff. I mean this
is so bad, they should be able to smell it from Earth and I'm really not sure
that I want to be involved in this mess. Why did we take this job on?"/P
P"Cash."/P
P"Shee-it. We must be fore cash strapped than I thought. You had no idea that
this job was going to turn out like this?"/P
PMiles shook his head. "None whatsoever."/P
PElli read some more. The sequestration was experimental. 'No successful
trials had been reported.' "What the hell is she going to do? What were they
planning to do to her, do you reckon?"/P
P"God knows," Miles said. "I don't like being tied up in stuff like this.
There's serious money and possible grubby politics in this mess. They might not
stop at anything to get what they want out of this. I mean, look at her. She's
nothing but a pawn in this game, and so are we. That's how big it is. I mean,
she always was a pawn but, hell, this is an order of magnitude worse. She's
literally nothing but a broker-ed commodity. She might have been made purely so
she could be delivered to us. That being the case; she's not even a real person.
I have to wonder even how old she is. When did they make her? And where did they
get the personality? Stuff like that you know?"/P
PElli favoured him with a look. "And what that even means in her case," she
added./P
P"Eh…?"/P
PElli shut the data flow down. All it did was support Miles's argument that
the woman drifting in the back of the shuttle was an artificially produced
multiple personality. Like that was the sort of thing that would be a good idea
to produce. Shit, Elli thought, summing the whole situation up in one word. Mass
produced mental illness…/P
P"It's, well…" Elli began hesitantly, Miles was behaving strangely around the
dolly and Elli was not impressed with his newly minted paternal streak. "Her
body looks to be about sixteen, seventeen years old, not much more, maybe not
even that old, but the personality is constructed so that she behaves a bit
older than that. Sooo," Elli drew the word out for significance, "is she the
twenty five that she seems to be when you speak with her, the seventeen she
looks when you look at her, or the - what - a couple of years? - that it took to
grow her?"/P
P"Perhaps we should ask her." Miles suggested./P
PElli had another thought, something from holodramas that she had seen over
the years. "Does she even know about that Mayberry Lui personality?"/P
P"She does now." Miles at least had the grace to look embarrassed about that
admission./P
P"Aw Gawd!" Elli exclaimed. "How must she feel?"/P
P"Pretty awful I would have said. Which is where this conversation started.
How is she now? Can you tell?"/P
PElli looked over her shoulder. "She's out there crying her eyes out." The
dolly was just huddled into a foetal ball at the back of the passenger
compartment, sort of partially hidden by the acceleration couches and their
comatose occupants./P
P"Why don't you go out there and lend some support?"/P
PNow that was a good one, and it caught Elli completely off-guard. "Moi!" Her
mouth dropped open comically. "What am I going to say?" Elli managed to get out.
"Perhaps I should start with, 'There, there, I know just how you feel. I was a
schizoid dolly once and look how I turned out'." Elli laughed bitterly. "Get
real Miles It just doesn't cut it."/P
P"You've got some empathy."/P
P"Oh yeah, ri-ight."/P
P"It's not like I can do much for her," Miles explained and the pain was
obvious. "You want to talk about pain. I can tell you about that." Miles had
almost his entire skeleton replaced after the brittle bones he had been born
with were removed. "You have a go. Try to relate to her at least. You're female.
It's something. At least you have that much in common. I mean she's going to be
with us for a couple of days yet. I don't want to hand her over in a state. I
mean that sort of stuff going on back there is not likely to improve if you let
her stew in it."/P
P"If Iwe/I let her stew in it you mean."/P
P"Whatever."/P
PElli gave him a look for a while, but it seemed to wash off him. /P
PShe gave up and made her way aft, swimming through the bulkhead, and then
giving him another look on the way through, with as much impact as the first
one. He wasn't even looking at her. /P
P align=center*/P
P"We have," Elli Quinn said and tugged at the packages in the food locker,
"chicken parmagiana." That met with a lack of enthusiasm so she pulled another
packet from the locker and turned it around so she could read the label, "a beef
risotto, or a…" she looked more closely to the third package, "second chicken,
and," she tugged another package from the locker. She brushed coating of ice
from the surface. It began melting while it floated toward the air intake-grill.
