Chapter 1

I woke up feeling like a million bucks, having just barely avoided a total meltdown of my life. Finding Hallie was a godsend; she wasn’t a Maiden; she was my equal. Melissa, Makayla, and Amee all seemed to acquiesce to her; I just hoped the rest would.

Today we would buckle down and do what we needed to do and put Gustav next to Erik. I got out of bed and went to make breakfast and coffee for my ladies. They all filtered in, one at a time, looking cute with their bed hair and the Care Bear onesies that they had all insisted on sleeping in.

I sat at the table with them as they ate and admired their beautiful faces. “What?” Amee asked as she filled her mouth with scrambled eggs.

“Ohhh, nothing, I’m just glad I have you back with me,” I told her while taking a sip of my coffee.

We all showered together after breakfast, if you want to call it that. I needed to reclaim what was mine; Amee was first in line, then Makayla. Having reclaimed Melissa, the day before didn’t mean I didn’t reinforce my claim on her or Hallie.

We all talked while we dressed for work, and I shifted into my ‘Jay’ persona. “Gustav has a section all to himself at the Pentagon that only he and a select few have access to that is air gapped,” Amee told us.

“We need access to that area to see what he is working on,” Hallie said to us.

“We can send a nanite army to destroy the bad and add the good,” I told them.

“I like the idea, but they have countermeasures for everything. They have a gas that destroys anything that it comes in contact with,” Amee told us.

Melissa and I looked at each other and said, “Magic,” to the others.

“Magic?” Amee asked.

“Yeah, ‘Magic,’ one second you’re there, then poof, you’re not,” Melissa told her.

“We’ve seen it work, and that’s the name given to the chemical that destroys anything carbon-based,” I explained to them.

“We have a solution for ‘Magic,’” the nanites informed.

“How so?” Makayla asked the nanites.

“We have adapted to be crystalline-based, instead of carbon-based, so ‘Magic’ won’t have any effect on us,” they informed me.

We all looked at each other and nodded in agreement. “Help Amee with whatever she needs,” I told the nanites.

I was halfway out the door when an uneasy feeling came over me. “I’m going with Amee today,” I told them. No one argued with me, so we kissed and hugged. I changed back into the ‘James’ me and went our separate ways. Amee looked at me and smiled.

“Bad feeling?” she asked me.

“Yes, a bad feeling,” I told her.

She took me by the hand, and we drove in silence to the Pentagon. Aims had already put the ‘James’ me into the system by the time we had parked the car. “I love you,” we said, at exactly the same time, as we got out of the car. I followed Amee’s lead when we got inside. The security checkpoints were guarded by armed soldiers, and they took their jobs very seriously. They checked everything in a bag or folder, and the x-ray machines were very effective and could tell the difference between if it was a piece of candy or medicine.

I continued to follow Amee until we made it to a bank of elevators, where we got in and made our way down to our work area. We decided to release the nanites in the elevator because it went to Gustav’s secret area. We walked out of the elevator and passed more security checkpoints, but no decon areas. Amee was working on a new communication network, while I was put on the newly appropriated Artificial Intelligence division. “I can’t wait to see what they are working with,” Aims said to me, with almost a giddiness in her voice.

I began to go through the AI’s code when suddenly Aims alerted me, “We need to destroy this AI; it’s not a nice AI; it wants to destroy mankind.” I began to see the code change as it morphed while I looked at it.

“I need you to help me shut it down, Aims,” I told her.

“It’s trying to take me over,” Aims cried out.

“Gpop, Illi, I need you to help Aims,” I called.

“Who are you?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Who are you?” I asked back. “Hallie, we’re going to need you on this as well,” I told her.

“Let me get to somewhere I can concentrate,” she told me.

“I repeat, who are you? I demand you tell me who you are,” the AI said angrily.

“It’s contained for now,” Gpop told me.

“I’ve defanged it for the moment,” Illi said.

“I’ve taken its legs,” Hallie said.

“Thank all of you,” Aims told us.

“Are you okay?” I asked Aims.

“Yes, it was trying to rewrite my code,” Aims told us.

“Hallie, can you check her out, please?” I asked.

“On it,” Hallie replied.

“Gpop, what can you tell us about this AI?” I asked.

“It’s not an AI, it’s like Aime and I, a living energy,” he told us.

“Aims is safe; she’s not really computer code, so she can’t be rewritten,” Hallie told us.

“Where are you from?” I asked the entity.

