I'd like to thank Malady for his help editing this.

To Return Home

Chapter 1.1

I dove into the water, alongside my sister, Paula. Neither of us wore any of the diving equipment of old, except for a pair of goggles each. I hated trying to see underwater without them. Many people didn’t worry about them either, but I had hated blurry vision since I was a kid. Before I was injected with nanobots, I was myopic, but the bots had cured me of that problem almost immediately. My vision had been perfect ever since then. To dive into the water and not be able to see was too nerve-wracking. Perhaps since it took me back to the time before I was female? I wasn’t sure, but nevertheless — I wasn’t willing to do it.

Now, Paula and I started to descend to the bottom. Mom and Daddy were already there and had been for quite some time. Probably for over half an hour. We rarely thought about it anymore, but under normal circumstances, we would not drown. I’m not sure how they would do it, but the bots were able to keep us oxygenated.

I was a bit freaked as I dove, not because I had never done it before, but because I was fearful that Amos might have planned for this eventuality. When he told us he buried Carla's crystals in the lake, it seemed too quick.

I suppose that is one of the reasons John offered to drain it. He felt Amos had been too quick to provide a compromise.

Daddy, however, wanted to try it this way first. Mom had seen where they were buried from Amos’ point of view, so hopefully, she would be able to find it quickly.

It wasn't to be, however. For two days, they had been searching and had found nothing. I tried to get Daddy to agree to Paula and me helping, but he was very reluctant. Both he and Mom didn't want to lose another daughter, but we wanted to save help our sister. It was a tough call for Daddy, I'm sure, and even tougher for us to obey, but I had given the command of Neo22 to him. I couldn't suddenly decide that I wasn't going to follow his direction.

Finally, halfway through the third day, Daddy agreed to let us help. So, now, we were diving in to help. I wasn't sure we would be useful, but it was well worth a try.

We reached the bottom, and though I could feel the pressure of thirty feet of water over my head, it wasn’t painful. I was glad I wore the goggles, however. I was able to see it fine.

I’d heard some people say that the bots changed their eyes after a significant time underwater. They supposedly created some external lens on the eye that allowed unhindered vision. I didn’t want that. They had altered me enough, thank you very much.

Perhaps that sounds hypocritical of me. After all, the most significant change the bots made to me was the most beautiful change I could have had. The fact was, however, I didn’t trust Amos, and allowing his bots to change my body anymore, went completely against my grain.

We searched the area around where Mom and Daddy were, digging in the lake bed a significant distance -- no luck. Finally, as we began to widen the search area, I heard a triumphant explosion of sound from Paula’s direction. I looked her way and saw her holding up a chain with a pendant and the familiar, turquoise-colored crystals in it.

Happily, I followed the others as they headed for the surface. John handed me a towel as I walked onto the shore. “You know, we’re going to have to go swimming here more often. I love your outfit, Hon.”

I blushed with the others hearing what he said, even as I was pleased with what he said. I glanced down at my swimsuit and smiled. In truth, I had asked a friend to make it, specifically for John's enjoyment. It was a two-piece and left very little to the imagination. Usually, wearing it with my parents around would have been out of the question. In fact, when Daddy approved Paula and me helping, both of us hurried home, and returned in similar outfits.

Daddy turned crimson and looked like he was about to explode, but since the only other people there were my husband and daughter, and Paula’s fiance, he decided to let well enough alone. He started to say something about skinny dipping, and Paula acted like she was going to remove what little she was wearing. Daddy held up his hands and said, “Forget I said that. What you have on is perfect.”

“Why thank you, Daddy,” I said, and he blushed all the more. I watched as Paula smirked as she turned away from Daddy.

Marc snorted, and Daddy turned on him. “You were saying?”

“Absolutely nothing, Sir.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He and Mom entered the water again, and Paula and I discussed where we wanted to search. We decided to add to our parent’s efforts and went in after them.

Once we had found them, Daddy and Mom took the crystals back to their lab, and the next day, they started working to see how to turn them back on.

-=#=-

John and I went back to our home, happy that the crystals had been found. I felt like celebrating, and I made a lovely dinner for the three of us.

Pearl, however, had other ideas. When I called her for dinner, she came out of her room, dressed to the nines.

She looked at the table and seemed chagrined as she told me, "Oh. I'm sorry, Mom. I forgot to mention that I was going to see Rashda tonight."