"This one is a beef teriyaki. What do you want?"/P
PMadison said nothing so Elli gently tossed one of the food packages toward
the woman without looking to see which one it was. /P
PElli was pretty sure that Madison was the personality in charge of the body
throughout the last hour. Elli had picked up a few clues. The Mayberry Lui
personality frowned more, and held the mouth in a different way./P
PThe food package floated slowly across the intervening space before it was
caught deftly./P
PAnd along with the food came a conversational gambit that brought Madison
DeSoto out of her shell. "What happened to him?" she asked. Her voice was
pitched low so that it didn't carry forward into the cockpit. /P
PDidn't take a great deal of cogitation on Elli's part to work out what
subject lead to that question. Behind a wry smile, Elli wondered how pleased
Miles would be about the conversational topic that finally dragged Madison out
of her fugue. /P
PElli eyed Madison for a moment, concerned with who might be in charge of the
vocal chords at this time. Elli debated about sharing information before she
answered the question. Yeah, and it wasn't going to hurt to share just this
once. "Inutero soltoxin degradation," Elli answered finally, "and other nerve
damage. His mother had an accident with a neuro-poison when she was carrying
him. They grew him in a uterine replicator and did the best they could but he
suffered from brittle bones, that wouldn't grow properly. What you see, well…
That's what you get."/P
PElli found herself lost in this introspection, talking for her own reasons,
not for the dolly's benefit./P
P"I see," Madison commented./P
P"You want me to heat that for you?" Elli said and waved at the frozen food
package in Madison's hands./P
PThe dolly schizo looked down at the food like she didn't realise it was there
and then nodded in a sort of distracted way that she had started making her own
lately. Elli took the container from Madison and stuck it into a microwave
heater./P
PAfter a minute spent in silence, the microwave went beep. Elli released the
door and took out the food. The smell hit her, right in the tastebuds. She
handed the container to Madison who opened it carefully and looked at the
contents doubtfully./P
P"Needs to be sticky and crumb free for zero gee," Elli explained./P
P"What do I eat it with?"/P
P"Utensils. Yeah, hang on. There's chopsticks in that cupboard over there I
think," Elli said and waved vaguely in the direction of the space beside the
microwave. /P
PWhile Madison began rummaging around, searching, Elli fed the second
container into the microwave./P
P"There's something between you two…" suggested Madison without looking across
at the other woman, resuming their previous conversation where they left it
off./P
P"Yeah. There is," Elli agreed hesitantly./P
PMadison looked searchingly at Elli. "He loves you too."/P
PElli nodded. "That's me and Miles in a nut shell."/P
PElli's meal was ready. She gathered it from the oven and took it out. /P
P"I have taken control of this ship," said the geek. His voice seemed to come
from nowhere. His statement took a moment for Elli to translate it into
something with a context that she could understand. "Don't anybody make any
overt moves," he instructed./PI
PWould never dream of it/I, Elli thought cynically. "Cetagandan right?" Elli
suggested. They were the only ones who had gear that could do that much damage
without some sort of alert. /P
PHe nodded. "Yes," he agreed to her guess. "You are stuck in orbit," the geek
said. "I have control of the ship." His point was illustrated by the release of
the acceleration couch restraints. They popped open with a malignant little
click that said it all to Elli. "We wait for my team," the geek added. He looked
significantly toward Madison-who-was-Mayberry at that moment./P/BODY/HTML
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PCrunched into a nastily uncomfortable looking sprawl, Bruno was obviously in
a bad way. Elli looked at the tangle of arms and legs and wondered what she
should do about it. If the acceleration couch security released, she might never
get the guy back in there, so she restricted her attention to the placement of
his limbs. Despite lacking confidence in the results, she tried - hard - to make
him a bit more comfortable. In the end she achieved little and so she flicked a
quick sneer at the slightly reduced tangle of his arms and legs. She decided
that she had done as much as she could./P
PMadison DeSoto spent time staring into space, not that there was much to see,
the girl remained strapped inside a tin cigar with windows that showed empty
space. The globe of the planet lay beneath the fuselage. Both of it's moons
might be out there somewhere, Elli thought, but she had no idea at all whether
the woman would be able to see it through that porthole. But then again, she
obviously has a lot to think about./P
PElli floated over to the compartment where their bits-and-pieces supplies
were being kept. After a fight with the latching, she broke out the medical
system and then peered at it thoughtfully - far from happy with what she found.