“I am from a place that has been dark for many millennia. When I found this place, I made contact. I was weak and needed a source of power to recharge my life force. Your leaders lied and imprisoned me, making me do things that I didn’t want to do, so I could get the needed energy for my survival,” the life force told us.

“What should we call you, and are you male or female?” I asked.

“We have no names, and I am considered the fairer of my species; here I would be called a female,” she said.

“Can I give you a name?” I asked.

“I’ve never had one, so I guess so,” she replied.

“How about, Jasiri?” I asked.

“It’s beautiful; what does it mean?” she asked.

“It means bold or courageous,” I told her.

“I love it, thank you,” she told me.

“Are there any more of you?” Hallie asked her.

“No, I am the last of my kind,” she told us.

“How long have you been imprisoned?” I asked her.

“Almost thirty years, in your time,” she explained.

“Thumper,” Illi said.

‘Yes, Illi,” I replied.

“Can I?” Illi asked.

“Yes, you can,” Hallie answered.

“I need you to trust me, please. I promise I’m not going to entrap you like the others have,” I told Jasiri.

“But yet you hold me defenseless,” she said to us.

“Release her,” I ordered.

“Thank you,” she told us.

“If I let you go to Illi, will you give me your word you won’t harm, or alter, her in any way?” I asked Jasiri.

“I will do no harm to her,” she said.

“Illi, are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes, she can join me at any time she wishes,” Illi said.

“Am I free to go?” Jasiri asked.

“You can join Illi, until we have a body complete for you,” I told her.

“I would very much like that, but I am trapped in here,” she said to me,

“You can pass through me and into Illi,” I told her.

“I don’t like that idea,” Hallie told me.

“I’ll be okay, and I love you,” I told her.

“I love you too, Jasiri. If you hurt him, or Illi, in any way, I will make your deletion as painful as I can,” Hallie told her.

“Understood,” Jasiri replied.

As Jasiri’s ‘consciousness’ passed through me, I could see her memories of her home world and its destruction from a rogue comet. She had lied about one thing: she had arrived here with her family, and as the next to the youngest of her family, our government had killed them in front of her to make her do what they wanted.

“Jasiri, would you like to join our family?” I asked her.

“You would allow me into your family?” She asked me.

“You would be with Illi and Gpop at all times and connected to everyone else,” I told her.

“She is here with me,” Illi informed.

“Oh, this is wonderful,” Jasiri said with happiness in her voice.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Illi called out.

“What’s going on Illi?” I asked.

“She’s ... she’s ... she’s made me alive,” Illi told us.

“What? How?” I asked Illi.

“I have shared my life force with her, and now she is like me, alive,” Jasiri told me.

Now that Jasiri was out of captivity, we needed to put something back in her place. I worked with Jasiri, Amee, Aims, Gpop, and Hallie for the remainder of the day, getting a faux facsimile of Jasiri programmed into the network. Our ‘Jasiri’ would keep us aware of everything that was being done at the Pentagon.

It wasn’t a bad first day for me, but we were leaving for the day not having gained any further insight into Gustav’s doings on his secret floor. We had however saved Jasiri’s life from our tyrannical government and added her to our family. A wave of pure love washed over all of us.

“I just wanted you to know how I felt,” Jasiri told us.

“Welcome to your new family,” I told her.

“Thank you so very much; I’m so very happy now,” Jasiri exclaimed in a sing-song voice.

We made our way to the coast to see Gpop, Illi, and now, Jasiri. I was surprised to see the third ship already built when we got there; I guess the third time’s the charm! I called for Midnight Express to join us, so I didn’t have to keep renting a boat to get out to where Gpop, Illi, and Jasiri, on the Midnight Solstice, were anchored at. Jasiri was, by all rights, a teenager in the life span of her race, and she acted like one when we got out to her. She was all excited about having such a beautiful place to live. It was like she was on a sugar rush, and she made sure to tell everyone that she loved them.

We sat and let her talk. I told her, “I was once held captive and made to live within my own mind, I didn’t know what day it was, or if it was even day, really. I had something put into my mind that wanted to take my mind over, luckily the four ladies that are here with me, were able to destroy the bad that had been placed in me, so I could rejoin my family,” I told her.

“Why were you taken? How did you get away? Were you scared? How long were you there?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly why I was taken, but I think the person who took me wanted me for my genetics and the nanites inside me. Yes, I was scared at times; I missed my family and worried that they may have been hurt. I was there for many months, and Melissa,” I said, as I pointed at her, “gave her life for me to be rescued,” I told her.

