Universe of the Soul (33 page)

Does that make me crazy? I don't think so, and I am sure my grandmother would agree. After all, she was a woman deeply aware of all that went on, not on a physical plane, but on something deeper. “Don't think knowledge holds the keys to everything,” she said to me once. “Or you may end up suspicious of the best things of your life.” Seeing the way my life has turned, she was dead on. I often wonder what I would be like if I had not spent the majority of my life with her.

I suppose I am once more following her advice. I am again at my beloved's side. Instead of questioning the layers of strange mystery and mysticism that shroud her return from the dead, I am simply in awe.

Not that I am completely ignoring it. The coincidence of this whole series of events is…staggering. Coincidence doesn't even begin to cover it. Adri's destiny has burst upon her, and she is understandably shell shocked. So if all this is fate, then what is my role?

There is something going on. Something that she is either not telling me, or doesn't realize herself.

She knows. What am I thinking? Of course she is aware, but she isn't talking. But does she accept? Ah, there is the crux of the matter. She knows something, doesn't want to accept it, and hasn't come to terms that she is destined for something important.

My dear, lovely Adri, I know what my role in life is.

To love you.

To be your friend and confidant.

To be your trusted councilor, vice captain and husband.

To get you to accept your own fate.

And to someday listen to the words I desperately need you to say.

“H
ello, is Dr. Floyd Tarkubunji available? He's expecting me,” Gray spoke into the strange vacuum of silence that had fallen since the young woman opened the door. Both she and Adri were engaged in a staring contest; the woman with astonishment, Adri with perplexity. Amused rather than annoyed, he tried again. “I believe he fixed my humacom for me.”

Gray surmised that they would have stood just where they were for the rest of the day if Floyd Tarkubunji had not appeared at that moment. “Hello, doctor, it's good to see you again.”

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” Floyd replied, his gaze focused on the young woman still staring at Adri. Floyd frowned and nudged her gently. “Freya?”

The woman snapped out of her trance and turned to Gray. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant Grayson,” she said, “I'm terribly sorry about the welcome. I was merely…sidetracked. I am Freya Tarkubunji, Floyd's sister.”

“Hmph,” Adri muttered.

With another confused glance at Freya, Floyd turned back to Gray. “Your humacom is ready for transport, but there are a few things we need to discuss before you allow him to wake from his emergency stasis mode. Why don't you come in?”

Because Freya was still giving Adri an odd look, Gray supplied an introduction. “This is Captain Adrienne Rael, by the way. She was recently promoted and has just begun collecting her crew,”

“That's wonderful,” Freya said, beaming at Adri as they entered the main hallway of the mansion. “When were you promoted, Captain?”

“This morning,” Adri replied shortly. “And Grayson's not a lieutenant anymore. As of this morning, he's my vice captain,”

“Congratulations, Vice Captain.” Freya looked dazed. Adri continued to puzzle over the woman's intense stares that were aimed at her. “If you have only just been promoted, then when must you head out, Captain?”

It was a question that she normally wouldn't have answered, but she found herself saying, “In two weeks.”

Gray cast her an astonished look, but made no comment.

“So soon,” Freya's expression was inscrutable.

Floyd gestured them into the wide living room, which had two story windows facing the mansion's elaborate gardens. The afternoon sun shone brightly down on the whole scene. “Please have a seat,” he said.

Adri sat down beside Gray on a wide sofa. She then took the time to get a good look at their host. He was young, she surmised, about the age of herself and Gray. He was an average height, with wheat blond hair, hazel eyes and glasses. However, the shadows under his eyes, the pallor of his fair skin, and way he kept rubbing his head all indicated that he was ill, and had been for some time. The way his clothes sagged was another indication. Before he began talking, he removed his glasses and cleaned them absently on his white lab jacket. Adri wondered why he just didn't bother with eye correction treatment instead of wearing the archaic things, but pushed the thought aside.

“First of all, I can tell you that Jericho's chassis was easy to repair, mostly cosmetic work. The damage in the chest cavity was a little tougher, but I was able to repair most of it, and replaced what I couldn't with some of my own equipment.”

“What about the OS?” Gray asked. “The chief technician on the
Damacene
said it was beyond repair.”

Floyd leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “The damage to the cranium was very severe,” he agreed. “Even I could not repair it completely.”

“So Jericho is still inoperable?” Gray demanded. He felt crushed, like a life or death surgery had gone wrong and the patient was lost.

“No, not completely,” Floyd replied.

