Chapter 18

It had been a long time since Lunn hadn’t been able to pull his eyes away from a woman’s mouth; Alice’s lips were beautiful and even without lipstick they looked amazingly sexy. He wanted to kiss her at every possible opportunity. He had been distracted by his thoughts and was startled when he heard Alice chiding, “Lunn! I asked you a question!”

His mug of coffee was still full, and he hadn’t taken a single bite of his bagel. He replied meekly, “I’m sorry I lost you there.”

She snorted and asked sarcastically, “Oh, really?”

He knew the short night had made him less sharp. “I guess I am going to need to finish my coffee to fully wake up.”

“What were you thinking about when you were staring at me?”

Lunn was slow to reply, but when he did, a dirty smile filled his face. “I was thinking about how kissable your lips are. How I want to make love to you over and over and over again.”

She rolled her eyes and exclaimed, “Lunn!”

“It’s the truth!”

“Oh, grow up will you?”

He knew that Alice was different from the girls that he usually dated and that he needed to adopt a more serious manner around her. “I’m sorry, Alice what did you ask?”

“Why do we use a fibre network instead of wireless?”

“You don’t need the encryption and therefore it’s a lot faster.”

He loved the way Alice’s face took on a dreamlike quality whenever she was deep in thought. “I see, well I can’t think of anything that would benefit the small increase in speed that you would gain with that. But hey, it’s your HQ.”

He chuckled realising he loathed the fact he couldn’t tell her the truth, at least not yet and not in this public place. He murmured, “You’re right it’s my design, but trust me, you’ll notice the difference.”

He saw her face turn into a frown, as she uttered, “Hmm, I guess so, but you never told me why we had to move the headquarters.”

After he had taken a sip of his coffee, he answered, “It’s a better location.”

Alice looked annoyed, and it was clear that she was not satisfied by his answer. So, Lunn was quick to continue, “Not here. I’ll tell you later.”

Lunn was pleased when Alice sighed with a little smile before telling him, “Finish your coffee; we can’t let John do all the work.”

He knew that she was teasing him by turning his words back on him, and was happy to play along with her, “Yes Ma’am.”

That answer earned him a painful punch in his arm, right below the shoulder which reminded him of her strength and capacity to disable a person with just a few punches. He grumbled softly but the fiery look in her eyes, he said had to finish his coffee quickly.

As they walked to the headquarters, Alice asked him casually, “Did you ever find out what happened to that girl; Andena?”

Lunn was taken aback by her question and suddenly felt extremely guilty that he hadn’t thought about Andena at all. He stammered, “Err, I, I haven’t found her yet. Haruz doesn’t even know where she is.”

Alice stopped and asked inquisitively, “Do you think that they took her into one of the fields?”

He thought about her suggestion. It was plausible and would explain why Andena had vanished into thin air. What it didn’t answer, was who could have taken her there? He supposed that it was possible that someone might have tracked down the vines and found her entangled. He replied thoughtfully, “Yes, that would explain her disappearance.”

He squeezed her hand and knew that he needed to choose his words with care. “As soon as the work on the HQ is complete we are going to focus on those bloody fields.”

Arnost was sitting at his desk staring out of his window. He hadn’t had much sleep because of the numerous meetings he’d had with all the board members of the different regions. They had all been present when Tancred had given his wonderful introduction. There hadn’t been any opposition at the time, but now it was a different story. None of the members had taken the time to inform their staff about what would happen in just a few short weeks’ because of the huge panic it would create. The worlds’ biggest region was already pretty unstable, and any external upset would result in massive riots.

Most of the regions had dismantled their nuclear arsenal completely, and Arnost had shivered when he had seen the small number of warheads which could be re-commissioned; they might be able to inflict a little damage on the alien fleet, but the negative side effect of nuclear contamination was his biggest concern.

Most of the warheads had been designed to devastate a large area of land but what would happen if a warhead exploded in the atmosphere? It would probably make their situation worse.

An insistent knock on his door startled Arnost out of his thoughts, and he knew it was Haruz. “Enter!”

He could see, looking at the tense expression on Haruz’s face, that the talk with Tancred hadn’t given any other news. Haruz said with a rough voice, “Tancred’s withdrawal symptoms were extremely severe. It was impossible to have a sensible conversation with him.”

Arnost could feel his headache returning, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want you to focus on the nuclear weaponry. I want to have central control over what we manage to re-commission.”

He saw Haruz’s face turn into a frown but continued, “I’ve managed to persuade all of the board members to give their authorisation.”

“I’m glad they have realised that we might have a better chance if we use the best-equipped control room.”

Arnost grumbled, “It took many hours of dick spitting.”

Haruz chuckled and said, “You’re the best.”

As soon as Andena entered the hall, all the androids looked up towards her. The manner in which they reacted as one fascinated her. She was unsurprised to see the following text appear on her screen, “01: Good morning Double Zero.”

She was pleased that Z had done as she had asked and she replied, “01: Good morning to you all.”

Her core responded, “Do you want me to send the message to all the androids?”

