Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 18

December 14, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Eugene leaped for the door as the thing that had once been Lawrence McKenna tore the room apart. Its jerky movements were wickedly fast but totally out of control, he could tell it was only standing because of the gyros that it was equipped with. Something had gone wrong with the data routing or else their audio and visual inputs weren’t coded properly. Either that or he was simply insane or brain damaged from his time in the coma.

“Shut him down, SHUT HIM DOWN!” Seraphim was yelling. “Take the whole room down!” The lights all cut out and Eugene felt as well as heard the titanium chassis hit the floor. For a moment all was dark and the silence after the mayhem was deafening.

Emergency lighting flickered on and Eugene could see the chaos again. Pieces of equipment had been smashed, half of the halogen lights were broken, the reinforced stainless steel table was bent into a pretzel and the black metal body of the monster that had wrought such destruction lay face down on the floor, its hand mere inches from Seraphim’s foot.

“What happened to him? Why couldn’t he hear me?” Seraphim was looking at one of her technicians who was cowering in a corner. She moved to an intercom on the wall and jumped back as it emitted a crackle of electricity that arced to her hand. Shaking her hand she pulled a radio from her belt, “Give me a damage report and someone tell me what the FUCK happened in here!”

Eugene saw his laptop sitting on the floor where it had fallen when the monster tore free. He cautiously approached, keeping a wary eye on the machine. “If I can pull data from the prosthetic’s AI maybe I can figure out why he went berserk. I hope my laptop isn’t thrashed.” He picked it up and saw the screen was fractured in the upper right corner, bleeding liquid crystals into the surrounding area but otherwise whole.

“You do that Eugene. You do that while I watch. My poor baby is sitting down there blind, deaf and dumb he must be panicking!” Seraphim said as that nasty looking knife appeared in her hand again. Eugene was pretty sure she had it up her sleeve.

He plugged into the diagnostics port and looked at the output. “Look here, this is very strange.” He was pointing to a portion of the log file, “I’m not seeing any input on the audio or visual devices. Here you can see the audio output but something’s not right with the inputs. It makes sense that he wouldn’t have any control over the body, most of that control is based on your senses right?”

Seraphim nodded slowly and he continued, “I’m not sure what kind of sensory devices are hooked up for a sense of touch but I don’t see those as having any data to transfer either. It’s possible something’s not hooked up properly or else the designers didn’t isolate the frequencies. A.D.A.M. performs data routing based on the specific nerve frequency each nerve emits. It can easily find the endings in the brain stem and trace those signals back to their destination because every nerve pulse is a two way street. If the designers of this device didn’t ensure they had the frequencies the brain was already using for data routing there’s no way my AI can properly route the data.”

“We can’t risk turning him on again to troubleshoot. He almost destroyed the Misery with his growing pains.” In spite of the distress Eugene could hear pride in her voice. She was fucking nuts.

“I can activate the immobilizer on the prosthetic. It’s intended to lock down a person’s movements so they don’t injure themselves when the grafts are still young. I didn’t think it would be necessary because his body isn’t flesh but I didn’t take into account him going berserk.” Eugene carefully approached the machine and removed two rubber plugs, one on either side of the base of the skull. He pushed the two buttons underneath and held them for fifteen seconds. The immobilizer moved into place with a satisfying pair of clicks.

“OK you can turn him back on. He will be able to do everything except for move.” He stepped back from the machine and noticed for the first time the backs of the legs were hollow as were two very large sections on the back. “What are these for?”

“Those are for his autonomous power packs. It’s a relief we didn’t have time to fully charge him, right now he’s on cabled power. If he hadn’t been plugged in still we wouldn’t have been able to stop his rampage.” One of the technicians indicated a thick umbilicus that was running from the right leg back to one of the few pieces of equipment that had avoided being crushed.

“Can you get me the frequencies his brain is using for the sensory devices?” The tech was now moving back to the machine the cable was attached to. “If this thing hasn’t been damaged too badly I should be able to modify the output and we can get him up and running.”

