Chapter 10

"Zeus? You said you wanted to wake up at 0200." Io's voice was quiet in the darkness, but it was loud enough to bring me to wakefulness. "I think we are all still here, so let us drive home now."

"Io, can you still hear Martinez? Or was that another figment of my imagination?"

"I do not know, Zeus. I have not heard from him in 2 hours and 4 minutes. Correction. I have not heard from him in about 2 hours."

"He said he wanted to sleep, so I've been quiet. Can you hear me, Io?"

"5 by 5, Master Chief," she said.

"Where did that come from? And how do you know he's a Master Chief?" This was getting crazier by the minute. Now she can read minds?

"5 by 5 is accepted military slang, according to Wikipedia. As for knowing Martinez' rank ... you told me. Plus your whole unit received a commendation on the day he was killed; that information is also on the internet. Taking into account the fact that you would not trust a person to come along on this expedition, I have had two hours to puzzle out that he is a disembodied spirit, residing in your brain, and a former member of your SEAL team. Two hours is a lot of time for me. The phenomenon is described in several works of science fiction, dating back more than thirty years. I have noticed that science fiction that is more than two decades old often becomes science fact. There are numerous examples."

Unbelievable.

"Io." I'd make one more try then. "Do you have any way to demonstrate that your story is true?"

"No," she said. "No more than you have any way to prove that Martinez is more than a trick of your mind." That was an honest answer, I didn't really expect any proof, but a faker would have a better answer prepared. "I, however, believe that the Master Chief is real. I do not know how he can communicate with me. But you, Zeus, cannot communicate directly with me, you must use speech – and speech only in the H2 – or by sending text. His comments simply appear in my input buffer here in the car. I cannot sense him from any other computer. Perhaps if he were close enough to a computer that I was occupying, it would be different. But then again, he is close to an electronic time piece – the car has one, as does the computer in the H2 – and yet he cannot tell time. Perhaps there is something unusual in the electronics of the H2 that makes it possible. That will bear a more detailed investigation at some point. You will have to be very careful when you modify the electronics."

"All right. All right. I believe all of it. Nobody else will, but I do ... Wait, did you say I was going to modify the electronics? I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no electronics." I paused to think about what to do next.

Io was puzzled. It was good that I could still present puzzling situations, it gave me a sense of purpose. "I did not mean to imply that you were going to give birth to electronics. That is not possible."

"Io," I was laughing now. "Go watch a digitized version of Gone With the Wind. Butterfly McQueen, a black woman in this Civil War era movie, is asked to deliver a baby, and she says 'I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies.' I was referencing that."

"Starting a separate process to scan that movie, although I think I will miss some of the impact of a 'movie', since I cannot see it." She sounded a bit sad.

"I think we should all go home." Leave it to the M.C. to get us back on track. "There are several hours of driving that need to be done. And Io must be a raw rookie at driving."

"OK. But some rules. Let's keep the chatter down. It gives me a headache to think about what's going on here."

"I do not anticipate very much interaction with either of you," Io said. "I will, after all, be alone in this vehicle."

"I forgot about that. But OK. Let's drive." I got back in the Chevy, and paused to finger the plate in my skull. "Chief?"

"Present."

"Just checking."

"Cut it out, L.T. I ain't going nowhere. I'm as mystified that I can talk directly to a computer as you are. And she is the real stuff. Everything she told you is true."

"I know. That's the amazing part."

"And here I thought I was the amazing part."

You are M.C. You are, I thought to myself/him. The Chevy fired right up and I bounced back toward the road. I checked the mirror and saw the H2 following along. When we got on the road, I noticed that her steering was a bit erratic. She'd go in a straight line for just a bit too long. And curves tended to be downright dangerous – they tended to be a series of short, straight lines – not curved driving at all.

At one point, about half way home, she pulled into a parking lot of a hardware store, and turned off her lights. I made a quick U-turn and did likewise. About fifteen minutes later, a police cruiser came roaring down the road, doing about 80, with his light bar going crazy. Five minutes later we were back on the road, doing our sedate 25 mph. I guess she was correct in her claim to be able to predict police presence. If she's really an AI, I guess she'd always be accurate.

"She's not an AI, L.T. Not 'artificial.' Just a regular intelligence, not found in a human brain, that's all."

Oh. 'That's all, ' huh? A fuckin' miracle is what she is.

Eventually, we got to the new house in Austin's suburbs. The street outside my house was wet – guess I'd have to look at the sprinkler system and see how it was set up. I pushed the button and opened the garage door – another item for my 'to do' list: get another controller for the garage door. The garage hadn't had time to accumulate the volume of junk that would turn it from a two-car garage into a one-car-plus-storage space. We pulled in about 0430.

I reentered the H2, and spoke to Io. "I have some comments about your driving, but that will keep for now. I'm going to lock this beast up. I think we all need some sleep."

"Speak for yourself, Zeus. I do not sleep, but I have other things to do. Good night."

