Chapter 10: Discovery

Dramatis Personae: Frank ___ - Lead character, inventor of Alpha Alpha - First A.I. in existence Kasumi Tendo - artificial woman based on character from Ranma 1/2 Daria Morgendorffer aka Daria Morgan - artificial woman based on character from

Daria Jane Lane aka Jane Lannister - artificial woman based on character from Daria Kara Zor-L aka Power Girl aka Karen Starr - artificial woman based on character

from DC Comics Rei Ayanami aka Rei Ayanami Ikari - artificial woman based on character from

Neon Genesis Evangelion Anna Marie aka Rogue aka Anna Marie Raffen - artificial woman based on character

From Marvel Comics Princess Diana aka Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince Walters - artificial woman

based on character from DC Comics Zatanna Zatara aka Annabelle Tara Zane - artificial woman based on character

from DC Comics Beta aka Bayonetta aka Elizabeth Alana Franks - cyborg copy of Alpha in body

based on video game character from Bayonetta

Late that summer, a major hurricane hit Texas. When the tracking showed it was incoming, Diana took Anna down to meet it. Not to fight the weather, of course, but to fill sandbags and help people during and after its landfall. According to Alpha's household video feed, Kara was chosen to stay with me by drawing straws, though I think she may have cheated. I guess they figured at least one of the super-strong ladies needed to stay behind as bodyguard. (It's both very flattering and very annoying that they've decided they're my bodyguards. I suppose it's natural to a degree, since I'm also their entire financial support.)

By the time the storm reached the DFW Metroplex area it was greatly reduced but still disgorged well over a foot of rain in less than six hours, which caused severe flooding all over the place. It cut us off from easy access to the metroplex for almost an entire day, but we had plenty of food stocked up.

The house itself was never in danger. What? You think I'd build a house with a heavily computerized basement in a location where there was any realistic chance that it could be flooded? Nope, the house was most definitely on high ground. It would take a Noah-level flood to threaten us.

Anyway, during the height of the storm in the middle of the night, Alpha woke me up. Well, woke us up.

The screen in my bedroom started flashing red and Alpha's voice came over the speakers repeating, "Attention, please."

I shot upright in bed, giving a look to Kasumi and Rei on either side of me. They were definitely waking up too, but not quite as quickly as I did. I reached over Rei, grabbed my earpiece off the charger stand and inserted it into my ear.

"Alert off. Status report."

The ladies watched me curiously as I listened to the earpiece.

"There has been a two car accident directly in front of the property. One of the vehicles has impacted the wall approximately 20 meters south of our front gate."

"Any injuries? Have you notified the police? Kasumi, get dressed. We may need first aid. There's been a car accident out front."

Kasumi quickly got out of bed and slipped out of the room.

"The physical status of the occupants is unknown, but none of them have yet to exit their vehicle. I am currently on the line with an emergency dispatcher using your voice. However it appears that flooding has cut off access from any ambulances and wind strength is such that helicopters cannot fly."

"Okay. We'll go down and see how we can help. Wake up Kara too. Tell the dispatcher that we have someone here who has Red Cross first aid training and we're investigating the crash."

I got out of bed and started rummaging through my drawers for clothes.

"Rei, you should get dressed too. Wake up Daria and Jane too, just in case we need extra hands."

She nodded, grabbed her nightdress from the floor and left the room. She nearly ran into Kara, who showed at my door wearing nothing but a large T-shirt.

"What's going on? Your computer just woke me up, said there was an emergency."

"Car accident out front, and it appears the access roads are flooded. Go get dressed. We're heading out to investigate."

I had shirt, jeans, shoes and rain poncho on a minute later and spent another couple minutes downstairs gathering flashlights.

By the time I was outside, Kasumi and Kara were both nearing the street ahead of me. The weather was pretty bad. Rain was coming down in nearly horizontal sheets from the strong wind. Regular flashes of lightning lit the area.

An SUV had smashed into the brick wall surrounding my property, though from the look of things, it had first hit the white pickup that was in the ditch on the far side of the road.

