Chapter 8

When Andena woke up, she was alarmed by the fact that she was unable to move her body. Her breathing seemed to be controlled, and she couldn’t feel anything. It was as if her body was detached from her. Only her main functions seemed to be present: she heard her heart beating, and knew that the very fact that she was conscious meant that she was being given enough oxygen.

She tried to open her eyes but she couldn’t. To be honest, she didn’t care that she was unable to do anything. Being in a void felt strangely relaxing. The only awareness Andena had of the outside world were the sounds of her heart beat and her steady breathing.

Even smells were lacking.

She had no recollection of the events that had led her to this and no great urge to find out either. She was happy to simply wait for the next event.

Assuming of course, that there would be a next event.

Haruz was unable to stop his face from contorting into a painful grimace as he sat down at the breakfast table. He could also see by his sister’s huge grin that he had failed to hide his discomfort from her. They were too close for secrets. Ever since their parents had died, they had decided to stay together until one of them had found a partner. He had expected to be alone by this point, but it was still just the two of them. He thought that his sister was smart, beautiful, elegant and she exuded a confidence that made every man desire her. He was surprised that she never went out on dates, and whenever he raised that subject, she made it crystal clear that the subject was off limits.

As soon as the servant had left the room, Meleda said, “After you had returned home last night I went out onto the balcony, and there was an amazing full moon.”

“Oh, I’m sorry that I woke you up Meleda. I’ll try to be a bit more silent.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t. It’s nice to know when you’re home safely again.”

She leaned closer to him and whispered, “I want to know if you have any recordings of what happened next to the field last night.”

Haruz was flabbergasted by her question and looked at her for a moment wondering how she knew. Her smile was a joy to watch when he nodded slowly. Her voice was hardly audible when she asked, “When do you have time?”

It was strange speaking in hushed tones, but Haruz understood that she was wary about placing him in an awkward situation.

He took a sip of his coffee and said, “You know, it’s been ages since we had lunch together. Why don’t you come to the office at noon?”

Meleda said enthusiastically, “That sounds wonderful! It’ll do you good to have something substantial for a change.”

Haruz laughed and pulled himself to his feet after he had finished his coffee. Meanwhile, he reflected upon her words and knew that she was right; he needed to pay attention to his health after taking so many booster pills. He put his hand on her shoulder as he said, “See you at twelve. I’ll make sure that the front desk is aware that you have permission to come to my office.”

“Good,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, “At least I can drag you away from your monitors.”

As he walked away, he murmured, “It might be the other way, my lovely sister.”

It was only a brisk short walk to his headquarters, and he liked that he had to take a road which was outside the complex. The smell of the outside air was always different, and since they had created the field, the air had a pleasant sweet tang. Haruz was convinced that the field was deliberately releasing the specific odour to make people relax so they would accept the structure more easily. It made him uncomfortable that alien technology was controlling the population on such a subtle level. Who knows what else they were capable of?

He couldn’t wait to see what Meleda had witnessed. It would take some time to generate the pictures, but he was very pleased he hadn’t removed the particle array.

He was happy to see that Gwendy was manning the front desk when he entered the headquarters. She was one of the few who only needed a few words to understand what he really wanted.

“Hi Gwendy, good morning. My sister will be visiting me around noon.”

“Hello Mr. Haruz, Good morning. I’ll arrange the necessary steps for Miss Meleda. May I assume she will have lunch with you?”

He loved how attentive she was, and he smiled warmly at her as he said, “You’re right, Gwendy. Do you have any suggestions about where we should go?”

He could listen to her talk all day, “Oh yes I do! There’s a new lunchroom which is said to be very special. I’ll reserve a table right away.”

Haruz chuckled pleased that she was always so straight forward, and he said approvingly, “Perfect Gwendy. I’m looking forward to that.”

She purred, “You’re welcome Mr. Haruz. Have a nice morning.”

“You too, Gwendy.” Haruz nodded and walked to his office in a much better mood.

At his office, he started his special program to extract the visual data from the particle array that was mounted on the wall close to the field. He knew the exact time that he had arrived home last night, and he reckoned that Meleda would have gotten out of bed a few minutes after he had closed his bedroom door. He entered the time and estimated that half an hour would be sufficient. After he had started the extraction, he checked his messages and was a little disappointed that Alice hadn’t come back to him. It was a little strange because she was consistent in the fact that she sent a brief report early every morning. He sincerely hoped that she wasn’t caught or compromised in any way because she was the only source he got to keep an eye on the major rebel core. He got up to get himself a cup of coffee and reckoned that by the time he returned the particle program should have finished.

Lunn woke up feeling warm and sweaty. He realised that he was holding a hand which was as large as his. It dawned on him that the large, warm body that was cocooning him from behind was Alice’s. He felt the soft fabric of her cardigan, and he was pleased that they were both still dressed.

