To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

3.1

“Why me!?” John exploded.

“You are his brother,” came the dulcet tones of the construct speaking to us.

John, Marc, and Daddy had worked with the bots, the computer, and the holographic projectors to “build” bodies that the bots could control. Standing before us was a representation of Amos’s bots. They were benign in their actions now. Amos had no control of them, and they refused to speak to him. Amos himself, was strapped to a gurney and in a stasis chamber. He was never getting out. The level of stasis wasn’t as far as we could take it, but it was enough that his movements could only be seen through time-lapse technology.

John turned to Marc and Daddy. “I thought these bodies would be a good idea, but I’ve changed my mind.” He pointed at the construct. “This bot thing… It’s idea just doesn’t sound too good.”

“We decided that Rose would help the people downstairs,” Daddy told the bots.

“We do not think that would be effective,” they responded. “Amos programmed the people to not respect any woman. They are animals, as far as everyone downstairs is concerned.”

“The people inside don’t feel that way,” I argued.

“The programming is extremely strong. It will take some time to break through their bots’ programming.”

“So it’s not the people, but the bots that are causing the problem,” Marc said.

The bots didn’t have emotions, but a look of shame seemed to flit across the construct’s face. “The bots’ ‘personalities’ have been overwritten by Amos. We will need to communicate with them directly, to create a new path to the original programming.”

“How will you do that?” Marc wondered. “The circuits to those memories have been destroyed.”

“No,” said the bots. “Instructions have been put in place to ignore those memories. What we propose is installing instructions to ignore the previous instructions.”

“And you’ll be the one who installs those instructions?” John asked very sarcastically.

The bots didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm, however. “If it is easier to think of us as one rather than many, I will adjust my pronouns to fit that.”

“Fine!” John was quickly losing patience. “But will you, one or many, be the ones to install the programming?”

“I don’t need to be the one. I can help write them, to expedite the process, but any part that I write will be subject to Marc’s examination. I understand that it is hard to trust me, and I understand why.”

John didn’t acknowledge what the construct said. Instead he just glared at it.

“Won’t another layer of instructions make responses slower?” Daddy asked, hoping to defuse the situation.

Marc answered before the bots could. “No. Basically, by ignoring the new instructions and accessing the old, the old programming will take effect. The bots only decide what path to take when they are new.”

“Yes,” agreed Amos’s bots. “We have stored every update up to now. Once we know what crystal addresses to access, we automatically go there for instructions. It is not necessary to access each part of the file whenever we need to see the programming.”

“But why me?” John asked again.

“Since you contain some of the same DNA as Amos, the other bots may – trust you more.”

John simply stared. His mouth opened in astonishment, then he said, very slowly, and in a menacing tone, “You’re saying they will think I’m him.” It wasn’t a question. It was a cold statement.

The bots didn’t respond. They didn’t have to. We knew John was right. There was no way I wanted anyone downstairs to think I was married to Amos. That would never happen, but how could we do anything different?

“By God,” John said, “If I didn’t understand why you’re saying this, I swear, I’d push you out of the nearest hatch. Both you and Amos!”

They didn’t have emotions, but they understood people. “We are sorry, John, but this seems to be the only way to give them a leader that they will trust. If it’s any consolation, the people inside will know who you are.”

“If the people understand, then won’t the bots realize that?” I asked.

“The bots are programmed to ignore any thoughts from the person they inhabit. They believe they are the real soul of the person, if you will.”

I nodded. We discovered that inside Carla.

“Your bots have been disconnected from the main computer, so this programming couldn’t be put in place. The downstairs bots control their people completely.”

I thought about it, then turned and reached up, putting my arms around John’s neck. I pulled his head down and gave him a long, passionate kiss. “I don’t like the idea of you ‘pretending’ to be Amos, but I don’t see another choice,” I told him when we separated.

He glared at me, then his expression softened. “I know, Babe. I sure as hell don’t like it either. Anyone else would be…” He stopped and looked thoughtful, then he turned back to the bots. “What about Carla?”

“NO!” Paula yelled.

John then turned to Paula, a look of sorrow on his face. “It said the bots may think I’m Amos, but Carla was Amos, and they know that. If she acts as their leader, then we’ll have an advantage.”

“Carla can’t take that!” Paula said heatedly. “We just got her back, John! How can you suggest we lose her again!”

“Paula,” Daddy said gently. “John’s right.”

“He just doesn’t want to masquerade as Amos!”

“You’re right, I don’t. But if I have to, I will.”

“See!?”

“This is our best chance,” Mamma said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Paula, but I believe they’re right.”

Paula whirled on her husband. “Marc?”

“I’m abstaining from voting.”

“I see,” she said, darkly. She held his gaze for a moment, then turned to me. “Rose? You fought for Carla more than anyone.”

My eyes were full of tears, and I knew some were starting to flow down my face. “Y… yes, I did.” I turned away from Paula, not because I was mad at her. I certainly wasn’t. I knew I felt exactly what she did, but she didn’t think of Carla and John on the same level. Actually, I probably thought of John much more than I did Carla, because of our bond. Thinking about it, I realized that any vote I made would be unfair to my little sister. “I can’t vote either,” I said to John.

He nodded, then said, “My vote would be skewed too, as would Dad’s. Marc just said he won’t vote, and I think Paula’s would be just as skewed as mine.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“We ask Carla,” Mamma said. “It’s her choice anyway.” She turned to John. “You’ll do it if she won’t?”

John didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned to the bots. “Would Carla going downstairs work?”

“We had not considered that, but yes. She would most certainly be viewed as being Amos.”

John nodded, then reaffirmed. “If she won’t do it, I will.”

-=#=-

When the bots posed the question to Carla, she was terrified. All the color seemed to drain out of her face, and she started to shake. I hated to see her this way, but I knew we had to ask her.

“So you might be able to get away with this too?” she asked John.

“Maybe,” he answered.

“But I’m the best bet?”

Somberly, John nodded.

“You don’t have to do this!” Paula exclaimed.

“I know I don’t, Paula. But if I didn’t would you ever trust me? Really trust me?”

“I trust you now!”

“Carla,” I said. “We all trust you, and Paula is right. The choice is up to you, not us.” I nodded toward John and said, “John will do it if you don’t, or can’t.”

Carla gave me a wan smile. “I understand that. But I want to do this, to get him back for what he did to me. It was me who did the programming on those bots. I want to undo what I did.”

I nodded and watched while Carla talked to the bots about what she could expect from the people downstairs.

-=#=-

Carla prepared to leave for downstairs the next morning, while Marc and Daddy built a construct for her bots. The construct looked exactly like her, except there was an almost neon blue aura around her and her voice had a bit of reverb. Daddy said the aura and reverb weren't necessary, but he wanted an instantly recognizable difference between a person and their bots.

It was interesting when the construct moved. The aura seemed to swirl around the body. Direct contact between Carla and the construct was established, while Mamma and Paula connected through their bots. The two absolutely refused to allow Carla to go downstairs without them accompanying in some way.

As the last thing before Carla went downstairs, Paula made a security decision. “I want one of my people to accompany Carla in the same way John went downstairs.”

“So this person will be invisible?” Mamma asked.

“Exactly.”

Carla wondered: “And how do I know where he is? How does he get food and water?”

“I’ll know where he is, and that knowledge can be transferred anytime,” Paula explained.