“What do you mean?” Adri asked. “If the OS doesn't work, the humacom doesn't work, right?”

“Correct,” Floyd agreed. “But in the case of Jericho, his OS is still functional, except for one area in his logic/protocol core. The damage there was so extensive, that any attempts at repair would damage Jericho's memory and primary sensors.”

“How about his personality?” Gray wanted to know.

“His personality program was not damaged,” Floyd replied, with an ironic glint in his eyes. “Why?”

“I'm glad. His personality was why I wanted to fix him. So what you're saying is that Jericho can operate, but not completely?”

Floyd shook his head. “No, Jericho can operate with the same functionality of any other humacom, but due to the damage in the logic/ protocol core, his thought processes and actions could be…erratic.”

“Dangerously?” Gray queried.

Floyd shifted in his seat. “I don't know. Personality and independent learning programs factor into the logic processing system that humacoms develop after they are booted. Therefore it depends on what Jericho has learned as well as how he was programmed to understand how his logic has developed, then take into account…”

“It's just like a person who has extensive brain damage,” Freya jumped in when Floyd trailed off. “No one is really sure just how they will act, what the damage did to the person's thought process. What my brother is trying to say is that Jericho's personality and independent learning programs will weigh heavily in how he is going to think and act. But ultimately, we just don't know what the damage is going to affect.”

“So what do you advise?” Adri interjected.

Floyd rose from his seat. “Just keep an eye on him. If his logic or protocol proves to be a serious problem, I can always try to write a backup program to help correct the error. It's the best I can do without a real knowledge of what will happen.”

Gray got up as well. “Thank you for your efforts, Dr. Tarkubunji.”

“You are welcome. In truth, it was the most relaxing thing I've done in a long time.”

With a little maneuvering, the four of them managed to boost the transport crate that stored Jericho into the back of the cruiser that Adri had borrowed from Carter. It was a tight fit, edging over the backseat, bumping against the front seats and blocking the RearView monitor. Yet since it was only the two of them riding, Gray was sure that wouldn't be a problem.

“Thank you again,” he said to Floyd after he and Adri had slammed the rear door closed.

Floyd nodded. “Be sure to-”

“Something's wrong,” Freya announced suddenly.

Both men turned to look at her quizzically. “What is it Freya?” her brother asked.

Adri heard it before the others did, the high whine blended into the hum of the scenery. “Get down!” she shouted, grabbing a hank of Freya's hair and pulling her down to the elaborate brick drive. Beside her, Gray had tackled Floyd and the four of them rolled under the dubious safety of the cruiser as a grenade exploded only feet away. It was immediately followed by the thud and hiss of a fogger bomb. White smoke quickly began to envelop the drive.

“What the hell is going on?” Adri demanded as a second grenade exploded somewhere nearby. The smoke had already become too dense to see more than four feet away.

Floyd shook his head. “I don't know! This seems an extreme way of taking me out, if that's the agenda!”

“You've received death threats?” Gray scowled.

“Not exactly,”

The rapid firing of several assault blasters ended the conversation. “We have to get out of here,” Freya said urgently. “More are coming,”

Adri didn't ask how Freya knew, her own instincts agreed. Her blood was up and racing, her elegy singing its lovely song. “We need to get out of here,”

“Everyone in the cruiser,” Gray ordered. “Now!”

The ironic thing about fogger bombs was that they disoriented not only the enemy, but one's own side as well. Adri banked on the enemy being far enough away that they wouldn't inhale the smoke, and therefore not close enough for a rush attack. Still, it would only take a hit on the cruiser to blast them all to bits. Seconds inched by as Adri and Gray released the lock on the doors and pushed the Tarkubunjis in. Freya went immediately to the driver's seat.

“What are you doing?” Adri asked, squeezing in behind her next to Jericho's transport crate. Gray took the passenger seat after shoving Floyd in the back seat under Jericho's crate.

Freya engaged the engine and shot down the drive at an alarming speed. “I know the drive by memory, Captain,” she said calmly. “Even with the smoke, I can get us out.”

“Great. Is there any other exit besides the main gate?”

“Not one big enough for a cruiser,” Floyd replied from his half prone position beneath the crate.

Gray kept his eyes trained on the grounds visible through the thinning smoke. “Then we'll have to make a break for it.” Opening the passenger cargo compartment, he pulled out a pair of ATF pistols. “Count on Carter to have the best,” he said as he tossed one back to Adri.