“Yeah, sure.” Eugene saved the log file locally and brought his laptop over the tech.

“Well Dr. Arlington, if you’re correct this should do it.” The tech clicked a couple of keys and the metal monster on the floor hummed to life.

“Shit, are you sure that’s a good idea?” One of the other techs took a couple of steps back from it.

“Don’t worry, he can’t move right now. The prosthetic’s safety override has been engaged.” Eugene said, the scientist in him was now curious as to what would happen.

“Darling, can you hear me?” Seraphim approached the monstrosity that had been her husband.

“Angel? Is that really you? This isn’t another delusion? I can’t move my love, I’m paralyzed.” His voice sounded different from before, more calm.

“Let me fix that for you my sweet. You have been immobilized for your and ours but I can see that you are no threat.” She leaned down and pressed on the switches she had seen Eugene touch. The construct twitched, then rolled over to a sitting position.

“What have you done to me Seraphim? Why am I like this?” He held up a metal hand.

“For revenge my love.” She purred, “There isn’t a force on the Earth who can stand against us now.”

“Revenge? As I seem to recall, a dish best served cold.” His hand reached out towards her and she leaned in for his caress. He cupped her face in his hand gently. “That’s not like you at all; you were always so full of fire and temper.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of time for that.” Her voice dropped low and husky, “More than enough time for death and destruction, the plans have been made and the groundwork is all finished. All we are waiting for is your command and we shall rain fire down upon our enemies.” Seraphim ran her hand down his mechanical arm and closed her eyes.

“My Angel, how could I survive without you?” Her head still rested in his massive titanium palm, “We will CRUSH them.” His hands tightened into fists reflexively, smashing Seraphim’s head like a grape.

“Angel?” Farlan’s voice trembled, “My darling?” He looked down at the broken form at his feet. “What is this? No no no no no it’s happening again, it’s the dream again the dream it must be the dream.” His head turned, seeming to take in the room for the first time. His gaze fell upon Eugene, “Is this a dream?”

One of the technicians in the room managed to recover from the shock of the situation and carefully reached towards the thick umbilicus that connected the machine to its power source. Just before his hand touched the plug the machine’s head cocked to one side as though listening, and then sprang on the unfortunate man, crushing him underfoot.

“He says you are the enemy. He says you are trying to turn us off. I don’t understand this dream; I am letting CAS handle it.” A flash on the screen in front of him caused Eugene to look down. The readout on the monitor next to his laptop had a warning in red.

‘Warning, emergency self-defense protocol engaged. Manual override failed.’

The man next to him looked into Eugene’s eyes, fear plain on his face. “We built a copy of your AI into the chassis to help control it, a Chassis Automation System. It has changed the access codes on its own. I’m locked out.”

A blur of motion passed between the two men and the tech exploded. Farlan raised his gore-covered hand, looking at it curiously.

Eugene’s legs failed him and he crumpled to the floor, accidentally saving his life as the thing’s hand seemed to materialize in the space he had just vacated. All he could do was gape in horror until a flickering motion caught his eye. When he glanced at it his heart almost stopped. He was certain he had just caught a glimpse of Victoria through the thick glass that looked out into the hallway.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 17

December 7, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

A.D.A.M.

Adam’s systems kicked into high alert mode. He was getting better at receiving messages from Victoria directly and now that he had made the T.R.A.P. program he had a way of talking back. First he let her know she was not alone and he was ready, then he sent Kai Yuen-Ja a message relaying the situation and requesting her assistance in any capacity. This was not a situation in which he wanted to be underprepared.

He tested all of the Host’s systems, making sure there were no issues that needed to be addressed before they departed, and then threw himself into finding out everything he could about the mission at hand. Data about the individuals involved was sparse and unreliable so instead he pulled data about similar groups, their mode of operating and general information about their projected armaments.

