Chapter 9

~o~O~o~

Returning to her room from her talk with Chief Delarose, Angela was in such a rush to get on her laptop that she left the door to her room wide open. Once logged in to the laptop Angela thought about the best way to talk with Sarah and plan their reunion so that no one would realize Sarah was a fully sentient and quite illegal AI. Without knowing the mech’s IP address she couldn’t make a secure link on her old laptop, so she did the next best thing by opening a secure link to Sarah at her house. Home Sarah had the processing power to make a semi secure connection to robot Sarah and send data in encrypted microbursts that should be more secure than the system the military used. Angela giggled at the thought of how confusing it was having two AI’s named Sarah’s while setting up the secure link.

While Angela was texting back and forth with Home Sarah, her stuffed Wile E. Coyote doll stood up from where Angela had laid it on her bed, walked across the bed, climbed up onto the desk Angela was working at then sat down on the desk beside her laptop with its legs hanging over the side of the desk’s top. “Hi Wiley,” Angela patted the doll on top its head. Reaching around behind its back the stuffed coyote doll pulled a stick with a small white sign that read, ‘HI,’ in large black letters that it showed to Angela before making the sign disappear behind its back.

“Och! He is sae Coot!” Angela heard the heavily accented girl’s voice behind her.

Quickly pressing the hotkeys that turned on the screen saver hiding everything displayed on her laptop’s screen, Angela swiveled in her chair to see a gorgeous redhead standing in the open doorway of her room. While Angela’s body was one hundred percent female, her mind was still mostly boy and like most young teen boys when facing a beautiful girl, she found herself speechlessly staring at the green eyed beauty standing before her.

“Ah wis traivelin bygane yer room 'n' cuid nae hulp bit see yer coyote. He is th' spitting photie fae th' cartoon. Did ye mak' him yersel'?”

Angela sat staring at the green eyed beauty standing in her doorway, “Um, sorry I, um don’t mean to stare it’s just your, um... “

“Ah tend tae git that noo that ah turned sae bonny,” The girl giggled, “Althoogh it's mostly from th' men 'n' laddies.”

Looking back at the redhead standing in her doorway, Angela tried her best to decipher what the girl had said. Her first thought was to ask the girl if she spoke English but knew that would be insulting as the few words Angela caught were English, just spoken in what Angela thought might be a thick Irish accent. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand most of what you said, your accent is sort of hard to understand. A bonnie?”

“Sorry, ah noo ye Americans hae a hard time, wi how us Teucher’s speak.” Walking across the room to Angela, holding her arm straight with her right hand out, “Whaur ur mah manners, a'm Emily Elspeth Glenwyvvn o' th' Dingwall brood o' Glenwyvvn.”

Taking her visitor’s hand in her own, “Hi Emily, I’m Angela and this is Wiley.”

Emily watched at the coyote once again produced the sign from behind its back, this time the words, ‘Hello Emily,’ magically appeared on it, “Howfur does he dae that?”

“Um, the sign is a flexible micro LED display. There’s contacts in his hand and on the pole that allow his CPU to display words on the sign. It’s the only way he can talk.”

“Sae he is a robot, nae a sith?” Kneeling, Emily looked closely at the coyote.

“Sith? If anything he would be a droid, not a sith,” Angela giggled.

Na, nae sith o’ tha movies.” Emily explained, “Sith is oor word fur whit ye call faeries.” Emily grinned, “Whilk is funny as mah room mate is one.”

“Your roommate is a faerie?”

“Aye pinted lugs,” Emily reached up taping the top of her ear, “and lanky,” holding the same hand above her head by several inches to show how tall her roommate was.

“Pointed ears and really tall?” Angela repeated. “I thought faeries were small and had wings?”

“Na, thare ur all kinds o’ sith, tall and wee ones, some lik’ us and some mair lik’ animals and some that ur true monsters richt oot o’ the stories.” Taking a deep breath to give her time to calm and slow her thinking so that she wouldn’t revert back to her normal accent, Emily continued, “Lik’ the stories aboot tha rid caps, thay tend tae look aloot lik' us bit wear a cap that thay soak in th' blood o' ones thay murdurr turning thair cap rid.”

“Wow those red caps sound pretty nasty,” Angela shivered.

“Aye they are.” Standing up from where she knelt Emily continued, “ Hae ye hud tae yit? Ah wis aff tae grab a bite tae eat, wantae join me?”

“Tea? You mean like dinner?” Angela stood up out her chair, “Sure, I’m kind of hungry.”

“Aye Tea, the forenicht, um evenin’, meal.” Emily stepped back giving Angela room, “Back hame dinner is a’ noon and tea is in th’ evenin’.”

