/ Chapter 18 – Athena's Summer Trip /
Athena sighed as she walked into the recruitment conference room, annoyed that the meeting was another case of not getting any information beforehand. Usually she would get some sort of background data, but George and Pam wanted to give her the full briefing in person. She was particularly curious, since Caroline said this mission was apparently so extraordinary and top secret that it was felt no discussion should be done outside of secure locations.
She and Caroline took a seat at the table, where George and Pam were already seated. Everyone said their greetings.
"Athena, I know this is a little unusual, not giving you documentation in advance. But this mission is much different than anything you've done before," George said.
She was intrigued by this, which sounded very novel, though she could tell her mother was very concerned about it.
"The good aspect here is that it's not unusual in the sense of danger to you," George continued. "It's more that the stakes for this are higher than normal. We would like you to do something that doesn't technically fall under recruitment, though we and Caroline believe you could do it. How effective it'll be in the end is another matter."
"All right. I shall do my best, of course. What's the mission?" Athena asked, hoping they would get to the point soon.
"Some background," Pam started. "As you know, Trans Univex's long-term plan is global destabilization. We believe they are particularly strong in the USSR, working to drive a wedge between the Soviets and the Americans."
A picture of an older man appeared on the wall screen.
"This is Leonid Brezhnev, who last year became the General Secretary of the Central Committee and thus the leader of the Soviet Union," Pam continued. "The prior leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, had started opening more dialog with the west. Unfortunately, we're concerned that Brezhnev is listening to people associated with Trans Univex, and they are attempting to influence him to distrust the United States and to generally abandon communication. It hasn't helped with Brezhnev's mood that in March the Americans committed troops to South Vietnam."
"I know that the Soviet Union has been building up their military," Athena noted.
"Yes," Pam said grimly. "Quite frankly, the Soviet Union is a complex beast and he is only one man who must balance many parts of the USSR, some of which are hawks who do want to strengthen their forces, particularly their nuclear stockpiles. Brezhnev is sympathetic to this and we expect it to inevitably happen."
"What are his long-term goals?" Athena asked.
"It's very difficult to say," George put in. "Brezhnev's a complex man. He has a reputation for ruthlessness and oppression in many ways, while other information tells us that he's not a completely unreasonable man. He cares about his country, but is very mistrustful."
"Yes," Pam said, nodding. "Unfortunately, the nature of the Soviets is to be closed, suspicious and insular. They suffered terribly under Stalin, suffered worse in World War II, and have suffered ever since. Trans Univex is taking advantage of this to feed their paranoia and mislead them. But if the Soviets could be influenced to keep communication open, it might make a significant long-term difference to countering Trans Univex – perhaps even eventually leading to arms control treaties, and the eventual opening and reintegration of their culture into the world."
"What can I do to help?" Athena asked.
Pam paused and looked around the table, as though getting a consensus on whether the idea was really a good idea.
"We want you to pay a little visit to Brezhnev," Pam said.
Athena walked through a dark forest near the town of Zavidovo, having made the 150 mile run from a travel gate location in about four hours. It was late at night, about two in the morning. Plus Ultra's information indicated that Brezhnev was staying here on holiday with his wife Viktoria in their Gosdacha, a state-owned vacation home. More importantly, they'd found that he often walked alone in the woods near their home, with security only loosely around the area. She was dressed in a very traditional outfit worn by young girls, matching Brezhnev's cultural background.
As she got closer to the village, she began to circle around the perimeter, staying hidden but generally checking the reality against the maps she'd seen. She finally reached the area where she knew their house was located. She carefully moved closer, noting that there wasn't much security in the forest, but there was some near the home. The house was currently dark, not surprisingly.
Athena completed her survey of the village over the next few hours, and fortunately there were no surprises. She made her way back to Brezhnev's dacha and found a tree some distance from the house where she could watch the house without being spotted. She silently climbed to the top of the tree, about 80 feet up, and situated herself to wait. The sun would be rising in about half an hour, and if she was lucky, Brezhnev might take a walk that afternoon.
As it turned out, she was unlucky and he didn't walk that afternoon. But Athena was patient and stayed up in her tree, hoping he didn't end up getting called back to Moscow or some other unfortunate circumstance where she'd have to abort. She waited through the evening and into the next morning, switching herself into a lower-power mode where she could still monitor things, but preserve her battery power.
