Act 42: Negotiation, Mobility, and Siege
by A Clockwork Tomato
Heralded only by the faint jingle of brass curtain rings, daylight stabbed into Roger Smith's brain. He pulled the covers over his head for a moment, then sat up angrily, squinting and holding up a hand to ward off the harsh midmorning light.
"R. Dorothy Wayneright!" he bellowed. He hated being awakened abruptly; she knew that.
"Good morning, Roger." She was dressed as usual in one of her black dresses and held a tray; she was going to serve him breakfast in bed.
Roger sighed. She was going to be nice about it, but something was up; she was in a hurry. Roger forbade discussing business until after breakfast; hence the tray. She was rushing him. Something was wrong.
She offered him a cup of black coffee, which he took in both hands. It was cooler than usual. He took the hint and drained the cup. Another time-saver. She refilled the cup with scalding-hot coffee. Good. There were limits.
She positioned the breakfast tray on his bed and removed the covers. Bacon, eggs, toast, marmalade; the usual. As he ate, he gazed at her. She looked back steadily and said nothing.
"How was your night?" he asked, fishing for clues.
She wasn't going to give him any. "Uneventful," she said, topping off his coffee again.
He smiled; he couldn't help it. She was adorable even when she was rushing him. She did not smile back; she rarely smiled. But their eyes met and something for which there were no words passed between them. He resumed eating, still smiling. When he finished he said, "All right, Dorothy. What's the hurry?"
She removed the tray from the bed before answering. "Dora and Persephone have a plan for rescuing R. Alan."
Roger rolled his eyes. It was hard to take Dora seriously; her plans were so much bigger than she was. And Persephone was a pleasant and capable girl, but she seemed, well, too ordinary for that kind of adventure.
Dorothy continued, "They are going to move Big X's core memory into Big Tau's body."
Roger sat bolt upright. "That's not possible!"
Dorothy said nothing.
Roger subsided. "Well, maybe it's possible. But it's wrong." He suppressed a shudder. It was like scooping out someone's brain and plopping it into a fresh corpse. Big Tau's core memory was destroyed, but his body was intact, while Big X was in almost the opposite condition.
If you thought of Megadeuses as big machines, robots, then it made perfect sense. But that would be wrong. A Megadeus was a person, just as much a person as an android like R. Dorothy Wayneright, or even a human.
He said, "I don't care what anyone says. Big Tau is haunted. And it doesn't have anything to do with the core memory."
"Yes, I felt it, too."
"Can we stop them?"
"Perhaps you can negotiate with them."
"I think I'd better. I can't believe your little sister is going to cannibalize a Megadeus!"
"Cannibalize?"
"I think that's the right word. How's Beck taking all this?"
"He's afraid to fight with Dora, so he's furious at Tony for agreeing to help her."
"Tony's with her? Good. He'll drag his feet."
"I don't think he will."
"Maybe you're right—he's under Dora's spell. Well, what do we do next?"
"Visit them right away and offer our support."
Roger smiled, "and tell Beck that we've done so, so he doesn't go storming in and make a fool of himself."
Dorothy didn't reply, but he knew she agreed.
Wayne Douglas, formerly a Paradigm Senator but now the Grand Dominus of the Liberation Army, crept into the hemispherical Megadeus chamber. It had been almost a week since he'd heard from his two Megadeus mechanics, and he couldn't wait any longer.
Some of the overhead lights were on, so it took only a moment to discover that the Megadeus was gone. The crane that had handled the reactor material was lying on its side, apparently knocked over.
Reaching the hangar floor, he soon found the remains of his two men; dried puddles of gore that would have been unidentifiable except for the remains of their boots and clothing. Douglas guessed, correctly, that the Megadeus had stamped on them.
He found not sign that the place had been ransacked. The valuable notebooks, blueprints, and reference books—some irreplaceable—were left lying about on work tables, one of which had been overturned. Valuable instruments and equipment had been similarly abandoned. Some was intact, some had been destroyed, apparently accidentally.
Douglas swore. The cadmium was missing! Over a thousand pounds of cadmium didn't walk off by itself. Where had it gone? Had Paradigm Specialty Alloys recovered it? Or maybe Gabriel and Company acquired it as planned? They were supposed to take delivery of the cadmium six days ago. If the cadmium had been purchased, where was the money? It was a cash deal; over a million dollars in unmarked bills.
He found little more of interest. Resolving to come back soon with a crew to remove the valuable tools and equipment, he departed in a foul mood.
They desperately needed a second Megadeus, at least. In his dreams, he could feel the old Megadeuses stirring already, dozens of them. Many were allies of the ultimate villain, Gordon Rosewater (may he stay dead a thousand years) and his sorcerer's apprentice, Patricia Lovejoy. But many were on the other side; his side. He couldn't leave things to chance; couldn't let them wake up at their own pace. He was outnumbered, and only if he won before Gordon Rosewater reappeared could he be certain of victory.
That bitch Lovejoy already controlled Paradigm City and three Megadeuses through her four cravenly subservient lovers: General Dastun, Roger Smith, Jason Beck, and Will Henderson. She also controlled the only two known master Megadeus mechanics, almost as precious as the Megadeuses themselves: Norman Burg and Tony Perez. Perhaps one of these had grown tired of Lovejoy's wiles and could be recruited away from the side of evil. He needed to look into that.
Every one of Lovejoy's Megadeuses was accompanied by a Class M android. Douglas wasn't sure what a Class M android was, exactly; wasn't sure what they were for. Well, sex, obviously, but they seemed far more important than that. He'd seen footage of R. Dorothy Wayneright in an intercepted transmission from Big O, and she was standing behind the cockpit with Big O's eight probe cables plugged into her skull. It was the creepiest thing Douglas had ever seen. Roger Smith and Big O had become far more effective of late, and that android female must have something to do with that.
Were all Class M androids female? He hoped not. Women could not be trusted; they were too much like Lovejoy. How like a woman to call herself "Angel" when everything about her was false and unnatural!
Time to step up the priority of the backup plan. He didn't like the backup plan: it was likely to prove beyond the competence of his remaining men. At least it was out of town, not here in the unnatural Underground, so close to his enemies. In the Wasteland, he and his Megadeus had freedom and secrecy. There they could support the backup plan. After all, his Megadeus represented the Power of God, wielded by the Hand of Man.
R. Alan Gabriel was having a lucid interval. How he hated them! It was like standing on a mountaintop with all his mistakes spread out before him. So many mistakes!
As the result of his mistakes, he was the prisoner of an insane Megadeus, so insane that it had forgotten its humanity, its name, its gender. And the Megadeus despised R. Alan. R. Alan was just a tool as far as it was concerned, and not even a very good tool. The Megadeus pretended Alan was both Dominus and android, and whenever it wanted to do something it was forbidden to do on its own initiative—like killing people—it pretended the order had come from R. Alan. It was excruciating! And every time the Megadeus spoke to him, its contempt came through loud and clear, bringing with it a peculiar agony.
Would anyone ever save poor Alan? There was never a knight in shining armor when you needed one! The image of Roger Smith floated into his mind. Roger Smith, confident, smiling, immaculate, defeating the Megadeus and leaping across to release R. Alan. The "android in distress" bit never failed to arouse … sympathy, at least. He imagined himself shrieking, "Oh, Roger! Oh, Roger! Save me! Save me! You're so big and strong! Ohhhhh, Roger, you're coming, you're coming, you're coming to save me!"
Pleasant though the thought was, waiting to be rescued was not his main hope, because the Megadeus was not only damaged; it was having fits of catatonia from time to time. Why, it was unconscious right now!
He began unwinding the probe cables that lashed him to the command chair. It was a slow business and his hands had a distressing tendency to stop moving when his mind wandered.
He had freed his right arm and was working on his left when the Megadeus awoke. It didn't seem to notice R. Alan's partial freedom. It immediately started spinning insane, violent fantasies in lieu of planning, throwing R. Alan into agonized immobility.
It would clearly hurl itself into an act of pointless violence at the first opportunity. R. Alan was lucky that things had been quiet in their vicinity.