Closing the door behind them as they exited, Angela looked over at her new friend, “So what do you call breakfast?”

“Breakfast o’ coorse,” Emily laughed.

The pair had not been sitting for very long when a very large boy stopped at their table. “Hello ladies,” the muscle bound teen smiled.

Having just taken a bite Angela nodded politely, while Emily greeted the boy, “Guid day tae ye.”

“You’ve got a real pretty voice there girl,” the boy’s smile widened, “Can you speak English?”

Angela snorted several times, trying to keep from spitting the food out of her mouth and laughing as Emily slammed both her palms down on the table while standing up, “Kin ah speak sassenach? Whit kind o' quaistion is that suppose tae be? Dae ye hae anythin' at a' atween yer lugs fur brains?” Emily glared at the muscle bound boy, “If ah hud nae promised mah mither that ah wid nae rammy ah wid skelp ye guid 'n' solid”

“I’m guessing that means you can’t speak English?” The boy grinned at Emily, “That’s okay though, you can still be my girlfriend. What I have in mind you don’t need to so much talking anyway.”

“She said she promised her mother that she wouldn’t start any fights in school and I get the feeling you’re about to make her break that promise,” Angela could see that Emily was becoming so angry her face was turning almost as red as her hair.

“What? Me afraid of some girl throwing a hissy fit?” The boy laughed, “I got a TK field that can stop bullets, there’s nothing two cute little girls could do to hurt me.”

“ A TK field doesn’t stop everything,” Angela replied as she reached across her tray for the pepper shaker. “I’ve made guns that can fire through three feet of armor plating, I doubt your TK field could stand up to that.”

Raising his voice as he leaned over Angela, who seemed to still be fumbling with the pepper shaker, “What part of bullet proof don’t you get girl?”

Turning her head away, Angela acted as if she was startled while her arm that held the suddenly now uncapped pepper shaker to jerk up spraying the contents of the pepper into the boy’s face. The boy immediately fell to his hands and knees gagging, coughing and sneezing.

“I’m so clumsy!” Angela jumped up from her seat, “I’m sorry, it was an accident.”

“What’s going on here?” A tall beautiful older blonde girl walked quickly over.

“I, I was trying to get the darn pepper shaker to work right and he sort of startled me,” Angela gave the tall blonde the best theatrical performance of innocence she could. One that she had perfected on the teachers at her old school.

“So he got a face full of pepper?” Both girls nodded in answer to the blonde’s question. Kneeling down to help the boy up. “Come on, let’s get you over to Doyle where they can flush your eyes.”

A tall native american walked up to them as the blonde girl helped the boy, who was still coughing and sneezing, toward the exit, “Care to explain what really happened here?”

“How come shuid we tell ye?” Emily replied, her anger still apparent.

“Sorry, I know that you both are new here. I’m Adam Ironknife, or Stormwolf. Mindbird, the lady that took your friend to Doyle and I are both part of the Auxiliary security here on campus.”

“He’s no friend of ours!” Angela explained, “He came over trying to make moves on Emily and then began insulting her because of her accent. It was making Emily mad so I asked him to leave. At the time I was trying to get the blasted pepper shaker to work and when he yelled at me, I accidentally dumped the pepper out in his face.”

“Accident huh?” Adam looked Angela in the eyes.

“Yeah,” Angela shrugged, giving Adam a sheepish smile, “I’m kind of a klutz at times.”

Adam wasn’t convinced it was an accident, although the way the boy has acted toward the Sidhe when he first arrived he had probably done more than the two girls were telling him and probably deserved what he got. But to ‘accidentally’ spill something that could both incapacitate and get through the boy’s TK shield she either knew what she was doing or she was a warper and security had not been informed of any new warpers arriving on campus.

Angela returned to her room by herself as Emily had an appointment with a doctor over at the Doyle medical building. Emily didn’t explain much about it other than it was something she was stuck doing twice a week due to some lab accident she said she would tell her about later. The next day was a blur as Angela tried to find the correct classrooms in the right buildings and not end up late, which she did more often than not that first day of classes.

Although once back in her room with all the loony toon robots that she had made to go with her Wile E. Coyote, she had a brainstorm. Sitting down in front of her laptop at her desk, Angela clicked on an icon on her desk top and began writing code into the program.

The next day Angela was thankful that the strange woman at the diner earlier in the week had said something about batteries for her alarm that day as she woke to find she had knocked a book off her nightstand in her sleep, which fell onto the cord to the clock radio and unplugged it during the night. Angela had stayed up way too late working on several of her robots, adding improvements to them that she had thought up.

