Chapter 12

Danette’s headache was returning with a vengeance as she entered the narrow hall that housed the recovery rooms. She had been free of it the whole day, but she couldn’t delay doing something about Andena because the girl was still unconscious and this was having an effect on Danette’s mood.

She had difficulty focusing on the fact that she was pleased with the work she had done with the android girls. They were in much better shape, and the overall condition of their additional subroutines was reaching a level which would soon be good enough to start field exercises.

As she stood in front of the door, she felt irritated that Joshua hadn’t left a message informing her that Andena had woken up. She slowly opened the door hoping and praying for a miracle. However, Andena was still lying there, in a deep sleep, recovering from the massive surgical intervention. She still couldn’t understand why Andena didn’t have any scar tissue at all. From what she had read about the upgrade procedure in the paper, Andena should have numerous scars all over her body. Danette wanted to be absolutely sure that Andena had had the upgrade, and she decided to check the girl herself.

Danette shivered a little as her fingers traced the respiration tube which disappeared into Andena’s mouth. With a trembling hand, she stroked her hair and was amazed at how soft and shiny it was. Danette was really jealous of the amazingly vibrant red colour which perfectly matched her mystical green eyes and her pale, flawless complexion. Indeed, it was a wrench prising her gaze away. Slowly moving the sheet down she admired Andena’s naked upper torso. She couldn’t believe how immaculate Andena’s skin was: not a single mole or pimple was to be seen, and her skin had a silky lustre quality. She couldn’t resist touching the soft skin and marvelled at the toned and flat stomach as she realised that Andena must have been working out for some time. Only the enhancers in her hands looked out of proportion because they were clearly visible. The little pointy bumps on each joint of her fingers looked like little studs.

It was because of the warmth radiating from Andena’s body that Danette felt the uneasiness creeping up, making her stomach churn again: this was a real living human, made of flesh and bone. She slowly peeled the sheet away from Andena, feeling a conflicting sense of guilt and jealousy. Andena’s body was beautiful: spoiled only by Bionex’s bionic enhancements.

Danette sighed and quickly covered Andena with the sheet again because she couldn’t bear to look at her body anymore. Instead, she studied the screen which showed the physical status of the girl: everything was within normal parameters. Nothing pointed to a reason why she wasn’t awake, and she spent a long time pondering exactly what she should do.

Mr. Yousima had given her an ultimatum: the girl had to be awake by the day after tomorrow, or the enhancers would be taken out and reused on someone else. She hated to be in this predicament.

The noise of the respirator was getting on her nerves, and so she hastily left the room. It had felt eerie when she had closed the door because the intermittent hissing sound of the respirator was just about audible and sounded as if somebody was whispering. Her stomach was in knots, and she knew she had to eat something soon. With resolute steps, she hurried to her apartment hoping she could keep her food down.

“What is going on over there?” Lunn asked as he walked with Alice to the headquarters.

“There’s a problem with the secure connections.”

“Oh okay, how bad?”

“It seems that we are unable to create stable, secure connections,” Alice replied.

“What do you mean by stable connections?”

“As soon as the connection is established it drops within twenty seconds. The boys have tried everything, but nothing stays online longer than twenty seconds.”

“Hmm, sounds strange. I have no idea what that could be.”

“John is pretty pissed off.”

“No kidding.”

Alice chuckled and kept her pace steady as if nothing would change her speed. Lunn knew that he couldn’t draw any further conclusions until he arrived and decided not to ask any more questions about it. They kept on walking in a comfortable silence. He had no urge to talk which was, to his surprise, a pleasant feeling. He looked at Alice who still had a happy smile on her face making her seem even more desirable. She had noticed him looking at her, and quipped, “What is it with you and women?”

The question took him back to his late teens when he had practically a different girl every night until one of the girls had committed suicide. People had thought she couldn’t cope with the fact Lunn had left her. Lunn had stopped seeing her because he didn’t want to find himself trapped in a relationship. It was an unfortunate coincidence that it was at that time that he realised that he couldn’t sleep with every girl he met.

It had taken a long time before they had found the girl’s letter which stated that she had ended her life ‘at the will of the gods.’ Lunn was pleased that he wasn’t the reason she had decided to commit suicide, but it had contributed to drastic change in his attitude towards life. He had made the decision then to be celibate and ignored the many temptations around him.