She thought about it. “No, I think that Zero One will figure it out.”

“01: Zero Three wants to know whether you had a good sleep.”

She thought that it was strange that an android would ask such a question, but she realised that artificial- intelligence programmes would throw in an unexpected question occasionally to appear to be more human. She answered, “01: Yes thank you, I’m fully charged and ready for the day.”

“Why didn’t you mention the fact that you had a nightmare?”

“Oh, that is something I prefer to keep to myself.”

“Why is that Andena?”

“Nightmares are quite disturbing most of the time, and I would like to forget them as soon as possible.”

“Are you telling me that your memory can lose information?”

That question had caught her off guard, and she shivered for a short moment. How the hell was she going to answer that question? Andena thought hard for a short moment and then replied hoping that Z would understand her explanation, “Not really. I think everything is stored in my brain but to keep my sanity, I only can access a certain amount of information at once. My brain is sorting out what I need to know and keeps information available as long I’m accessing it at regular intervals. As soon as I stop accessing a certain chain of information for a longer period, the direct link to it is discarded.”

It took her core a moment to comment, “So it’s still there but not readily available.”

She was pleased that her core accepted her extremely simplified explanation of how the human brain worked. She replied, “Yes and you can recall the memory by specifically thinking about it.”

Andena was startled when she heard Miss Danette’s voice reverberate around the hall, “Right! Today we are going to practice formation tactics. Since there are ten of you, we can do extra practice over and above the normal square formation. Today, we will attempt a more challenging triangular formation. We will start with the triangular form and Zero Five will be at the tip of the triangle.”

Miss Danette walked into the middle of the hall and pointed with her finger as she commanded, “Zero Five stand here.”

Andena was intrigued to see how Miss Danette would build the triangle. Z displayed, “Interesting, Zero Four and Zero Six will be the next ones to be called.”

She was surprised when Miss Danette commanded, “Zero four and Zero Six form a triangle with Zero Five whereby the distance between the three of you is two feet.”

As she was looking at the three androids forming a triangle she asked Z, “How did you know that Zero Four and six would be the next ones?”

“It became the most likely option the moment she started the tip of the triangle with Zero Five. It would be logical if you and Zero Three were to be the next ones to be summoned.”

Andena was amused when Miss Danette voice echoed, “Double Zero and Zero Three, form a triangle with Zero Four in such a way that Double Zero is straight behind Zero Five.”

She understood that she would be in the middle of the triangle. She got up from the bench and assumed a position behind the android. She had to stifle a snort when Z told her, “Not bad A. You’re only a quarter of an inch off. Just move a little to the right.”

It was only a little disturbing when she saw that two lines and a little arrow, which was pointing to the right, had appeared on her display. Frustrated she blew some air out and shuffled a little to the right until the two lines had merged. It then dawned on her she had no choice but to be that accurate because Miss Danette viewed her as an android. It would have been strange if she was a little out.

Danette said, “Zero Seven you form the triangle with Double Zero and Zero Six. Zero Two and Zero One together with Zero Three. And the last triangle; Zero Eight and Zero Nine with Zero Seven.”

Andena heard the androids footsteps behind her, and when she looked around, she had a feeling of being cocooned by the group.

She saw Miss Danette step on the bench, and she said, “Perfect. Now make the distance between each other one foot whereby Double Zero stays where she is.”

It was very intimidating when all the women moved towards her in one fluid step, and it took all of her self-control to resist the urge to yelp.

“Right!” shouted Miss Danette, “Increase the distance back to two feet and move five feet forward.”

Andena knew that all the androids would move as one, but she had always been the odd one out, and she asked Z, “How are we going to do that?”

“I suggest you tell Zero One they have to follow you.”

“Okay and you show me when we have moved five feet?”

Z replied, “I’ll show a line on the display.”

“01: I shall lead the group because we can’t link directly as I’m a hybrid.”

She was pleased when she got an instant reply, “01: We will follow you Double Zero.”

Andena took a breath and stepped with her left foot forward, and all the other androids copied her step instantly. It was weird, and it felt like as if she had nine clones walking with her doing exactly what she did.

She had difficulty keeping a neutral expression on her face, and she almost missed the line on her display that indicated where she should stop.

Andena knew that Miss Danette was very pleased with the result as she heard her saying, “That looks great! Now, Zero Two will be the tip of the triangle. So turn your body a hundred and twenty degrees counter-clockwise and move fifteen feet.”

Andena turned round until she was exactly facing the back of Zero Two and moved forward. She was grateful for her core’s assistance as she would have struggled without it.

Joshua was sitting behind the monitors watching Miss Danette’s training. The camera was zoomed into the group as he tried to follow the hybrid girl’s fantastically shaped bottom. It was a challenge to keep those perfectly rounded cheeks in sight. Although, he concluded that all of the android’s backsides were a pretty amazing sight to behold. He loved watching them move with such synchronicity. The hybrid moved just a little more fluidly than the androids and her tits bounced in a more natural way; making her appear super sexy.