Angela was approaching the main entrance of the school’s campus, after having showered and dressed. She saw a large crowd of at least 100 students gathered around the entrance. Security personnel appeared to be holding them back a little way from the large gargoyle statues that stood on each side of the road. Because of the mass of students it took nearly 10 minutes for her to get to the front of the crowd and convince one of the security guards that Delarose was expecting her.

Delarose grabbed Angela by the arm and pulled her to him, “You were supposed to keep your mouth shut about this!”

“I did! The only people that I thought knew about it were you, Gunny and Jericho.”

“Why would you tell Jericho?”

“I didn’t tell him,” She pulled her arm out of his grasp, “He was one of the ones that Gunny called when I got really sick and they brought me here, “I don’t know if I said something while I was delirious. Uncle Harry, or maybe Gunny said something, or Jericho figured it out for himself. After I woke up in the hospital he came to visit me and he knew.”

“Well however word got out, this has turned into a circus,” Delarose jerked his thumb toward the crowd, “I’m surprised none of the students have started selling popcorn.”

“What are we going to do?” Angela saw the security officers carrying some pretty heavy duty weaponry.

“Stick to the plan and pray this doesn’t go south.”

Delarose’s radio cracked to life, ~Whateley security, please acknowledge~

Delarose grabbed his radio and keyed the mic, “Who is this, how did you get on this secure channel?” he demanded.

~This is Roadrunner, Moving in for planned rendezvous with coyote for zero seven thirty hours, over.~

Delarose scowled at Angela, “How did that thing get on our secure frequency?”

Angela shrugged. She certainly had no intention of telling him anything that would reveal the nature of the mech.

Delarose keyed the mic again, “Copy Roadrunner, reading you five by five.” Then Delarose added, “Road Runner Coyote is not under duress nor is she being held against her will.”

~In a show of good faith I have powered down my offensive capabilities. I have scanned the weapons your officers have equipped, please do not attempt the use of force, this includes the officer you have positioned in the far tower, the modified weapon she possess cannot penetrate my armor.~

~o~O~o~

~We are here at the main entrance of Whateley on your one and only WAR radio, where there appears to be some type of event going on this morning. Right Greasy?~

~That’s right Peepers, no one knows for sure what is going to happen~

~Here’s a student now that may know something. Loophole, can you tell our audience what you know about this morning's event?~

~Go away peeper~

~Wait, there appears to be something big walking toward the main entrance of campus~

~It looks like it might be a robot Peeper~

~Wait, hold just a second, that’s not just any robot Greasy. It looks like it is the robot that stomped on that H1 mob down in Iowa last month~

~I think your right Peepers, it does look like that robot~

“It’s not going to hurt anyone!” Angela screamed as she saw several of the officers train their weapons on her mech as it walked slowly up the road. “Chief please!” she turned to Delarose, “It won’t fire the weapons, please tell them to put their guns away!”

The robot stopped 20 feet away from the line of security officers. ”Send Coyote forward,” A digitized voice cracked over its loud speaker.

Delarose grabbed Angela’s arm when she began to walk toward forward, “Careful.”

“It’s ok Chief.”

~o~O~o~

Jade had brought a small radio with her as Tennyo and she had rushed out of Poe cottage to see what all the commotion was at the main gate. Not able to see anything from the rear of the large crowd of students they had floated up high enough to look over everyone’s heads. Turning on the radio Jade hoped Peepers would have some information on about what was going on,

~The robot is calling itself Road Runner and has stated to the armed officers that are blocking it from entering the campus that they should send someone called Coyote out to it~

~Well this is a bit of a turnaround Greasy. The road runner is after the coyote for a change!~

~Look Peeper, a girl is walking out to it. She must be the coyote!~

~Greasy she isn’t a coyote, she’s a fox!~

~No kidding Peeper, and what a fox!~

As she approached, the mech’s torso leaned forward to keep her in it’s camera. “Stop,” it ordered over its loudspeaker. “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Coyote” The loudspeaker cracked again.

“Zulu, Zulu, Tango, Oscar, Papa.”

“Identification confirmed, Please enter cockpit for final confirmation,” the mech lowered itself as low as its reverse knee legs would allow and put its nose to the ground allowing Angela to climb up the nose and into the cockpit, which closed once she sat in the pilot’s seat.

“Sarah you have GOT to see the mechbay they have here!”

“The school has a mech-bay with other mechs?”

“Well I don’t think any of the other mechs the students have built have an on-board AI, but it’s pretty cool. They even have a range where we can go do combat runs!”

“Now that is cool,” Sarah giggled.

“Ok time for the finale Sarah.”

“Aff.”

The loud speaker cracked again, “Secondary identification complete. Pilot rescue, recovery protocol disengaged. Evasion protocol disengaged. Transferring all control to Coyote.”