The pickup had one person in it, a man who was obviously very dazed. Kasumi appropriated one of my flashlights and was shining it in his eyes.

The SUV on the other hand, had a mother and two children in it. Kara was prying open one of the smashed doors to give us access to them. One of the children was a baby in a car seat and, from the strong wails, seemed to be scared but fine.

Kasumi had wadded up part of the man's jacket and was pressing it to his head. When Rei showed up a moment later, she had her hold the fabric in place. He was obviously seriously in pain, but he seemed to be insistent on getting out of the rain and wind. Or maybe he just needed good lighting for an examination.

"He has a concussion and a bad cut on his scalp. I'm worried there may be internal bleeding. Rei, keep him awake and get a clean cloth to use on his head wound. He shouldn't be walking, so get him sitting down right away."

A grinding crunch behind us announced Kara's victory over the smashed car door, and we hurried over to see what the situation was like.

Kara reached in to unlock the driver's side passenger door, then moved to work on actually prying it open.

The mother was not looking very healthy, but was awake. She was weakly moving an arm and trying to swing her legs out of the car.

Kasumi quickly went to her and started asking her questions. Apparently First Aid response is more along the lines of don't-move-the-victim-until-help- arrives than get-them-out-of-the-car-in-case-it-explodes-like-on-TV.

A man's voice from behind me said, "We should wait for the paramedics."

I looked and saw the man from the pickup, with Rei hovering anxiously behind him.

"Paramedics aren't coming. Not soon anyway. We already called for help, but the flooding is too bad in the area and it's too windy for choppers to fly safely. You should get inside."

"I'm a doctor. Well, a psychiatrist. Been a long time since I did any first aid, but I thought I could help."

"Kasumi said you have a concussion and possible internal bleeding. Can you even focus properly."

"No, not really. Internal bleeding?" He seemed really out of it.

"Kasumi is first aid and CPR certified from the Red Cross. Let Rei take you inside where it's dry."

Apparently satisfied, he let her lead him away.

The woman had started frantically trying to reach her children, but one of her arms was obviously broken.

Kara got the second door open and was unbuckling the infant seat. She handed it to me, baby and all, and turned back to look at the young boy who sat unconscious in the seat on the other side of the car.

Kasumi said, "Kara, come here. Keep her from moving around much. Frank, take the baby inside, but keep him in the seat until we can examine him."

I adjusted my poncho so it covered the crying baby and awkwardly carried it up the drive to the house. Inside, Daria and Jane were dressed in robes, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Daria, Jane, here. Take care of him. Leave him in the car seat until we're sure he isn't injured."

The psychiatrist was clutching his side while talking on his cell phone, and I glimpsed Rei at the top of the stairs.

I handed the baby off to the girls and hurried back out to the car.

Kasumi gave me a status report. "I think she has a serious concussion. Her pupils won't respond to the light. The boy is unconscious, with mildly labored breathing."

"What should we do?"

"Normally, we wait for paramedics. If they can't make it? I don't know."

"Alpha, any suggestions?"

"No one here is qualified to perform surgery to repair the damage. I could possibly stabilize them with nanites."

Damn. Using nanites on an accident victim was just asking for trouble, but at the same time, I couldn't just let them die, could I?

"Frank, the psychiatrist has fallen unconscious. Daria just commented that his skin is cool. I believe he is dying from internal bleeding." I relayed the information to Kasumi.

"Alpha, start prepping for treatment. Mam? We have a bad situation here..."

I trailed off when I noticed that she had fallen unconscious.

"Dammit. Kasumi?"

She did a quick status check on her. "Her pulse is still strong. I'll keep a close eye on her. I think her son's pulse is getting weaker though."

"Damn, damn, damn." I took a deep breath. "Okay. Kara, go get some boards from the garage and something to strap them down. The man first, then the boy. I'm going to have to try using the nanites to repair them."

She took off sprinting to the garage. Speaking of which, "Alpha, open the garage door for Kara. Kasumi, when Kara get's back, you two strap the boy to a board and bring him down to the basement."