She floated back to Bruno and began searched around the acceleration couch for
the interface socket, found it under the chair and then struggled to get the
unit plugged in. It was a tight fit and fought her efforts for a while. /P
PInstructions loaded into her ear-eye./P
PShe fitted a series of bulging bladders to a clamp on the couch and then
began plumbing them together by matching iconic representations. All complete,
she hit the go icon and watched while a display unfolded to become a holographic
image in the air above Bruno. It delivered a series of read-outs that made no
sense to her. In fact they weren't in a language that Elli recognised. /P
PShe blinked at the display for an uncomprehending instant./P
PThe only good part she made of the display was the fact that none of the
read-outs were presented in red, although a few of them were amber. She took
that for a positive sign. Maybe…/P
P"Admiral," she transmitted to the cockpit while staring at the read outs
again and frowning. "Where did we get the shuttle fitted out for this
jaunt?"/P
P"Old Earth. Indian subcontractor."/P
P"So this language here would be Hindi then?"/P
P"Oh… Right…"/P
P"So why've we got a med kit in a foreign language that we can't understand?
Like that would make it pretty useless."/P
P"We need to speak with our Quartermaster."/P
P"As soon as we get back to the fleet."/P
PAn hour passed in tedium. Elli spent most of the time hovering by Bruno's
side, willing the med-kit to give off positive news. Nothing much changed in his
situation. /P
PMadison DeSoto spent the time just drifting about and nursing whatever demons
she carried. Nothing much changed there either./P
P"Elli," Miles intoned. "Get up here. I've got something to show you,
something that you might want to see." /P
P"What?"/P
P"I've run a few things through a sim, based on the shape and positioning of
those implants of hers. Looks real interesting."/P
PThe urgency in his tone caught her ear. "Yeah, in a sec," Elli replied. She
turned in the air and faced back towards Madison. The other woman watched Elli
intently, her manner suggesting a question. "We'll see if we can get to the
bottom of what's going on here for you."/P
PMadison nodded, but said nothing./P
PElli pulled herself through the bulkhead and into the cockpit. Rearranged her
arms and legs so she could tumble into the cushioned confines of the co-pilot's
couch./P
PMiles had a holo-display floating in the air in front of him for her benefit.
/P
P"What is it?" she asked./P
P"Enhanced image of the thing in her head," Miles said. "It's still way short
of detail, but this is the best that the microwave radar could get us. I think a
heap of it's biological."/P
P"How can you tell?" /P
PMicrowave radar could not distinguish between one bodily organ and another,
and they hadn't brought MRI security gear up to orbit, too long a lead-time to
get it fitted./P
P"I can't really. I'm just guessing. Looking at the way it's internal circuits
appear to extrude i/o gear and extrapolating which parts of the brain are
interfaced."/P
PElli shook her head, not fully understanding what they were looking at, even
struggling with the implications. "So what are you going to do?"/P
P"Ask her to participate in a few tests," Miles suggested buoyantly./P
PElli grinned wryly. "You mean for me to ask her."/P
P"Please."/P
PElli heaved a heavy sigh and assented. "But only because you asked so
nicely."/P
P"I only said please, because I want that elf. Only nine more brownie points
to go."/P
PElli's face broke into a tired, sad smile. "I love elves myself," she said
darkly, "but I couldn't eat a whole one."/P
PMiles gave a sickly grin that was more an honour guard for her joke than any
real representation of amusement. "Run a detailed diagnostic check on Bruno for
me while you're back there, and also over the geek. I don't have nice news on
the vital stats read outs from either of them."/P
P align=center*/P
PMadison DeSoto looked long and hard at Elli but she seemed to be considering
the request. "What would it involve?" she asked finally./P
P"I'm not sure," Elli answered. "But I can tell you that Admiral Naismith
doesn't do anything to hurt people unless there is no other way."/P
P"This is the same guy who mined the passages of the space station where I
grew up?" Madison asked. Her tone conveyed a touch of disbelief./P
P"OK, yeah there was that, but I don't think anyone was hurt."/P
PMadison looked significantly at the reclining bodies of Bruno and the geek.