“As far as those things he needs, he can reach out of the field at anytime. The problem is, Paula, it isn’t foolproof. I had to be very careful to avoid people, just like with our ‘more primitive’ systems. It’s not like I was out of phase, and could go through someone. And, if they somehow got inside the field, even for a split second, as well as feeling me and my equipment, they’d catch a glimpse of it.”

“What do you recommend then?” Paula asked, somewhat gruffly. She was still a bit testy with me and John.

He sighed. “Maybe I should go with her instead of one of your guys.”

Paula stared at him for a moment, then said. “I’d rather one of my people.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“My people are better trained.”

John outright laughed at that. “I seriously doubt that, but fine; I’ll show your guy how to use my equipment.”

I could tell Paula was angry with John’s laughter, but she wasn’t aware of how we trained with each other everyday. I decided not to antagonize her any more, though, so I let her think what she wanted. Once we were on better terms, I would correct her viewpoint.

-=#=-

Once John showed the security man how to use his equipment, Carla and her guard set off.

As Paula and Mamma watched, the bots surveyed the trip downstairs. They were able to watch and talk to us at the same time.

“What can we do to help those downstairs?” Daddy asked.

“Amos’s bots will work on freeing the people form the mental hold”, Carla’s bots answered him.

“And then what?” I asked. “Won’t it be a horrible experience for them to not have the programming, but still be an animal?”

“They are completely aware of their being an animal right now.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was a human. I mean, I was at first, but I almost completely forgot,” I countered.

“You became a pony in a different way. Your bots were trying to help you, so they blocked your memory of being a human after a time.”

“But these people’s bots have no desire to block the memories,” Daddy said sadly.

“Those bots do not even know that there is a person they should protect. They have control of the people’s bodies and they think they are the intellect that should be in control.”

I shook my head. “So Belinda was aware when they…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes,” the bots said, simply.

---

Don't forget to leave comments and kudos!
Thanks
--Rosemary

To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

3.2

Daddy enlisted Jack and Sylvia to help him work on a way to repair the people’s bodies.

They found that the heinously fast changes that Amos favored, required a commensurate amount of bots inside a person. Structure changes to the skull as well as any in the brain, weren’t made with the health of the victim in mind. As the brain held the person, the repair project started with that. But, due to starting without the person’s original genes, they planned to work back from what they did have, reversing all of Amos’s changes.

Even though Amos-Bot was helping them and knew a massive amount about programming the bots, there was still a lot to do, and they hoped to come up with a better solution. They already tried to find some kind of archive of the DNA of each person. Jack and Sylvia discovered that the brains were almost exactly the same as before the transformation, and it was hoped that the DNA inside was accurate. That, however, quickly turned out to not be the case. The DNA had been modified to keep an accurate brain, but to change the body.

The project would have already been difficult if everyone was still human-size; unfortunately, some of the women had been miniaturized into smaller animals, such as squirrels, and rabbits. There were even some who became insects. For that, their brains were shrunk, so the majority of their personalities were held in their crystals. Amos-Bot assured us, however, that they were fully aware of what they had been, although, it might have been better if they weren’t.

It was John who finally saw the best solution we had. “Those people know what they were,” he pointed out. “They know what they looked like. There’s no problem with their thought processes, so what if we change their DNA to make them look as close to their original self as they remember? It won’t be quite right, but it will be extremely close.”

“Women sometimes see themselves as being overweight when they’re not,” I told him. “There are other inconsistencies between how they view themselves and reality as well. Maybe they think their nose is too big, or their eyebrows are not quite right.”

“That’s well and good, but in their crystals is an accurate view of their bodies, no matter how they felt it looked,” he reminded me. He turned to the faux Amos. “What do you think?”

“Your idea has merit. It will get the people back into human bodies.”

“But the first order of business is to release them from their mental prisons,” Jack said.

“That is true. It will take some time to change their bodies back. While the huge supply of bots in each person can be raised to the unsafe levels that Amos used, they shouldn’t be.”

“To release them?” Sylvia asked. “I would think this would be the one time it should be done.”

“Each time it is done, it endangers their lives.”

“Shouldn’t we give them the choice?” she asked.

“They have been what they are for a very long time now. They might make a spur of the moment choice that they would later regret. I do not think it would be a good idea to give them that choice.”

I had to admit that I understood the bot’s line of thinking. Suddenly, I realized that Amos-Bot had used the pronoun ‘I’. Did that mean they were figuring out more of the human viewpoint? They still used a very formal speech pattern, however. I figured I’d simply have to wait and see.

-=#=-

Doctor Rachel, our resident therapist, and I started working together, along with Carla-Bot, trying to convince the downstairs bots to allow us to communicate directly to their people. The first one we picked had relatively minor changes. They were a palace guard that Carla had suggested.

Speaking of Carla, she had been completely accepted as Amos by the bots downstairs, so she instructed the guard to go check on the new connection tubes to the upstairs section.

He started checking out by the center “U” tubes that connected the command center to upstairs. Paula and some of her people were waiting for him, however, and knocked him out with a stun gun

It was a tough race for Paula’s people to get the guard to the medical bay before the bots revived him, but once they had him there, they put him on an examination table inside a small stasis chamber, at the same level of slow down as Amos’s.

Jack and Sylvia got busy examining the man, while I looked on, a few feet away from the table.

I knew everyone on the ship, but I couldn’t place him. His body probably hadn’t been changed much, but he was simply out of context. He was wearing what amounted to a Roman Centurion outfit, like what the Auton, Rory Williams¹, or Pond, depending on who you talked to, would wear in the old Doctor Who TV Series John and I had binge watched a few years back.

I tried to picture the guard in different clothes, and it was better, but he was still out of place. He felt like someone! His face seemed too wide. He was too bulky. Then I had it. This was Ralph! While he spoke with the sort of conglomeration of accents we all used, he insisted on the British pronunciation of his name -- ‘Raif’.

But Ralph was a small man. He was a doctor who had worked with the people downstairs. But now, he was a huge man. I wondered what types of things Amos had made this gentle man do while a guard. I was certain it was something we’d have to help him work through.

It wasn’t long before Jack turned around and said. “I’m sure you’ve recognized Ralph.”

I nodded.

“He’s physically fit, but, as you can see, he’s been modified to work as a palace guard.”

“Is this something Amos did, just to make people feel out of place?”

“There is that possibility,” Jack said. He looked at me and asked, “Did you see anything like that in his memories?”

“No,” I answered, “but I don’t think that the memories I received were real. It seems he constructed ones that would throw me off what he was actually doing.”

“Yes, he did,” Carla-Bot said. “In my ‘talks’ with Amos-Bot, I’ve found out worse. It wasn’t just women who were turned into things not human.”

Rachel and I simply stared at her.

“Hal, the man who ‘owned’ you was immune to the the effects of bots.”

“Immune?” Jack asked.

“Yes. His natural immunity was extremely strong.”

“Was?” asked Sylvia. I was afraid we wouldn’t like the answer.

“Since his immune system was able to defeat the bots, when Amos found out what had happened, he had some ‘surgeons’ convert Hal to ‘female’. He was then forced to take your place in the chandelier.”

“Why did you say ‘was’?” I quietly asked.

“The massive infections that resulted from his ‘alterations’ proved too much in the long run.”

“So he died when they ‘made him a woman?’” Sylvia asked.

“No. The surgery was successful. He died from being installed into the chandelier.”

“So in escaping, I killed him,” I said sadly.

Rachel put her arm around me. “In helping you, and others, he took a risk. He’s a hero.”

