Strangers and Shadows (41 page)

The revelation brought looks of surprise and confusion.  “Why was my sample in quarantine?” Julia asked.

“Yes, that was my next question as well,” Dorian said.

“I was running some tests on your nanites yesterday after you’d left, trying to see what was causing the nanites to cease functioning.  In doing so, I introduced new nanites to your sample to see if they could perhaps repair the damaged ones.  What I found was that the new nanites became inactive as soon as they came into contact with the damaged ones.  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  I placed the sample into the quarantine safe, to be safe, and left for the night.  I had planned on running some more tests today, to see if I could determine what was causing the reaction.”

“Looks like my father caught wind of it,” Dorian said.

“Your father?” Mesham asked.

“Yes, my father… The man responsible for this?” Dorian replied.  Apparently the doctor didn’t know, which relieved a little of the annoyance Dorian felt towards him.

“I’m sorry, I had no idea the man was your father.”

“These things happen,” Dorian said dryly.

An awkward silence hung in the air.  The doctor was the first to break it.  “I am still concerned that this problem with the nanites might be more serious than anyone thinks.  If these damaged nanites contain the ability to disable any working nanites they come in contact with then we could have an epidemic on our hands.”

The doctor’s announcement surprised Julia.  “I thought the nanites just couldn’t deal with the two minds in one body.”

“That was what it appeared to be, and that may have been what initially caused the abnormality in the nanites, but I think we also need to leave room for the possibility that the host body is responsible, in and of itself.”

From behind the veil, Ava smiled with a deep satisfaction. 
Of course her body was responsible!  What did they expect?  That she would just lie there and accept what was being done to her? 
She might not have control over her body, but she was still connected to it.  After the last conversation she’d had with the bitch who stole her body, Ava had gone silent, searching for some other way to wrest her body back.  

She wondered if, somehow, through her will and imagination, she’d reached out and created a contact with the nanites that had given Julia control of her body.  It didn’t matter to her if she was responsible for it or not.  

Ava reveled in her small victory as she listened in as the trio discussed plans to quarantine her body for as long as it took for Julia’s new skin to be ready.

“... and how long will I have to endure this quarantine?” Julia asked.

“Providing that the skin wasn’t damaged in the explosion—I still haven’t had time to check—it shouldn’t be longer than a few days,” Dr. Mesham replied.

“In the meantime, I’ll assign one of my agents as your personal guard.  Now before you object, you need someone to look out for you while I’m gone—” Dorian said.

“And just where are you going?” Julia interrupted.

“—and I have just the man for the job.  He was injured on his last mission, the one that put all of this into motion, if you’ll recall, and as a side effect of the injury, he no longer has any of his nanites, so he’s a perfect fit.  There will be nothing for you to infect should he be exposed.”

“That’s hardly likely to happen, I can assure you.  From everything we’ve seen so far, the nanites must come into direct contact with each other for the condition to spread.  As long as Lady White keeps all of her insides on the inside, there shouldn’t be a problem,” Dr. Mesham said.

“You still haven’t answered my question, Dorian.  Where are you going?”

“While you’re safe here, I’m going after my father.  He shouldn’t know about your
situation
, but yet it seems that he does, and if he knows about this, then he probably knows even more.  I need to find him and find out what he’s up to and exactly what he knows about our operation.”

Realizing that her resistance was futile, Julia acquiesced.  Apparently she would have to watch on the sidelines until her new body was ready.  “Very well then.  Let’s get on with this, shall we?”

Babysitter Extraordinaire

Mikhail ended the comm. 
Babysit the prime minister?
  He was partially relieved to have an assignment again after all these weeks off, but he had never worked security for a head of state before.

He had been in the playroom with the twins when the call came from Banks.  The twins were growing too fast.  It seemed like just yesterday they had been born, and now they were crawling around and jibber-jabbering to anyone who would listen.  As Mikhail watched them play, he felt the overwhelming urge to keep them safe and happy at any cost.

The poison from the knife had nearly cost him his life.  If that junkie from the Third hadn’t called the paramedics, he shuddered to think were he might be right now.  The dose, along with the stab wound, was meant to be lethal, and it was well on its way, but the paramedics had been excellent at their craft and administered the antidote in time to help save his life.  The real heroes had been his nanites.  They slowed the bleeding and negated the majority of the poison before they exhausted themselves.  Every last one of them had expired saving his life.

Mikhail had woken in a hospital bed three days later.  The events were still a little fuzzy—he had made his way to a safe house and managed to contact Banks back in the Seventh.  He was extracted a day later and debriefed.  He didn’t remember much after the poison, but he couldn’t forget what had happened before.

Despite his injury, he had still managed to partially make his drop.  The Shadows who were supposed to be following him had turned out not to be Shadows after all.  Which actually made sense—Shadows were called that by the Strangers because they were elusive, you rarely caught a glimpse of them.  But whoever was responsible for the attempt on his life was not from the Sixth.  They had used Seventh tech and had used it proficiently.  He couldn’t rule out that the two men were Shadows disguised as Strangers, but that possibility just didn’t make much sense at all.  Why would they disguise themselves as Strangers, even going so far as using comms and the Seventh’s jump-gate system?  No, someone from his own verse had tried to silence him, but who?  And why?

The prime suspect was his own government, but if they had wanted him dead, why didn’t they send a team to finish the job when he made contact in the Third?  The more Mikhail tried to find some answers the more questions he ended up with.  Needless to say, he didn’t trust anyone right now, except for Jenni and the twins, of course.