/P
PElli felt a flush of anger and a twinge of consternation. Neither emotion was
really justified, because the girl was right, and Elli already felt guilty as
hell without the reminder. "Just talk to him," she said, more angrily than might
be appropriate. "Don't agree to anything unless you know exactly what's
involved." /P
P"What is all this about?"/P
PElli shook her head. "As far as I knew, our job was just to collect you and
deliver you to the new owner of the data that you're carrying. That's all we're
obliged to do. Pick you, and your data, up and drop you off. Although what that
data might be…" Elli shrugged. The woman came on board with a bunch of flower
stick-ons and nothing else. So…/P
P"The implants?" Madison guessed./P
PElli pursed her lips and nodded. "Not the way it was told to me before, but
we're just about certain of it now."/P
P"That can't be it," Madison said heatedly. "I know what you're thinking. I
came along with you wearing a set of flower stick-ons. They're all of my worldly
possessions now. I don't have any data. Dad organised to get me out of GeoSync.
Me, not some data. Me."/P
P"Not the job we were contracted to perform."/P
P"So you just assume that it has to be the implants." Madison laughed
defiantly. "It wasn't like that. I told you how it was."/P
P"We'll see. That's all we're trying to do. Figure out what the hell is going
on here. Talk to Miles. Clear up the confusion for us. Besides, what else have
you got to do?"/P
P"Yeah OK." Madison conceded reluctantly and then made her way through the
bulkhead into the cockpit./P
PElli returned her attention to Bruno, loading a detailed diagnostic into the
acceleration couch processor. It ran a series of extrapolations based on trends
in biochemical data and fed the information back to Elli through the ear-eye
set. There was nothing she could do. The read outs from the couch were still in
either the green or in the amber. None of them had moved. What the hell was
Miles so worried about?/P
PThe geek gave another moan and lolled a bit. Elli allowed herself to float
closer so she could see to him. His vitals said he was still out, sleeping
rather than unconscious, which made a big difference. Probably wasn't concussed,
not too bad, anyway. Not that Elli had a lot of sympathy for the guy. She
wondered what he thought he was doing tagging along with her. /P
PHe was the one who made most of the contact, She reminded herself. So what is
he?/P
PElli turned so she could look toward the cockpit where Madison DeSoto was
holed up with Miles and then back at the geek. Something was not right about
either of them. Probably working together, she decided, and then experienced a
major chill./P
PElli shook it off. It was only someone walking over her grave, no biggie.
Instead she read the geek's data in a bit more detail. Miles had turned off the
sedative. He would sleep on for a while and then, when he woke, they would have
the chance to find out what his game was./P
PMaybe…/P
P align=center*/P
P"How long is this orbit?" Elli asked Miles. He had been cloistered in the
cockpit with the dolly for a long time and Elli felt pretty isolated. The vigil
at Bruno's bedside was also wearing a bit thin and Elli was not one for long
periods of inactivity. She was an action kind of girl and there wasn't a lot
happening. She was not the sort of girl who liked to be on the outside of the
communications loop, either./P
P"Twelve hours," he transmitted back./P
P"So then we're back at the station and getting our arses shot off?" she sort
of guessed. It didn't sound right, and she knew it as soon as she said it./P
P"No, actually. By then the station will be half the world away, and we
wouldn't catch up to it for another twelve hours. Before that happens we'll be
safely back in the atmosphere and under civilian air-traffic control."/P
P"Smartarse," she chided./P
P"Do I get an elf?"/P
P"You don't even get a brownie."/P
P"Guess not. How's Bruno?"/P
P"Not good. The acceleration couch and the emergency medical kit are holding
him together. 'Bout all it can do. Hold him. Lot of bloods gone missing and
there's not enough plasma to keep him running. The bleeding has stopped though,
which is good, but we need to get that wound stapled so it won't open again.