Athena raised her power level as the sun came up, since it was more probable that someone might spot her in the daytime, but so far everything was quiet. There was a small amount of activity around the house; Viktoria came out and sat in the garden to read a book for a short time, but no sign of Brezhnev as yet.
As the afternoon approached, she keenly watched the house for signs of activity. Finally around four o'clock, the door opened, and Brezhnev himself came out. Athena perked up, watching him to see what he would do. He spoke to a man who looked like one of his security detail outside the house, who nodded and said something to him. Brezhnev smiled and nodded back.
Brezhnev started walking toward the forest. Athena decided it was time for action. Although she didn't expect a battle, she switched her internal state to high alert, just in case. This tended to use more power, but it would make her more focused and aware. She quickly climbed down the tree and began walking in parallel to him, keeping him in sight, but not to where he could see her. Based on her information, these walks would typically be about an hour, though they sometimes could last longer. She wanted him some distance away from the dacha.
After he was several miles away, she decided it was time to initiate her contact protocol. The plan was loosely designed by Pam and her psych team, but Athena had considerable latitude to 'play it by ear' after contact, since his attitude and behavior would dictate the approach she used.
A curve in his trail was coming up, which was a good opportunity. She ran around 100 yards ahead of him, out of his sight around the bend. Athena turned and started skipping, little-girl-style, singing a Ukrainian folk song popular in Brezhnev's home town. A few minutes later, she encountered him, looking surprised.
Athena stopped singing and smiled at him. She raised her voice pitch so that she would seem younger than her usual self. She spoke in Russian, using an accent very similar to Brezhnev's slight Ukrainian flavor. It wasn't as upscale as her usual accent, since she suspected Brezhnev would tend to trust people of similar backgrounds to himself rather than overly wealthy people who'd never known hardship. She would monitor his reactions to confirm this, however.
"Hello!" she said brightly. "I didn't know there was anyone else out here."
Brezhnev smiled slightly at her, but she could see he was very distracted and slightly annoyed at being disturbed.
"Hello," he said, more for politeness than anything. It was clear Brezhnev was a hard man, but she had influenced hard men before. In fact, often the harder the man, the more of a hidden core of sentimentality lay hidden within.
"Aren't these woods pretty?" she said, giving him a sweet smile. "I'm so happy we're vacationing here!"
Brezhnev looked as though he wanted to keep walking, but couldn't bring himself to just ignore her. "Yes, they are quite beautiful."
"My name is Afina. What's yours?" She said, using the Russian form of the name Athena.
Athena knew that often one way to influence very famous people was to pretend she didn't know who they were. They were so used to being treated as famous that the novelty of being anonymous while talking to someone was irresistible.
"My name is Leonid," he said, a bit more friendly now.
She spun around happily, doing a little dance in the forest. "I just love this place!" she said. "Don't you? I wish I could live here all the time!"
"It is one of my favorite places in the world," Brezhnev said, now openly smiling and laughing at Athena's dance. "I wish I could stay here all the time, too, but I must work in Moscow."
Athena made a cute pouty face. "I live in Moscow, too. I like the music concerts, but it's so busy there. I wish I could live here and go to school. Did you grow up in Moscow?"
"No," he chuckled. "A long way from Moscow, in a place called Kamenskoe in Ukraine, though now it's called Dniprodzerzhynsk."
Of course, Athena knew all about where he'd grown up and his entire background. But her current goal was to put him in the mindset of nostalgia and memory.
"Was that a big city like Moscow?" Athena asked.
"Oh no, it was an industrial city, quite poor, though it wasn't too small," he said. "My father worked in the steel mill."
"Really?" Athena asked curiously. "Did it have pretty forests like this?"
"Not like this, but they did have a river that ran by the city," he answered. "My friends and I would often play there."
Athena monitored Brezhnev's reactions. She was pleased to see that he was beginning to recall some memories, based on his thoughtful and somewhat wistful expression. She evaluated that his boyhood friends would likely be a fruitful subject to explore.
"I wish we had a river here. I love the forest, but a river would make it perfect," Athena said. "What would you and your friends do?"