Just another day in paradise, he thought. But even he couldn't giggle at that.
When Roger emerged from his bedroom, breakfasted, showered, shaved, and wearing a freshly pressed black suit, Angel was in the penthouse, talking to Dorothy.
Angel said to Roger, "I hear you're going to talk to our young hooligans about their hot rods."
"Morning, Angel. I guess that's one way of putting it."
"I'm at loose ends right now. Mind if I tag along?"
Roger looked at her suspiciously. "Are you planning to help me, sabotage me, or just laugh at me?"
Angel walked up very close to him and straightened his already perfectly straight tie. She batted her eyelashes and smiled. "Maybe all three."
"I'd have thought you'd be double-teaming Beck with Dori so he doesn't blow a fuse."
"I'm disinvited from Hanger B today," she grumbled. "Something hush-hush. He even risked Dora's displeasure by calling Tony back to Hangar B today. But at least that means he's busy with something else."
Roger looked at R. Dorothy, who asked, "What do you know about the girls' plans, Angel?"
"Just the thumbnail sketch Dora gave me. The little squirt is serious, and I want to stop her. I want to have a long talk with Big X, too."
Roger kept forgetting that Angel was, in her way, the greatest living Megadeus expert. It was easy to forget; until recently, she'd forgotten it herself. But her association with Megadeuses stretched across an unimaginable number of years.
"Sure, Angel," he said, "Come along."
Angel excused herself and returned a few minutes later wearing one of her best professional skirt suits. She was wearing her glasses, too. This was her "forcing big shots to take me seriously" getup. It was also her "talking sternly to Big Venus" getup.
R. Amelia woke suddenly. There weren't actually any flashing lights or sirens, but there might as well have been.
Intrusion ... Improper entry into a mothballed Megadeus—not hers, thank God, she didn't think she could cope with that ...
She checked the self-status reports. Reactor power good: right on the boundary between green and yellow. Physical systems in the green. Mental acuity in the green. Memory ... procedural memory in the green, event-based memory in the red. Amnesia again: she must have slept through another cycle transition. Emotional health: in the red, but barely; almost in the yellow. Verdict: she was fine, sort of, for her, except for the inevitable amnesia.
She opened the lid of her android storage coffin and stepped out. She was wearing tan coveralls with a black leather belt and black boots. She put a hand to her scalp: where was her helmet? Just familiar-seeming short hair. Oh, and no gloves, comb, or handkerchief. She'd been put away without a complete uniform. That was a bad sign.
Looking around, she saw she was in a vaguely familiar underground structure: half cylindrical in shape, with a curved roof well over a hundred feet high and a flat floor, extending out to giant doors at one end, now closed, and blank rock at the other, with a few side tunnels. A few lights were on overhead. Inside were two motionless standing Megadeuses and one motionless Leviathan stretched out on the floor, looking something like an immense, short-legged metal lizard. Its cockpit hatch was open.
The Leviathan summoned her. Without willing it, she sprinted in its direction. She sort of liked this part; her robot side was mostly in control, which meant her emotions receded, as if a weight had been lifted from her heart. She let her robot side take the lead and kept her eyes peeled for trouble. Her robot side had a one-track mind and needed someone to look out for her.
And of course the trouble was right in front of her. As reported, the Leviathan was being hijacked. As a nonviolent android, R. Amelia's ability to intervene was limited. But the Leviathan was reeling her in anyway because this was the basic reflex of any Megadeus that didn't entirely trust its own mind.
R. Amelia tried to get the Leviathan to give her a break and let her pick her own path, but it didn't seem to hear. She was being drawn straight to the command deck. The main hatch was open and she could see three figures ... all men. No androids. They hadn't seen her yet. Why hadn't the Leviathan killed them? That was allowed! Even mandatory.
She leaped through the open hatch onto the command deck, then sped to the sealed cockpit. Two of the men were actually beating on the transparent cockpit dome with sledgehammers! Idiots.
While they'd never break the dome that way, a sledgehammer could destroy R. Amelia. She snatched the sledgehammer out of the hands of the nearest man and threw it as hard as she could out the open hatch. It made the most delightful thrumming sound as it whirled end over end into the distance. She loved being so much faster than a human!
The man she'd de-hammered hadn't had time to react yet, and the second one was just beginning to notice her. Where was the third man? Writhing on the ground, clutching his shoulder. He must have been injured just moments ago, probably by the rebound of one of his buddies' hammers.
Running around the cockpit, R. Amelia faced the second sledgehammer man. She dodged and sidestepped almost too fast for him to follow, never giving him time to line up a stroke. Then she saw an opening and, smiling, snatched his hammer right out of his hands. He howled in pain—friction burns?—and her programmed compulsions punished her savagely. She whimpered and almost fell to floor, but managed to hurl the hammer away.
Now that the scenario was unambiguously "disarming" rather than "fighting," her errant programming changed its mind and the pain ceased.
The cockpit's front entry panel sank into the floor and R. Amelia ducked inside. One of the men tried to follow her, but the panel rose again and blocked him. He tried to fight his way past it and got his right hand stuck between the panel and the dome. His screams did not quite mask the series of muffled crunching sounds as the bones in his hand were crushed.
Horrified, R. Amelia was immobilized with guilt, sorrow, anger, and pain—so much pain! Where had robot mode gone? In her agony, she barely noticed her forehead slot open and the eight probe cables from Leviathan 5 plug themselves into the sockets in her skull.
The connection with Leviathan 5 gave her focus. She gasped, "Drop the entrance panel a few inches." Leviathan 5 obeyed. The man fell to the floor, where he rolled around, still screaming. The panel rose again and sealed itself silently against the dome, mercifully muffling the sounds from outside. The monitors scrolled the familiar message:
CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD ...
YE NOT GUILTY
"Leviathan 5, action!" shouted Amelia. But Leviathan 5 was capable of very little action. That's why the men were still alive.
R. Amelia looked into Leviathan 5's mind. It—she—was a mess. She dimly remembered that they were in a facility for mothballed units. The facility had been full when R. Amelia had gone to sleep and was now almost empty. Presumably the ones who remained represented the bottom of the barrel. That was a switch! Usually it was just her.
Robot mode returned at some point and she could think calmly. There was work to do; a Megadeus to tend to. It was instinctive, compulsive work that she couldn't possibly resist. All this was the province of robot mode. Robot mode was supposed to be a solo operation, putting R. Amelia so far in the background that she might as well be asleep, but she could stick around and play navigator/copilot if she chose. It wasn't supposed to be possible, but what else was new? Possible or not, they made a terrific team.
R. Amelia searched for a way of getting rid of the men while her robot side ran the emergency activation procedures. R. Amelia told Leviathan 5 to close and lock all the hatches and doors except the main entry hatch, and slide the armored shutters over the windows for good measure. All three men were still on the command deck. She wanted them gone more than she wanted them ... her mind skittered off the thought of violence.
She had Leviathan 5 turn off all the lights on the command deck, even the monitor screens and illuminated switches. The only light came dimly through the open hatch. That should prevent the one uninjured man from doing more damage.
How else could she shoo them out? Leviathan 5 didn't have the innumerable prehensile cables that some Megadeuses did; just the eight probe cables, which were in use. R. Amelia was just as happy about that. The whole tentacle thing creeped her out. It was a sacrilegious use of probe-cable technology.
She could probably cause electrical discharges on the command deck, but it was hard for her to assist in hurting people, even when permitted—even when mandatory! That was another way she was defect- ... different.
Drive them out with loud noises? Maybe as a last resort. The fire-suppression system? Yes!
She triggered the fire-suppressing foam, which appeared from all directions and smothered every surface with foam the thickness of shaving cream. It slid as if by magic from the dome but stuck tenaciously to everything else, occasionally dropping in reluctant globs the size of a man's head from the ceiling, and running in slow motion down the walls. The floor was soon a foot deep in the stuff. To humans it would be have an unpleasant, chemical taste and smell.
All three men were on the floor, the thick foam making them look like snowmen. Well, snowmen in convulsions, since they were thrashing around quite a bit. When their surprise faded and they got the foam out of their eyes, they become more focused. All three began crawling to the hatch. What else could they do?
