Chapter 11

Andena took the small device out the velvet pouch and studied it with great interest.

“What did you call this again?” she asked Meleda.

“A voice distorter. There’s a switch on the top and the little black round fabric bulb is the microphone. Try it, it’s really fun.”

She flipped the switch and a small red light indicated that it was operational. As she placed the microphone in front of her mouth she asked, “How were you able to fool Lunn with this device?”

She was stunned as she heard her voice transformed into a metallic sounding male. Meleda’s laugh was rough and became a strange sounding cough. She could hardly stop coughing but managed to regain her composure in the end.

“Oh dear, Andena,” she said with a hoarse voice, “you should have seen your face, it looked so funny.”

Andena couldn’t keep help laughing either as she replied, “You had me there, Meleda. That is the weirdest thing I have ever seen.”

“Very effective, though,” Meleda replied dryly.

Andena switched off the device and slid it back into its pouch as she tried to fathom the story Meleda had just told her.

“Yes,” Andena agreed, “So, in short: you stole from the rich to finance this amazing weapon, which Lunn and his companion have built.”

“Hmm, yes that is the most simplified version.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Meleda looked at her as she took a deep breath. She asked, “Do you know what is the main purpose of the alien fields?”

Andena thought back to the video footage of the field she had taken with her camera. It was the most ghastly scene she had ever witnessed. It still shocked her as she remembered the naked people attached to the strange looking trees. It still wasn’t clear why those poor people had been captured in the fields and she answered with a taut voice, “No, not really.”

“Those fields were created to produce a potent drug. The Archon made a deal with an alien race called the Ocronins who agreed to replete Earth’s oxygen in exchange for the drugs.”

“Oh, wow,” replied Andena in awe.

“That sounds too good to be true, “ her core remarked.

She thought about it for a moment before asking, “Let me guess; in order to make the drugs they need to have humans attached to those trees.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“That is a very dangerous situation. There’s no guarantee that the Ocronins will be satisfied with the amount of drugs being produced.”

“I know Z, and before we know it we will all end up attached to such a plant, “ Andena replied.

She thought that it was strange that Saida and her brother were actually helping people and she asked, “Hold on, are you talking about the same aliens as Saida?”

“No. Saida, Uso, and Latif are Medifocans who were enslaved by the Ocronins.”

“Were enslaved? That doesn’t make sense! Where are the Ocronins now? Did we defeat them?”

Meleda had to chuckle and said ironically, “Yeah, just one.”

Andena stared at Meleda’s face which had suddenly become anxious as she continued softly, as if she still did not quite believe it herself, “The rest are on their way here and the first may well arrive in the next ten days. They have left their own depleted planet and are planning to settle on our Earth.”

Andena gasped as soon as she understood the implications of what Meleda was saying.

“What!” she exclaimed. “How many are coming?”

“I don’t know, but I do know that it made the head of the Archon nervous enough to order all the nuclear rocket launchers to be brought online ASAP.”

Andena wondered what had destroyed the Bionex building as it was now clear that there hadn’t been a nuclear attack, but her thoughts were instantly disrupted as she read her core’s text, “According to a rough calculation, there are more than 2.5 billion aliens travelling to Earth.”

“Oh no!” Andena blurted out.

“Yeah, I know,” breathed Meleda, “I hate those nuclear weapons. Who knows what will happen if a nuclear warhead explodes in the stratosphere. It could be the end of the Earth.”

Andena grabbed Meleda’s shoulders, ignoring the fact that they were covered with vines and exclaimed, “Listen Meleda, there are more than two and a half billion aliens on their way!”

Meleda stared at her shocked, as she exclaimed, “What? I don’t believe it! How did you come up with such an absurd number?”

Andena realised that she had unintentionally placed herself in an awkward situation and wondered whether she should tell Meleda about her core.

“Z, how do you know that?”

“The schematics of the vessels indicates how many passengers they can transport. A calculation of the total number of passengers comes to about 2.5 billion which may vary by around 1.2 million.”

She staggered backward and stammered, “My, my computer core has just explained how it came up with that huge number.”

“Computer core?” asked Meleda in disbelief.

Andena suddenly grasped the wider meaning of her core’s explanation and asked it, “Are you telling me you have knowledge of all the alien ships that are coming?”

“Yes, among other useful intelligence.”

“How? Did you get that information from Saida and her group?”

“Yes, Andena. Latif managed to transfer the data into my memory.”

“No way,” whispered Andena, “no way.”

“Andena!” Shouted Meleda, “what is wrong with you? Talk to me!”