I took off running for the garage as well. I saw Kara gathering rope and headed into the house and down to the basement.

I quickly threw a tarp over the body of the next lady being grown, unhooked her connections, and wheeled the pod into the corner. It didn't stand out much because about a third of the machinery in the lab was covered up at the moment. I was still hooking up the second pod when Kara arrived, carrying the man tied down to a board.

"Untie him and strip him naked. Carefully. Alpha, are the nanites prepped?"

"Yes, they are linked with the goo tube, ready for use." The 'goo tube', as I call it, filled a pod with a neutral goo which allowed the nanites easy access to a body. It was much more efficient than my earliest methods of pouring out a vial of nanites.

Once he was untied and naked, Kara lifted up the board and we slid him into the pod. I snapped on the oxygen mask, started the goo injection and sent Kara upstairs for the boy.

By the time Kara was back with the kid and had started stripping him, the nanites were inside him and Alpha was doing her work.

The first group of nanites provided a body scan, similar to a localized MRI. The second group were more mechanical in nature and could do things like form themselves into a patch over broken blood vessels or slowly pinch together broken ligaments or muscles. The third group was the actual repair group. They could stimulate cell growth and direct how those new cells connected up.

I had Alpha ignore the bruising and head wound and just focus on the life- threatening internal bleeding. Fortunately he was too weak to thrash around because I had forgotten to strap him down in the pod.

About 20 minutes later, his bleeding was stopped and the nanites were withdrawing. Since we were in a rush for time, once the nanites were out of his body, we didn't wait for the goo to drain, just pulled him out of the goo and put the boy in.

While Kara washed the man down, Alpha went to work on the boy. Apparently he had smashed the side of his head into the window and had intra-cranial bleeding pressing against his brain. This was actually much easier to fix than the psychiatrist's wounds.

The boy actually woke up when we were cleaning him off. Fortunately he was very dazed and confused and went back to sleep after a minute.

I'd guess he was about 4 or 5, so I hoped any memories he might retain would be ignored by any questioning adults as dreams.

Kara and I carried the man back upstairs, then covered the boy up with plastic sheets and carried him back out to the SUV.

"Alpha, any update on getting an ambulance?"

"No change on the flooding, but the main part of the storm has passed. The winds are starting to die down, so helicopters should be able to start flying again soon."

Kasumi was waiting for us out at the vehicles. We strapped the boy back in and used the tarps to keep things dry.

"How are they," she asked.

"We fixed the internal bleeding. The kid bashed his head against the window or something like that. Bad bleeding in the brain. He should be fine too, though he could really use an IV drip or something. Alpha says the wind is starting to let up, so we might get a chopper before too long."

I looked around. Sure couldn't tell the wind was lessening from here.

"You two stay out here for a minute. I'm going to go check on the two inside. If she doesn't wake up soon, we'll let the nanites check her out too. And remember, they've been here all the time. I don't want people asking awkward questions."

They both nodded.

I went back up to the house. The man was still unconscious, and the baby had apparently cried itself to sleep. The girls had provided them both some warm blankets.

I left them and got myself a fresh cup of coffee.

I had just started sipping when Alpha said, "Frank, a police cruiser has just pulled up."

"They got through the flooding?"

"Or around it."

"Gotcha." I put down the coffee after a single sip and headed back out.

A single police officer was getting out of his car as I emerged. Kasumi was telling him about their physical condition when I arrived.

" ... she was awake but passed out again after a few minutes. Both have strong pulses. The man from the truck refused to stay still. He said he is a psychiatrist, but I never got his name. He is up at the house, where he fell unconscious."

"Is he still unconscious?"

"Just a minute." I touched my hand to my earpiece. "Is he still out?"

"He is showing signs of waking up, but is still unconscious."

"Sorry, officer. I'm told he's showing signs of waking up, but not yet."

"How is she doing?"

Kasumi answered, "I'm pretty sure she has a broken arm and a concussion. I'm worried that she couldn't stay awake. We really need to get her to a hospital."

"You said there was a baby?"