Once they were outside, Leviathan 5 closed the hatch. They were safe for the moment, but there was much to do. On the other hand, her robot side was still active, doing robot-side things, so R. Amelia didn't have to do anything. In spite of a sharp stab of guilt, she let herself fade into unconsciousness. Her robot side continued working.
Angel knew two routes to Big X's hangar underneath downtown Paradigm. They could take the Underground the entire way or they could take surface streets to a concealed elevator not far from the hangar. She discussed it with Roger and R. Dorothy and they agreed upon the latter option. The terror effect wasn't active in the big hemispherical chambers like the one housing Big X, or in the adjacent corridors, but most of the path between here and there was susceptible to it.
Soon they arrived at the busy warehouse; the one Angel had discovered all those months ago, when she and R. Dori were fleeing from Big Ramses. As before, no one paid any attention to them as they walked through the open doors. Angel walked to the apparently blank wall that hid the elevator. Stacks of 55-gallon drums hid them from prying eyes as Angel used a pencil to push the concealed call button. Soon the elevator car arrived. They stepped inside.
"I don't remember which floor is the right one," said Angel.
R. Dorothy pressed the button for B3. The doors closed and the elevator began to descend. "It has a thumbprint on it," she explained.
Angel peered closely at it. "So it does."
Soon the elevator stopped and the door opened. They were in a huge, empty hemispherical chamber, the one that had housed Big Ramses.
Angel shuddered in recollection and said, "I can't believe we just did that!"
"There was no danger," said R. Dorothy. "Not from Megadeuses. I would have detected them."
"Can you detect Big X?"
"Faintly," said R. Dorothy. And she began walking in the direction of Big X's hangar.
As they got closer, Big X's mind became more and more palpable. As Angel half-expected (half-remembered?), Big X had all the hallmarks of one of those high-maintenance Megadeuses: superlative in combat and a pain in the keister the rest of the time. His nearly broken reactor and other damage left him far needier than usual. He was desperate for reassurance as well as repair. And with the ludicrously oversexed R. Alan Gabriel as his android, it didn't take three guesses to figure out what kind of activity he found most reassuring.
Angel said, "Watch yourselves. I think I remember that in the old days, Big X had a nickname: 'The Love Bot.'"
R. Dorothy asked, "Like with R. Alan and Big B?"
And R. Dori, thought Angel. Don't forget her. Interesting that Dorothy managed to leave Dori's name out of it. "Yeah. Dial it down by about 98% and you'll be in the right ballpark."
"And he's being restored by teenagers," said Roger.
"Exactly," said Angel. "What could possibly go wrong?"
They were a couple of hundred yards from Big X's hangar when they saw Dora and Persephone walking out to greet them. They looked cheerful enough.
As usual, Dora silently gave hugs all around: first Dorothy, then Roger, then Angel. "Hey, Squirt," said Angel.
Persephone was hanging back, suddenly looking so shy and awkward that Angel gave her a hug, too, something she'd never done before. "Hey, Red. You're looking good." And she did. Persephone had found her calling: she was a natural Megadeus mechanic like Norman and Tony, and Big X both needed and appreciated her talents. Even her bouts of shyness couldn't conceal her new confidence.
Reassured, Persephone said cheerfully, "You're looking pretty good yourself. Do you have a board meeting later?"
"What, this old thing?"
Dora asked Roger, "What brings you here?"
R. Dorothy answered, "We're offering our support."
Roger added, "And learning what it is we're supporting."
Angel said, "Not to mention pre-empting Beck's award-winning 'bull in a china shop' act. He's been building towards a dramatic gesture for days."
They started walking to the hangar. Roger asked Angel, "Does anyone else call her Red?"
"How would I know?"
"She should call you Blondie."
"Roger!" said Angel.
"Just trying to help."
Persephone asked, "What's your nickname, Roger?"
"Louse," said Angel and R. Dorothy together.
Persephone looked baffled. "Why?"
"Don't ask," said Roger.
Persephone looked at Dora for an explanation, but Dora said, "I don't get it, either."
Soon they reached the huge hemispherical chamber that served as a hangar. Big Tau was standing motionless in the middle of the chamber. He appeared to be in pretty good shape except for his head, which was dented and partly shattered. That's where his core memories had been. He was mostly intact otherwise. Work had been started to restore the armored, shock-mounted core memory chamber.
Big X was so battered and rent and burned that it was hard to believe he was still alive. He was clamped to a gantry by his arms, and he sagged as if crucified. His left leg had been burned off at the knee in some forgotten battle and was lying on the floor. A hole had been burned right through his torso; in one side and out the other. His reactor was damaged and almost exhausted. He didn't have the energy to move or even bring himself to full alertness, just to run a few basic systems.
But his core memory was intact and the rest could be repaired eventually.
Instead of performing these lengthy repairs, Dora and Persephone planned to remove Big X's core memory and install it in Big Tau.
Angel turned her attention back to her companions. They all seemed to be waiting on her decision. "Let's look at Big Tau first," she said.
R. Amelia reluctantly returned to the present. Her robot side had done all she could ... and a fine job, too! Poor Leviathan 5 needed just a hatful of replacement parts before being good to go, but she was immobilized until then. Mentally, she'd bounced back much better than the initial assessment had predicted. Some kind of glitch there ... Had Leviathan 5 been mothballed by accident, due to a misreading of her mental state? Or were there problems that R. Amelia had missed?
Leviathan 5 was one of those gung-ho, death-defying Megadeuses with strong opinions, but right now she was subdued, almost docile, due to her incapacity. That would change the instant she could move under her own power, and R. Amelia could tell that she would become the junior partner, without the strength of will to override Leviathan 5. She might even become a Leviathan 5's captive.
R. Amelia tried to contact the station's computer system. It had awakened her, after all; it must be active to some degree. Contacting it was no problem, but she couldn't make much sense out of the inventory section. It probably had amnesia, just like everything else. She'd have to look for the parts in person.
Where were the three men? And had they brought friends? Leviathan 5's camera footage showed them limping towards the main entrance, still white with extinguisher foam. They exited through one of the small personnel doors next to the enormous main doors. Nothing had happened since.
R. Amelia contacted the security system again. How had they opened that door? Were the security cameras operational? What about defenses?
She groaned. The addled security system had left all the doors unlocked! She locked them. The cameras were functional but their output had been neither monitored nor recorded. She enabled the appropriate systems.
What about defenses—gun emplacements, lasers, minefields? Stabs of pain blinded her before she'd even completed the query, sending her close to despair. This was allowed! Her mind was never, ever supposed to punish her for status inquiries! Even arming the automatic defenses was allowed! Not just allowed, but mandatory! In addition to her more familiar troubles, something in her mind was terribly miscalibrated.
Without much hope, she told her robot side what was needed and faded into the background. After a few minutes she was back, with her robot side's regret floating in her mind. She couldn't do it, either. Not because of the pain, which for some reason hadn't been triggered, but because there just wasn't a path from here to there.
She might not be able to initiate violence even on the direct order of their own Dominus! That was a depressing thought. If true, she'd be crippled, perhaps useless in her primary role.
The thought of her Dominus filled her with a heartbroken yearning. She was ashamed that she couldn't remember his name or face. She knew this always happened with the amnesia, but she felt disloyal to the man who always loved her in spite of her many shortcomings. He was out there somewhere; he had to be. Had he remembered her yet? Was he searching for her right now?
And her Megadeus. She needed him so much! Where was he? Could he be one of the ones right here in the facility? Could she be that lucky, please, just this once?
She told Leviathan 5 that she was going to check out the other Megadeuses and also hunt for the replacement parts she needed. The probe cables removed themselves from her forehead as she stood up. The dome rose and the front panel dropped to let her step onto the foam-drenched command deck, and the main hatch opened at her approach and closed behind her.
She approached the closest Megadeus and its foot hatch opened to let her in. It was one of the simpler ones, with minimal ornamentation. She'd always felt they were especially handsome; the thoroughbreds of Megadeuses. This one's elegant lines had been sullied with forearm shields, which had been retrofitted at some point. Not that she had anything against forearm shields in general.