I nodded. The revelation that he was dead, at least partially, because of me, was hard to take. I looked up at those surrounding me. “Could I have some time alone?” I asked.

I didn’t wait for an answer, and as I was leaving the room, I heard Rachel say to Carla-Bot, “You may as well shut down. I’ll let you know when she’s back.”

“I would prefer not,” the bots said. “I would like to explore the bay.”

“Suit yourself,”Rachel told her.

-=#=-

I wandered down to the restaurant, where I knew I belonged. It seemed strange that I was part of the command staff. I knew Paula had been furious with John, Marc, and me. I knew Daddy had as well, and I wondered if the two would ever really forgive me.

I entered my kitchen and looked around. Everything was the same, but it felt completely different. What had been my refuge was now breached. I couldn’t relax here. Instead, I felt restless. Something had to be done so noone else had to die like Hal had.

Wait a minute!

Carla-Bot said he’d been immune to the bots! Was there any way we could use that to rid ourselves of them? I didn’t know, but I’d ask Jack and Sylvia! Maybe there was a way!

Then I remembered what Carla-Bot said as I exited. It -- she wanted to explore the bay. Were the bots developing personalities? I started to panic. What if this was another of Amos’s traps for us? Was he setting us up for more troubles? I sure hoped not!

I couldn’t stay by myself in the kitchen, so I decided to see what John and the other men were up to. I made my way back to the town, and over to Daddy’s lab. When I entered, John looked up at me from where he was working with Marc. Instead of acknowledging him, I sat down in one of the chairs in front of Daddy’s desk, and closed my eyes. I felt for the link to John. This close to him, it was very strong, and comforting, but I also sensed concern, making me open my eyes and look toward him. He started toward me, but I shook my head and gave him the best smile I could. He stopped and gave me a confused look, but turned back to where he was working.

I watched the two work together for some time. They were both consummate professionals, and worked like they knew what the other was thinking when their areas of expertise overlapped. I felt like they were twins sometimes, and had started thinking of them that way. ‘The twins’ -- Paula and my husbands.

John and Marc were working on the schematics for a new set of computers. There was a blonde woman working with them too. Very blonde, with porcelain white skin. She was extremely familiar, but, surprisingly, I couldn’t place her. With the bots in our brains and the memory crystals, we didn’t forget anything. So why... Suddenly, I had it. I almost didn’t notice the aura around her until she moved her hands. This was Amos-Bot! But why as a woman? Amos hated women!

I suddenly realized that John was grinning at me. “Amos-Bot realized how on edge we were with someone who looked just like Amos hanging around. It made it harder to trust him. So he suggested we modify his body to a female version.”

“It makes very little difference to me,” the woman said, “whether I present as male or female.”

Suddenly, I found myself laughing out loud! I wondered what Amos would think of this situation. I knew he had made himself look like Carla, and Kari, and who knows how many other women, but that had been out of necessity. He would hardly see his bots taking on this form as necessary. It wouldn’t help him at all.

John stepped over to where I was sitting. “Are you okay?” He asked, again concern plainly written on his face.

I nodded, but I couldn’t stop laughing yet. After a minute or two, I was able to calm myself down, to stand up. I placed a kiss on John’s lips and told him, “I’m just fine now.” I turned to the woman and said, “Thank you. You’ve made my day.”

With that, I gave John another quick peck, smiled cheekily at him, then started walking back to the examination room. I was still very sorry about Hal, but it almost seemed bearable now.

---

Please don't forget to leave kudos and comments!

--Rosemary

To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

3.3

I entered Jack and Sylvia’s lab, and found Sylvia alone, hunched over her work bench. She whirled like the proverbial kid with her hand in the cookie jar when she heard me. Speaking of her hands, she slipped something into her pocket, but I couldn’t tell what. She was a bit suspicious, but I put it down to me being suspicious of everything and everyone now, so I forced myself to ignore it.

“Where’s Rachel and Carla-Bot?” I asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

“They took off with Rachel showing CB the sights.”

“CB?” I asked, trying to appear distracted.

“It’s easier than saying Carla-Bot all the time,” she replied, grinning.

“Did you know that John changed the sex of Amos-Bot?” I wondered.

“Yeah. He called me a little while ago, wondering if Rachel was here. He told me what he was planning, and I said, ‘Go for it,’. I was finding it uncomfortable too.”

I nodded, knowing what she meant.

“So AB?” I asked, half-joking.

“Abby?” she countered.

“Or a simply female version of Amos. How about Amy?”

“I don’t think that’s technically a version of Amos, but it certainly works.”

I looked at her suspiciously for a moment, due to her strange thoughts on language, but decided not to press anything. “What can you tell me about Ralph?”I asked.

“Not much more than what you saw when you were here before.”

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s back in the stasis chamber.”

“With Amos?” I asked.

“Well, Amos can’t really do anything to him.”

“He can move,” I said. “Just very slowly.”

Before Sylvia could answer, CB and Rachel returned.

“I’ve been working with Ralph’s bots while we were outside, and I believe that they are ready to relinquish control to Ralph,” she told us.

Sylvia nodded, and went into the stasis room. She returned pushing the gurney that held the massive form of the once small doctor.

A moment later, CB said, “They’ve released control.”

Jack entered just then, and he quickly moved to examine the man as Sylvia sped Ralph to our time.

The man was still for a few moments after coming out of stasis, but suddenly, he started screaming like a man possessed! It was as if he was still in the hell he had been in for so long. When she heard the screams, Rachel pushed her way to Ralph. Jack, made a aborted attempt to complain about his treatment, but stopped, when he saw Rachel. She had knelt down and pulled Ralph’s hand to her cheek, when tears began to flow from her eyes.

“It’s okay, Ralph,” she said, her voice coming out in sobs. “We’re together again.”

I wondered how I didn’t know about their obvious relationship, but I could see why Carla had sent him up first.

-=#=-

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her as we prepared to drop into mind. He was completely unresponsive when he realized he was no longer under the control of the bots, except for when Rachel tried to leave his side, then he demonstrated a considerable grip on her hand. Through gritted teeth, Rachel had said, “I think I’ll stay here.”

And minutes later, she still sat there, her hand in his, but his grip had released a bit. However, she couldn’t actually leave. Every time she tried, it tightened again.

“Honestly, Rose, I thought you knew,” she answered my question from long ago.

“Is there anything else you think I know but don’t?” I asked, probably more caustically than I should have. Rachel’s left eyebrow cocked in a particularly Vulcan expression. “Let me rephrase, ‘Why don’t you start from the beginning? And not from your mother’s womb.’” And with that, Rachel proceeded to explain.

“Ralph was female before we were forced to leave Earth, but once Amos’s antics began, she became male. You know I had been like you, wanting to be female. I ended up not touching anyone, so when we were able to take care of things ourselves, I asked your Dad and Mom to arrange for my bots to change me to truly female. They didn’t know how, so I’m still biologically male, but that doesn’t matter to Ralph.”

“I see,” I responded as we began to drift down, into the darkness that was Ralph’s mind.

-=#=-

We didn’t see much when we came to rest in the familiar room that was an electric blue shade, the same color as Ralph’s crystals.

“Ralph!” called out Rachel. “I’m here! In your crystals!”

There was no response.

“Ralph!” This time I called out. “It’s Rose Carlson! Please answer us!”

“What would you have me say?” The voice came from behind us, and we both whirled.

