Chapter 3.5

It had been three weeks since Rashda had gone downstairs to see what happened to Belinda. He had never confirmed what I thought occurred to her, but his statement referencing The Godfather made it seem likely.

I had spoken to John about it, and he agreed with me. We had watched the movie a few times, but now I felt like removing it from the ship’s archives. I didn’t think I could ever watch it again.

I was sitting in my office at my own home, as there was virtually nothing I could do actually to run the ship, however. My role now was more of a mayor or a governor. I heard the front door of our house slam, and Pearl stormed in and dropped into the chair across the desk from me. 

“Come in,” I said without looking up from what I was doing.

She didn’t say anything, so eventually, I finished the forms I was looking at, touched a corner of my screen, and the top of my desk became wood grain again. I looked up. Pearl was staring out the window at nothing in particular. I waited for a few moments, then asked, “What’s up, sweetheart?”

She shook her head, still looking at nothing. Finally, she looked at me. “This is bullshit, Mom.”

“I think I know what you mean, but would you like to elucidate?”

“That bastard gets control of this ship, and free run of it all, and we just have to sit up here and take it with our heads up our asses. Is that clear enough, Mom?”

Usually, my daughter didn’t speak to me that way, so I was a bit taken aback. “Uh… Yeah. I would say it’s pretty clear.” She continued to look at me like I should have some inspired ideas to fix it. I really didn’t. Finally, I decided to gauge her attitude a bit clearer. “Do you think your dad and I are just sitting with our heads up our asses?”

“No, Mom.” She sounded absolutely frustrated. “I just…” She sighed as if she was looking for the correct words.

I knew she had been friends with Belinda. They shared a lot of the same interests and were roughly the same age, although Pearl was born considerably earlier. The wonders of travel approaching light speed.

“What would you have me do?” I pressed.

“Nothing!”

I started to say something more, but she interrupted. “Do you know what Amos did to Belinda?”

“I have a rough idea,” I said very cautiously.

“And what do you think he did?” Now, it was her pressing me. 

I squeezed my eyes shut, and I tried not to think of the scene in the movie where the horse’s head is found in a man’s bed. “He removed her head.” I had seen this happen so many times to so many friends, that it shouldn’t have fazed me. It did.

“And then he cooked her, Mom! Rashda was already shaken by finding her head, and Amos mocked him. ‘I’m so sorry you have to go, Rashda. We have a delicacy tonight. My chef probably isn’t as good as Rose, but I understand horse-meat was once a delicacy on Earth.’”

I stared at her. “How do you know this?”

“Rashda told me. He was sitting by the lake last night, contemplating jumping in. ‘It wouldn’t do any good, though Pearl. The bots won’t let you drown.’ That’s what he said to me.”

“Did you alert anyone?”

“Of course, Mom. Did you really think I wouldn’t? Although, after what he told me, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had followed through.”

Neither would I.

I wondered if my daughter was getting too close to Rashda after something happened to Belinda. I doubt she meant anything by it, as she and Belinda were such good friends, but I wondered if Rashda might think Pearl was rushing things.

At the same time, maybe he could use a friend -- someone who was a good friend of Belinda as well. Perhaps they could help each other with the loss of his wife and her friend.

We had little to do but wait. John and Marc were working with another brilliant man, Winston Reese, to come up with some kind of holographic cloak. It reminded me of something out of Star Trek, or Harry Potter. The idea was to use a camera and a projector system. I wasn’t entirely sure how they were trying to do it, but I figured that they were two of the best people for the job.

Winston had been with us since we were taken aboard N21. He was born in one of the last holdouts of Britain and spoke with a distinct British accent.

Winston understood photons like no other. He was responsible for our holographic technology that made the area John and my house was in, look like it was sitting in the country. Winston worked with Trent Carr, another of our brilliant scientists. He had worked for many years with shaped force fields. My understanding was that he was trying to use them in conjunction with Winston’s holograms to make them feel real as well.

I wasn’t sure how far they had come, but I knew that they were thrilled to work together. When Amos’ ‘fun’ started, Winston was touched by Trent. Winston had been straight before that incident, but Trent was gay. Winston’s body didn’t change in the slightest, but his sexual orientation did to match Trent’s. When the next stage started, they were bonded almost as quickly as Marc and Kari.

I walked into Johns lab, which was quite large. All four of them were present and working intently. I was surprised to see my sister present, as well. She and Marc had seemed to be getting interested in each other. I wasn't worried about that, but it seemed too early. I knew that both had been devoted to their spouses, and had no idea how they could be interested in someone else so quickly. I wondered if Rashda would be similar. There was a possibility that he and Paula might bond as well.