Just a few feet from the hatch, she suddenly shuddered; a response she hadn't known she was capable of. This was an enemy Megadeus! She couldn't have said how she knew. Its core memory was shut down, and only its automatic functions were active. But she knew, all right. She also knew that there was only the tiniest difference between a shut-down Megadeus and one that was powering up, and a handy android might just tip the balance.
She ran as fast as she could to the other Megadeus. If it was a friend, she'd soon be inside its shielding. This one was an unusual design, with a forearm shield only on the left arm, and a forearm piston only on the right.
The foot hatch opened for her but she stopped short, cautious. Then suddenly she was inside, swarming up the companionway ladder, laughing and whooping at the top of her lungs for sheer joy.
She emerged on the command deck and the eight probe cables ambushed her as soon as she stepped through the hatch, plugging themselves into her skull. Still laughing, she twirled round and round, cocooning herself in the probe cables, hugging them to her. "It's been so long!" she laughed.
Her Megadeus, Quintus—he always claimed the prefix "Big" did not apply to him—filled her mind and heart with his own joyous welcome. It had indeed been too long. He loved her so much! She was the most wonderful android in the world. But he confided that he was not the Megadeus he used to be. Not just physically—he was unhappy about the mismatched arms—but in his mind as well. Perhaps they could continue their celebration after she took a look? He was in partial shutdown and was currently unable to defend himself, or (more importantly) her.
Without stirring from where she was, she closed her eyes got to work, playing copilot to her robot side from sheer unwillingness to allow the moment to end. Her robot side was also smiling as she got to work. Or was that an illusion? It didn't matter. She was where she belonged.
His reactor was almost in the red, but that was a problem for another day. Unlike poor Leviathan 5, he was physically capable of a full range of movement. Mental acuity in the green. Procedural memory in the green, and event-based memory was unexpectedly high: in the yellow! Megadeuses had shielding against almost everything, even amnesia, but this was an extraordinary result. Emotional stability was in the green, as always.
What about weapons systems? The one arm piston was fine, the eye lasers were fine. The chromebuster was missing, and the weapons bay in his torso was empty. What else? Surely the left arm had something more than a fist and a forearm shield! And it did ... but R. Amelia didn't recognize it. Quintus didn't, either, but he was undismayed. They'd figure it out eventually.
Hours passed. Quintus had been shut down in an unusual and possibly incompetent way and it was taking a long time to puzzle out how to bring him back up.
Amelia and Quintus agreed that they should show no external sign of life yet, in case the men returned.
Before Quintus was ready for action, before he was capable of motion or of using his weapons, the enemy returned. Not just the one uninjured man, but half a dozen more. But the important thing was that they were accompanied by a fully operational Megadeus.
Angel spent less than a minute on Big Tau's command deck. Dora and Persephone had gone up with her, while Roger and R. Dorothy chose to inspect Big X instead.
Angel said, "Forget it. He's haunted. Let's get out of here." She turned on her heel and hurried to the elevator.
"Can't we do anything?" asked Persephone as the girls followed.
"I don't know, Red," said Angel as the elevator started down. "I'm not sure I ever knew anything about this kind of thing. It's not my department."
"Who would know?" asked Dora.
"Gordon, I guess. Maybe a priest. My only advice is to give the remains a decent burial. Maybe it'll be enough. And we owe it to the guy." The skeletal remains of one of Big Tau's victims from long ago still occupied a storage compartment on the command deck.
The elevator door opened and Angel hurried through the hatchway in Big Tau's right foot.
"But we need Big Tau!" said Persephone. "We can't rescue Alan without him!"
"I wonder," said Angel. Abruptly she said, "Can we eat now? I'm starved." It was lunchtime.
"Me, too," said Dora. "This way." She led the way to Persephone's apartment, which was connected to the hangar. Angel had never seen it before. It had just four rooms: living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. Angel glanced through the wide-open bedroom door and took in the fact that there was only one bed, unmade, rumpled only in the middle, the two pillows touching each other. She sighed. What ever happened to plausible deniability? She closed the door and gave Dora a sour look.
"We're not hiding anything," said Dora defiantly. They both glanced at Persephone, who was blushing. Dora looked surprised.
"Who have you told?" asked Angel.
Persephone said, "Just Ricky."
Reluctantly, Dora said, "Nobody."
"Then face it: you're both treating it as secret. And that's okay. Just remember that if you blow your own cover, you blow the other girl's, too, so talk it over first. Wait, hasn't Tony been in and out all week?"
Persephone said, "I told him that I sleep on the couch. And I begged Big X to leave him alone; Tony's mad enough at me already."
Her lecture delivered, Angel turned to more pressing issues. "Is there coffee?"
They returned to the kitchen, Angel went straight to the percolator, starting a fresh pot of coffee and agreeing to the girls' suggestions about food without really hearing them, lost in thought. The two damaged Megadeuses in their giant underground hangar were far too big a project for the two girls, talented though they were. Part-time help, even from Tony, wasn't going to change that.
She sat at the kitchen table and absently lit one of her long cigarettes, forgetting to ask permission. She watched the smoke rise.
Persephone placed a small dish in front of her to serve as an ashtray, evoking an abstracted, "Thanks."
Angel drifted halfway back to the here and now, saying, "You know, that plan to use decoy androids to find Megadeuses is good, but androids aren't the only kind of bait. It depends on what we're fishing for ..." A stray thought brought her back to the present and she twinkled at Dora. "We could even use a Dominus as bait to catch that rogue Megadeus! It'll want to complete the set. What do you think, Squirt? You could be the hero and the sacrificial victim at the same time. That's a good look for you." She winked at Persephone.
Dora gave her a sidelong glance, "Dori told me she had a paperback like that, and you stole it."
"It's research material for your next heroic adventure. She can't object to that."
Dora shook her head, a gleam in her eye. "Sorry; I'm busy that day. I nominate Will."
Angel turned to Persephone, "Have you seen the paperback in question? Or Will, for that matter?"
"I've seen a couple of framed photos of Will," said Persephone. "In Dori's room. But ..."
Angel laughed, "But Beck drew glasses and mustaches on them! Serves her right! Anyway, imagine a muscular, clean-shaven hunk with his shirt off, oiled muscles gleaming, chained to a boulder, a terrifying monster bearing down on him, and you've pictured the cover of that book."
They sat down to eat: meatloaf sandwiches and canned fruit cocktail. Persephone apologized that they didn't have the time to do much cooking.
"I love meatloaf," said Angel honestly.
When they were finished and the dishes were washed and put away, Dora said to Angel, "You had a real idea, too."
Angel said, "I sure did! But first ... you kids are awfully quiet today. What gives?"
"We're discouraged," admitted Persephone. "Big X is terrified of being transferred into Big Tau. He interferes with the work. We're aren't making much progress. But we can't repair all that damage to Big X!"
"How was Alan expecting to do it before he got Big Tau?"
"Rob as many banks as it took to pay for silence and loyalty as well as the actual work," said Persephone glumly. "But I don't want to rob any more banks!"
"Good for you," said Angel. "I have a plan, if you want to hear it."
"Go ahead," said Persephone.
"Hire Roger to negotiate with the city. By which I mean Dan Dastun. Everybody knows that the city is secretly chipping in a lot of money to keep Big O and Big B operational. Why not you? And you need help with security, too, especially when your Megadeuses can't defend themselves. The Military Police protect Smith Manor and Big O, why not you? You have the only real claim on the Megadeuses, Red; until Alan comes back, anyway. You adopted one and salvaged the other fair and square. You'll be able to repair both Megadeuses at the same time."
Persephone was entranced by the concept and beamed at Angel, but Dora was puzzled. "Why hire Roger? Can't you negotiate with Dan?"
Angel smiled. "Because Dan won't blush when people ask him how his negotiations with Roger are going."
"I hadn't thought of that," said Dora.
"I don't get it," said Persephone.
"Dan and I are lovers," said Angel helpfully.