A man was standing there. He looked like Ralph as he had been before he had been changed.

“Ralph?” asked Rachel, tentatively.

“Who else would it be?” he asked.

“We’ve met people’s bots in this room,” I supplied.

“Room?”

“Don’t you see yourself as being in a room. Electric blue all around us?”

He looked around. “It seems like some kind of endless expanse,” he replied. “It’s blue, yes, but it doesn’t seem to be a room. Just something like a void.”

“In my experience, we can look at any memory we choose,” I told him.

“Rose,” Rachel said quietly. I turned to look at her.

“Yes?”

“I can’t find anything.”

“What?” I asked, not understanding what she meant.

“I can’t find any memories to draw us too. Not recently.” Looking back at Ralph, she asked, “What happened?”

“Whaddya mean?” he asked.

“Where are your recent memories?”

“We spent last night together. Don’t you remember?”

Rachel thought back to when Ralph was caught downstairs. “Ralph, that was quite some time ago. A lot has happened since then.”

Ralph shook his head. “That was just last night! A lot can happen in one night, but it wasn't a long time ago.”

“Actually, Ralph,” I said quietly, “It was. Just over a year ago.”

He looked at me like I was completely mad, but I went on. “Amos took control of everyone downstairs, all at once.”

He stared, and I think on some level, he knew we were being truthful, but he simply didn’t want to acknowledge it. Glancing at Rachel, I could see that she wasn’t terribly happy with what I was saying, but had it been anyone else, she would have been doing what I was doing. I was certain of it.

She sighed heavily, then told him, “We’re in your crystals.”

He raised his head to look around, and I knew he was noticing the color surrounding us for the first time. It wasn’t something I would expect to see on someone inside their mind, but the color drained from his face and he slowly nodded.

“Why can’t I remember?” he asked. There wasn’t any noticeable point where his mind changed. He simply believed us.

“This happened with Carla,” Rachel said. “When she was released from Amos’ s control, she couldn’t deal with it. Her bots were protecting her.”

“Ralph’s bots said they wouldn’t interfere,” I countered.

“I think he might be blotting out the memories himself,” she hypothesized. “It was something that the brain would sometimes do before the bots took over. Maybe some part of that protection is left inside the brain.”

“If that’s so,” I challenged, “Why would someone know everything that’s happened to them while still under the control of the bots?”

A very gentle voice, with the reverb of a bot-body said, “We were programmed to keep the person aware.”

-=#=-

We were sitting in Daddy’s office, once again, with several people present. Strange that I should think of the bots as people, I thought to myself. Their aura and the vocal equivalent, the reverb, had become familiar now. CB, Amy, and RB were all present as well as the command staff and the medical people, including Ralph.

The bot people had accepted their nicknames gracefully, and Amy viewed her ‘sex reassignment’ with good humor. To me, it separated her even more from Amos. What would he think of his bots taking on a female appearance? So strange.

“I don’t get it,” John said, his eyes flashing. He needed to cool down, and I considered the ways I could do just that. I sighed internally as most of what I could do would only heat him up. In a good way, though.

“I’m not certain I understand,” Arby (RB) said, sounding somewhat confused.

“You, or rather Seabee (CB), said that she was keeping Carla from remembering her time as Amos. When Seabee stopped, Carla returned to normal.”

Ralph nodded. “So you’re wondering how I forgot things myself?”

“No,” John replied, sounding a bit condescending. “I’m wondering how Arby was programmed to keep you aware, but not realize you were there? Sounds like an oxymoron, emphasis on the moron if you think I’m stupid enough to buy that.”

“No, Commander Carlson,” The bot version of Ralph said. “I don’t believe you’re stupid at all. In fact, I know you are the brother of my creator and the differences between the two of you in intelligence is not as wide as either of you would have others believe.”

I knew that Arby was right, but John preferred that people didn’t realize how smart he actually was. I’m not sure why, but I suspect he preferred to deal with people who’d think they were on an even keel.

Suddenly, my husband’s act dropped. “Alright. Explain what happened then. I’m assuming that you’re not lying, as I happen to agree with Rose when she says you’re telling the truth. However, I’d like to know what you mean by these apparently contradictory statements.”

I think Mamma and Daddy had seen this side of John before, but none of the medicos had, and I thought their eyes were going to fall out of their heads. All the flippancy normally present in his speech, not to mention his manner, vanished.

“I think I like you better the other way,” I thought. He cast me a look with a hint of his normal cockiness. I forgot that our bots were using the link to give us an artificial version of telepathy. When I used the word ‘you’ as if I was talking to him, they must have sent the thought to him. Whoops.

“It’s difficult to explain without a similar frame of reference, but I’ll try,” Arby said. “In essence, we were told to ‘keep a certain button pressed, no matter what’.”

“And this button kept Ralph aware?”

“Yes, it did. His brain would have retreated into itself had we not. He probably would have lost sanity.”

“He’s not insane now,” John challenged. Ralph looked like he’d been through hell and back a few times, but he was taking everything in, fully aware of who, what, and where he was.

“We are ‘holding that button down’ right now. It locks his brain into a fully cognizant state. Not only is he aware of what’s going on, he’s hyper- aware.”

“So if you didn’t know he was there, how did you hold down this button?”

“Commander Carlson,” the bots said, them being almost condescending now, “Your brain keeps your heart beating. You have no knowledge, or even control over how it does it. Not consciously, anyway, but your brain keeps it going. The medulla oblongata, I believe you call it. That part of your brain is completely autonomous. Sometimes referred to as the primitive brain.”

“Pretend I don’t understand what you’re saying,” John told the bot.

“But you do,” Arby responded.

“Does everyone here?”

“I think so,” Marc the computer expert said. “You’re saying that the part of you that ‘pressed this button’ was part of your base coding. Something that you didn’t even know you were doing?”

“Precisely.”

“So how can you defeat that now?” John asked. He was definitely making sure there were no gaps in their stories.

“Unlike you,” Arby said, “Once we know a part of us exists, we can modify that. We are able to modify our programming. To a certain extent.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “And where is that extent?”

“Isaac Asimov came up with the three laws of robotics many many years ago. Basically, they stated that ‘A Robot may not harm a human, or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.’”

John nodded, remembering the laws. “Number two is that a robot must obey the order of any human being unless that would interfere with the first law.”

Arby nodded. “Number three is that a robot must protect itself from all danger unless doing so would interfere with the first two laws.”

Paula laughed sardonically. “So are you saying that Amos programmed you with Asimov’s three laws?”

“Yes,” Arby said simply.

“That’s ridiculous,” Daddy exploded. “Look at the damage that’s been done to those people downstairs!”

Arby, Seabee, and Amy all hung their heads and nodded. Surprisingly, John was the one who seemed to understand what Arby was saying. “You didn’t know there was a person there who needed protecting, did you?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

Arby nodded. “We were programmed to recognize Amos as the only human. That made us protect him above all else, to obey him no matter what he ordered us to do, and to make sure we survived, even at the expense of other humans.”

“But you were told that we weren’t people. How do you now recognize us as such?” I asked.

“You presented evidence that made us look deeper. We saw what Amos had become, and what he had done to you. We didn’t alter the three laws, just our realization of what they meant.”

“With all Amos has done,” Amy said darkly, “calling him human is hardly fitting.”

What she said, and how she said it, sent chills up and down my spine.