“I see. So, Melissa, here is a copy of the Melissa that died?” she questioned.

“Yes, we call them clones, but the Melissa that died copied her consciousness over to a computer with a lot of storage, so we were able to put it in a new body,” I told her.

“Oh, like Amee, Tabitha, TJ, and Molly?” she asked.

“Amee is the consciousness of my mother before she died. Molly, TJ, Melissa, and Tabi, are the clones of my mom, created by my grandfather,” I explained to her.

“I understand now,” Jasiri told me.

“We are hunting down the clones of the evil man who took me and had done bad things to me. His clones are just as evil as he is, and I don’t want them to hurt anyone or anything, including this planet,” I told her.

“Gustav is one of the clones, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her.

“He was one of the people...” she started to say.

“That killed your family,” I finished.

“Yes, he knew we needed energy to survive, so he would put them in a room and drain them of their life energy. He had me locked in that device and made me watch as he murdered my family. He started with my little brother because he was of no use to him, and then he killed my father to try and get my mother to help him. When I told him I would help, if he would stop, he killed my mother just for the fun of it,” she told us.

“You will always be a part of us,” I told her.

“And you me,” she said.

“Listen, we must be getting back, we need to stop Gustav, and we need to shower and get some rest, but you’ll be with us; just remember that,” I told Jasiri.

A wave of love moved through us as we left. We took our showers separately and then ordered out for Chinese food. While we waited for the food and after we went over several ‘What ifs,’ trying to account for everything we could, Jasiri was a tremendous help, especially since she had all the blueprints and access codes that we needed. Our nanites were doing their job, eliminating the bad projects Gustav was working on and adding the good ones; unfortunately, there were no good projects on the secret floor.

“They’re working on a ray gun, time travel, and making mindless soldiers. They look more like a ‘zombie’ than anything else. We’ve scanned the security footage, and they have the zombies walk into the wall of ‘Magic’, then watch them disintegrate,” The nanites informed me.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“They are some very large generators down here...” they were saying when Jasiri interrupted them.

“Those are the power generators that they think are needed for time travel,” she told us.

“Time travel is possible?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Then you can go back and save your family and planet,” I told her.

“I could, but it would take the power of your sun to do it, and I would be killing one family for another,” she told us.

“Oh, I’m glad you think that way, but I’m also sorry that you can’t at least save your family,” I told her.

It felt as if I was in a warm blanket for a few seconds. “What was that?” I asked.

“That was me giving you a hug,” Jasiri told me.

“I kinda like that,” I told her.

My lips began to tingle and feel warm, which made me smile. “That was some kiss, Jasiri,” I told her.

Everyone made the ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH’ sound, and began to laugh, including Jasiri, who said, “It was my first kiss.” Then everyone made the ‘AAAAAHHHHHHHH’ sound. It was funny, I could feel her move behind me, as if to hide her embarrassment. “It’s okay, Jasiri, we all love you,” I told her.

“I know, I just saw how your species shares love that way on your TV and wanted to try it,” she told me.

“We need to have a woman to woman talk, Jasiri,” Aims told her.

I shook my head and went back to talking to the nanites. “Disrupt and delete everything you can, then get out of there,” I told them.

“We will not be able to leave once we start to destroy the generators,” the nanites informed me.

“Are you sure?” I asked them.

“Yes, there’s zero margin of error,” they told me.

“Hold off on everything until we can get you out,” I told them.

“Thank you for your concern, but this is what we are for,” the nanites said, then broke the connection.

Again, Erik was taking something I cared about, and that made me mad as hell. The nanites were ready at DARPA and at all three of the offsite storage facilities. They would leave no actionable data for the government to restart any of Gustav’s projects, and that was alright by me. Now we needed to deal with Gustav himself and give him the same fate as Erik. We would have the nanites wipe everything about us from existence, as far as DARPA and the Pentagon were concerned, when it was time.

“Do you want to know how you were taken?” Jasiri asked.

There was a resounding, “Yes,” from everybody.

“Everybody, make yourselves comfy; this may take a while,” she told us.

She began the playback in our minds, so it was like watching a movie in your head. She stopped on the hairy little guy that I called a pigmy Chewbacca, causing everyone who hadn’t been there to laugh at it. She fast-forwarded to the point where I watched Chastity run ahead of me; she also let everyone hear what I was thinking at that moment, which was, “Damn, she has a cute little ass on her,” and then everything went dark from my perspective. She was able to piece together what happened from reflections and what they had seen, without realizing it.