Using what he was able to get from the Department of Defense’s archives and various terrorist recruiting websites and manifestos he fashioned a few basic reaction protocol. He was able to find a real prize; the blueprints of the ship known as Misery and made sure to route this information to a readily available schema for Victoria to access.

While he was injecting the proper attack and defense protocol into various parts of his Host’s brain, Adam came across an entry about her father. The term ‘absolute defense’ was connected to him and out of curiosity he did a search for it online with ‘Scott’ as a search parameter. A few thousand relevant hits were returned, including a few hundred videos.

Adam opened the first page and found it to be a martial arts expert dissecting the technique used by “Richard Scott” who apparently was the Lightweight mixed martial arts fighting national champion from 1990 to 1995. He was the only title holder in the history of the sport to have stepped down without suffering one single loss.

When he opened one of the video files he saw it was a recording of a fight. Based on the body type and facial patterns he recognized Victoria’s father as one of the men in a room with a raised center. (Ring or fighting arena according to the Host’s memory banks). It was apparently some sort of fighting contest. Richard’s opponent ran across the ring and unleashed a flurry of blows, each one deftly deflected with an efficient motion of his arms or dodged by a slight movement of his body.

Richard Scott fought like a machine. His motions were perfect, he was able to analyze his opponent’s motions and use what he saw to his advantage. After defending for seventy five seconds he struck one blow, a snap kick to the jaw, and felled his adversary. It was pure systematic beauty.

Adam worked on injecting her father’s fighting style into her subconscious. He had figured this out while teaching Victoria how to speak Mandarin. At first he had been awkwardly translating for her, overlaying the meanings of the words directly into her conscious mind as she was hearing them but then he started to see how to link an English word to a Mandarin one based on what her processing and storage protocol behaved.

Of course now he had created new schema with better retrieval algorithms. After all, learning something mostly distilled down to remembering it and data storage and retrieval was what Adam did best. It was a little more difficult to change muscle memory but after she used what he was teaching her a once or twice it would come to her easily. The Host’s chassis (body) was remarkably adaptable.

Eugene

Eugene and Shinji had been talking for about five or six hours. The man was a genius, a mechanical engineer who had quickly tired of designing bridges although he still had a passion for the mechanics of the ones he had designed.

“It’s steel spring torsion Eugene. Once you exceed the metal fatigue strength of cable, it is useless but if you can constantly keep it just below that point and then bombard it with microwave radiation the molecules align and the strength of the cable increases dramatically.” Shinji was sketching directly on the table top with a marker from his shirt pocket.

“After I discovered this phenomenon it was a paradigm shift for bridge design. High-tension suspension bridges became a totally different animal, spans were longer and the shapes became works of art.” He smiled.

“How have you applied your bridge design experience to your robotic engineering projects? I’m not quite seeing the connection between the two.” Eugene was fishing for whatever information he could get about the ‘chassis’ that Shinji had helped build.

“Ahh, that’s where it gets interesting, when you put the same stress and pressure on titanium instead of getting stronger it gets elastic.” Shinji’s eyes were bright with excitement, “The most durable metal on the planet suddenly becomes as a piece of shock cord with a thousand fold strength increase. Instead of using nano-muscle fibers like you have in your prosthetic spinal column we have used elasticized titanium cables.

“The entire system is always under enormous tension and in order to move the components we use cams with sharp lobes. The amount of pressure we can release is astronomical and since it is all potential energy it can be released in an instant. That’s where we kept running into problems, the entire thing had to be made from materials built to withstand those forces and that meant we had to eliminate as much organic material as possible.”

Here Shinji paused and blew out a long breath, “Unfortunately Seraphim took it a step further and removed all of it except for the brain. I’m just not sure how he will handle it; the man was supposedly mentally unstable before the accident and I shudder to think what waking up as a titanium monster will do to him.”

The door slammed open without warning and a pair of guards entered in front of an enraged Seraphim.