Re-entry might be a major drama. On top of that we're short of anti-bac nano,
and there's some wicked new stuff floating around out there now. Haven't heard
of anything new or nasty on GeoSync so he's probably OK now, but back on Earth,
it might get ugly."/P
P"Well aware Elli."/P
P"He needs a medic. A real one."/P
P"All we got is you. We won't be on the ground for a while yet."/P
P"Admiral… Miles, I'm doing all I can, but he's in a bad way. Is there some
way to short circuit."/P
P"No. None."/P
P"Damn…"/P
P"How's the geek by the way?"/P
P"Don't know exactly. His vitals are OK. He should be up and about, but he
isn't."/P
P"I was worried about that. I thought he might have been in a coma."/P
P"Possible I suppose, but there's nothing physically wrong with him. The guy
must have a head like a bowling ball, even sounded like one when he hit the
deck. Should have a fractured skull, but… No, nothing. Checks out just about
fine. Although his metabolic state is pretty sluggish, not like he was a sleep,
just a bit slow."/P
P"The more I think about this," Miles said slowly, "the more sure I am that we
should have left him behind."/P
PElli laughed. "Miles I seem to recall that you were the one that suggested
that we bring him along."/P
P"Yeah but if we hadn't then Bruno might have been OK now."/P
P"Water under the bridge Admiral. Can only do things that effect the future.
What's gone…"/P
P"Is gone. I should be the one who tells you that sort of thing Elli."/P
PElli thought of other loose ends. "What has the dolly decided?" she
asked./P
P"She's being tested as we speak. Be one of life's more interesting
moments."/P
P align=center*/P
PElli arranged herself so the axis of her body lined up with both Madison
DeSoto and also with Miles - rough enough. There was a dopey grin on Miles's
face, and like all of his expressions, it was an interesting one./P
P"All right Miles" Elli asked. "What is it? What are those things in her
head?"/P
PMiles turned from his blind contemplation of Madison and faced toward Elli.
"I think I've triggered something," he said. His tone was sort of apologetic,
like he had done something wrong. "I'm sorry about making a mess of it."/P
PElli looked between the two of them, confused. " We can have a bout of true
confessions at a later date, OK? What the hell is it in there?"/P
PMiles drew a breath to answer, and then shut his mouth like a goldfish. He
wasn't the one who answered Elli's question./P
P"The implant carries the personality of her father's former - and now
possibly dead - employer, and also my manufacturer," said Madison's mouth, but
the words came out in a voice that was ever so slightly not-hers./P
PElli blinked a few times before trusting her mouth. "Ah, ri-ight," she said
in a voice that carried a lack of credulity like it was a bucket./P
P"Isn't that amazing?" Miles said. He waited for Elli to do something or say
something, kick something or punch something. /P
PInstead she just stared at him. /P
P"I thought that sort of thing was impossible," Miles said. "But there it
is."/P
P"Oh wonderful," agreed Elli without giving any hint that she thought it was a
stupid idea other than the fact that her face radiated cynicism like a neon
light. "Maybe it is impossible," she said finally. "Perhaps this is nothing more
than a big chain-pull."/P
P"No. Sorry. See, I know what's going on here. Elli, meet Mayberry Lui.