They had talked for a long time, and Lunn had come to respect Alice more than ever before. The situation with Danette was the most delicate subject they had talked about. He could sense that Alice was uncomfortable expressing an opinion about it.

Lunn wasn’t surprised that she made him arrange to clean up the vomit at Danette’s door and leave a bunch of roses. She agreed with him that he had messed up massively, and he could only hope that Danette might be a forgiving person. He knew Alice was wrong about that, but he couldn’t blame her for not knowing Danette that well.

When she found out that Bionex was involved, she became nervous and lowered her voice as if she were afraid. It still brought goose bumps to his skin when he recalled what Alice had told him about Mr. Yousima the CEO of Bionex. He had always known that the CEO was ruthless, but he had underestimated his ability to manipulate people with his power. It also helped explain why Danette had insisted on continuing with the androids: Danette was no longer in control of her own mind.

Together with Alice, Lunn came to the conclusion that Bionex was now a serious threat, and he learned from Alice that Datanex, a provider of secure data connections, was owned by the same man. That news blew him away because it meant that Bionex was eavesdropping on roughly eighty percent of all secure connections. They certainly had the resources to harvest whatever information they desired; enough to take control of the entire country. Lunn now understood that it was going to be a race against the clock to see who would be the first to develop a deadly weapon.

He sincerely hoped that the schedule to complete the ring was still on target. He had kept it from Alice, and wanted to keep it that way because it was too dangerous to share such sensitive information with anybody else.

Alice was very intrigued by the story of the alien flower. In fact, she was visibly upset that Lunn hadn’t shared that information earlier. He knew she was right, and it took him a lot of carefully chosen words to prevent a breakdown in trust. They both agreed it was unwise to investigate the flower at this moment, and he was very pleased that she understood the potentially lethal power of the flower. He realised that being an effective leader required a wide range of skills.

After Lunn had shown her the video of the field, Alice was in shock because she had seen her brother intertwined with one of the plants. It was agonising to see her with such conflicted emotions; her brother was still alive but held captive in one of the fields.

It felt strange when he was holding her to comfort her. It was very soothing and felt just right. They had been comfortably silent for a long while and apparently they had fallen asleep.

He had been stroking her hand absentmindedly and was a little startled when she squeezed his hand softly. She took a deep breath and said with a dark and sultry voice, “Good morning.”

Lunn was surprised when she didn’t move away from him. He had to admit that he liked the way they were lying and decided not to change his position either. He replied with a warm voice, “Good morning Alice.”

“You don’t mind me lying like this?”

Lunn thought about it for a moment and then decided that it didn’t feel strange: it actually felt rather nice. This was totally new territory for him. He had never experienced this with any other woman. Squeezing her hand softly, he retorted, “No, It feels very comfortable.”

Alice asked with a little voice, “Can we stay like this a little longer?”

Strangely enough, he was very happy that she wanted to stay like this as long as she felt right with it. He softly rubbed the palm of her hand as he said, “Sure, why not.”

Danette was hurrying to her laboratory and dreading the fact she had to fix an unknown error with the last android before it was able to go to Bionex. She felt like she hadn’t slept at all, and felt dreadful. She looked at her watch and realised with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she had even less time than she’d hoped for.

The only positive thing she had encountered this morning was that her door had been cleaned until it gleamed and there was a bunch of red roses on the brand new doormat. She had smiled knowing it was typical of Lunn to do such a thing. She had taken the roses with her and had given them away to one of the female beggars at the main square. She reckoned that the beggar could earn some credits if she were to sell the roses separately.

Feeling apprehensive, she entered her laboratory where she saw the android lying on the table. She slowly walked around the table looking at all the details and checking them minutely in the hope that she would find the flaw. She opened the little hatch where the main computer core was mounted and examined the connections of the core. Then it suddenly dawned on her: maybe the main software wasn’t uploaded into the AI core.

Danette was relieved when the upload program confirmed that the core was empty. Something must have distracted her that made her forget to initiate such an important step. After she had started the upload program, she checked the time, and she was very pleased she had enough time to arrive at Bionex five minutes early. As she left her laboratory, she walked to the office of Bionex in a much better mood.

Olga had read the message from Joshua that the girl had been transported to the recovery room at Bionex. She was pleased because it had saved her a lot of time in the morning, which she had gratefully spent in her comfortable bed. As Olga walked into the corridor where the recovery room was, she found the empty cabin neatly parked against the wall. She looked into the operation tube of the cabin, and she was surprised at how immaculately clean it was. She heard footsteps, and as she turned around, she saw Joshua looking at her. He looked fresh: as if he had a decent amount of sleep. He said cheerfully, “Good morning, Olga. It’s a wonderful day today.”