“What did you do to him Eugene? What did you do?” She demanded, “When we connected everything and turned it on nothing happened. Nothing at all. Why isn’t he waking up?”

“I tried to tell you this device is intended to maintain existing function, not introduce new ones. He was in a natural coma and it’s difficult to know what an organic brain will do when connected to an inorganic one.” Eugene said, trying to speak calmly. “Do you have the log files? If not get them for me and I will see what is happening.”

“No, you are coming with me right now. You have exactly one hour to bring him back to consciousness or else I will resort to drastic measures.” A knife with a wicked edge seemed to appear in her hand, “Do we have an understanding?”

Eugene swallowed hard, “Yeah, I read you loud and clear.” Shit the protocols he had tested must not be working as designed.

“Your laptop has already been brought to the operating theater.” She turned to go and the two men with her gestured for him to go first.

“Good luck Eugene.” Shinji said as he followed Seraphim’s trail of lilac perfume.

“Thanks Shinji, we’ll have another drink when I get the details ironed out.” Eugene said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

It only took a couple of minutes to get to another airlock that gave access to a brightly lit high tech operating room. A figure was splayed out on a heavy duty table, and while it was the size and general shape of a human being it was constructed completely of black anodized titanium. Eugene could see his prosthetic had been attached to the unit, the titanium vertebra welded directly to what amounted to a metal ribcage. The unit was half sleeved in a layer of Kevlar that must contain the Neurosynth fluid required for its operation.

He powered his laptop on and plugged it into the diagnostic port. The stream of data was massive; failures of multiple systems ran rampant throughout his code. He downloaded the latest copy of the firmware and looked at it in astonishment.

“Who modified the OS of this device? Someone input foreign code and it has completely hosed the system!” He pulled up Windiff and compared the two pieces of software, “See here, here and here, someone has changed the base operating system. The power up commands are jacked, the response protocol have been cranked to unsafe levels and the data routing system is riddled with bugs! You can’t pin this shit on me; one of your techs must have decided to have some fun.”

“Do not change that.” A man in a lab coat had come up from behind him and was looking over his shoulder. “We had to make some changes due to this body not being a human one. It reacts much faster than a flesh and blood body and without those modifications he would move as though stuck in a vat of molasses.”

“Hey, I don’t give a shit if he moves slowly or not. Seraphim ordered me to wake him up or she will remove pieces of my anatomy that I would prefer remain intact. You can fuck with the code all you want after that jackass.” Eugene moved to upload his version of the OS and the other man pulled a gun on him.

“Stand down Phillip; if Eugene is wrong about this I will let you shoot him. If he’s correct you can change things later.” Seraphim was standing across the room with her arms folded.

“My AI is truly an artificial intelligence. It learns and adapts. You shouldn’t have any problems after it has been running for an hour or so.” Eugene clicked a few keys and watched the status bar on the upload. After a few tense minutes, he checked the install, found it to be stable and sent the power up command.

A high-pitched whine emanated from the metal body; gyroscopic stabilizers if Eugene’s guess was correct and the chassis began to move. A series of harsh metallic clicks came from the machine’s joints and then the head moved.

“Angel? Are you there Angel?” The voice of the machine was a rich deep bass, amplified by the shape of the thing’s head. “I can’t see anything. Where am I?”

“Darling!” Seraphim was beside the metal monster in an instant, “I’m here and you’re alive again! I thought I’d lost you forever. Be careful my love, you have been reborn into something more beautiful and terrible than you were before.”

“ANGEEELLLLL!” The machine screamed, thrashing on the table. The restraints did not tear, but the table buckled and the bolts holding the cuffs to the table snapped with a sound like gunshots. Seraphim jumped back from the table, fear in her eyes.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 16

November 30, 2015November 30, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Victoria

Victoria woke up to her cellphone ringing at 1:30AM on Monday morning. She fumbled for it without opening her eyes, finally getting it to her ear. “What?”