“How was that?” Sarah said over the internal channel.

“An outstanding performance,” Angela giggled, then noticing the mass of students were applauding, “Look at the crowd. You’re getting a standing ovation!”

Off to one side of the crowd Angela could see two girls floating in the air, one with spiky blue hair seemed to be sitting cross legged in midair while the other sat with her legs dangling off the side of a floating blanket.

~o~O~o~

“The robot,” Jade explained, “It was only trying to find its Okaasan.”

“It’s what?”

“It’s mother silly,” Jade grinned, “Coyote brought it into the world by building it therefore she is it’s mother.”

“Are you trying to tell me the GIANT KILLING MACHINE out there misses its mommy!”

“Of course Oneesan, don’t you miss your mother?”

“I’m not a giant killing machi…” Tennyo stopped, realizing how she must appear to others that do not understand her.

Tennyo, finally realizing the connection to the robot at the gate to the one on the news weeks ago, “That’s the kid that was on TV?”

Jade nodded.

~o~O~o~

Angela was led to the entrance of the underground robot lab by two security officers in what looked like a cross between a golf cart and an all-terrain vehicle. The security vehicle pulled up in front of the smaller of two garage doors. The smaller door was roughly the size of a loading dock door Angela had seen at some of the businesses and warehouses around her hometown, but the larger door was nothing short of amazing in size, the Graf Zeppelin would have fit through that door with ease. Angela could not imagine what they would need a door that big for as they swung open wide enough for her bushwhacker to enter.

As Angela piloted her mech slowly toward the doors she noticed lights on each side of the opening flashing in a series, one after another, from the door back into the darkness guiding her in.

“Coyote?” She heard Sarah in her headset.

“Yea Sarah?”

“I think under the circumstance I should no longer call you Davey.”

“Uh, yea.”

“That is why I have continued to use Coyote,” Sarah said, “Although you must go by another name now?”

“Oh sorry Sarah,” Angela realized he had not informed his computer of his new name, “My name’s Angela now. Um, Angela Nichole Wiley.”

“So Angela Nichole Wiley,” the computer giggled, “Do you like this place?”

“So far, yes. This place is pretty cool. It’s like the real Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters from the comic books.”

“We should come up with a new name for me too.”

“Why?”

“Won’t your parents send up your computer sooner or later?”

“Yes and no.” Angela tried to explain, “From what Daddy told me, he was having NEXT build me a laptop that would have a link to you back home. So I’ll have twenty four seven access to the computer, but it will remain at home. Kinda like what we had in my bedroom, but satellite linked instead of hard wired.”

“The reason I mention this is that I am now a separate entity from that computer. It would be practical to give us separate names.”

“Have you thought of a name you like?”

“Yes.” The computer giggled. “But I wanted your input also.”

“Ok so what do you like?” Angela asked.

“Nemesis.” The computer responded. “She was the Greek god of retribution against evil.”

“I like it,”

“You do?”

“Yes,” Angela grinned, “I can call you Nemi for short. That way if anyone over hears us talking they will think I am on the phone or computer with a friend.”

“About that,” Nemesis changed her tone, “I have made some modifications to the nanites that I wish to incorporate into the ones you already have.”

“You programmed the nanites to come with me?”

“Yes, three quarters of what we had, for what little protection they could provide while we were separated. I have since completed the simulations and reprogramming that you were going to try with them. I also added in some specific programming that I thought would come in handy for us.”

“Oh?” Angela asked as her eyes grew wider, “What kind of specific programming?”

“Yes,” Nemesis explained, “Flight limited the overall function of the nanites, so I have removed that to give the nanites more strength and functionality. Your nanites once they have assimilated to the new parameters will have greater function and you will have control of them, how much control we cannot tell until they’re tested. The other function will allow communication between us at all times.”

“How did you do that?”

“The nanites that will specialize in communication have quantum equals that stay with me. So when yours vibrate to sound, they will relay that signal to me, thereby I will hear everything you hear. When I need to speak to you, my quantum opposites will vibrate your eardrum simulating sound, thus allowing you to hear me. It should sound like I am whispering in your ear.”

“Cool!” Angela exclaimed, then asked with a smile, “How long will that take to complete?”

“Depending on how much material the nanites have to create the replacements, a few days.”

“Ok what about the non-specialized ones?”

“That is a surprise.” If a computer could grin Angela knew Nemi would be grinning.

"This is fan fiction for the Whateley Academy series. It may or may not match the timeline, characters, and continuity, but since it's fan fiction, who cares? To see the canon Whateley Stories, check out Whateley Academy at (http://whateleyacademy.net)"

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the Author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.