---

Dont forget to leave comments and kudos!
--Rosemary

To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

3.4

We worked. That is, Rachel and I worked our butts off, and slowly, we started to make headway. The men were probably the easiest. Over time, we were able to bring most of them back to themselves. There were a few who didn’t want to change from their new selves, but even the ones who wanted to return to their old appearance wanted to hold off until the women had been returned.

We discovered that the men who had been the biggest and most masculine appearing before, had been made into the… Well, the feminine men. The she-males. Those who had been more like Ralph had been changed into palace guards, or other things.

We found that we had to work much harder than expected, because when Carla tried to free the women who were objects or animals, she hit a roadblock. It wasn’t possible. She tried everything she possibly could, but releasing their minds wasn’t in her power.

We worked and worked with the women, but nothing really seemed to accomplish anything. Finally, Ralph, told Rachel and me to talk to the dragon.

“Dragon?” Rachel asked, confused.

“Yes,” Ralph replied. “She is a woman who was changed into a dragon at the beginning of our hell. I was sent to fight her once, and I remember her arguing with me. She insisted that she was a woman who had been changed into a dragon by the emperor. She even gave us her name.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“Kari.”

“Kari?” I only knew one Kari, but she was dead. We had found her head in the command center along with Fred’s. How could she be alive? “Are you sure she said Kari?”

“Yes. I believe she was Kari, the head of security. I think Amos found it amusing to put her at war with everyone she was supposed to be protecting.”

“Ralph, we found Kari’s head. She’s dead.”

“No, Rose. I don’t think she is.”

“Do you think he kept her alive but made a duplicate head?” asked Rachel.

“What about the bond with Marc?”

“I’m sure he could sever that easily as well.”

“There’s another possibility, I suppose. If she actually died, as Carla did, he could have remade her mind. Her soul would still be in the crystals.” Strangely, it was easier to think of the link being severed that way rather than ‘artificially’ by Amos. Otherwise, Marc was cheating on a living spouse.

Suddenly, another thought came to mind. “Do you think Fred’s alive down there? And Belinda?”

“But Belinda was definitely killed,” Rachel argued. “Amy told us that.”

“Yes, but Amos could have easily had her bots remake her body.”

“Or,” Rachel said, speaking what I was too afraid to even think, “Amy is lying to us.” Suddenly, however, she turned to Ralph and asked, “What happened in your fights with Kari?”

Ralph didn’t seem to want to answer, but finally said, “Anyone who was sent out to fight the dragon wasn’t allowed to return unless he won.”

“You killed her?” I asked.

“Twice.”

“How?” I asked in a very weak voice.

“I wore her down until I could chop off her head. That’s the way we had to do it. Amos told us it was the only way a dragon could be killed.”

-=#=-

I was seated that evening with John and my parents in my house. We had been talking about what Rachel told us when Paula and Marc rang the doorbell. John stood and answered the door, letting them in. The conversation came to an abrupt halt.

Paula looked around at us all, then asked. “Okay? What’s going on?”

“Sit down, Paula… Marc,” Daddy told them.

Once they sat down, Mamma started to explain. “Rachel and your sister have discovered something both disturbing and useful at the same time.”

“Okay,” Paula said, cautiously. “What’s that?”

I was determined that this information should come from me, so I took a deep breath and said, "We've discovered there's a very good chance that Kari is alive."

Marc went white, and seemed to sink deeper into the chair beside his wife.

-=#=-

It was a curious group that moved through the bays downstairs. Mamma and Daddy had joined with Paula, Marc, John and me. Rachel had insisted that if Ralph accompanied us, she was going to as well. Ralph had donned civilian clothing suitable for one his size rather than his centurion uniform, and it was very apparent that Rachel was very enamored with his new appearance.

We were travelling 'west' of the palace, crossing through two adjacent bays, then, as we were ready to enter the tube to the next bay, we came to a bridge. A very dank, foul smelling stream sat underneath it.

The smell of rotting meat came from the water, and I hated to think what might be in it. Ralph was leading our band, and he held up a hand to stop us. On a wooden sign above the bridge was written the familiar saying, Abandon hope, all ye who enter.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” John said as he stared up at it.

“Unfortunately, John,” Ralph said as he was surveying the other side of the bridge carefully, “It’s very dangerous from here on out.”

“More dangerous than this side of the bridge?” Paula asked. I knew what she meant. We both remembered how dangerous it was for women in the city.

“Much,” Ralph said grimly. He turned toward Rachel and repeated. “Much more.”

After surveying the land, he glanced at the water under the bridge, then looked under the bridge at its supports. Deeming it safe, he told us, “Follow me very carefully. Watch where you’re stepping. If anything moves, get out of its way as quickly as you can.”

Ralph stepped onto the bridge, and moved carefully across. Daddy and John followed, then Marc motioned for Mamma, Rachel, Paula and me to cross.

We made it safely across, and Ralph warned us some more, don’t step on a rock or a root. Even grass and moss can be dangerous.

“Why?” Daddy asked.

“Some of the rocks are people turned into land crabs. They hide their legs and pincers under their bodies. Trees can be dryads and they hate being stepped on.” He paused as he carefully set off down a dirt path. There were several rocks and roots in the path, and he studiously stepped around them, or over them if he had to. He didn’t seem to want to do that, though. “Some of the moss and grass seems to be a type of bot that Amos designed. It will tear into you, ripping your body to pieces.”

“Oh, shit!” Marc exclaimed. “What’s to keep these things from attacking even if we don’t step on them?”

“Well,” Ralph explained, “The grass and moss only attack if they’re stepped on. But they breed like wildfire. You step on a blade, and if it’s the bot type, you may as well say goodbye.”

He stepped around a rock that scurried out of his way. I gasped!

“Crab rocks don’t like being stepped on.”

“And dryads?” John asked.

“Nothing.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing to stop them. They’re rare, though. I’ve only seen one before. Took a page when I wasn’t looking. I wanted to chop off its roots, but I didn’t dare get close enough.”

“Can’t they reach from the side of the path? Pick one of us up?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah. They’re quite strong. They crush a person like a python or anaconda would. I watched my page be crushed. When the dryad ate him, it was clear every bone in his body was broken.”

“Should I ask why you inspected the bridge before we crossed?” Daddy asked as he carefully stepped over a root.

“There are piranha in the water.”

“So if the bridge were to collapse…” Daddy stopped.

“Well, yeah. That’s a thing to be cautious about, but awhile back, a tree wrapped its roots around the foundations of the bridge. When the dragon slayer -- me -- stepped on the bridge, it was pulled off its foundations, and we were all dumped into the creek.”

“You weren’t killed,” Marc observed.

“What makes you think I wasn’t?”

“Oh, wonderful!” I said as I kept an eye on a root while I stepped over it.

We slowly made our way about two miles into the woods. It was disorienting going through the forest because the trees covered much of the path with a canopy. There was some light that got between them, but not much. It was like they were malevolent, standing there watching us carefully make our way.

We could see the path snaking through the forest as it wound around ahead of us several times, taunting us with a way to quicken our pace. We didn’t dare step across the on the grass to take a shortcut, though. In the past, people had been revived if they were killed, like they were on a forced reincarnation cycle, but would we be? There was no way to know.

Finally, we came to a clearing made entirely of sand, and Ralph said it was safe to stop for a break. Gratefully I sat down. It was tempting to sit on one of the many rocks, or a conspicuous fallen tree that was intruding into the circle, but that seemed foolhardy. It appeared dead, but I didn’t want to test that.