Bonding was an offshoot from stage two. When the nanites from a dead person started to affect others, they killed the change between the first compatible person you touched. That’s how John and I bonded, as well as Marc and Kari. After that first touch, you were drawn to kiss each other. It seemed innocent at the time, but once it was done, you would be compelled to have sex, and gender swaps would occur with you hating being the opposite gender.

In retrospect, it was interesting to see what John would have turned out like had be been born female, but I was just as glad that we were who we were now. Looking in the mirror during that time was an utterly horrendous experience.

The bonding, however, was something I was happy remained. No matter how much we loved each other, I wondered if we would have grown weary in the time we'd been together. John was a couple of months older than me, and we had been married for almost fifteen hundred years now. Kids had been born in the time after Amos' play and were not bonded. Some of their relationships hadn't lasted. However, none of the bonded couples had ever split apart. Some of us weren't married but had remained faithful anyway. There had been very few couplings between someone bonded and someone born after the fact. The result was a bond, but weaker. I suppose it was half that of a first-generation one. Mom and Dad had been trying to find a gene that might be responsible for the bond but hadn't had any luck. I secretly hoped that they wouldn't. I didn't want any possibility of destroying what John and I had.

Pearl had not gone through our time dealing with Amos’ atrocities. Consequently, she had never been bonded. I suspected that she was now, however.

It was roughly four months after we had returned from downstairs. Paula and I were sitting in her home, discussing Marc and John. There was no doubt that she and Marc were firmly bonded now. As with all bonds, she hated to be away from him for any length of time.

Surprisingly, they hadn't slept together yet. It was too early.

"How can you resist the bond?" I asked her.

"It's strange. I love Marc, and I know we will consummate our relationship at some point, but now isn't the time."

"I don't understand, Paula. Doesn't the new bond cancel the old one? I mean..." My question sounded callous, but I felt that I needed to understand the way it worked.

"I've thought about this, and I think it was a mistake on Amos' part. I think he wanted us to feel guilty about the compulsion to have sex with our new bond-mate. What it has done now that the pressure isn't present is give us the ability to hold off. Actually, I feel it would be a complete betrayal of the bond I had with Fred to consummate the one with Marc right now."

"Are you sure it will fade?"

"It has. I certainly hope it does entirely, otherwise Marc and I are going to have a tough time with our own bond."

"I would think so, Sis."

My phone chose that moment to ring. I glanced at it and saw that John was trying to reach me. I excused myself and stepped out onto the front porch.

“Hi," I chirped.

“Rose, can you and Paula come over to my workroom?”

“Sure," I replied. I could feel my bond to him, causing both a physical and emotional reaction in me. Like Paula and Marc, being separated for too long hurt. I suspected that was why seeing him in Amos' throne room pulled me completely back to being myself.

I went back into Paula's house and told her what John asked. She had absolutely no argument, and we hurried around the lake to my home.

When we arrived, we went straight to John's lab. He had never gotten used to having a lab, so he called it a workroom. He was an absolutely brilliant man but tried to avoid showing that to others. But, then again, I was hardly impartial. In fact, I was in awe of his engineering skills.

We entered quietly so we wouldn't disturb them. They were very busy, and I'm sure they didn't notice us at first, but finally, John glanced up. He saw us there, smiled, and beckoned us over.

We walked over, and as much as I didn’t want to flaunt my marriage in front of Paula, I simply couldn't resist giving John a kiss. I glanced at her guiltily, but she just smiled.

I looked around and saw my dad, Carter, and Winston, but Marc wasn't there. "I thought Marc was helping you," I commented.

“He is,” John told me.

“How come he’s not here?” I asked.

“He is,” Paula told me.

I looked around the room. “Where?” I looked at her strangely.

“Maybe you don’t notice it, Rose. You’re probably very used to it by now, but I knew when Fred died. I felt it. The bond just wasn’t there anymore.”

“Sounds very Vulcan,” John commented.

I couldn’t resist. “Fascinating.”

“It is, isn’t it,” came Marc’s voice from somewhere in the room. “I felt the same way when Kari died. I knew it had happened.”

I looked around and still didn't see Marc. I decided to ignore the fact that his voice seemed to be coming from the middle of the room, where no one was standing.

“So their lives have ended. Are they still alive in their crystals?”

“I really don’t know,” Marc said.

I turned to Paula. “Paula?”

“I don’t think so,” she answered.

“How would you know?” Daddy asked, stepping up to us.

Paula stared at him. “What do you mean, Dad?”

"Baby, I'm not arguing with you, but if there is no longer the organic body, how would you know?"

Marc's head suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He seemed to be pulling some kind of hood off. "I'm sorry, Vern. I'm not sure I understand what you're asking."