"We have him in the house. Since we could move his entire car seat, we thought it was better to move him somewhere warm and dry."

"Thank you, Miss... ?"

"Tendo. Kasumi Tendo."

"Thank you, Miss Tendo. I may need more information later."

He turned to me. "And you are?"

"I'm Frank ___. I own this house," I said gesturing. "My security system alerted me to the wall impact and we called the police as soon as we saw the crashed vehicles."

"So you didn't actually see the crash?"

"No, just the aftermath, but we'll be happy to provide whatever help you need. We might have caught some of the crash on our security video, but I haven't checked yet. I'm just glad Kasumi was here, since she has Red Cross training. How did you get through the flooding?"

"I didn't. I live about a mile that-a-way. Just got called on duty a few minutes ago when someone remembered I live out here."

"Would you like some coffee? We just brewed up a fresh pot for ourselves."

"Maybe in few minutes. I have to call this in. If someone can continue to stay out here with these two, I'd like to check in on the man and baby as soon as I finish my call."

I caught eyes with Kara, who nodded and stationed herself by the SUV.

"No problem. Do you know when an ambulance will be able to get through?"

"Word is it'll probably be a copter as soon as the wind lets up a bit." The officer moved back to his car for a couple minutes, talking into his radio. He got out, placed some flashing emergency lights by both vehicles, then followed me up to the house.

Daria and Jane were whispering to each other with the baby seat sitting between them. Rei was holding a cup, kneeling next to the psychiatrist who seemed to be somewhat awake.

"Hey there. Glad to see you're awake again. How are you feeling?"

He looked almost lost. "How am I still alive?"

I shrugged. "You're just lucky?"

The policeman stepped up. "Hello, I'm Officer Linus. What's your name?"

"I could feel myself bleeding out."

"Sir?"

I jumped back in. "You did lose a lot of blood, we think. But the bandages seem to have stopped it for now." I gestured toward his head, which had been rebandaged with actual gauze this time.

He absent-mindedly touched the gauze wrap. "No, not this. I was cold ... bleeding internally, I'm sure of it."

"Well, then don't move around. When help comes they can come in here to get you. Why don't you talk to Officer Linus for a minute."

"Do you feel up to answering a few questions?"

"Sure."

Officer Linus looked at him for a minute, then held up a pen.

"Keep your eyes focused on the pen." He moved it back and forth.

"I'm not drunk. Take blood samples if you want."

"It's not that as much as making sure you can be focused enough to answer questions. Now, what's your name?"

"Dr. Benjamin Hilbourne, Psychiatrist. 133 West Monroe Rd. My license is in my wallet." He weakly reached into his pants pocket, dumping the wallet on the floor.

Officer Linus retrieved it off the floor and fished out his license, copying the data down into his notepad. He placed it all back next to Dr. Hilbourne.

"Now, Dr. Hilbourne, how did this happen?"

"I was driving home and kept getting cut off by flooding, so I started looking for a hotel or something. The rain was so heavy I couldn't see more than 30 feet or so. I'm pretty sure I was only going around 25 mph, when suddenly this black SUV shows up in my lights, heading right for me. I turn the wheel too fast and start sliding. She smashes into my truck which spins me out. I didn't see what happened to her, but she obviously bounced into the wall out there. A minute later, Miss Kasumi was checking me out while the other lady was prying open the front door on the SUV."

"She have a crowbar or something?"

"No," I responded. "Karen's a body builder. Very strong."

Not sure the policeman believed me, but hey, the doors were open.

"Could you spell your name?"

I left them to their interview and fetched a cup of hot coffee for Officer Linus.

On the way back down to the road, Officer Linus asked, "So how many people do you have living in your house?"

"Right now? Let's see. Kasumi runs the household. Daria and Jane are renting a room while they attend college. Kara is an old friend who on an extended visit. There are a couple of her friends too, but they're out of town right now. Oooh ... I forgot to wake Z. She's gonna be pissed she missed out on the excitement."

He stopped walking for a minute and stared at me. "How many?"