Persephone asked Dora, "Why didn't I know that?" Persephone had met Dastun several times at Smith Manor; she'd even been seated next to him at the dinner table a couple of times. Angel was usually there as well.
"Dan's not demonstrative in front of other people," explained Dora.
"You hug him all the time!"
"I hug first and ask questions later."
Persephone returned to the topic at hand, looking for the flaw, "But if we make a deal with the city, won't we lose our independence?"
Angel said, "They'll put someone in charge of keeping an eye on you, sure. They're not idiots."
"Who?"
"Me! Or whoever you want, if they're in the city's good graces. But I'm your best bet."
Persephone looked at Dora, who said, "Let's try it."
"Okay." After a moment of cheerful relief, Persephone's glum look returned.
Angel asked, "What else are you discouraged about, Red?"
"Why are you calling me 'Red' all of a sudden?"
"I don't want you to feel left out when I call Dora a little squirt."
Persephone pondered this a moment, then smiled. "Sure, since you asked so nicely, why don't you call me Red?"
"Thanks. What else is on your mind, Red?"
Persephone drummed her fingers on the table, blushed, looked away, sighed, and was about to speak when Roger and Dorothy walked in.
"There you all are," said Roger, smiling. "Do I smell coffee?"
Angel, who had trouble not playing executive secretary, even in someone else's home, got up, poured him a cup, and handed it to him. Pouring another for herself, she said, "What do you think of Big X?"
"I found him hard to understand. I think we're not a good match, brain-wise. He thinks he'll be a lot more himself at full power, and I believe him. That's about all I got. Dorothy declined to use the probe cables."
R. Dorothy said primly, "We don't know where they've been."
Dora smiled wickedly, "Oh, yes we do. We know exactly ..."
"Ahem!" interrupted Angel. "I'll go talk to him myself in a minute." She added cream and three spoons of sugar to her coffee. "How should we man him?"
Dora said, "He will accept me as a temporary Dominus."
Roger looked startled but said nothing. Angel gave Dora a long look. Dora met her gaze calmly. Angel looked away first, then smiled and said, "Not his old friend Red?"
Persephone said, "He loves me, but not in that role. He says I'd find it distressing to kill people."
This caused everyone but Persephone to look at Dora in startled reappraisal. Dora ignored this and said, "We probably can't bring him to full operation without an android. R. Alan, R. Emily, and R. Dori would be the best choices, in that order."
She had left R. Dorothy off her list. Dora and R. Dorothy locked gazes for a moment, then broke eye contact, having learned—what?—from the silent exchange.
Angel asked, "In spite of Alan being loopy?"
"They know how to bring each other back."
Roger asked, "Would you be willing to pilot Big X with Alan as your android?"
"No, never," said Dora firmly. "We'll be okay in combat without him." There were raised eyebrows at this, but no one challenged her statement.
They talked about other matters for a few minutes. When Angel finished her coffee, she stood and said, "Time for me to talk to Big X. Care to introduce me, Red?"
"Sure!" Persephone gave Dora a significant glance.
Dora said, "Roger, we want to hire you."
Roger said, "Go on."
R. Amelia felt that this would be a great time to panic, but Quintus said, I'll do the worrying. See if you can get the station's distress beacon going.
What distress beacon? And Quintus never worried! She reached out to the station's security system. Sure enough, there it was. Dead as a doornail.
"I'll go take a look. Maybe it's just blown a fuse or something. And if the parts section has any kind of organization, maybe I can find what I need to get Leviathan 5 moving."
Quintus approved. He'd continue running self-tests to see if he could discover the cause of his own immobility. If either he or Leviathan 5 could be restored to operation, the station could be defended.
Persephone and Angel walked across the hangar to Big X's gantry. They took the gantry elevator up, then crossed the catwalk to the throat hatch, which opened at their approach.
Without a word, Angel walked to the front of the sealed, airtight cockpit. It failed to open at her approach. She folded her arms and tapped her foot meaningfully. After a few taps, the dome rose and the entrance panel sank into the floor.
"Good boy," she said. She stepped into the cockpit and sat in the command seat. The entrance panel rose. Angel said, "Leave the dome up, I want to be able to talk to Red." The dome stayed up.
The monitors scrolled the message:
CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD ...
YE NOT GUILTY
Angel crossed her forearms automatically, but when the usual response rose in her throat, she resisted. When the urge faded, she said calmly, "Big X, stand by."
Then she opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. Turning to Persephone, she asked, "Mind if I smoke?"
"Why don't you ask Big X?"
"He doesn't give a damn ... I mean darn. Damn it! I'm trying not to swear in front of you kids."
Persephone found an empty tin for an ashtray and handed it over. "Go ahead."
Angel lit a cigarette and listened. After smoking half of it in silence, she began to smile. Then her eyes began to twinkle. Eventually she said, "Yes, it's all coming back. I remember you, too. Hey, Big X, you old pervert, long time no see. How's it hanging?"
She listened patiently as Big X's report slowly formed in her mind. Trying to chase the actual words was counterproductive. All the pieces fell into place eventually if you just let them.
Big X shifted almost at once from salacious small talk to a prioritized status report and a prioritized inventory of work to be done. That was one thing about Megadeuses: they were very good at this sort of task even when they could hardly do anything else. Then Big X gave a report of spare parts and materials on hand.
"What, really?" asked Angel in surprise. She looked over to Persephone. "You have the cadmium?"
"We sure do! It was in the hangar where the rogue Megadeus was. Dora and I just went down there with a forklift and brought it home."
"I hope you covered your tracks."
"We did. There are some expensive instruments there, too. We're hoping to scoop those up as soon as we can find a few hours."
"Wait until Dan can lend you some muscle. He'd darned well better have some guards here today. You'll have to share all the known entrances with him, you know. No secrets from the guys trying to keep you alive; it wouldn't be fair to them. But Big X needs truckloads of materials and dozens of workmen right away, so the time for secrecy is past."
"Okay." Persephone was grinning, delighted by Angel's casual certainty that Big X's reconstruction would move into high gear at once.
Angel turned her attention back to Big X. "Let's have those reports again. I'll write it all down this time." She dropped the lipstick-stained butt her of her cigarette into the improvised ashtray and pulled out her steno pad and a pencil. She took down the reports in her neat shorthand and then put the notepad and pencil away.
"Notice that I put my notebook away. It's time for the mental health report. And give it to me straight; leave the lying and lily-gilding to me."
After a while she said, "Yes, I'm sure you're right. Full power and the assistance of an android, and you'll be setting a bad example to a whole new generation. Where is your darned Dominus hiding? Have you sensed him at all? Too bad. We don't have a lot of spare Dominuses, especially for a loathsome specimen like you. Even the less outré ones are darned thin on the ground, and you, my friend, need a very special someone."
Persephone said cheerfully, "It pains him every time you say 'darn,' did you catch that?"
Angel raised her eyebrows, then said to Big X, "Have you been keeping your hands off these poor innocent girls, you oversexed bastard? That trick Alan played on Big B and Dori had people ready to kill him. I'm not exaggerating. And you, too."
She listened carefully for a while, pulling second cigarette out of the pack, then changing her mind and putting it back. Her expression softened. "Yeah. I know; it's hell being in your condition. Doubly so for someone like you; don't think I don't see that. Don't worry, hon. Lieutenant Lovejoy will make it all better. We'll take good care of you, put you back together, and drag your crew back from wherever they're partying. Before you know it, you'll be destroying every enemy and breaking every heart, just like the old days. Everything will be okay. But behave yourself! You're not too big to spank."
She listened a while longer and said, "Okay, then. Good. I gotta go. I'll see you again soon."
She stood and the cockpit's front panel sank into the floor to let her exit. When she stepped onto the command deck, Persephone, beaming, said, "Oh, thank you!" and hugged Angel. After a brief hesitation, she kissed her as well.