He chuckled, and started to relate fishing in the river with his friends, trying to bring home some food. Athena was a rapt audience, asking him further questions, evaluating his emotional state and bringing out more stories of subjects where he seemed to be particularly sensitive. Brezhnev finally took a seat on a nearby rock and Athena sat on the ground near him. She found that a particularly sensitive subject was Brezhnev's father, so she subtly asked questions and probed that subject. Brezhnev related how he brought his father lunch tied in a kerchief, and met him after work in the mill to walk home with him.
After relating a funny story, causing Athena to laugh and clap her hands (she had to guess at the level and type of laughter required, though she found the story quite interesting), Brezhnev smiled at her. "My child, you are simply a delight."
"Thank you," Athena said, hiding her smile with her hand shyly. "I like your stories very much. May I ask you another question?"
"Certainly," he said.
"What was the revolution like? Did it affect you?" She asked.
"Oh, that was a very bad time," he said, nodding. "In fact, at almost the same time, the Ukraine Civil War began right in my home town."
"That must have been so frightening!" Athena said, with open mouth shock.
"It was," Brezhnev said, now looking very solemn. "Food was very difficult to find and many people died."
He started describing what it was like, Athena acting captivated at his stories, giving him appropriate gasps in the correct spots, which she evaluated was effective in encouraging him to continue. Truthfully, she did enjoy his stories, as they were quite interesting. Her reaction wasn't entirely an act, though she worked to maximize her emotional impact on him, carefully monitoring his reactions to her actions. She could tell Brezhnev was definitely in the throes of war memories, which had been her primary goal.
After a pause from completion of one of his war stories, Athena felt it was a good time to introduce her next tactic. "That must have been such a terrible time for you," Athena said sympathetically. She paused, and then said in a low, timid voice, "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Of course," he said curiously.
Athena looked up at him, giving him big eyes. She whispered, "Sometimes I'm afraid of war, too. I overhear my daddy and mommy talking. They say we might go to war someday with the Americans and we'll all die."
Brezhnev looked very seriously at Athena. "Some people do worry about that, yes."
"It's hard to imagine that anyone wants war. Do you think the Americans want war?"
"It's very difficult to say," Brezhnev answered. "Some people think so. It's hard to know what the Americans think."
"I'm curious; do you think our leaders talk to the Americans?"
"I think they do sometimes, but not very often," Brezhnev answered.
"This will probably sound silly," Athena said. She paused, with an embarrassed look. "But sometimes I have fights with my friends and I don't want to talk to them. But my mommy says I should talk to them. I guess countries are different."
"Your mommy is very wise," Brezhnev said. "But yes, sometimes it's more complicated with countries. There is something like that, though. It's called diplomacy."
"Oh!" Athena said, looking like a light went on. "I've heard of that! But why do you think we don't talk to the Americans very often? War seems so terrible."
"There are many different reasons. Some people in government don't want to talk. Others are angry at the Americans. Some are even afraid of talking." Brezhnev leaned forward and said in a lower voice, "For some people, it's even to their benefit to avoid talking to the Americans."
Athena cocked her head, looking confused. "That seems very odd. How can anyone benefit from not talking?"
"They find ways to use the tension to make themselves seem important. Sometimes people even stand to make money by supplying weapons for war."
Athena paused, considering this. "I've never thought about it like that," she said, nodding and looking wide-eyed, as though new vistas of understanding just opened. She looked up at him. "You're very smart."
He smiled. "Thank you. It is hard to understand sometimes, especially for our leaders who have to figure out who those people are."
"I hope our leaders are smart enough not to listen to those bad people," she said, frowning.
Athena evaluated Brezhnev's emotional state and felt it was now time to deliver her final tactic. She took a long pause and said in very low whisper, "Can I tell you another secret?"
Brezhnev nodded at her, looking very somber.
She looked down at the ground and said, "Sometimes I get so frightened," Athena said, voice still very low. "I wonder if I'll be able to grow up." Athena then initiated water to flow out of her tear ducts, and looked up at him, direct in the eye, looking very fearful and distressed.
Looking at Brezhnev's face, Athena could tell he was very moved by this. As she suspected, he had a large core of sentimentality that could be tapped into, mostly in conjunction with his own childhood memories and fears of war.
She quickly swiped at her tears. "I'm sorry," she said, looking embarrassed. She evaluated that her tears would be most effective with Brezhnev if she convinced him that she wished to appear brave and that tears were the last thing she wished to show him, but was so overwhelmed by emotion that they came anyway.