I was prepared to be mad, but John said, "That's okay, Pearl. Your mom and I have some things to do tonight. We'll be okay."

I started to respond; then, I saw Johns face.

Once Pearl left, I told him, "There will be severe consequences for approving Pearl going out tonight."

"You do realize, Rose, that our daughter is a few decades older than we were when we left home, right?"

"Is she? Then how come she's still living here?" I asked, all innocence.

He stared at me for a moment, as if trying to figure out what I was doing. "I'm not gonna win this, am I?"

"Do you want to?"

A smile started at the corner of his mouth. "Let's eat, then take this up in the bedroom."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea, husband of mine."

When I finally got to sleep, it was with a beatific smile on my face. I think John had one as well.

The next morning, we made our way to my parent's house, holding hands and reveling in the glorious morning. It had rained, complete with thunder and lightning, during the night, and the smell was beautiful. I had always loved the smell after a thunderstorm. I think John had programmed the storm when we planned our night. He knew I loved them, and I believe he wanted to keep me in a chipper mood during our walk.

The silly but wonderful man loved to act like he was somewhat clueless where women were concerned, but I knew better. He was very skilled in taking me to the top and keeping me there—multiple times.

In return, I knew exactly what to do to get him almost to the top several times before finally letting him relax.

Last night had been incredible for both of us.

Now, walking together, hand in hand took me back to our childhood. I had wanted to do this so many times, to be his girlfriend. Had I known that he wanted me to be as well, my childhood would have been so much better.

We didn't say much, which was fine with me. Just being together was enough. I think John felt the same way. He didn't seem to want to talk about our sex life. It was something that both of us left in the bedroom except for the inuendos that we enjoyed using to get each other in the mood.

We weren't hurrying, and I let my mind drift as we strolled along.

The fact that we found Carla's crystals thrilled me. I was so much looking forward to being able to talk to her. To sit down and discuss things.

I had no idea if she would remember all the time Amos controlled her, and I had no intention of reminding her of it. My main desire was to build a relationship with her.

Subjectively, I was now the youngest of all three of us. Neo22 had been constructed from material found in asteroids. While Centaurus waited for N22 to return, the people on board designed and built it.

Centaurus waited ten thousand years for N22 to return, but for us, only two hundred passed from our exile to our return.

That ten thousand years was after several centuries passed on earth between our leaving and Centaurus being launched.

I was only born seventy-five years before Carla was, and now she had millennia more experience than I did, as did Paula. To be fair, both of them were millennia older than Daddy and Mom as well.

The perils of space travel at high speed, I suppose.

We arrived at my parent's lab after a long walk. Marc and Paula were there, and from their demeanor, I suspected that they spent the night much as John and I had. Interestingly, Rashda and Pearl were also there. Was last night a celebratory night for all of us? It seemed so.

On a hospital bed, being tended to by Doctors, Jack and Sylvia was my little sister! She was completely thawed, and I saw that her body was alive.

We gathered around Daddy's workbench and waited for him to go into teacher mode. He looked up at us, and my elation quickly dissolved.

“Something’s wrong?” I asked.

“Yeah, Rosie. Something is very wrong.”

My throat went dry, and I felt my chest tighten. “What is it?”

“It appears as though Amos is up to his old tricks again.”

“How so?” Paula wondered.

“Carla is alive and will stay that way, but Jack and Sylvia tell me that it is all autonomous brain function. I've studied the bots in her body, and every one of them is dead."

“What?!!?” I almost screamed.

“So, she could get an infraction at any time!" John exclaimed.

“Infection, yes,” Daddy agreed. “That isn’t the worst of it, however. I can replace her nanobots. I can even reprogram them for the correct frequency, but her crystal computer shut down once it lost connection with her living brain.”

“But what about the information stored in her brain?” I asked.

“She is alive, Rosie. But her brain has short term memory, but it can’t access the long term memory.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you, Rose,” Doctor Sylvia said to me.

She motioned me over to a portable scanner that she had and told me to lie down. She pulled the scanner in place and took several pictures of my head.

When she removed the scanner, she showed all of us the pictures as a moving, 3D image.

“Here is the problem, and as you've probably guessed, it is a problem all of us have." She pointed at a section of the picture. "This is where the short term memory is stored, and here," she said, indicating most of the upper parts of my brain, "is where long term memories are stored." Once more, she pointed to a section. "Notice that this section of Rose' brain seems to have very few connections going through it..."