You had to expect this sort of thing around Big X. What surprised Angel was that Persephone was a fabulous kisser. Her kisses were almost heartbreakingly shy, as if she'd startle like a deer at the first hint of disapproval. Angel found herself responding without meaning to, returning kiss for kiss. Persephone's kisses were soft, gentle, and affectionate. It was wonderful! It was as if Angel herself were young and innocent again, unscarred, living in that long-forgotten world she thought would last forever. She lost track of everything except this warm, soft, increasingly passionate girl in her arms.
Persephone's hands eventually drifted out of bounds, and Angel regretfully pulled away. "No wrinkling the suit," she scolded gently.
"Okay," said Persephone with a kicked-puppy look.
"It's all right, Red, really. But let's get out of here before we do something we ought to regret."
Just before entering the elevator, Angel turned and gave Big X some parting advice. "Listen up, you big lug. There are some people you need to treat with respect if you want to stay alive, and especially if you want to see Alan again. I'm serious! You need to dial your hormones back—and I mean way back—with some of the key players. Who? Roger Smith. Both Wayneright androids. Jason Beck. Tony Perez. Dan Dastun. And anyone they feel responsible for, including the cops and mechanics who'll soon be here in droves. Most everyone is off-limits."
She listened for a moment, "No, not Red. Or me, I guess. And you'll get on like a house afire with R. Emily and Will. But you'd better be darned careful with Dora. Everyone thinks she needs their personal protection from a roué of mythic proportions like you."
As they stepped onto the hangar floor, Angel sighed inwardly. She'd never expected other women to appear on her radar, not even under Big X's influence. Wasn't she was too man-crazy for that?
But that was the problem with Big X. Were you learning new things about yourself or just verifying things you already knew about him? You couldn't tell until you'd been away from him for a while.
And Persephone, poor kid, was exactly the wrong kind of girl to be mixed up with R. Alan and Big X. Something needed to be done about that. Those two superannuated juvenile delinquents played far too rough! They had no concept of tenderness, and Persephone needed tenderness more than anything.
Angel virtuously wrenched her thoughts away from Persephone, but the sensation of holding her was still strong, so her wayward imagination simply wrapped itself around R. Dorothy Wayneright and refused to let go.
She remembered the first time she'd ever touched R. Dorothy, when they'd been alone in Roger's house when the power was out. Angel had been soaked to the skin, shivering; almost blue with cold. She'd put her hands on R. Dorothy's shoulders and been amazed by the warmth of R. Dorothy's body. It had never occurred to her than an android could be so warm, so alive!
Angel had been a fugitive at the time; hunted by both the police and her comrades in the Union.
R. Dorothy had offered to get the fireplace going, and that was the first act of kindness Angel had encountered in a long time. If only she had accepted! R. Dorothy would have brought towels and blankets and helped her out of her wet clothes in front of the roaring fire in the dark, silent, romantic mansion. Would R. Dorothy even have cuddled up with her under the blankets to warm her up? Angel had been so miserable at the time, so close to despair, and deep down, R. Dorothy had such a loving heart ...
Well, one thing was certain: Getting Big X up and running was going to be a tough gig.
She wondered where Dastun was and if she could drag him away from work for a while ...
Grand Dominus Douglas sat calmly in the command seat of Big Mars, surveying the Megadeus squadron station. Part of him wanted to smash his way through the station's armored doors, but that would be madness; the same madness that had claimed so many others who had been touched by the Power of God. They couldn't wait to hurl themselves at the city, always in vain. Even Alex Rosewater, who had held himself back for so long, lost all self-control in the end.
The main thing was to remember that destroying Paradigm had to wait until you had learned how to recreate the world in your own image, and had acquired the means of doing so. Being touched by the Power of God brought a terrible urgency, and most of his predecessors had succumbed to the delusion that if they just hurled themselves at the city, success would follow.
No, he would assemble overwhelming force, avoiding piecemeal attacks. Those idiots in the Union and that moron in Big Lazarus might as well have gift-wrapped their Megadeuses. Beck's Megadeus, Big B, had been captured from the Union. Will Henderson's Big Alpha had been captured from Big Lazarus. Leviathan 14, pilot unknown, had also been captured from Big Lazarus and used against him before its destruction.
This forgotten station held three mothballed Megadeuses: a great prize! But it also held a Class M android, running around loose, doing whatever it was that Class M androids did, so he was going to be cautious. It might even be a male android: the survivors disagreed on that point.
Soon some more of his men would arrive with a laser cannon on a flatbed trailer, the same model someone had used to cut an impromptu door in a bank vault a couple of months ago. His men would do the same. He'd send a few men inside to take a look around. In the meantime, he had other men scouting around. The station was bored into the side of a hill. It might have ventilation shifts, radio towers, gun emplacements, or additional entrances. If he could neutralize these, he'd have all the time in the world.
Persephone was almost overwhelmed by the beehive of activity in "Hangar X," which had suddenly become its semi-official designation.
When she and Angel walked into the apartment after visiting Big X, it was crowded with people, most of them strangers. Roger Smith and General Dastun was there, along with Dastun's new aide, Lt. Benjamin, but the rest were strangers: Lt. Farnham, head of the secret spelunking team that had been quietly mapping the Underground for months; a bodyguard of half a dozen cops; and several more, whose reasons for being here Persephone couldn't guess.
Roger brightened when he saw her. His smile dazzled Persephone. He took her aside to give her a status report.
Roger treated her very differently as his client than he had as Dora's guest. He gave her his full attention. He wanted her to be fully satisfied with the results and was careful to explore her concerns. While he had allowed Dora to make the initial request, he wasn't going to finalize anything without Persephone's approval.
This respect, this focused attention, combined with his broad-shouldered attractiveness, flustered Persephone. But Roger smoothly slowed down or backed up whenever she showed signs of confusion. In spite of his impossibly immaculate appearance, he was entirely human, entirely real. And he had the most amazing smile; encouraging and accepting. She suddenly understood why he never expressed endearments to R. Dorothy in words. They could never live up to what he expressed without them.
Roger explained that he and R. Dorothy had returned to the surface to negotiate with Dastun, on the understanding that Persephone had sole title to both Hangar X and the two Megadeuses. In addition to police protection, Roger wanted it understood that if someone had accidentally acquired any cadmium that didn't technically belong to them, or had hypothetically done something that looked at first glance like a bank robbery, the city would issue as many pardons and offer as much compensation to the aggrieved parties as needed.
General Dastun had decided to make an immediate inspection. Not to kick the tires, because he'd already agreed to everything. You didn't look a gift Megadeus in the mouth, let alone two. He wanted to make sure the defenses and communications were set up instantly and well.
They discussed this for a while. Persephone grew increasingly confident. When they were both satisfied, Roger invited her to join the ongoing wrangle in her apartment if she liked, but assured her that he had things in hand.
The dinette table in Persephone's apartment was overflowing with Dastun's and Persephone's maps. Everyone argued loudly with everyone else about how best to make the hangar defensible, and also how to best move men and supplies in and out. Roger was swept into this wrangle the moment he returned. Dora had also attached herself to this group, apparently unfazed by the din.
Persephone tried to join in, but she was too shy to make her presence felt and soon excused herself. She doubted anyone noticed.
Outside the apartment, several groups of cops were standing guard or just standing around. Persephone saw that Angel was playing executive secretary again: handing out cups of coffee and snacks, spreading bits of useful information and gossip around, and listening in on the interesting conversations. The apartment's meager supplies were already running low, so Angel sent two cops out for groceries and snacks.
When Angel's perambulations took her past Persephone, she asked, "Having a good time, Red?"
"No."
"I didn't think so. Can I tell you a secret?"
"Sure."
"They're men doing manly things, and that's always loud. But they're extra loud right now because they're afraid something might come down those tunnels at any moment and bother you poor sweet girls. They'll calm down when they've made a start."
"Thanks."
"Can I help you pick a nice out-of-the-way spot for their break room and office? We need to put your apartment off-limits. They need to be restricted to their own turf and their duty stations. We can't have them thinking they own the place."
"Thanks. That'll help a lot."
"Some of them are sure to be spies, for one thing."
Persephone scowled but said nothing. She didn't like that built-up, tear-down thing Angel did. She'd heard it before; it was part of the tough-guy banter Angel shared with people like Dastun and Roger, but it was hard on her.