"No, no, my dear, it's all right," Brezhnev said quickly.
"Just… do you think everything will be okay? In the future?" she asked, looking him in the eye. Athena happened to know that the blues of her eyes were particularly vibrant when they were wet with tears, which often had a dramatic effect on humans.
"I do think so," Brezhnev said. "Truly. In fact, I have heard there may be more talks with the Americans in the future. You're right that no one wants war."
Athena's empathy measured his emotional state, and she determined that he most likely meant it. Now it was time to cement their emotional connection.
"You really think so? You're not just saying this?" Athena said, looking at him with sad, trusting eyes. "Promise?"
He smiled at her. "Yes, I promise. I really do suspect things will work out in the end."
Athena's expression brightened, like the sun breaking through black, stormy clouds. She impulsively hugged him, to seal their shared bond of trust. "Thank you, Leonid. I feel so much better."
She backed away smiling, then suddenly flinched in surprise. "Oh! I should be back to our dacha by now!"
Athena sighed. "I have to go," she said sadly, but smiling. "Thank you for talking to me, I enjoyed it very much."
"I did, too," Brezhnev said, smiling. "Will you be in Zavidovo long? I hope I see you again."
"We are leaving tomorrow morning to go back to Moscow," Athena said, giving him another pouty face. "I wish I could stay here." She then brightened. "Maybe I'll see you in Moscow sometime!"
Brezhnev chuckled. "I wouldn't be surprised if you saw me there."
Athena gave him one last hug and said softly, "I've never told anyone all that before. Thank you for helping me feel less afraid."
"You're welcome," he said. "And Afina, you're a wonderful girl. Your parents must be very proud."
"Thank you," Athena said, giving him another bright smile. "Oooh, I've got to go or I'll get in trouble! Bye, Leonid!"
"Goodbye, Afina," Brezhnev said, waving and smiling.
With a last smile, Athena turned and skipped away, disappearing into the forest. After a sufficient distance that he could no longer see her, she began her four-hour run back to the travel gate. There was no way to know how effective she'd been. She fulfilled all her goals with the meeting, but very high level humans such as this weren't always predictable in their behaviors, especially once they went back to their normal environment and their everyday influences. All they could do is wait and see what fruit it bore, if any.
As the summer wore on and approached the end, Frank decided it had been unquestionably the best of his life. He and Athena had fallen into a routine of getting together nearly every day, unless she was off on one of her field trips. Apparently she did a year-round flexible education schedule, but Frank figured it all balanced out since she'd gotten a fair amount of time off over the year he'd known her.
The last few months were filled with various fun activities. They wandered through different parts of the city, sometimes just walking through some of their favorite parts, talking about anything and everything. Their explorations also took them outside the city, where they hiked the various trails and lands outside the city walls. Tomorrowland itself was quite busy with different types of small festivals and city activities.
Of course, he spent a fair amount of time working on projects in his lab, including experimenting with new jetpack ideas, and what made that particularly fun was that Athena would come by and help him with various things. She was a great help to him, because she was far more precise than he would ever be. He was actually envious of the single-minded focus she could bring to things, like machining parts or fine assembly.
What made all this particularly fun was that Athena meshed with him so well, since they both enjoyed the same things. He'd never met someone who seemed so perfect for him; in fact, he wouldn't have imagined someone could be so perfect. They would have long conversations about the future, thinking about the ways Plus Ultra and Tomorrowland could possibly help the world. Athena was particularly interesting to talk to because she knew so much general knowledge on everything, as well as a phenomenal memory to recall it all. He would raise some wild idea and she would always have some analytical point to make about it, making him think about things in terms of practicality instead of the blue-sky craziness he was wont to do. He very much appreciated her level-headedness, which made a good contrast to himself.
Topping all this off was that she was just plain fun to be with, and sometimes so funny in her quirky way. He chuckled to himself, thinking about the prior week when they'd gone down to the lake to swim. They were sitting on the ground next to the lake, and somehow the subject of Caroline's robot collection came up, and Athena commented that she thought Frankenstein didn't fit the pattern, which clearly annoyed her (to Frank's amusement – Athena had her fussy aspects). Feeling silly, Frank made monster noises, lifted her up into his arms and plopped her in the water. She looked at him like he'd completely lost his mind, which just made it all the funnier to him.