“Miss Scott?” The voice on the other end was female and somewhat familiar.

“Who the hell is this?” She grumbled irritably, “It’s one thirty in the morning.”

“It’s actually one thirty five. This is Lieutenant Caarlgard Miss Scott. We have a problem.”

“What couldn’t wait until a reasonable hour?” Victoria mumbled, trying to decide whether or not to hang up on the bitch.

“It’s about Dr. Arlington.” The Lieutenant said, “He’s been kidnapped.”

“Yeah, by some nutjob who calls herself Seraphim.” Victoria muttered, “Owns a boat called the Misery. Bought a bunch of robotics lab equipment. I’m trying to find her right now, anything else or can I get a couple more hours of sleep before I have to get up for school.”

There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line. “Why didn’t you report this to us?”

“I don’t recall being in the US military.” Victoria said, “What reason would I have to report the happenings of the world to you? Don’t you have intelligence agencies for that purpose?

“I seem to remember as part of the agreement you made with us to secure the safety and citizenship of your friend Kai Yuen-Ja you agreed to furnish us with information that could be of importance to national security.”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know this would be a national security matter?” It was too early in the morning for Victoria to be awake and she couldn’t stand the Lieutenant.

Evidently the feeling was mutual because Caarlgard lost it and started shouting into the phone, “Damn it you may have killed him you stupid little girl! Angel McKenna, Seraphim’s real name, is the wife of a known terrorist. Farlan McKenna is, or was a very powerful leader of a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army. They were in negotiations with some other organization we have as of yet not been able to track down.

“Just over nine months ago he had a meeting with this shadow organization to purchase some sort of chemical weapon they called Dirge. We don’t know exactly what it is but we do know something went wrong with the deal and it ended up in a high speed chase that ended in a crash that left him paralyzed and in a coma.

“Only a couple of months later Angel began buying and bribing when she could, stealing and abducting when she couldn’t until she had amassed a team of doctors, scientists and specialized laboratory equipment for some unknown purpose. Only when we received word she had taken Dr. Arlington did we finally realize what she was doing. She’s trying to bring him back, but as what we still do not know. To save your friend and to bring this terrorist to justice we require whatever services you can bring to bear.”

Victoria was humbled by this tirade. “I don’t know what use I’ll be but I will do what I can. You have my word on that.”

“Just like that?” The Lieutenant didn’t sound convinced.

“When I’m presented with a logical choice based on facts the decision is always easy.” Victoria said, “What do you need from me? I assume you have a task for me or else you wouldn’t be calling.”

“Eugene trusts you but I can’t say the same about any of us, for whatever reason he has a chip on his shoulder about the military. We believe we know where the Misery is anchored right now and we think Eugene is still on board. When our team gets there you need to be with them to convince Dr. Arlington to come with them. We leave at 0300 hours. Someone will be there to pick you up in thirty five minutes.”

“Wait a minute; you want me to infiltrate a boat owned by a terrorist with a Special Forces team?” Victoria couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you NUTS? I don’t have that kind of training! I’d at least compromise the mission if not get us all killed!”

“Actually Miss Scott, your prosthetic has a built in set of military protocols.” She said, “You already have exactly the training you need. I’m sure the mercenary strike force from Blackwater that you dispatched when you were in Vegas would attest to that.”

“You know about that?” Victoria asked, not bothering to hide her surprise.

“Of course we do.” The Lieutenant said smoothly, “We know a lot about you Miss Scott, you are a very valuable investment.”

Victoria immediately thought of Dmitri. Oh shit, he was going to be pissed if she did this without getting ahold of him first. “Can you make it forty minutes? I have some things to take care of.”

“All of your needs will be provided for. Don’t worry about that.”

“What about my parents?” Victoria asked, “What am I going to tell them? I can’t exactly leave a note, ‘Hi guys, I’m participating in a Special Forces raid on a terrorist’s yacht! I’ll try to be home by dinner!’ now can I Lieutenant?”