“You won’t believe this!”, Andena started to talk rapidly, “my computer core has detailed schematics of all the alien ships! It made a rough estimation based on the number of passengers each vessel could carry. It is telling me that it has valuable information about the Ocronins.”

Andena couldn’t understand why Meleda looked so sad all of a sudden and asked, “What is it Meleda?”

She took a deep breath and said softly, “I’m sorry but what you are telling me is much too far-fetched. It can’t be true.”

“But it is, Meleda,” she insisted, “I do have a computer core somewhere in my body.”

Meleda’s face was turning red as she shouted, “Don’t start mocking me as well, you stupid girl! It. is. Not. Possible! I’ll repeat it for you once again so that it can sink into your petty brain: it is not possible for you to have a computer giving you information about the aliens! You are losing it, girl, you’re definitely suffering from delusions.”

With disbelief, Andena stared into Meleda’s eyes which had narrowed to slits as she almost growled like a frustrated animal fighting the restricting vines. Andena huffed and defended, “Why would I lie to you? Do you really think I am making this up?”

Meleda yelled while her voice cracked, “Yes I do and don’t you try to convince me otherwise because I’m sick and tired of listening to your nonsense! So, get lost and let me be!”

Andena stood and stared at Meleda dumbfounded before saying in an indifferent tone, “Well, don’t believe it then.”

“I think Meleda needs to rest Andena,” said Uso calmly as he entered the room.

She looked at him with a quizzical expression and as he guided Andena out of the room he said softly, “Unfortunately Meleda is suffering from an unexpected side effect from the medications that she is receiving at the moment.”

“I see,” said Andena a little flustered, “when do you think I can talk to her again?”

She thought it was strange walking next to a man who was a head shorter than her and she noticed that his hair looked like very thin vines. Uso stopped at the entrance to her room and said, “I’m afraid Meleda needs to be sedated for the rest of her stay. Her whole immune system has been compromised too much. An undisturbed rest is the best way for her to recover.”

She gasped and exclaimed, “But I need to have more information! We were in the middle of the story of the Ocronins!”

Uso rested his hand on her shoulder as he spoke in a hypnotic voice, “Meleda has told you most of the facts she knows and if you have more questions I’m sure that we can give you the answers but for now it is best that you take a rest as well. Don’t forget your body is still recovering from the surgical intervention. The tissue around the enhancers has still not completely healed and a good rest will take care of that.”

She wasn’t happy at the thought of resting again and sputtered as she crawled on the mattress, “But, I’ve only just woken up. You can’t expect that I just will fall asleep like that.”

He chuckled briefly and retorted, “Please lie down Andena. If you’re still awake after ten minutes, you can come and look for me.”

“They have changed 85 enhancers in your body, Andena.”

She rolled her eyes as she read her core’s comments because she felt great and according to her, there was no reason at all, that she should rest.

She answered her core, “That might be the case Z but I feel really great.”

“Just lie down for 10 minutes Andena as Uso has suggested. It will give me the opportunity to do some extra checks on the new enhancers.”

Andena chuckled, certain that her core was playing a little trick to make her comply with Uso’s request. She remembered Saida’s remark about her core’s sophisticated AI software and was struck by how lucky she actually was. As she accepted the situation, she sighed deeply and said aloud, “All right. All right, I’ll lie down for a few minutes.”

Harrold was in bed wide awake. He couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened that day. He’d never seen Meleda that angry before and he was concerned about whether her damaging suicide attempt might have had a permanent effect on her state of mind. Their heated quarrel was totally based on silly prejudices and misunderstandings fuelled by their penned-up emotions. It was clear, as Uso had confirmed, that it was not a good time to try to continue to sort things out when they were both so emotional. He sighed, knowing that he was going to have to wait at least fifteen days before he would be able to speak to her again. Maybe it was good that he had some extra time to think things over, although he had the feeling that Arnost’s failed attack was going to take up a lot of his time.

He had been shocked when Saida had told him what had happened to Arnost. He suddenly understood why she had seemed so distracted when he had arrived at the field but he also knew that this awkward situation could seriously backfire on them.

He had already noticed several colleagues in the office staring at him suspiciously and that those in the control centre had abruptly stopped talking as soon as he entered the room. He knew that they were up to something and he had made the decision to be on the field tomorrow afternoon to pick up Haruz. He felt it was necessary to support Haruz who was as much his friend as his superior. The toughest part would be telling him that Meleda was going to be out of the picture for at least a fortnight. He knew that Haruz would never blame him for what had happened to his sister but the timing of her absence was inconvenient at very the least.