Of course, she wouldn't sleep. Who was I talking to anyway? This version of Io 'lived' in the H2. Did she have other versions? Or were they all the same? I'm more muddled than usual – and too tired to do all my security stuff. "Martinez?"

"Yo!"

"Any chance of us getting unwanted visitors tonight? What do you think?"

"Honestly, I don't think so. But then I didn't get any vibe in Shreveport either. I don't get to specify what I see coming down the road. It just happens."

"Right. Guess I'll have to fire up an internet connection." About five minutes later, I was on with Io again.

Her: "Hello again, Zeus."

Me: "Can you tell if 5225 is going to come calling tonight?"

Her: "If I had anything like that kind of information, I would have told you immediately. The email trap that I have established has been quiet. They seem to be tracking some terrorists on the West Coast of the United States."

Me: "OK. Thanks anyway, Io. I guess I'm too tired to think straight. I know you'd alert me right away. I'm going to leave the phone on tonight."

Her: "I scanned Gone With The Wind, and that lead me to some disturbing reading. I want to know more of the connotative reasons for slavery as opposed to the denotative reasons. We will discuss that at a later time."

Me: "Whatever. I'm just tired. Go read about the ancient Romans and then modern day slavery. It'll be in the non-fiction parts of the library."

I went into the bedroom and flopped on the bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. Sonny just changed mode from 'sleeping in the car' to 'sleeping on the rug in the living room.'

By noon the next day, I was sufficiently untired that I could function again. After a shower and new clothes, I was ready to face the world again. Food was first on my list, there was nothing in the house, and I didn't know where a good hole in the wall eatery was. Sonny was all set though, he liked the fancy dog food from the 'Hay-S-P-C-Hay'. It was back in the car again ... sigh.

Sonny and I opened the garage door from inside the Chevy, but to be honest, Sonny didn't help much. There was that androgynous girl again, standing in the middle of my driveway. She was in black again, wearing a t-shirt that said 'Must be this tall to ride' with a line over the place where her breasts would have been if she'd had any. It had a ripped neck – looked to be ripped on purpose – and the neck-hole was big enough to have slid over her left shoulder, revealing that she wore an undershirt, or something, also black. At about 5'9", the t-shirt almost reached her black jeans. She was sipping something from a can.

I sat a while looking at the rear view mirror. She stared back. I tried waving her off the driveway. She waved back.

I got out of the car. I didn't need this kind of aggravation. "You're in the way." As an opening salvo, I thought it was pretty accurate.

"You wouldn't have stopped if I wasn't?" It wasn't a question, but her voice made it sound like one. The can she was sipping on was hard-lemonade.

"No school today?"

"On Saturday?" She laughed. "And how old do you think I am anyway?"

"Are your parents home yet?"

"16 maybe?"

"Look, Art," maybe 'reasonable' would work, if 'adult attitude' wouldn't. "If we both just ask questions, nobody is going to get anywhere. I'll answer if you'll do the same."

She smiled around the straw that she was sipping through, and nodded. "How old do you think I am?"

"16 or 17. Are your parents home?"

"Wrong by six," she said. "No parents any more. They died when I was 14. I always lie about them coming home. You gonna take advantage of a woman living alone?" Her hand went into her pocket, when it came out she had fisted a small spray can.

"Hey, cut the attitude. You started this. You are the one blocking my driveway. Trespassing by the way." What was going on here? "Why did you do that, by the way? And do you think I look like a molester?"

"That's two questions," she took another sip on her hard lemonade. "That's cheating. I stopped you to see who your girlfriend – or whatever – was. Molester?" She issued a short, derisive snort. "I was more worried about a rapist. And they don't have a 'look'. Sure, you look like a possible rapist, so does every male I meet. I think I've read somewhere that human males think about sex every three seconds or so."

"Well, I'm not a rapist. I just want to back out of my own driveway, so I can get some food and find a supermarket."

She gave me a semi-hostile look. At least it wasn't completely hostile. "You'll get lost."

"That's not a question. Now you're cheating," I smiled back at her. "Why are you standing there?"

"Because I want to meet your girlfriend. No wedding ring so it's not a wife. And because you're the only other person living on this cul-de-sac. All the other houses are bank-owned. So where is she?" Another pull on the canned lemonade.

"What makes you think there's a girlfriend?"

"Simple." She turned and fired the now empty can back toward her house. It took a skip and then hit the garage door; she didn't throw 'like a girl.' "You pull out last night before dusk. You pull in here sometime in the night... " she pointed at the two sets of tire tracks that had splashed through the large puddle at the edge of the driveway " ... with two cars. Nobody can drive two cars. And you don't look gay."

"Gay has a certain look?"

"Well, you're not a drag queen for sure." She started walking into the garage, she patted the Hummer. "Nice tank. Did you get the option for the gun turret? How come you're taking the beater..." she waved dismissively at the Chevy " ... and leaving this in the garage?"

"Are we done here? I have some shopping to do." Enough of this.