We rested for a bit, then Ralph told us we needed to get moving. There would be another resting spot in the next bay.

We started walking again, and made it about a hundred meters into canopy of trees, when something that looked like a firefly came out from between the trees. “Go back!” it yelled at us.

It yelled at us? I squinted at the thing and realized it must be a pixie. It was flying on tiny wings, and it looked remarkably like Tinkerbell from the ancient Disney cartoon, Peter Pan.

Was this a person? She flew in between Marc and Paula. “Turn around!” she yelled again. Then, she used names! “Paula, Marc! Go back!” Something caught my eye ahead of us, and I screamed! A tree was moving!

Ralph was right underneath the thing, and some branches snaked down and around him. It appeared as though it was part willow, and the shoots were agile. John and Daddy grabbed their knives and rushed toward it, but several of the leaf shoots were used like whips! I even heard several pops as they cracked like a bullwhip would!

I ran forward as well, and ‘Tinkerbell’ grabbed my arm. She was surprisingly strong, and threw me off balance. I started to fall, directly toward a rock, which tried to skitter away, but the tiny pixie gave a monumental pull and changed the direction of my fall.

I landed on my stomach, my face still aiming toward the scene playing out in front of me. Ralph’s face was bright red, and his mouth was opening and closing as he tried to take in air, but it was obvious he couldn’t. I heard a crack that didn’t come from a willow whip. Instead, the upper part of Ralph’s body seemed to dislocate from his hips and legs. It was clear that his back had been broken.

As the centurion was pulled toward the tree, a gash formed on its trunk. There was no way Ralph’s body could fit into the gash, but the tree pushed. There were more cracking sounds from his bones as it forced the remains inside.

Then, it was over.

---

Dont forget to leave comments and kudos!
--Rosemary

To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

Chapter 3.5

The dryad had made its way back into the woods, out of sight. There weren’t many sounds, except the crying of Rachel as her world was turned upside down once again.

Daddy and John seemed to have put the loss of Ralph behind them, or at least realized that dwelling on it wouldn’t get us through this mess we were in. It seemed as though they were talking to the pixie. I wasn’t sure what they hoped to get from her, but I quietly joined them.

“You used Paula’s and Marc’s names,” Daddy pointed out. “Do you know who all of us are?”

“Yes,” the tiny girl said. Her voice was as small as she was. She looked around at everyone and gave all of our names. Finally, she looked over at Rachel. “I’m so sorry that Rachel lost Ralph. He should come back, though.”

“We don’t know that,” I said, wondering who the diminutive fairy actually was. “There’ve been a lot of changes made. Amos isn’t in control anymore.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, jumping back and fluttering her wings to keep herself at eye level. “Who is?” She looked back and forth between Daddy and me.

“We’re trying to figure that out,” Paula said as she and Marc joined our little group.

The pixie nodded her head sagely, then said, “Too bad we can’t just sit on the rocks and discuss it this time, eh Paula?”

My sister’s face went white, and she seemed like she was going to fall over. “Fred?” she asked, quietly.

“Well,” the pixie said, taking in her appearance. “Once upon a time.” She made a chirp like a cricket “Our link is gone, but I can see a link between you and Marc. You thought I was dead?”

Paula started to slide down to the path, and Fred exclaimed, “Hold her up!” She flew down to the ground and sprinkled something on a blade of grass which withered away completely, then said, “Okay. It’s safe now.” Daddy and Marc lowered Paula to the ground where she sat, taking deep breaths.

Finally, Paula said, “We found your head in the command center.”

Fred nodded. “Yeah. I get it. Wasn’t mine, though. Amos can make anything he wants with the bots. He must have made a copy of my head.” She thought about something for a bit, then said, “I can see the bonds between people. I see the bonds between all of you. I can even see Rachel’s bond with Ralph heading to the dryad. The bond is fading, though. That happens when someone ‘dies’.”

She made little quotes with her fingers when she said the word, as if it didn’t really happen, which seemed to be the way of things.

Mamma and Rachel had moved to our group and Fred turned to her as she hovered. “Did you ever sense the bond end before?”

“No!” Rachel exclaimed. “I’ve felt it fade, just as it’s done now, but I’ve never lost it.”

“So how do you explain me losing your link?” Paula asked.

“I suppose that was something he wanted to do to our families.”

“About that...” John said.

“Yeah, I know. You, me, and Amos. We’re brothers.” She looked down at herself, then amended, “Or we were.” She chirped like a cricket again, and I realized it was her tiny equivalent of a giggle.

Rachel was frantic. “Never mind that! I saw Ralph killed. Will he come back?”

Fred turned to her in midair. “I really don’t know, Rachel. The fact that the link hasn’t disappeared is a good sign.”

“You can still see it?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s still there. I’m not sure what is going to happen.”

“But you said when someone ‘dies’ it fades.”

“Yeah. It does, but it never completely disappears.” She chirped again and then said, “Okay. Sometimes it does. It did between Paula and Me. I don’t see anything leading from Marc to Kari either.”

“How do you see a link?” Mamma asked. “You can see in different EM spectrums?”

“I suppose I can. I can see bots too.” She produced a different sound, much like a keen. “Amos used that ability to purge some people who couldn’t be affected by the bots.”

It was interesting seeing Fred so emotional. I’d never seen this before, but I wasn’t as close to him as Paula was.

“He made you identify them?” John asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t have any choice.” The pixie’s voice was completely despondent. “The man who ‘owned’ Rose was one of them I helped him purge.”

“Hal,” I said glumly, remembering him. “I wanted to thank him.”

-=#=-

We were making our way through the forest with more speed, now that Freddi, as I couldn’t help thinking of her as, was leading us. With her help, we were able to cross between twists and turns in the path. What seemed to have been made for a full day’s travel through a few bays turned into a couple of hours at most.

Suddenly, Freddi held up her hand, and called out to us to stop. John and I were on either side of her, and looked down into a deep pit ahead of us. The path we were on went through a few switchbacks to the bottom. There was a dark cave in the wall to our left as well. On the other side of the pit was another path, leading up the hill and over a rise.

There was a breeze blowing across the pit, and it carried with it a nauseating mixture of smells. The most prevalent was death and rotting meat, under that was a sulfurous smell, and then there was a hint of something that tickled at the back of my mind, and suddenly I had it! It was salt air! There was an ocean somewhere near here, or what I took to be an ocean.

“Are we near a sea?” John asked Freddi as if reading my mind.

“The other side of that rise is a beach that would rival Pipeline¹ for surfing waves,” Freddi told us.

“A beach, Freddi? How?”

Freddi chirped her laughter and said, “Freddi is rather a diminutive name, dontcha think?”

I simply stared at her, and she suddenly doubled over in laughter while hovering in front of me like a hummingbird with hiccups, or at least how I imagined a hummingbird would be, if struck with a serious case of hiccups. Finally, she stopped chirping and straightened up to say, “I suppose it’s quite fitting now, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t really call you Fred, can I?”

This sent Freddi into another paroxysm of chirping, and once she recovered, she motioned for us all to have a seat. Daddy and Mamma both verified that the rocks they intended on sitting down upon were safe, then they sat.

“A few things I want to explain before we descend,” she told us.

“We know that it’s Kari down there,” Marc said.

“Yes, it is, but you need to have a few things explained first. I don’t know how she’ll react to you. She keeps knowledge of her former self, as do I, but there are changes.”

“What do you mean?” John asked starting to rise. “I sure as hell don’t want to cut off her head!”