Harrold was too troubled to sleep; apart from worrying about Meleda, the uncertainty surrounding the aliens and the disabled secure network was keeping him awake.

“You may switch it on.”

Olga thoughtfully took a sip of her hot coffee which was a welcome treat after they had worked so hard for the last hour; they wanted to get the android ready by noon. Olga looked at Joshua and wondered whether he truly wanted her to have the privilege of activating android Zero-one or whether he suspected that something might go seriously wrong. As she tried to hide her suspicions she asked in a sweet voice, “Why me? You have done the bulk of it.”

As he stepped a little away from the android he replied, “We are writing history here, Olga, and I want you to be the first woman to activate the first android since the ban.”

She knew that wasn’t true but the thought made her smile, but the fact that he stepped further away from the droid made her think that he was pulling her a leg. She narrowed her eyes as she growled, “Joshua, you’re holding something back.”

She couldn’t hide her smirk as Joshua tried to maintain an innocent expression as he answered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about Olga. The only thing that can happen is that the interface controlling the limbs might blow up.”

Now she understood why Joshua was behaving so stupidly: she had fixed that part and it stung her that he showed so little confidence in her skills but she also knew it was partly her own fault. She hadn’t told him that she was one of the very few women who had been allowed to follow the master class of Gynusida, a guru on hybrid electronics. Back then she had considered it a privilege to be taught by the guru but her friends had turned their back on her. It had been hard but she was determined not to drop out of the class. She hated herself for misleading Joshua and accepted that it wasn’t one of her smartest moves.

“What is it, Olga?” Joshua asked concerned.

“I lied to you.”

“Oh, about what?”

“Does the name Gynusida ring a bell?”

Joshua laughed which made Olga feel very uncomfortable and she asked with a quiet voice, “Why are you laughing?”

“Oh Olga,” he said clearly relieved as he walked over to her. She loved his scent which surrounded her as he hugged her tightly. The quick kiss on her neck sent small electric jolts of pleasure through her body and she felt much better as he spoke with a warm voice, “I was impressed when I saw how amazingly accurate every connection was made on that board.”

He chuckled briefly and continued, “Gynusida was never really satisfied with my work but I’m pretty sure you were his best student.”

She squeezed him harder knowing they had been hiding the same information from each other. She pulled away a little so that she could see his eyes.

“I was, but at great cost,” she breathed.

She hadn’t noticed that she was crying until Joshua wiped a tear away with his thumb. He sighed and said, “Yup, not many people could deal with that at all.”

Olga whispered, remembering the hateful looks on her friend’s faces when it was revealed that she had won a position in the masterclass, “I was devastated when I became a persona non grata in my group of friends. You know, I lost most of my close friends overnight.”

His kiss on her lips was tender and full of compassion and he said, “But that is in the past Olga, just look where we are now. We’ll have a steady future and we are doing things which we like to do. What else do you want?”

She knew that she missed the interaction with others on the same social level but she knew that as she was no longer constrained by Yousima, changing that was only a matter of time. She smiled because she knew he was right; she had nearly forgotten how to be happy.

She snuggled her cheek into the creek of his neck as she purred, “Why don’t we activate Zero-one together?”

Joshua chuckled and said, “All right, give me your hand.”

Reluctantly Olga let go of him and stuck her hand out.

“Now point your finger at Zero-one.”

She couldn’t stop herself from giggling as he guided her finger towards the little red lever which was situated in the small control hatch of the android.

“Ready?” He asked.

She let the last day’s work they had done on the android pass through her mind as she wondered whether they had forgotten anything important. Finally she was convinced that it was safe to flip the switch.

“Yes!”, she purred.

Olga found herself in an odd mood acting as if she was a puppet on strings. She loved how Joshua grabbed her firmly around her waist to guide her closer to the android. She couldn’t stop giggling when Joshua swung her arm up and down as if she were drunk. After two attempts she let him use her finger to flip the switch and they both stumbled awkwardly backward, still a bit unsure what the android would do.

Olga was relieved as the ringing voice of Zero-one stated, “Checking circuits. All measured parameters are within the correct values.”

Joshua flashed his dazzling smile at her as he asked the android, “That is perfect, Zero-one. Is everything functioning as before the EMP?”

“Checking,” Zero-one responded, “yes, everything is fine but I need to be charged soon; my battery is down to twenty percent.”

Olga gasped because she hadn’t thought about that at all and exclaimed, “Oh hell, Joshua. All the chargers were in the office!”