“You should tell them nothing. You shouldn’t tell anyone anything about this at all, doing so will put the mission and all of our lives in jeopardy.” Lieutenant Caarlgard said, “Someone will stop by later to tell your parents that you haven’t been taken against your will.”

“Lieutenant, wait, what’s your first name? I feel silly calling you Lieutenant all the time.” Victoria said.

“It’s Kate.”

“Kate, I will be the worst daughter in the history of the universe if I don’t do something more than that.” Victoria took a deep breath and sat up, “My mom worries when I am ten minutes late getting home from school, this will give her a heart attack.”

“You have to understand, telling her the truth will probably be much worse than anything she could think up and a secret is only safe with two people when one of them is dead.” Said Kate, “I can’t be more clear on this, you will endanger us all if you tell anyone, even your parents or your adopted sister.”

“Fine. I’m going to get dressed here, I’ll see you in thirty one and a half minutes.” Hanging up she immediately took Dmitri’s business card from her dresser and dialed the number. He picked up on the first ring.

“Victoria. What can I do for you?” Dmitri’s voice was calm and collected on the other end, almost as though he had expected her to call at this exact moment.

“Hi Dmitri, sorry to call so early in the morning but I need your help.” She said, not bothering with any pleasantries.

“Do not be ridiculous Victoria, I told you to call me if you needed anything and I do not give my card to just anyone.” He said, and she could hear the click of a zippo lighter in the background. “I am at your disposal, what do you require?”

“Eugene has been taken by some terrorist organization, he is being held on a ship and the military has recruited me to help. I don’t trust them, the last time I did they infected Adam with a virus that almost killed us.” She took a deep breath, “Can you track me somehow so that in the event they fuck it all up I have someone who can bail me out? I don’t know where the hell the boat is or I’d just tell you.”

“Victoria, you may absolutely count on my assistance and tracking you will be a simple matter. Take the microchip pendant I gave you and twist it until you hear it click. I have implanted it with an ultra-low frequency transmitter for exactly this sort of emergency situation.” Dmitri said, “I will be ready to extract you at a moment’s notice. To signal distress, simply twist, hit or otherwise subject it directly to shock twice in rapid succession.”

“Thank you Dmitri, I’ll feel better knowing you are there to help if shit goes south.” She said, “Sorry to cut this short, but I gotta go and get ready they’ll be here in twenty nine minutes.”

“Think nothing of it Victoria.” He hung up and she got out of bed. She chose her most comfortable pair of shoes, a pair of dark blue canvas pants that would give her room to move easily, a sports bra and Underarmor workout shirt. After a quick shower she felt almost ready, although for what she really had no idea.

“Adam, if you can hear me listen up. We are going to do something stupid and dangerous to help Eugene out and if we’re going to survive I will need your help in a serious way. I know these military idiots think they have you pegged but they don’t know anything about who you really are. If they try to inject you with any more software I’m getting the hell out but Kate seems to think you have it built in. I hope you’re getting this and I hope you can still do whatever it is you do to help us survive when we shouldn’t be able to get out alive.”

There was no way to know if he heard her or not, but she decided he had. Even if he hadn’t she was confident in his ability to respond instantaneously to a stressful situation. He hadn’t hesitated to in the past and this was sure to be the craziest they’d been through to date. Her vision flickered for a moment and bright orange text ran across her vision.

“I am here and ready. We will get the Creator back.”

So Adam really was there. He really could hear her. He could understand what she wanted. Victoria shivered, unsure if she was pleased to know he was there and aware of her or not.

She was thankful for Dmitri’s help too, regardless of what help he had to offer, he seemed to think he was fucking James Bond or something. Well, as to that he did provide her with a strange tracking device so maybe he was a spy or something.

She picked up the pendant he had given her and twisted it between her fingers. There was a sharp click and nothing else. It only took a moment to activate her data tracking software and she could see a steady heartbeat signal just on the edge of vision. She isolated the frequency, encapsulated it for transport and sent it to Yuen-Ja with a short message.