“John,” I urged, pulling him back down to the ground beside me. “I don’t think we’ll have to do that, will we?” I asked Freddi pointedly.

“No, you won’t. For a couple of reasons.”

Freddi glanced at a tree stump that appeared to have been broken by lightning, then flew over to it. She broke off a couple of splinters, making a flat place to sit, then smoothed out her pixie skirt and landed, drawing her legs up under her. It was the first time I’d seen her not hovering since we’d met her, and the display of colors in her dragonfly-like wings was mesmerizing.

“While you smell sulphur here, don’t be fooled. There is no brimstone about this place. No fire that Kari will send your way.” She took a deep breath, then took another tack in her explanations. “There are many people here, in these woods. I want you to see something.” She stood and gracefully flew over to Rachel. “Amos was always a fan of classic literature. The medieval stories thrilled him. The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings. But also, fairy tales. Even those that were modified in their later incarnations.” She looked disgusted and said, “He wanted to change Hal into a wooden boy whose nose grew if he lied, until it was determined that any bots Amos could throw at him would be defeated by Hal’s immune system.”

“I’m based on a pixie from a story as well. Peter Pan. I even have something of a magic “dust” that I can use.”

She addressed only Rachel now. “Don’t be afraid, please.” Then, she sprinkled a pinch of something over Rachel’s head. Something that glittered with its own light! Then, something sprouted from the Psychologist’s back. It grew and grew, seeming to take its substance from the air around, which started glowing. After a moment, Rachel had two sets of wings, exactly like Freddi’s, except in size. She spread them open, and they were each at least six-feet long.

She stared at the pixie for a moment, looking as if she was scared to death.

“Wait a minute!” John said as he realized what Freddi had done. He stood and pulled out a huge knife. “You may be my brother – sibling – but you’d better explain real pronto what you’re doing! What are you planning to do to the rest of us?”

Freddi held up her hands and exclaimed,”I want to show you what is possible right now. As you know, there is no connection between Rachel and the computers here. As Rose’s mother and father explained, that connection has been turned off, even for me and Kari. Nothing is going to reprogram her mind.”

“Rachel has wings right now, but I can remove them just as simply as I put them on her. My ‘pixie’ dust is controllable to a point.” She frowned as she looked down. “But there’s something I need to explain regarding me and Kari.”

“Go on,” John said, dangerously.

“Both of our bloodstreams are full of bots.”

“So’re ours.” I could tell John’s patience was wearing thin, and I put my hand on his arm, urging him to stay seated. He gave me a look that said he was trying, but it was getting hard. I understood. We’d been in this dangerous forest for nearly twenty hours with no sleep. We, and our bots, needed some downtime.

“Freddi,” I urged, “What’re you trying to say?”

“The ‘fire’ Kari breathes… Well, it’s bots, but it’s more analogous to acid. It will do the same thing to you as the grass.” She paused for a moment then continued. “Kari has never killed anyone with her ‘fire’.”

“So why are you warning us?” Paula asked.

“Because she’s never had an ex-husband show up.”

---

---

Don't forget to comment and/or leave kudos!
--Rosemary

To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

Chapter 3.6

We weren’t quite certain what the effect of Marc being present would have, so both he and Paula were asked to remain out of sight.

We started our trip down the wall of the pit. On our way down, my husband, ever the engineer, examined the walls. “These were molten once. It's like they were super-heated, then cooled into an alloy.”

“Do you think Kari did it?” Daddy asked.

“Well, if Freddi’s telling the truth, I don't see how.”

“Freddi said she can control the bots,” Mamma said. “It would be beneficial to have the bots mimic fire. If they could have the same effect, I mean.”

“Freddi,” John asked. “What’s the deal with these walls?”

The pixie flew down and hovered in between the walls and John. “Whaddya mean?” she asked.

“They’re some kind of alloy. It’s been melted to create it. You said Kari didn’t produce real fire.”

“No, she doesn’t.” She flew to the ground and picked up a handful of dirt. She held out her hand and asked, “What’s this?”

“It’s dirt,” he replied.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Pretty sure.”

“Well, you’re right. It is.” She held up the hand and dribbled the dirt into the other. Then she held the first hand up, over the other. “Watch,” she commanded.

She sprinkled a bit of ‘pixie dust’ over the handful, and everyone watched, transfixed as the dirt flattened out into a bit of glowing molten metal, then cooled.

“You can handle molten metal against your skin?” Daddy asked.

“It was never hot,” she explained. “As the bots multiply, they give off that glow as if it was.” John reached out, but Freddi quickly pulled her hand away. “Don’t touch it!” she exclaimed. “Even though it’s not hot, the bots will attack you until it ‘cools’.”

John pulled his hand back, and nodded. “So, Kari can do this too?”

Freddi nodded. “It’s all she can do with her bots. She can’t control them like I can.”

“What can you do?” Mamma asked.

“Well, I am limited. I can make certain things grow. I can shrink a person to my size too. What I basically did to Rachel, was turn her into a pixie. Just without shrinking her.” She sighed heavily. “I shouldn’t have done that, but I thought...” She shook her head. “No, I guess I didn’t think. I’ve locked Rachel here. She can’t leave the forest now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

We were almost to the bottom of the last switchback, and we heard some shuffling in the cave. “I’ll explain when we’re done meeting Kari. Now’s not the time.”

Suddenly, she zipped ahead of us at amazing speed. I gasped as I watched, and then I gasped again as I saw Kari exit the cave.

The friend that I saw now, appeared to be a Pterodactyl, except she had a toothy mouth and Stegosaurus spines along her back. She had enormous leathery wings that appeared nearly four meters each, when she spread them, and her body was about the color of chocolate.

It seemed as though she wanted to intimidate us, as she flapped her wings several times, presumably in a show of power.. When that didn’t work, she rushed toward us and turned her head upwards, blowing ‘fire’ from her throat. Then she stopped to face us and screamed in a terrifying screechy voice, “Go away! I don’t want to fight you! I used to be like you, and I don’t want to kill you! Leave!”

Kari started to run at us again but Freddi went forward until she was hovering right in front of us. Kari skidded to a stop with her snout almost touching the pixie’s face. Freddi spread her tiny arms across the dragon’s nose and lay her head against it as well. I couldn’t hear anything from either of them until Kari moved her gaze from the pixie to us.

Slowly, the dragon approached us. “Where’s Marc?” she asked in the same, high-pitched screech.

I glanced at John, unsure what to say. “He’s not here,” my husband told her.

Kari slowly approached us, then slowly started to circle us. Daddy and Mamma were a little ways behind us, and Rachel had disappeared during our descent. She had simply flown off after the revelation she was now a giant pixie.

We stood our ground, not moving as the dragon circled us. I kept wanting to turn to face her, but we both stood still, our heads resolutely facing ahead. When she got behind us, she gave a screeching roar, not unlike the supposed sound of a Tyrannosaurus. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, willing my body not to move.

John, too stood still, although I don’t think he was shaking like I was. “You and Marc are like two peas in a pod, John,” Kari whispered, her snout right behind us. I gripped his hand so tight, I’m surprised I didn’t crush his fingers. “If one of you is around, so’s the other.”

“What do you want with Marc?” I asked.

“He’s my husband,” she answered.

“Not…” I covered my mouth, but I’d said the beginning, and Kari wasn’t stupid.

“Not anymore?” she asked. “That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

“You were dead!” I exclaimed. “He needs a bond!”