"I do," Paula said. "I believe that the bonding happens through the memory crystals. When the ..." She trailed off as Daddy was shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Baby, but you didn't think it all the way through."

Daddy and Paula didn't often argue, and they weren't right now, but he was correcting her publicly. She never enjoyed that. I saw her clench her jaw, and I figured her tongue was probably very sore.

He saw too, and he said, “It's a good thought, but we turned off the wireless to the crystals. I've found that the bond has to do with the frequencies of the bots. Somehow, when a bonding occurs, they become secondarily tuned to the frequency of the bond-mates crystals."

"Then why don't I feel Fred's crystals?"

I answered. "You do, Paula. Remember? It's not the right you said the feelings we're lessening, but you would feel like you're betraying the bond with him if you acted on your bond with Marc."

Uh oh. I suddenly realized what I had said. We had an understanding that there were things we said to each other that we're strictly between us. "Sorry, Sis, " I said, barely above a whisper. She hugged me. "That's okay, Rosie. You're right. I hadn't thought about that."

Marc was now seated and was pulling off some strange, gray jumpsuit. I was very curious about it, but I didn't want to steer them away from where we were now.

“Why don't they occur with two kids?" asked Marc as he pulled his boots off. He stood up and was wearing only a pair of shorts. As I've said before, he was a very handsome man, and I had to avert my eyes. I glanced at Paula, and she had no inhibitions in taking in all of his physique. I giggled at her, and she glanced my way. There was no trace of a blush on her face. She knew what she was doing and didn't try to hide it.

“Hey!” John hollered over to him. “Put some clothes on! You’re turning everyone on!”

“You?” Marc asked, tongue in cheek.

“Well, the women anyway.”

I pulled John’s head down where I could whisper in his ear. “Okay,” he corrected himself once again. “You’re turning Paula on.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, still eyeing Marc. “You could lose the rest if you’d like.”

Suddenly, Marc was blushing furiously. “Maybe later,” he told her.

“So,” my dad said, clearing his throat, "Wanna explain Marc's outfit to the girls, John?" He paused. "I mean his invisible one."

“I like it,” Paula said, probably to derail Daddy more than anything.

“You know what I mean!”

“The jumpsuit," John shouted in an attempt to stop Paula from winding up our father even more, "uses micro-fiber optics to bend the light from one side to another, thereby rendering the person invisible¹.”

“Sounds somewhat far-fetched, wouldn’t you say?” Daddy commented.

“Yet it works.”

“What happens, John,” I wondered, “if any of the fibers get damaged.

“Very little, until several are damaged, and even then, they have to be in roughly the same place."

“What happens then?” Paula asked.

“We’re really not sure,” Marc said as he joined us, buttoning up his shirt. “I suspect that the subconscious mind might notice if before the conscious does.”

“So someone might be bothered, perhaps uncomfortable, but not know why?” I surmised.

“That’s my suspicion. Of course, if it’s big enough to be seen, we’re kinda out of luck.”

“What about sound?” It would be up to me if anyone used this to go downstairs, and I wanted to make sure any decision I made was an informed one.

My husband looked me in the eye. “We’ll have to be quiet.”

Clearly, he intended to be one in the expedition.

Two days later, John and I were in my office. This was one decision I did not want to have to make.

I debated staying behind my desk. I had always hated the damned thing, especially in what I had always wanted to be a music room, not the office of the commander of Neo22.

Finally, I sat down beside John, and we waited for people to arrive. I had told him what my decision would be. A privilege of being married to the commander. No, not a privilege. I didn’t have any secrets from John. It was his right to know. He, however, was not happy. He would not be going on this test run.

There was a knock on the door to my office. “Come in.”

Marc and Paula entered, along with my parents, Doctors Jack and Sylvia, and three security men, led by Bob.

I took a deep breath. "Bob, I would like you to take a group of your security men and Sylvia downstairs." I looked at Paula. "There are two reasons you won't be going with them. Number one, your bots aren't quite restocked, and two, we know what will happen to you if you go down. We're both considered ponies or furniture.”

“What about Doc Sylvia?” Bob asked.

“If I was caught, I would be considered a woman,” she told him.

“Oh," Bob seemed surprised but said no more about it.

“Why don’t I do with them?” Marc wondered.

“If I may, Rosie?” Daddy asked.

I nodded.

“They have already had your bots down there, and knowing Amos, he has undoubtedly scanned them. It’s best if we don’t give them your bots again.”

“Pardon me, Sir, but that doesn’t make sense. Bob has been down there as well. They’ve studied his bots as well.”

“I’m more expendable,” the security man said.