“Hey sis, I don’t want to wake you but you need to follow this signal on your GPS tracking program. I’m heading out with a strike unit to rescue Eugene and I’m pretty sure shit’s going to go down hard. Dmitri is going to be watching this signal too, and somehow thinks he is going to be ready to extract me if need be, he’s rich maybe he has a helicopter or something. As soon as I know where the Misery is I will send you a text. Let me know when you’re online and if you have any trouble with this signal. Don’t tell anyone I’ve contacted you, even David is off limits. Love you! –V”

Feeling as prepared as she could be now so Victoria grabbed her phone and stealthily made her way down to the front steps to wait for Kate to pick her up. She didn’t have to wait long.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing Chapter 15

November 24, 2015November 24, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

The airlock opened and Eugene walked through it, carrying his laptop and cup of coffee. The ultrasonic sterilizer ran again before he was allowed to exit, leaving him woozy and disoriented. Strange that it would run on exit as well as entry. The guard on the other side walked him to another room. A bottle of vodka sat in a bucket ice on a small refrigerator full of mixers. An unopened pack of cigarettes sat on the table next to an expensive looking torch lighter. Fucking hell, crazy bitch though she might be, Seraphim knew him well.

Mixing himself a vodka sour, Eugene grabbed the smokes and pocketed the lighter. His new prison was far nicer than the old one had been, everything plush and comfortable. Sunlight streamed through the windows which spanned floor to ceiling all the way down one side. Wandering over to the windows he could see they could all be slid to one side, exposing a narrow private deck on the side of the ship.

To his surprise the windows were not locked. He slid one open and walked out on the deck, lighting a cigarette. He had two more surprises, first being that the boat was anchored within a mile of a small tropical looking island. It was inhabited too, at least he could see the white walls of a modern looking house perched on a modestly high cliff overlooking the cove the ship had stopped in.

The second was the smoke from the cigarette tasted like exotic spices and smelled like frankincense and myrrh. He looked at the pack, it was silver with a monogrammed M on it but had no other label. Shrugging, Eugene took a satisfied sip of his drink and noticed the glass had the same stylized M etched onto it.

“So right now a man I don’t know is undergoing a surgery that I’m not involved in the success of which will determine whether I live or die.” He took a deep drag on the strange cigarette and blew a series of smoke rings out over the water.

“Sounds interesting.” A voice came from beyond the wall he was leaning against and Eugene nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” Eugene said, trying to lean out to see around the wall. “Who’s there?”

“Just a fellow shipmate, what did Seraphim get you for?”

Eugene was pretty sure it was a man, although the Japanese accent made it difficult to be sure. “I’m a doctor and a scientist. My name’s Eugene Arlington.”

“Oh, I did not know you were now my neighbor.” The man said, sounding impressed. “I am sorry for your trouble, but she has been talking about it for almost a year now. I’m a robotics developer, Takahashi Shinji.”

“You’ve been her captive for over a year and nobody has found you?” Eugene asked, disbelief clear in his tone of voice.

“Oh no, don’t get the wrong idea. I am her employee not her prisoner. We have been working to build her husband’s chassis for the last thirty two months.” Shinji said. “It is going to change the world forever and your prosthetic is the final piece of equipment we need to bring it to life.”

“What do you mean his chassis?” Eugene is worried now, “What the hell are you talking about?” He heard Shinji sigh on the other side of the wall.

“I was afraid she was going to do this, I told her not to keep information from you but she went and did it anyway.” Shinji said, “Oh to hell with it, I’m going to just tell you. When her husband did not wake from his coma, she immediately kidnapped the most skilled neurosurgeons she could find. Using technology she herself had invented they removed his brain and kept it in a dormant state.”