“Who’d he marry?” She finished her circle around us, and glanced at Freddi. “Oh, I see. You thought I was dead, and that Fred was dead. They married, didn’t they? Paula and Marc. They were both needing a bond.”

I gritted my teeth together, vowing not to say anything else. She sighed and pointed to the top of the cliff. I couldn’t see either of the two, but Kari could.

“I suppose the two people up there are them. Paula wouldn’t let you come down here on your own, and Marc would never let Paula or John. That is, if Marc treats Paula anything like he treated me.”

“I don’t see anyone up there,” John said.

“I see can their bots. They’re all over. They light up the world.” Somehow, the screeches she produced sounded like a laugh. “I know they’re there. There’s no use denying it.”

“What do you plan on doing to Marc and Paula?” I asked.

“Maybe I’ll treat them to my fire,” she said, almost conversationally.

As I listened to her speak, I thought to myself, This is not Kari. There’s no way she would have this type of attitude about things. She understands what has happened, but she seems to feel wronged by them!

Suddenly, there was a sound like a helicopter, and I spun to my right to look. There, an oversized pixie was landing. Rachel stepped up to the dragon with her hands on her hips. She was somehow wearing a dress very much like Freddi’s. now. Strangely, it seemed as though it was part of her. I could see the change in color, but no seam where her dress started at her neck. Everything was skin-tight, except for the skirt of the dress.

“Is that really what you want to do?” she asked Kari.

“With every fiber of my being,” the dragon replied. “However,” she continued before the pixie could react, “I won’t. I am very much aware of how I’ve changed. For some reason, Amos must have wanted me to know what I used to be, and how he changed me to a killer.”

“If I could give you back your personality from before, would you accept that?”

“I don’t know,” Kari replied. “How can I accept being this horrible creature if my mind is returned to normal?”

Rachel chuckled. “Do you think I want to be this?” She indicated her new form. “The fact is, Freddi didn’t intend to help me. In fact, I suppose she acted completely out of her own programming. But, in giving me the ability to control bots like she can, she’s helped my mission immeasurably.”

She held up her hand over the dragon’s muzzle and said, “Choose. I can give you your old personality back, or I can take away your fire. You won’t like that outcome either.”

“Oh? Take away the fire. I can’t hurt people then, even if I’m so inclined.”

The giant Pixie laughed. “You have to produce fire. Without it, the bots that feed you will have to find another way out of your body. Are you sure you want that?”

The dragon laughed, then told her, “If you can control the bots, then give me back my old self.”

Rachel nodded, then snapped her fingers. Some of the glowing pixie dust appeared and drifted down to the dragon, and where it landed, I watched her start to change. Her skin took on a look less like leather, and more like skin. The glowing quickly encompassed her entire head, and continued down her neck.

Suddenly, liquid started to spill out of the dragon, and as it hit the ground, it became moss. Moss, I was certain, that was built of nanobots, and would happily rip a person’s body apart if they were foolish enough to touch it.

In all the time I had been subject to the changes made by the bots, I had rarely observed them firsthand, and when I did, it made me sick to watch. Seeing Kari change was horrible! But watch I did.

In a few minutes, however, I stopped being horrified because I was too shocked! Standing in front of me was Kari as I’d always known her! Nothing like the dragon at all!

Rachel turned toward me then. “Kari’s DNA records were kept in a secure computer, because she was in charge of security. I was able to have the bots in my ‘pixie dust’ use those records to reform her to herself.”

Freddi was still hovering near her and suddenly called out, “Catch her!” A moment later, John darted forward, into the moss and caught Kari as she stumbled.

Daddy hurried forward too. “You know a change that fast isn’t safe!” he shouted at Rachel as he knelt beside Kari.

John stood up as Daddy, and now Mamma, helped the still prone Kari. “You fixed Kari, but at what price?”

I stared at him standing in the moss. “The moss,” I barely squeaked out.

Rachel cycled between looking at the former dragon, John, Freddi, and me. I was furious and would have happily torn the wings from her back and force fed them to her. Staring at her face, I saw when she seemed to realize she hadn’t endeared herself to us. She extended her wings and with a quick movement, shot into the sky, arcing over the trees and out of sight.

-=#=-

We exited the pit and found that it was night. During our exit the moss remained inactive, for which I was very grateful. Marc and Paula had descended the cliff, and Mamma and Daddy had moved Kari away from the moss that had grown during her transition.

John wouldn’t allow me to touch him for quite some time, but we finally decided that there didn’t seem to be any negative effects from the moss.

I was sitting beside John, leaning against his shoulder, and I was exhausted. I was beginning to drop off, but woke up when I heard footsteps coming down the path.

John must have heard them too, as his arm around me tensed. There was a full moon, and I could just make out a person coming down the hill. When he reached the bottom, I could see that it was Ralph, but he had wings like Rachel did!

He came over to where all of us were grouped. “Ralph?” Mamma asked, staring inquisitively.

“No,” came the unmistakable voice of Arby, Ralph’s bots.

“You have wings,” John said, stating the obvious.

“Yes,” Arby said simply.

John waited, and when it seemed as though Arby wasn’t going to elaborate, he said, “Care to explain why?”

“Certainly. In the situation Amos has created, no-one will truly die. As long as their crystals are intact, that is. The soul and memories are both stored in the crystals. Ralph can be re-constructed any time you wish.”

Arby got a very somber look on their face. “Rachel, however, has taken the change in her personality very badly.” Arby turned toward Freddi and said, “It is not your fault, Freddi. You have the compulsion to utilize the powers Amos bestowed on you as well. And in actuality, you have pointed the way to a mechanism of repairing the people in a very easy way.”

“How’s that?” Daddy wondered.

“Rachel was able to control the bots she used for Kari. Granted, she neglected to regulate the speed with which they worked. It shouldn’t have been so quick, but because of her link to her own bots, she was able to use the pixie bots’ full potential.”

“So where is Rachel now?” John asked. He still wasn’t terribly impressed with her ‘neglect’, as Arby put it.

“She has had a very hard day. Watching Ralph ‘die’ was very hard,” Arby explained.

“But you’re still here. So obviously, Ralph isn’t dead,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but he’s… Not in working order until we find a receptacle for his consciousness.”

“You mean make him a body,” John said, translating the euphemistic language.

“That’s what we said,” Arby said.

“No,” John argued. “You used some kind of high-brow language that doesn’t make any sense.”

Daddy decided to stop John’s tirade and asked, “How come none of us were affected by the moss?”

“That was something that Rachel did remember to do. The moss that formed from Kari’s unnecessary matter is harmless. It is not programmed to consume a person.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” John said, sarcastically.

I put my hand on his arm, hoping that he’d take the hint. I was afraid he was going to take anything said by Arby in a negative way. “So will Rachel be able to help us when we get back upstairs?” I asked.

“She should be able to. She is still not able to leave this area, but I am working with her bots to change that situation.”

“What about Kari?” asked Freddi. “Will she be alright?”

“Physically, she appears alright on the outside, but there are some repairs needed because of the rapid transformation.” Arby stared at nothing for a moment, then fixed his eyes on Freddi. “Her bots have informed me that she should be in working order in a couple of hours.”

“Good!” Freddi enthused, settling down beside Kari’s still unconscious form.

We talked for a bit more, then decided to try to rest until it was light. We didn’t want to run the risk any dryads or any unfriendly bots in the dark.

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--Rosemary