"Hmmm... 6 of us at the moment, I think. What can I say? I have the room, and I like having lots of company."

"Right. Sounds like they're all pretty young ladies too."

Knowing I was doing nothing wrong, I just smiled at him. "You don't see me complaining. And Karen and her friends would love to hear you call them young, especially since they work so hard at staying in shape."

He kept sipping the coffee as we made our way back down to the road, shielding it from the rain with his hands as we went.

Kara was still on guard down at the accident site, with Kasumi sitting by the mother who was still asleep. He asked some more questions, got out a little roller measure on a stick and walked off the brake skid marks, made lots of notes.

He looked up at the sky. Still raining, but definitely less. He sipped the coffee with obvious relish. "The dispatcher said that the copters should be flying again within half an hour."

It was actually more like an hour before the chopper arrived. Both mother and son were awake again, and we had fetched the baby back outside so the mother could see him. The 5 year old boy was moving around, hovering near his mother who was not doing well at hiding her pain.

For a few days, that was it. When the flood waters went down, the cars were hauled away. There was a small note of the incident in the papers, but it was lost in the other stories of the flood.

Alpha made a copy of the security footage for the police, with the trips to the basement edited out.

I made an insurance claim and scheduled a repair crew for the wall, which wasn't too badly damaged but still needed fixing.

Zatanna was indeed annoyed that we didn't wake her up for the accident, and she did her best to make sure she wasn't left out again.

Two days after the accident, the police set up surveillance on the house. Alpha noticed a car with a couple men in it parked down from the house driveway. She was able to get clear enough photos of them to match them up with police from news footage. They were vice cops. I'm guessing that Officer Linus was worried that I might be running a house of ill repute or something. Alpha and I agreed that we should just ignore them for now. The lack of illegal activity should discourage them sooner or later. As long as they didn't look too deeply into the past or financial records of some of the ladies, we should be fine. (They gave up their surveillance after a week.)

Diana and Anna called in with a couple interesting stories of helping people out.

And Dr. Hilbourne showed up on our doorstep three days later.

At that particular moment, only Kara, Rei and myself were home. I opened the gate and met him at the front door.

"Dr. Hilbourne! Come on inside. It's good to see you up and around. What did the hospital have to say?"

"That's part of why I'm here, Mr... ?"

"Oh, just Frank is fine."

"Frank. One of the reasons I'm here is that according the hospital, I'm perfectly fine."

"Well, that's good, right?"

"But I wasn't fine after the crash. After Miss Kasumi said she thought that I was bleeding internally, I checked myself out. My pulse was getting weaker, and my temperature was dropping. I passed out. But at the hospital, I was fine. I needed fluids, but there was no internal bleeding."

"So you and Kasumi were wrong, which sounds like a good thing in this case."

He was not to be deterred. "But the thing is, they checked me out thoroughly for bleeds. And afterwards, one of the doctors asked me when I had had surgery up here." He gestured to his chest where the worst of the crash impact had been.

"I've never had surgery, and I told him that. He insisted that there was scarring, like after surgery. But the scarring was the most perfectly done stitching he'd ever seen that he wanted to know who did it so he could ask them about their technique.

"So what I want to know is, what happened here that night?"

My alert level had been rising ever since he showed up at the door, and I was close to sweating at this point. I tried not to show it, but I'm not entirely sure how well I was hiding it.

"I'm not sure what you mean. We applied pressure to your head wound, kept you from bleeding too much and kept you warm."

"Look Mr ... Look Frank, at the time I was willing to write it off as some strange, accident-induced dream, but I remember waking up naked, covered in something weird and itching like crazy in my chest. I only remember being awake for a minute or so. I tried to open my eyes, but it stung badly. But the point is, you did something to me."

"What? What did I do to you?"

"I don't know."

"Did I perform surgery on you? Did the hospital find any evidence of recent surgery?"

"No."

"Did I give you drugs of some kind? Did the hospital find any strange drugs in your system?"

"No."

"So what did you think I did to you?"

"I don't know!" He was almost yelling at this point.

I took a breath. "Look, why don't you sit down and calm down a bit. Can I get you something to drink?"