"Sorry," said Angel. She stood thinking for a moment, then said, "How about this? I'll convince Dastun that he needs to get the hell ... damn it! ... get the heck of your apartment and stay out, as of, say, an hour from now, and give his men orders to stay within bounds. And I'll make him put some of his best counterintelligence men here and make sure you get the security briefing. Actually, I'll give you that myself; tomorrow, I hope."
"Okay." Persephone sighed resignedly, wondering why she didn't feel more grateful. Oh, well. "Let me show you where they should bunk."
R. Amelia seethed. The beacon was a mess, but that wasn't the problem. It could probably be repaired in a few hours. The problem was that Leviathan 5 was as immobile as ever.
She'd found all the parts she needed to get Leviathan 5 moving, neatly shelved, right where they should be, but installing them had changed almost nothing; Leviathan 5 was now immobilized just as Quintus was. The same mysterious shutdown mechanism had been applied to both.
Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. R. Amelia was increasingly certain that, given the slightest opportunity, Leviathan 5 would shanghai her, not only preventing her return to Quintus, but keeping her from moving about the station and doing vital work. But she wouldn't exercise this option until R. Amelia had restored her mobility. R. Amelia knew from bitter experience that sometimes—usually, almost always—her allies were her worst enemies.
The security cameras showed the men milling around and the Megadeus standing half a mile back from the station. They were clearly waiting for something. Reinforcements, presumably.
Anxious and discouraged, she returned to Quintus and safety. He was delighted to see her. He had gotten nowhere with his self-tests. He figured that the mysterious problem must be partly physical, and he'd be much obliged if she'd take a look at his core memory and the surrounding modules.
She wondered how Quintus managed to be so polite when his communication was electronic and largely nonverbal, but that didn't matter right now. She climbed the companionway to Quintus' head, emerging through the double armored hatchways into the shock-mounted inner chamber containing the core memory, dogging both hatches behind her.
And there it was, mounted neatly on the bulkhead: a simple gray metal box with a dozen wires headed into the core memory. She stared at it in dismay. What were the odds that it didn't include a self-destruct charge? And where was it; in the gray box itself or positioned to destroy the precious core memories containing Quintus' brain and personality?
She felt her consciousness fade as she tried to deal with the appalling possibilities.
Persephone walked into Ricky's hospital room with a spring in her step, carrying a bag with their dinner; two orders of barbecued ribs to go, plus all the fixings. She loved visiting Ricky, especially after a stressful, disorienting day like today. He was always happy to see her and always took her side.
Ricky was sitting up in bed. He grinned and waved.
Persephone almost dropped the bag. "They took the casts off your arms!"
"I'm all done with traction, too," he agreed. "But I'll have the leg cast for a few more weeks."
She hugged him, and for the first time since his injury he hugged her back. He was going to be all right; he really was. The hug went on for a long time.
After a while he asked, "Are you crying?"
"I never cry," she snuffled. She pulled back and took out her handkerchief.
"Must be allergies," he agreed as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. When she was done he held out his hand and she passed the handkerchief over. He found a dry section and wiped his eyes. "Me, too."
"I brought food," she pointed out.
"Good. Let's eat. Whose car did you bring?"
"Yours." She started setting out the food. "I changed your oil and rotated the tires. And you should have seen all the sand in the air filter! I need to tune it up, too. Do you have a timing light?"
"Mitch does. We can borrow it from him."
"Won't Clarisse give you the evil eye?"
"Only if I spend time alone with him." He had started in on his food. "This is really good."
She took the hint and they ate in silence for a while. Eventually she asked, "When did she find out about you and Mitch?"
"He told her everything a long time ago, when he asked her to go steady with him."
"Why?" She was a little scared of Clarisse and couldn't imagine making such a confession.
"I made him promise me he would. Clarisse hates being played for a fool. Besides, I figured she already knew."
"Did she?"
"Yep. But as soon as it was out in the open, bam! She put her foot down."
"That doesn't sound like Clarisse."
"I know what you mean. People see the black nail polish and all that jazz, and they think she's up for anything. Nope! The only reason she didn't blow a gasket when we went Megadeus hunting was that she was supposed to come with us. She bailed at the last minute to take that bus terminal job. Anyway, when they first got together Mitch swore on a stack of bibles that neither hanky nor panky would enter his life ever again. He meant it, too. And they all lived happily ever after."
"What about you?"
"You'll find out. Is there dessert?"
She produced the container of apple cobbler from the bag. As they ate, she asked, "Why did you ask about the car?"
"I'm all cleared to leave and I was wondering about logistics. I think I could drive Dora's car. She has power brakes and an automatic transmission, right?"
"Ricky, you're in a full-leg cast!"
He regarded it dubiously. "Maybe you're right."
"Where are you staying?"
"With you."
"What?"
"It's okay. No one will make much of a fuss. We're engaged."
"We are not!"
"We're not? Well, wait thirty seconds."
"What?" She could feel herself blushing.
"Persephone, will you marry me?"
"But…" she started.
"Doesn't count."
"But…"
"That doesn't count, either."
"Ricky!" she almost wailed.
"Look, Persephone, I know I'm not doing this right, but I'm serious. Hear me out. I love you; I always have. We belong together. We've always known it; we just go all shy whenever it's time to do something about it. We know all about each other and it's okay; always has been, always will be. We can hold off on the ceremony until you're sure, but pencil me in, okay? Say yes."
"Ricky, if I say yes, we're going to get married, no matter what."
"Fine with me."
Her eyes overflowed with tears. Everything he said was true, but ... could it be real? In a small voice, she asked, "Do you really want me?"
"Of course I do! Anyway, it's just a formality. We're already engaged."
"I thought you'd forgotten."
"Not a chance."
"We were six!"
"I know. I've been giving this a lot of thought. Cast your mind into the future. No matter what, it has Megadeuses and androids in it. We don't know which ones, or how many we'll team up with temporarily before we find the right ones. That's going to be hard on us. And then there are the other Dominuses. It won't just be hard; it'll be weird, too. Not just the situation, but the people. All of them will be weirder than us, even the ones we really like. But I'm gonna do it anyway. Aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Right. Let's do it together. We were made for each other."
She sighed happily. "Yes, I'll marry you, Ricky." She felt wonderful, as if all her troubles had vanished; very much as she had felt that day on the playground, gazing down at the earnest little boy on one knee, holding her hand, telling her he loved her and wanted to marry her.
Ricky had always accepted her just as she was, just as she accepted him. They'd looked out for each other. And he was right; they really were made for each other. There was a Megadeus in his future, and probably an android, too. What more could a girl want?
He said, "Good. Now let's get the hell out of here."
"Wait! What about Alan?"
"Oh, yeah. Him. You need to break up with him."
She searched her heart for regret and found none. Well, almost none. "But we're still rescuing him, right?"
"Oh, sure. We're heroes! And he's a damsel in distress."
She laughed. "Okay, but what happens when we succeed?"
"God knows. Let's not borrow trouble. Break up with him now. If he reappears, he can apply for the post of ... umm ... 'supernumerary boyfriend.' It'd be worth it just to see what he puts on his résumé! But he won't. He'll be someone else's problem. Big X isn't my Megadeus and he's not my android."
"You're right about that. So how do I break up with him? We don't know how to reach him!"
"Just tell him you're breaking up. If he can't hear you, it's his fault for running off with someone else's robot instead of acting like a normal person and sticking like glue to a scrumptious redhead."
"Scrumptious?"
"At least! More like 'double scrumptious with extra scrump.'"
"Oh, all right. 'Dear Alan, you're not my boyfriend anymore because ... because I'm in love with Ricky and we're getting married.'" She blinked and said, "Wow."
"That's a wrap. Nip on down to the nurse's station and nab me a wheelchair. I need more practice before I rely on my crutches."
R. Amelia came back to herself. It was time to look at the station's parts storage for gray boxes, along with information about them. Her robot side could do this part but wanted R. Amelia to take point if she could, since she was the creative one, and odds were that they had improvisation in their near future.