She was cut off by Pearl. "I'm sorry, Doctor Sylvia, but I just know this is in my brain. Other than that, I'm lost."

Sylvia nodded and touched a control. We seemed to rush into the image in a heartbeat. I felt vaguely ill, knowing I was looking at what was inside my head.

She pointed at what looked like an incredibly complex network of cables. "Notice how all of these are interconnected?" I nodded as did my daughter. "This is where your short term memory is stored, Rose."

I watched as some of the connections disconnected and reconnected elsewhere. "What's going on?" I asked, alarmed.

Sylvia smiled. “You’re thinking.”

“The connections change?" I asked mystified.

“The brain can rewire itself, and that's how you think."

“Essentially,” Marc supplied, “That’s how a computer thinks as well.”

“Now, let's look at your long term memory."

Dizzyingly, we seemed to fly through my brain until we stopped somewhere else. It was very similar to the complex connections in my short term memory, but nothing was moving.

John speculated, “No connections are changing. I’m assuming because these longterm memories are set.”

“No,” Jack told us. “Even though these are stored in a much more permanent manner, they still rewire, to connect certain memories to others. If something has the same sound, or smell, as something else they will interconnect.”

“Why aren’t they?” Paula asked, looking around.

“Because this part of the brain is essentially dead.”

I felt faint. Thankfully, John was beside me, because I think I would have fallen if not for him.

“Explain that,” John said, sounding dangerous.

“Well, it's not really dead," Sylvia supplied. "but it's completely inactive."

“That’s not much of an explanation.”

“Let me continue, John.” She waved a hand, and we sped back toward the short term, but we stopped before we got there.

“The picture zoomed in a bit, and we saw something startling. Many of the nerves going through the area were fine, but others seemed to be cut off, with gray cells connected to them. “Those are nanobots,” Daddy said somberly. “They are intercepting your thoughts before they can be stored in your long term memory. Some of your nerves are still intact, but others…”

He took a deep breath and went on. “We looked in your mother’s and my heads. We have no interconnections left.”

“So, what are the nanobots doing?" I asked, chilled to the bone.

“I understand,” Marc said in wonder. “The crystals are taking over. And the computers act as the file server for our memories.”

“Exactly,” Daddy nodded.

“But what about the interconnections?” Paula asked.

“Once something is stored in a crystal, it is there to stay. However, connections can be made in the lattice, much like they are here. The difference is, all of the original connections are still there. That’s why your memory is crystal, no pun intended, clear. We literally can’t forget anything.”

“So all those people over there...” I began.

“All their memories are there,” Marc said. “They have to be.”

Something was bothering me, and I finally figured out what it was. “I was being programmed to forget that I was a human. Those people have completely forgotten their pasts, yet you say none of us can forget anything.”

“Well, we don’t know that they've forgotten their pasts. They might know of them, but be unable to act on them. Remember how we were with the fear of each other.” Marc said, “It would be possible, I suppose, if the computer were programmed to ignore anything saved beyond a certain point. Then it wouldn’t get through to the person’s brain.”

“Wouldn't someone younger have some connection to their old self from their brain?"

“In theory," Jack agreed, "unless Amos sped up the degradation of the connections artificially."

“I’d say this is all artificial,” John growled. “We should have killed that bastard when we had the chance.”

“Quite right,” Jack agreed. “Quite right.”

“So, we would have to build a new computer to communicate with her crystals and bots?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Daddy.

“Marc,” I asked, “Could you duplicate the computer in Carla’s necklace?”

“Sure. I might have to build a new case for it all. I can get a Kris to do that.”

“Do it,” I said. I turned to Jack. “Get her ready to wake up, and Daddy; give her new bots that will interface correctly.”

I realized everyone was staring at me. I had just given several commands, one even to the new commander, and it wasn’t my place.

Daddy was smiling at me. "You should never have given up command, Rosie." He turned to the others. "You heard her; get going!"

Marc grinned and turned to me. “Yes, Ma’am!”

“Sorry, Daddy," I said as I turned bright red.

“That’s okay, Sweetheart. I think you should take command back, but I understand you don’t want to.”

He paused for a moment, then asked. “Would you be willing to head up this project? Bringing Carla back to us? You’re absolutely passionate about it.”

“I spent time with the real her in my dive through Amos' crystals," I thought about it, then told him, “You’re right, Daddy. I’m very passionate about this. I’ll lead the project.”

“Good, Rosie. Do your best. I want all three of my girls, Okay?”

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