His suspicion was why he still hadn’t replenished his nanites yet.  He’d told his superiors some bullshit about needing to unplug and relax and spend time with his family, and that wasn’t entirely untrue, he did need some down time, but mostly he just didn’t trust the tech right now.   

Mikhail was getting dressed for his assignment when Jenni came in the bedroom.

“Comm for you,” she said, holding out the receiver.

He kissed his wife as he took the receiver.  It was strange to talk on a hand-held device, but without his nanites, it became necessary.  “Yeah, Banksy, what is it?”

“Listen very closely,” a strange voice was on the other end.  “If you want answers, do exactly as I say.”

Mikhail listened as the voice gave him instructions.  It didn’t take long.

“When do I get my answers?” Mikhail asked.

“When I get my package.”  The line went dead.

“Jenni!” Mikhail yelled to the other room. 

She poked her head in the doorway, one of the twins on her hip.  “What’s up, babe?”

“Who did that man say he was on the comm?”

Jenni furrowed her brow.  “He didn’t say… I just assumed it was somebody from the office.  Was it not?”  When he didn’t immediately answer, she knew something was out of place.  “Is everything alright?”

“No, yeah, everything is fine… Just a weird call is all.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.  Hey, look at me…  I just got you back together again, I don’t want you going off and getting into trouble.”

He smiled, trying to reassure her, but in truth he wasn’t very assured at all.  “No worries, love.  Everything is fine.  I’ve gotta get going.  I may not be home for a few days, but I’ll be on world.  Call me if you need anything.”  He kissed her.  “Anything at all.”

“Just be careful, Mikhail.”

“You know me…” he said, bringing a smile to her face at last.

“Yeah, that’s the problem, I think.”

“Love you,” he said as he walked out the door.

“That’s the problem too,” Jenni said as the door closed.

It all happened just like the man on the comm said it would.

Mikhail showed up at the office of some downtown body mech by the name of Mesham.  He made his way down to the lab and crunched over broken glass to meet with his charge.

The prime minister was dressed in her usual head of state garb, but she was in a different body altogether.  It took Mikhail by surprise when she introduced herself.  “Mikhail, good to meet you… I can see by the look on your face that I’m not quite who you expected, but nevertheless, this body is my home for the moment.  The minister of defense tells me that you come very highly recommended.  I was sorry to hear of how your last assignment ended.  Hopefully this one will have a happier ending, or at the very least, a less painful one.”

“Lady White, I, uh, don’t know what to say… Thank you.”

Mikhail was given the protocols that he was to follow when interacting with the prime minister.  No one was to touch the Lady White, including Mikhail, unless her life was under an immediate threat.

The rest of the plan was a bunch of fancy words that boiled down to him and the prime minister sitting alone in her quarters for possibly up to forty-eight hours or until her new body was ready for her.  She would be exposed only twice—once on the way to her apartments, and once on the way back.  Once she got to her quarters one would need an army to get through her fortifications. 
Or a man on the inside
, he thought to himself as he wondered, not for the first time, who the man on the comm had been and how he had known about this situation.

The pantry and refrigerator had been stocked full of every kind of food imaginable.  Apples, oranges, bananas, mango, coconut, and any other fruit Mikhail could think of, it was there.  The same went for vegetables and cuts of meat.  The cupboards held flour, sugar, and spices as well as already prepared and prepackaged baked goods.

The
prime minister
spent most of her time on the comm or watching the news vids while Mikhail watched her.  She must have found it unnerving as she suggested that he would better use his time “whipping something up in the kitchen.”  So that is just what Mikhail did.  

He made roasts and pies and main courses and side dishes and desserts, just stopping long enough to have a bite or two of the previous dish before moving on to create the next one.  

The hours passed.  Every now and again Lady White would pop in, still in mid-conversation with someone on the line, and make her assessments:  “More salt…  Mmm, that stew is excellent, it’s venison, no…?  Rhubarb pie?  I haven’t had one since I was a child.  Perhaps a touch less sugar and a bit more butter in the crust.”

After running out of counter space and clean dishes, Mikhail decided to call it a day.  He put what he could fit into the fridge and left what could stay on the counters out.  He loaded up the dish washer and ran it through a cycle.  With the dishes washed and the kitchen relatively clean, Mikhail suddenly realized that he was famished.  He fixed himself a large plate of the various dishes he’d created and warmed them up.  He was going to sit down at the table and eat but then thought better of it and took his dinner to the couch where he planned on remaining for the rest of the evening.  He turned on the vidscreen and found the latest episode of
Play Things
.  Checking the time, he wondered if Jenni had already watched the new episode, or if she had decided to wait until she could watch it with him.  During his rehab, they had fallen in love with the show, and since then had watched every episode together.  It had become one of their favorite times together.  

As the opening credits started to play, Mikhail abruptly canceled the playback, deciding that he would wait for Jenni.  Instead he flipped through channels until he landed on a news program.  On screen the host was interviewing the special guest.  The caption on the screen read:  IS CHANGING BODIES A POSSIBILITY?

Mikhail chuckled to himself,
if only they knew
.

That was the way technology usually filtered out, though.  The government would have a working model for several years before they started leaking stories like this one out into the general population.  It was one of the ways they ensured control.

Mikhail finished his meal, returned the dirty dishes to the sink, and eventually fell asleep on the couch.

He woke early to find Lady White already up and on the comm talking with someone.  She waved briefly, in greeting, and then continued her pacing around the spacious quarters. 
At least she’s still in her night robe,
he thought, feeling a little better about being the last to rise. 
Or did she even go to bed at all,
he wondered.