As so often happened, R. Amelia's mood had been restored by the break, and she cheerfully took point, sliding down the companionway ladder with a whoop and dashing across the station floor to the parts department.
Much to her surprise, she found a gray box right away, the back plate only loosely attached. Taking the hint, she removed the screws and the plate. Inside was a beautiful brass mechanism that looked like an oversized electrical combination lock with six main rotors and a large number of electrical contacts, plus a host of smaller mechanisms.
She recognized it. When powered up, it would send a signal down through a probe-cable connector at the bottom of the box, expecting the correct cryptographic response in return. If all was well, it would energize the output signal pins in the correct pattern. After an unknown number of failures, it would energize different pins to engage tamper-proofing measures such as explosives.
These electromechanical devices were far more resistant to the amnesia effect than memory or the written word. If R. Amelia's built-in cryptographic functions were similarly undamaged, she would have no difficulty—unless the box had been built by the other side.
Would Quintus be blown to kingdom come if she got this wrong? But she could practice on this box first.
It took her half an hour to cobble together a test rig for the box. She plugged one end of a probe cable into her skull and the other into the box's input connector. This powered up the box and it whirred and clattered for a while before sending her a string of numbers. Five seconds later, the response formed in her mind and she sent it to the box. After additional whirring and clattering, a green test light lit. She had done it!
Overjoyed at the thought of Quintus being able to move again, she considered trying her luck on Leviathan 5 first, just in case it was a trap. But knowing Leviathan 5, she'd keep R. Amelia for her own at that point.
R. Amelia decided to go for broke.
Dora, exhausted from the day's excitement, had allowed Angel to take her to Smith Manor, where she had a bedroom, rather than staying in the current 24-hour tumult of Hangar X. She left a note for Persephone.
She was sleeping peacefully in her bed when she heard Grandfather Gordon calling her. She hadn't heard from him since the day the world changed, all those months ago.
"I'm here, Grandfather," she said happily. A moment later she was standing on the porch of his farmhouse. Everything was just as it had been, and so was he, standing in the twilight on the porch, as if nothing had happened, as if she had not seen him die. She flung her arms around his neck and burst into tears.
He held her tight, murmuring, "There, there, it's all right, child" and other soothing words until she stopped crying. Then he said, "Take a seat," and handed her his red bandanna.
Reluctantly, she let go, wiped away her tears, and sat in the wicker chair. She was still wearing her pale yellow nightgown. The twilight had faded already and stars were bright.
Gordon sat in his rocking chair and said, "When a Megadeus is commissioned, it takes the colors of its Dominus. What are your colors, child?"
"Blue with pale yellow trim," she said at once, though she hadn't known this before. Her clothing changed. There was just enough lamplight coming through the windows that she saw that she was wearing a blue battle uniform with pale yellow stripes down the trousers, the color of her hair, and insignia and buttons of the same color. She was relieved to see that her boots and belt were black. Yellow boots would have been overdoing it.
"What does this mean, Grandfather?"
"You'll know when the time comes."
"All right. You seem to be alive again. I'm so glad."
"Thank you, my dear. You'll find you have the knack of it, too."
She nodded, unsurprised. "I wish I were real, though."
"Yes, I know. That process is underway."
She nodded again, then sat quietly for a while. Finally she asked, "Grandfather?"
"Yes, child?"
"There was an android with you in Leviathan 14. Is she all right?"
"Of course she is."
"Is she here?"
"Not yet. You may see her before I do. Her name is Barbara."
"All right. And, Grandfather?"
"Yes?"
"Where is my android?"
"Have you already met your android, child, in any guise whatever?"
"I don't know." She sighed wistfully. "I so wanted him to be R. Jason Beck. But now I don't. Not anymore. I'm not Dori anymore, am I?"
"Not entirely."
"I'm Dori's little sister Dora now. I can be myself; be things Dori didn't think of, things she wouldn't understand."
"That is exactly right."
After a moment, Dora said, "Big Tau is haunted."
"Yes."
"How can I ... I don't have the words."
"The spirit of his Dominus is trapped. He must be freed."
"How?"
He told her.
Grand Dominus Douglas watched his men set up the laser cannon with satisfaction. These men were skilled technicians and showed none of the clownish incompetence of the original three.
After some back-and-forth on the radio, it was decided to see if they could burn off the deadbolts on one of the personnel doors, leaving the door usable. They could weld it shut if they had to.
After a close-up inspection by one of the technicians, who marked the location of the two bolts with yellow paint, the laser cannon burned through the bolts in seconds. The technician approached the door again, holding a mop. He prodded the door and it swung inward. The technician backed away and made an "after you" gesture to the assault squad.
Two squad members flanked the door and another darted through it. After a pause, others dashed in, and within seconds the six members of the assault squad were inside. The reserve squad remained outside.
There was a series of brilliant flashes of light that dazzled everyone present. Douglas, watching on a monitor, was not dazzled, but the image was very poor at this distance.
The radio came to life. The corporal in charge of the reserve squad reported, "Laser fire. Probably from the eye lasers on one of the Megadeuses. C squad, report!" But there were no reports.
Douglas growled in frustration, but he'd already planned his next move. "Weld the main doors shut, then the little doors except the open one."
The laser cannon began carrying out this order at once, and it was probably due to its dazzling light and the fascinating way the technicians carried out the tricky task of welding the main doors without flux, and with only the doors themselves providing filler material, that no one noticed the open door swing slowly shut again. By the time they examined it, it was not only shut and barred, but something solid had been piled against it, since tapping it with a hammer gave a much duller note than before.
It was going to be a siege. Well, Douglas was prepared for that. More than prepared. This wouldn't take long.
He called his commanders together and told them what he wanted.
They were delighted.
R. Amelia sat huddled in the command chair, feeling wretched. One of the many things that were supposed to be impossible for Class M androids was post-crisis reaction, but as her Dominus might say (how she missed him!), there was no end to her versatility!
She had plugged herself into Quintus' gray box and finished disarming it moments before the enemy's laser cannon started burning through the door. A Megadeus can't be brought to full operation instantly, and she'd been afraid that something terrible would happen to Quintus before he was ready to defend himself. As it was, all six soldiers made it inside before Quintus regained the ability to fire his eye lasers. He killed them all.
Quintus grumbled about that. He would have preferred to kill just the first one, or even to miss him and allow him to escape. It would have been elegant; it would have had style. And R. Amelia would be happier right now.
He tried to comfort her. Maybe it helped. Eventually he switched gears and reminded her of the emergency beacon. By then she had recovered enough to accept the suggestion. The blessed calm of robot mode wrapped her in its welcome nothing-in-particular and she hurried out to put the beacon in working order.
Tony put the last screw on the cover plate of the new module, stood up, and stretched.
Beck slapped him on the back good-humoredly. "Tony, old pal, we made history tonight!"
Well, that was true. This footlocker-sized module, covered with meters, dials, switches, and lights, was exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from Beck. It sent out all the right signals to convince a Megadeus that it was another Megadeus. Not only that, but you could select which side it claimed to be on, whether it was sane or crazy, manned or unmanned, wounded or intact, what its name was (or that it didn't remember), and whether it had an android.
Angel had made the mistake of claiming that the friend-or-foe protocol was impossible to fake, so of course Beck couldn't rest until he'd faked it. And that meant Tony hadn't rested, either. Tony had the necessary technical and mathematical training, while Beck, the world's greatest safecracker, had the necessary twistiness of mind. It was a brilliant piece of work; a real breakthrough. And it had come together so quickly!
R. Dori appeared and put an arm around Beck, who was pale with fatigue. She told Tony, "I've prepared a guest room for you, Tony, and set out some things." She'd put her foot down and told him to stop sleeping on the couch in his office; he was her friend and was entitled to a guest room.
"Yeah," said Beck, who didn't see Tony as a friend but never contradicted R. Dori. "Let's get some shut-eye. Tomorrow we'll take it out and put it through its paces. Maybe we can surprise Will and Emily with it." He sighed. "Too bad. I wish we had a real enemy to try it on.
[To be continued]