Mayberry, meet Elli Quinn."/P
PMadison DeSoto bowed, a neat feat in zero gee. And yeah, it was a different
personality animating that body. Even cynical Elli could see that./P
PIt had been memories - not skills - memories that Elli had seen in action
when the girl was preparing for free fall./P
P align=center*/P
PA file scrolled past Elli Quinn's eyes, filling her head with theoretical
data that was being decoded and lased directly into her retina by little laser
projectors mounted in her ear-eye. It came in full colour, with illustrations
and animated displays and it made startling reading. If you could believe what
it has to say, that is, Elli commented to herself. /P
PShe knew the guys who set up and ran the site from which Miles downloaded the
data. They were pretty good, didn't often get things wrong, so she had to
concede that there was a good chance they were right this time as well. She just
had a hard time believing it; that was all./P
PMadison/Mayberry floated past Elli, drifting through the opening in the
bulkhead and back into the passenger compartment, claiming a desire to be by
herself. Which might have been a good idea, except…/P
PIt was not as if she could be by herself, not when she couldn't even be alone
in her own head. /P
PElli shook her head in sympathy before returning her attention to the virtual
dissertation about the technology that lay buried beneath that blonde hair./P
PAnd on a more practical note, there were a couple of things to be said for
getting Madison/Mayberry out of the way. Her absence at least left Miles and
Elli alone to discuss the issues associated with their snatch and run and the
mess that seemed to come down with it. /P
PBut there was also another, more personal reason why Elli felt happier to see
Madison DeSoto safely out of the way. It had more to do with the way Madison's
personality shift freaked Elli out. It was seriously spooky watching the way the
set of her face changed. /P
P"Does she realise what's going on, do you think?" Elli asked Miles She had a
hard time looking him in the eye. Most of her attention was focussed on
digesting the information that was still scrolling past her eyes. "This is
really heavy duty corporate garbage here Miles Really heavy stuff. I mean this
is so bad, they should be able to smell it from Earth and I'm really not sure
that I want to be involved in this mess. Why did we take this job on?"/P
P"Cash."/P
P"Shee-it. We must be fore cash strapped than I thought. You had no idea that
this job was going to turn out like this?"/P
PMiles shook his head. "None whatsoever."/P
PElli read some more. The sequestration was experimental. 'No successful
trials had been reported.' "What the hell is she going to do? What were they
planning to do to her, do you reckon?"/P
P"God knows," Miles said. "I don't like being tied up in stuff like this.
There's serious money and possible grubby politics in this mess. They might not
stop at anything to get what they want out of this. I mean, look at her. She's
nothing but a pawn in this game, and so are we. That's how big it is. I mean,
she always was a pawn but, hell, this is an order of magnitude worse. She's
literally nothing but a broker-ed commodity. She might have been made purely so
she could be delivered to us. That being the case; she's not even a real person.
I have to wonder even how old she is. When did they make her? And where did they
get the personality? Stuff like that you know?"/P
PElli favoured him with a look. "And what that even means in her case," she
added./P
P"Eh…?"/P
PElli shut the data flow down. All it did was support Miles's argument that
the woman drifting in the back of the shuttle was an artificially produced
multiple personality. Like that was the sort of thing that would be a good idea
to produce. Shit, Elli thought, summing the whole situation up in one word. Mass
produced mental illness…/P
P"It's, well…" Elli began hesitantly, Miles was behaving strangely around the
dolly and Elli was not impressed with his newly minted paternal streak. "Her
body looks to be about sixteen, seventeen years old, not much more, maybe not
even that old, but the personality is constructed so that she behaves a bit
older than that. Sooo," Elli drew the word out for significance, "is she the
twenty five that she seems to be when you speak with her, the seventeen she
looks when you look at her, or the - what - a couple of years? - that it took to
grow her?"/P
P"Perhaps we should ask her." Miles suggested./P
PElli had another thought, something from holodramas that she had seen over
the years. "Does she even know about that Mayberry Lui personality?"/P
P"She does now." Miles at least had the grace to look embarrassed about that
admission./P
P"Aw Gawd!" Elli exclaimed. "How must she feel?"/P
P"Pretty awful I would have said. Which is where this conversation started.
How is she now? Can you tell?"/P
PElli looked over her shoulder. "She's out there crying her eyes out." The
dolly was just huddled into a foetal ball at the back of the passenger
compartment, sort of partially hidden by the acceleration couches and their
comatose occupants./P
P"Why don't you go out there and lend some support?"/P
PNow that was a good one, and it caught Elli completely off-guard. "Moi!" Her
mouth dropped open comically. "What am I going to say?" Elli managed to get out.
"Perhaps I should start with, 'There, there, I know just how you feel. I was a
schizoid dolly once and look how I turned out'." Elli laughed bitterly. "Get
real Miles It just doesn't cut it."/P
P"You've got some empathy."/P
P"Oh yeah, ri-ight."/P
P"It's not like I can do much for her," Miles explained and the pain was
obvious. "You want to talk about pain. I can tell you about that." Miles had
almost his entire skeleton replaced after the brittle bones he had been born
with were removed. "You have a go. Try to relate to her at least. You're female.