It had left him cold until Danette re-energised his love life with a steaming hot experience. He had been alone for a long time until Danette had managed to break his vow of celibacy. She was the first one he had allowed to be intimate with him, and it had amazed him how completely different it felt with Danette. Their open relationship had enabled him to enjoy a colourful sex life again although, apart from a few meaningless flings, Danette was still number one.

Then there was Andena. The sex with her was amazing, but he knew it had only occurred as a result of the heightened state of arousal brought on by the alien aphrodisiac. He enjoyed her company: she was different, not as self-indulgent as many other women. Now as he looked at Alice, he wondered what he admired most in her. He sighed and confided insecurely, “I think I like women who have high self-esteem.”

Alice snorted.

“What?” he asked surprised wondering whether he had upset her.

“As if I have that.”

He stopped walking and said, “Hmm. You surely act like you know what you want.”

Lunn studied her aware that his comments had shocked her deeply. He kissed her softly on the lips and as he pulled away he whispered, “You are a strong woman.”

She grinned as she rested her forehead against his and said, “Maybe.”

“How so, maybe? You kick ass if it’s necessary and you’re not afraid to bare your teeth.”

Lunn saw her fidgeting and realised that she wasn’t comfortable with the way the conversation was going, he slapped her playfully on the bottom as he mused, “Right, let’s move on before I’m accused of negligence.”

Alice laughed, genuinely relieved as she retorted, “Yup, John is pretty pissed that you left him alone to set up the initial part of the new headquarters.”

Lunn laughed and said, “He could have contacted me.”

“Not when you leave your phone in your office.”

Her answer made him jump, he just about managed to suppress a gasp as he remembered that he had deliberately left his device at the office. The financier had explicitly told him not to bring it for safety reasons. He confessed, “Hmm, you’re right I don’t know why I did that.”

Alice looked straight at him, and he could see that she didn’t quite believe his story and said playfully although with a stern undertone, “You just can’t run away and hide. You’re too important now.”

As they entered the headquarters, Lunn murmured, “I guess I am.”

Meleda had enjoyed a good brunch after a long lie in bed. She’d needed her rest after the long, taxing conversation she’d had with her brother the previous night. She was very pleased that Haruz had finally given her the necessary access to the main system. At least now she could easily browse around without the fear of being caught. She had been using other means to get the same information, but now she could dig a little deeper, which was what she planned to do today. She knew she wouldn’t be able to access all the information that she needed but with her neat set of little program bots: she could gather most of the data without being noticed. Once the little bots were started, she could relax and wait for the results.

There was one thing in particular that she wanted to find: the contract which Arnost had signed with Tancred as the emissary of the aliens. But she reckoned, considering the conversations she had had with Haruz, that it was doubtful whether there would be a contract at all.

The other major challenge that she had already spent quite a lot of time attempting to overcome was finding a way to breach Bionex’s security gates. It was only after several frustrating nights of rigorously reprogramming her bots, that she had finally gained access. She discovered that their systems were far more complex than she’d thought they would be but had loved the challenge, and she was incredibly pleased with her success. With a sigh of contentment, she realised she’d got nearly all the information she was looking for, and that she needed just a little more patience before she could start reading the next batch of documents. She had been shocked to discover how far Bionex’s technology had evolved.

She had checked the credit balance of her reserves, and there was still enough to fulfil the next installment. She knew there were two more instalments to pay and after that, she would have less need for the harvesting bots.

Now she had done the easy part of her to-do list, and there was one thing left to do, which probably would take the rest of her afternoon to get organised. She knew that nearly all the meeting rooms had their own particle array, but had never been used since the last civil war which had ended long before she was even born. Her knowledge of the quantum physics was limited, but she knew enough about how to connect to a particle array. The real challenge was to gain access to the heavily secured gate which had been purposely built to keep out nosy people like her.

Meleda had created a new program which could fool the security protocol by extending the network paths into the gate. Once she was in, she would be able to access the right time particles to create a grainy video. It took her a few attempts before the secured gate granted her the coveted green light and with trembling fingers she gave one of her bots the command to gather the ancient information. As soon as the bot gave her an acknowledgment of the fact that there truly was data to recover, Meleda slumped back into her chair with a joyful sigh. She could barely wait to find out what data the bot would come back with, but knew that for now she had to be patient. She estimated it would take at least six hours before the bot had enough completed data ready to use.