All this was running though his mind, as today had been a particularly fun day with attending the annual end-of-summer festival. It was a large event taking over the city center, with art exhibits, live music, carnival booths, amusement rides, and many other events. Caroline was also attending the fair, though she went off with some of her friends, while Frank and Athena explored on their own.
He and Athena spent the day exploring the festival, with numerous interesting things going on, some very cool in a "Tomorrowland" amazing way, while other things were just plain interesting in normal ways.
They attended a story reading by a very interesting middle-aged woman named Barbara Newhall Follett. She was a long-time resident who was considered a great writer, who had written many stories taking place in Tomorrowland, establishing the start of a mythology. She was also a naturalist, who imaginatively named many of the creatures that lived in the world. Supposedly she lived in a cabin outside the city walls, but gave regular nature walks, which Frank thought would be very cool to attend some time. Before the reading of one of her short stories, she gave a brief, humorous account of her background, though it had a tragic undercurrent. She'd been a former child prodigy who published a widely acclaimed book in 1927 at age 12, then another at age 14. After an unhappy life followed, in 1939 she learned of Plus Ultra and came to Tomorrowland for a fresh start – never to return to Earth.
It was early evening when Frank and Athena walked toward the park where they were supposed to meet Caroline. Athena spotted her on a grassy hill, sitting on a blanket and relaxing with a book. As they walked up the hill, Caroline looked up and smiled.
"Wait! Stand still!" Caroline said as Frank and Athena approached. They stopped as she rummaged through a large carry-bag, then pulled out a camera. "Let me get a picture!"
Frank smiled at Athena, who sighed and looked resigned, making him laugh. Apparently photos weren't something she looked forward to.
"Just a couple," Caroline said, grinning at Athena's sigh. She snapped a picture of the two of them. "Now stand closer, arms around each other's shoulders. It'll be so cute!"
They pushed together closer, Frank feeling slightly embarrassed at standing like this in front of Caroline, but then, he didn't really mind standing close to Athena. In fact, truth be told, they'd gone on some carnival thrill rides and he'd particularly enjoyed the ones when they were squished together in some way.
She snapped a few more pictures, then put the camera away, to Athena's obvious relief. The three of them sat together, chatting about what they'd done that day. They were waiting for dark to come, when supposedly Tomorrowland was having a big fireworks display.
"You'll want to see this," Caroline commented. "I'm pretty sure you haven't seen fireworks like this."
Of course, Frank expected nothing less from Tomorrowland, but it still heightened his anticipation for what he was about to see. The fireworks started a half hour past sundown. Back in Pittsfield, fireworks were lit on the Fourth of July every year, which were reasonably cool. It was hard to imagine how much different they could be, Tomorrowland or no.
Finally they hit the appointed time and the fireworks began. Music sounded from some sort of hidden speakers around the park, which sounded remarkably clear to Frank's ear. The sky lit up with explosive light, and was particularly cool because the sparks exploded into a various shapes that matched the segment. Not surprisingly, considering Walt Disney's involvement in Plus Ultra, there were a selection of Disney tunes and he was amused to see an outline of a huge Goofy head light up in the sky. He speculated that the fireworks were packed in such a way as to spread the sparks into a cohesive pattern, by giving some sparks a larger gunpowder charge than others. Frank was proud of himself for coming up with a potential solution.
But then he was stunned to see things kick up a notch. Now when the fireworks went off, they didn't just produce an outline, the sparks spread out into a grid and made a light-up photo in the sky. They started going through various founders, scientists, artists and other famous people, composed of patterns of sparks dropping in the air. A huge face of Nikolai Tesla lit up the sky with his name underneath. Huge cheers went up at some of the more popular faces. Frank had no clue how they accomplished this trick.
Apparently things were just getting started, however. Next the fireworks not only produced images, but animations lit up the sky in a single color for the few seconds that the fireworks spread out and drifted down. They were Frank watched in awe as short scenes from black and white movies with accompanying music played. This now seemed to be in the realm of magic, beyond any way he could imagine it could be done.
The finale came, and now the animations were in full color. For the few seconds each explosion was in the sky, they showed movie scenes. He saw Dorothy and Toto from Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Disney animations, and many other movies. The fireworks ended with recorded historical scenes from the building of Tomorrowland as the crowd cheered.
Frank was stunned at the spectacle, but even more, he wracked his brain trying to figure out how it was done. He had to know.