It's something. At least you have that much in common. I mean she's going to be
with us for a couple of days yet. I don't want to hand her over in a state. I
mean that sort of stuff going on back there is not likely to improve if you let
her stew in it."/P
P"If Iwe/I let her stew in it you mean."/P
P"Whatever."/P
PElli gave him a look for a while, but it seemed to wash off him. /P
PShe gave up and made her way aft, swimming through the bulkhead, and then
giving him another look on the way through, with as much impact as the first
one. He wasn't even looking at her. /P
P align=center*/P
P"We have," Elli Quinn said and tugged at the packages in the food locker,
"chicken parmagiana." That met with a lack of enthusiasm so she pulled another
packet from the locker and turned it around so she could read the label, "a beef
risotto, or a…" she looked more closely to the third package, "second chicken,
and," she tugged another package from the locker. She brushed coating of ice
from the surface. It began melting while it floated toward the air intake-grill.
"This one is a beef teriyaki. What do you want?"/P
PMadison said nothing so Elli gently tossed one of the food packages toward
the woman without looking to see which one it was. /P
PElli was pretty sure that Madison was the personality in charge of the body
throughout the last hour. Elli had picked up a few clues. The Mayberry Lui
personality frowned more, and held the mouth in a different way./P
PThe food package floated slowly across the intervening space before it was
caught deftly./P
PAnd along with the food came a conversational gambit that brought Madison
DeSoto out of her shell. "What happened to him?" she asked. Her voice was
pitched low so that it didn't carry forward into the cockpit. /P
PDidn't take a great deal of cogitation on Elli's part to work out what
subject lead to that question. Behind a wry smile, Elli wondered how pleased
Miles would be about the conversational topic that finally dragged Madison out
of her fugue. /P
PElli eyed Madison for a moment, concerned with who might be in charge of the
vocal chords at this time. Elli debated about sharing information before she
answered the question. Yeah, and it wasn't going to hurt to share just this
once. "Inutero soltoxin degradation," Elli answered finally, "and other nerve
damage. His mother had an accident with a neuro-poison when she was carrying
him. They grew him in a uterine replicator and did the best they could but he
suffered from brittle bones, that wouldn't grow properly. What you see, well…
That's what you get."/P
PElli found herself lost in this introspection, talking for her own reasons,
not for the dolly's benefit./P
P"I see," Madison commented./P
P"You want me to heat that for you?" Elli said and waved at the frozen food
package in Madison's hands./P
PThe dolly schizo looked down at the food like she didn't realise it was there
and then nodded in a sort of distracted way that she had started making her own
lately. Elli took the container from Madison and stuck it into a microwave
heater./P
PAfter a minute spent in silence, the microwave went beep. Elli released the
door and took out the food. The smell hit her, right in the tastebuds. She
handed the container to Madison who opened it carefully and looked at the
contents doubtfully./P
P"Needs to be sticky and crumb free for zero gee," Elli explained./P
P"What do I eat it with?"/P
P"Utensils. Yeah, hang on. There's chopsticks in that cupboard over there I
think," Elli said and waved vaguely in the direction of the space beside the
microwave. /P
PWhile Madison began rummaging around, searching, Elli fed the second
container into the microwave./P
P"There's something between you two…" suggested Madison without looking across
at the other woman, resuming their previous conversation where they left it
off./P
P"Yeah. There is," Elli agreed hesitantly./P
PMadison looked searchingly at Elli. "He loves you too."/P
PElli nodded. "That's me and Miles in a nut shell."/P
PElli's meal was ready. She gathered it from the oven and took it out. /P
P"I have taken control of this ship," said the geek. His voice seemed to come
from nowhere. His statement took a moment for Elli to translate it into
something with a context that she could understand. "Don't anybody make any
overt moves," he instructed./PI
PWould never dream of it/I, Elli thought cynically. "Cetagandan right?" Elli
suggested. They were the only ones who had gear that could do that much damage
without some sort of alert. /P
PHe nodded. "Yes," he agreed to her guess. "You are stuck in orbit," the geek
said. "I have control of the ship." His point was illustrated by the release of
the acceleration couch restraints. They popped open with a malignant little
click that said it all to Elli. "We wait for my team," the geek added. He looked
significantly toward Madison-who-was-Mayberry at that moment./P/BODY/HTML