He sat down heavily. "Maybe some water or tea?"

"Sure, I'll be right back."

As I was getting us a couple glasses of iced tea, I subvocalized to Alpha, "Any thoughts?"

"His body contains sufficient evidence to prove that something was done to him. It is unlikely that he can prove nanites were used, but he can theoretically prompt an investigation by the FDA or AMA."

"Any suggestions?"

"He is threatening you enough that I can suggest we kill him. This would be significantly more difficult to do without repercussion since the police are currently watching the house."

"No killing."

"Then look for a way to control the situation and avoid an investigation or publicity."

I carried the glasses back to the front room where Dr. Hilbourne was sitting, head in hand.

"Here you go, Doctor." I handed him the drink and sat down across from him. "So, aside from not knowing how you survived, you're feeling well? Healthy?"

"Well, I have some massive bruising and my head's still sore, but there seems to be no lasting damage."

"Good. So let's sum up. You were bleeding internally. No surgery was done and no drugs were administered, but you were saved somehow anyway. And you're upset that you were saved?"

"Yes. I mean, no. I'm glad I'm alive, but I've got to know what happened?"

"Ummm ... I'm a faith healer?"

That broke part of the tension and he laughed. "Nope, try again."

"I'm a mad scientist with psychic healing ability?"

"Probably not."

"I'm a sane scientist with nanite goo."

"Maybe something less science-fiction-y."

"Well, then I'm tapped out of ideas."

"I'm being serious. I need an answer. I'm ready to schedule laproscopic surgery to get video proof."

I sighed. "Look, I might be able to help you with your questions..."

"I knew it!"

"BUT I really don't want any publicity."

"What did you do? Are you licensed for surgery?"

"There were no drugs and there was no surgery..."

"Then how... ?"

"Please let me finish. There was no surgery as you would recognize it. Remember my last joke suggestion?"

"Ummm ... psychic surg ... no, nanites? Seriously?"

"Seriously. Nanites. They're nothing like TV or books, but I've been developing them for years."

He looked at me for a moment with an incredulous gaze.

"And you decided to experiment on me?"

"Huh? No, of course not. I've been testing them for years. Used them on rats and myself and a few of the ladies in the house. They're perfectly safe."

"Then why haven't I heard about them?"

"I don't want to go public. It may sound trite, but seriously, the world isn't ready for what they can do."

"Aren't you worried about them ... I don't know ... escaping? Causing damage to other people or things like that?"

"Okay, time for a little Nanite 101. They have no internal power source. Their power has to be broadcast to them. Same with controls. The amount of memory they can store is ridiculously tiny. They have to be controlled with an external computer, monitoring and guiding them. They can't replicate or work on a molecular level. If you want a nanite to do more than one type of job, you have to design and build a second type of nanite.

"Compared to SciFi, nanites in the real world are EXTREMELY limited. But they can work on living creatures."

"What can they do?"

"Remember when I said the world isn't ready for them? That's what they can do."

"Oh come on!"

"Well, they can link together to create a patch, like they did for your internal damage. They can guide and stimulate cell growth, which they also did for you. They can search out and destroy cancer and tumors and such. Beyond that, I'm not going to say."

"But that would revolutionize surgery! Why haven't you published this? Have you even patented it?"

"You need to understand. It wouldn't stop there. For someone without a conscience or someone who can justify their actions, you could do truly terrible things to yourself or other people.

"If I were to release this technology, even under the strictest controls, far more people would be hurt than I could ever save with it.

"Maybe someday I'll be able to develop a version that would definitely be controllable, but limited as it is, what I have now is still much too dangerous."

He was still ready to protest and argue.

"Look. I couldn't stand by and let you or that boy die when I had the means to save you. It's obviously backfired on me here because, you were right, your body contains enough evidence to prove that something was done to you. But I'd like to ask you to stop and think about it for a moment. Think about it overnight if you'd like. What could you do with controlled nanites? And I'm not talking about curing cancer or disease. Try to come up with the worst possible things you could do with it.