"Do either of you know how the heck they did that?" he asked. "That was incredible."
"Oh, it's very simple," Athena started. "They…"
"Hold up, Athena," Caroline said, holding up her hand with a grin. "I don't know, Frank. Won't it spoil the magic for you? It's like knowing how the magician does the trick."
Frank gave her a mock glare. "Well, magicians have to share their secrets at some point, so we get more magicians. If you want more engineers, you have to share the tricks, too."
Caroline laughed. "Excellent point. All right, Athena, I suppose we can let him in on one of our top-secret technologies."
Athena smiled. "First, the light from the photo and animated movie fireworks wasn't actually burning gunpowder, as it was in the beginning. The light came from a large number of small, very bright electronic light modules, packed around a gunpowder core. When they exploded, they were spread in a random pattern, and then drifted down on small parachutes. A computer on the ground tracked all the positions and controlled each one's light, producing the image. Animation was rapidly changing the images. The color images used modules with red, green and blue lights, which mix to create different colors."
Frank nodded slowly, seeing how it could work, though he was sure there were devils in the details. "I'm almost disappointed," he said, grinning. "I half-hoped you would tell me that Tomorrowland had real magic."
"See?" Caroline said. "Now we spoiled it for you. We should have let you believe we had magic wands in our back pockets."
Frank turned to Athena. "How did you know how it worked? Is all this written down somewhere?"
"Oh, I read about it in the Tomorrowland Science Journal," Athena said. "It comes out regularly. All of our science is published publicly, by the charter of Plus Ultra. Or, at least, published within Tomorrowland, for now. Of course, someday we hope to share with the rest of humanity, which is the long-term goal of Plus Ultra."
They were silent for a few moments as a warm wind blew through the park, making Frank reflect what a beautiful evening it was. The sky was completely clear, with a huge number of stars in the sky. The two moons of Tomorrowland were both in the sky; Isaac was at a half-moon, and Albert was at a three-quarter-moon.
"Well, I think I'll head back to the apartment," Caroline said. "Athena, do you want to stay with Frank or come back?"
Athena looked at Frank. "Do you want to stay?"
"I'll stay for a bit," he answered.
"All right," Caroline said. "See you back in a while."
Caroline gathered her stuff and walked off, leaving Athena and Frank sitting on the grass underneath the stars. Frank looked up at the sky, then lay down with his hands behind his head, looking up.
"It seems weird to see different stars up there. Not that I have the constellations memorized on Earth, but I can usually pick out the Big Dipper or Orion's Belt. It almost seems like there are more stars here, though."
Athena also lay back on the grass, looking up. "There are, actually. We're closer to the center of the Milky Way, so there are more and brighter stars. But it's also that this is the only city on the planet, so there's little light pollution."
They lay quietly, just looking up at the stars. After a bit, Frank asked, "Do you think there's intelligent life on other planets? Well, I mean non-human intelligent life, obviously we're on a different planet. But here they only have lower animals."
Athena was silent for a moment, making Frank wonder if she had an opinion on it, though it was rare for Athena to not have an opinion on something. But finally she answered, "Yes, I'm fairly certain there exists non-human intelligent life."
"Certain, huh?" Frank said with amusement, still looking up in the sky. "I don't know about 'certain,' but I think there has to be other intelligent life somewhere. It would be cool to meet some kind of alien intelligence."
Athena didn't answer this time, both of them just looking up at the stars. The weather was warm with a slight breeze; Frank felt very calm and peaceful, and the park was quiet since most of the people had filed out. He felt like he could sleep right there. In fact, a camp-out might even be fun one of these days.
"This has been a really fun summer," Frank said. "I can't believe school starts in what, two weeks or so? But yeah, I think this was my best summer ever."
"I think it's safe to say it was my best summer, too," Athena said.
This gave Frank a warm feeling and he smiled to himself, thinking that Athena had a lot to do with why it'd been his best summer.
Author's Note: This is one of my favorite chapters. I love the idea of Athena saving the world through subtly influencing a major world leader. And then, of course, she goes and has fun with Frank. :)
I also liked showing what Athena is capable of if she really went all-out with a goal of direct emotional manipulation of humans, which fortunately she normally has very strong moral directives to not do. But it shows that Athena is a very dangerous machine on many levels.
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The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.