There was a tense silence as Freya maneuvered expertly along the drive. The scream of the assault blasters was unrelenting. “They must have a vehicle here on the grounds,” Adri said suddenly. “They're following us now.”

“Do you think that they'll have a team waiting at the entrance?” Gray asked.

“No doubt. Their blitz was well done. If we hadn't all been right next to the cruiser, we would have been caught in the crossfire. It would be stupid of them to leave us a clear avenue of escape.”

“Plan?”

“Thinking of one. It depends on whose side the gate guards are on. Tarkubunji?”

Floyd was staring at the bottom of the crate, face pale. “I honestly don't know.”

“We're coming up on the gate.” Freya announced.

Adri calculated. “We really have no choice but to dash through. Gray, see what you can do with that little water gun Carter left us.”

“Aye-aye,” Gray disengaged the window and popped his head out. “Gate's open,”

Freya suddenly gasped. “Get inside!”

With a jerk on the steering, Freya pulled the cruiser off the drive in a hairpin turn, narrowly dodging a tree and somehow keeping the cruiser upright. Less than a second later, the space behind them lit up. The sonic wave of the bomb knocked three trees over in front of them, but Freya managed to avoid them all.

“Danwe!” Adri screamed at the young woman. She turned to the driver, and once again saw the pair of iridescent wings extending from Freya's back. They seemed to glow right through the seat. There was just enough time for her to notice the pale blue markings that covered the young woman's delicate hands on the wheel before she whipped back around.

It had to be a trick of the light, or something, Adri hoped. Danwe, Blair was going to do cartwheels if he heard about this one.

“Adri? You okay?” Gray shouted from the front seat.

“Yeah,” Focus, Rael, she chided herself silently. She repositioned her pistol out the open window. Then she noticed that her own hands were covered in the familiar violet markings. “Oh, Danwe,” she hissed.

Temper soaring, Adri fired at the rushing figures that were chasing after the cruiser. She couldn't get a good view of them through the drifting smoke, but they looked and acted military. Were they caught in some sort of raid? Did the military council not believe her story? No, that couldn't be it. They wouldn't risk civilians when they knew where she was staying. Most likely, one or both of the Tarkubunjis were in trouble. But why the overkill? If they had broken a law, the Peace Keepers would have come to arrest them, with the military as backup. There was no way that they could allow such a noisy raid to take place this close to the city. So what was going on?

“I'm back on the drive,” Freya said, diverting Adri's attention back to the moment at hand. “The way seems to be clear for the moment. I'm going for it.”

The cruiser shot through the main gate and out onto the street. The occupants had a few stunned seconds to take in the wreckage of the gatehouse and the bodies of the soldiers before Freya took them away at an illegal speed.

“Well, that rules out my military theory,” Gray remarked, clinging to his seat as Freya guided the cruiser through several rapid turns.

Floyd popped his head out from beneath the crate. “It rules out my boss taking a shot at me, too.”

Gray opened his mouth to question, but Adri shook her head. There would be time enough for questions later.

“We're being followed,” Freya took another turn. “The black all-terrain.”

Adri popped her head out and in through the window for a quick scan. “I see it.” But how could Freya, with the RearView blocked?

Freya swerved the car just as one of the passengers of the all-terrain opened fire.

Steadying herself, Adri said, “Tarkubunji, can you get alongside the all-terrain? I have a shot. Gray, can you give me some cover?”

“I'm on it,” Gray slid halfway out of the window, bracing his arms on the roof of the cruiser and his legs between the seat and the door.

As he began firing, Freya said, “I'm slowing down now.”

The bulky black all-terrain shot towards them as the cruiser braked. Gray drew the fire of the three men who loomed out of the windows. In the seconds that both vehicles were side by side, Adri threw the cruiser door open and shot at the exposed engine vents. “Go, go, go!”

Freya doubled the speed just as the all-terrain exploded. Adri closed the door and Gray climbed back into the cruiser as Freya took five more turns, then slowed the vehicle to a sedate pace and rejoined traffic by the government square hub.

“It looks like we lost them.” Gray said, automatically checking the reading on his pistol.

Floyd reappeared from beneath the crate. “What kind of crazy move was that?”

“It's a standard ploy used against enemy tanks and artillery,” Adri replied. “Normally, I'd have used a rocket launcher or a grenade, but civilian vehicles are much easier to take out.”

“I never did put much faith in all-terrain ads,” Floyd muttered.

“So what just happened?” Gray demanded, turning to frown at the Tarkubunjis.