“I’m sorry, Bob, but that’s bullshit. None of us are expendable!”

“That may be true, Sir, but I’m more expendable than you. Correct Commander?” he asked me.

I couldn't speak. I only nodded as tears flooded my eyes. We needed someone who had been there and knew the way to the palace. It was a test run, yes, but if they could accomplish the mission without any problems, they were to do it. We were risking one of our possibilities with this incursion, but I had another idea. Finally, I felt I could speak.

“While they go down, I… I want…”

“Please, Commander. Let us leave first. I don’t want any information that they may extract.”

Jack and Sylvia stood and had a long, passionate kiss before she followed the three security men out the door.

“The rest of us,” I said after I turned on the recently installed soundproofing screen, “will work on a contingency if this doesn’t work. I hate the thought of resorting to this, but it may be our only hope. We’re going to prepare to blow ourselves free from the command center and downstairs.

“Sounds like a great idea, but won’t he be monitoring the computers?” Marc asked.

“We're not going to use the built-in charges in the event we actually resort to this," I told him. "We'll use them as a feint, however. I'm counting on Amos' arrogance for this to work. Since we have built-in charges, and only command staff was told about them, Carla didn't, or shouldn't have known they were there."

“So, what do we do instead?" Mom asked.

“John, Marc, and Paula will go outside and set charges there, while we try to arm the others.”

“Won’t Amos notice people on the hull?”

“It’s a possibility, Mom. But I don’t think he’ll have people watching. He’s simply too arrogant. Plus, we didn’t have EVA suits when he took over. John and Marc have made them while we supposedly sat on our backsides doing nothing.”

A couple of days later, the group was once again gathered in my office. We were going to try to help the four who were ready to "descend into Hell."

Daddy had developed a method of hooking us to other’s bots. Their memory crystals were actually in my office, and the vibrations would travel throughout the superstructure of the ship, allowing us to connect to their nanobots. John and I intended to connect with Doctor Sylvia, while Paula and Marc were connecting to Bob. Mom and Daddy were set to help another of the security men, and Doctor Jack and Rachel, our ship shrink, were ready with the other.

Normally, I would have let Doctor Jack connect to Sylvia, but I didn’t think his bond with her would be a benefit. If something were to happen, it could be too distracting. Surprisingly, he concurred.

We connected and watched as they made their way down the u corridor to the command level.

Bob and Paula had determined that they would recheck the command level to make sure they wouldn't have some creature at their backs as they continued.

This time, there were no surprises, although Bob flinched when they entered the command center. Whether it was from his own memories or those of Marc and Paula, I wasn't sure.

They hurried back to the U corridor to continue down when I asked them to pause. Everyone in my office heard me, so they stopped moving. "Does anyone else notice the shimmering in the air?"

Sylvia and John could tell where I was looking through the link, and though the link, I heard Sylvia think, as John said out loud, "Behind us."

“I see it now. What is it?” Paula wondered.

“Another of Amos tricks?” This came from Daddy.

“Let’s get out of here.” Jack sounded nervous.

Sylvia started hurrying toward the U corridor, and the disturbance followed us. I kept watching behind, as John announced, “They’re surrounding us.”

All of a sudden, I saw something near the floor. "Ouch!" exclaimed one of the security men. Mom cried out at the same time.

“What the?” It was Jack. “It’s into your suit! It looks like something is crawling up and down your leg!”

Mom screamed, and the security man yelled out, but his voice ended in a gurgle.

Daddy yelled, “Let go, Bernie!”

“Help her!” John told me. “I’ll stay with Sylvia!”

“Get the hell out of here,” Paula shouted.

I pulled myself away from the crystals and looked over at my mother. She was gripping the watch of the security man, while Daddy was trying to pull her hands away. I was horrified to see her skin pulsing randomly as her bots seemed to be trying to follow Daddy's orders, and make her let go as well. Suddenly, her hand opened as if it was spring-loaded, and the watch flew out of her grasp and cracked against the wall. Daddy was staring at her hand. I looked back and saw that a literal tentacle of silver was retracting back into her skin.

A moment later, she collapsed onto the floor. Daddy picked her up and headed out the door, presumably to the hospital. Jack followed, leaving Rachel to watch out for her guard.

“What the hell just happened?” I asked no one in particular.

“He’s gone,” Paula responded as she continued watching out for Bob. “It was as if they consumed him.”

“What were they?” I wondered. “Were they bots?”

“Who the hell knows?” Marc said. “We’ve got to get our people out of here, though.”

The remaining members of the team started back but stopped as they came upon more shimmering ahead. Slowly, it advanced on them, leaving the only alternative to being 'eaten' a descent to Amos' hell below.