“Is that even possible? I guess it is if you say she has done it, I suppose. Maybe a better question is why?” Eugene killed half his drink in one swallow, following it with a deep drag on his cigarette. After four days without it, the nicotine hit him hard and he needed it.

“I guess she convinced herself he was never going to awaken again. Regardless she bribed, threatened, seduced or abducted the talent she needed and has constructed a mechanical body for him to live in. The only thing she couldn’t make work was the spine, she just couldn’t get the brain to transfer the data the way it needed to in order to function properly.”

“Yes, the algorithms necessary are very complicated, I haven’t seen anything like my coding anywhere in the world.” Eugene was smug on this point, “So why did she take me? Why not just steal my data?”

“Honestly she tried. Shortly after your successful implementation she was in your office and stole gigs of data from a terminal right in the hospital room where Miss Scott was recovering. When we tried to duplicate your work we failed over and over. I don’t know what secret key you kept out of the main code but we couldn’t figure it out.” Shinji said, “I’m dying to know what it is.”

Eugene had no clue what he was talking about, “If I tell you I won’t have a damn thing left. I’m sure Seraphim will have figured it out though, she is certain to have had me under constant surveillance.”

“Well regardless, now that she has your prosthetic with its functioning AI in hand her project is sure to be a success.” Shinji said, sounding quite eager.

“I don’t think either of you really know what you’re talking about.” Eugene said, finishing his cigarette and lighting another from the butt before tossing it overboard. “My AI has no directives related to an artificial body. ADAM is designed to maintain a living human’s systems and improve on data routing protocol. Both of you seem to think it is capable of doing a lot of different things, but it is designed to be a front side bus to use a computer analogy.”

“How do you explain Miss Scott’s improved functionality then? Don’t try and tell me you haven’t noticed.” The skepticism in Shinji’s voice was quite clear in spite of the accent.

“Sure I’ve noticed.” Eugene said, “I attribute it to her regaining mobility she had lost. None of the data logs from the system which I monitor every morning have reported anything to the contrary. Do you have a different idea?”

“Yes. The artificial intelligence has become self-aware. Surely you have considered that possibility?” Shinji asked.

Eugene burst out laughing, even though he knew it was true the idea was still enough to drive him into hysterics, “Are you serious? Are we scientists or not? This is reality, not a Sci-Fi novel.”

“I know it seems far-fetched Dr. Arlington, but I think you need to consider the possibility.” Shinji said, “If you look at the data-“

“Oh give me a fucking break. If you’re not going to be serious this conversation is going nowhere.” Eugene finished his second cigarette and his drink. “Listen Mr. Takahashi, I’m going to make another drink, why don’t you come over to my room and we can have a chat. I’ll make you a drink, you can share my weird ass cigarettes and we can bide our time until the results of this freak show come in.”

“That sounds interesting Dr. Arlington.” Said Shinji, “It might get me in trouble but I think I’ll take you up on that. One moment.”

Eugene was turning to go back inside when he heard footsteps behind him. Turning around, he saw a short man with angular features and tidy black hair wearing boot cut jeans and a white tank top standing on the balcony. He put his hand out and Eugene grasped it, surprised to feel calluses.

“Greetings Dr. Arlington.”

“Greetings Mr. Takahashi, please call me Eugene.” He lit a pair of cigarettes and offered his guest one.

“My thanks, Eugene.” He said, taking the cigarette, “In return, please call me Shinji.”

“Deal.” Eugene said with a smile, “Level with me Shinji, how did you get over the wall?”

“Ancient Japanese secret.” His guest replied with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Mix me a drink and I just might tell you.”

Eugene laughed, “Fair enough, come on in.” He walked back to the bar and mixed two more vodka sours, handing one to his companion. “Have a seat, we may be here for a while.”

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 14

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Eugene

“Wake up! I said wake the FUCK UP!” Eugene opened his eyes slowly, attempting to make them focus. It felt like he had been asleep for mere moments but a glance at the wall clock revealed he had been out for almost six hours.

“What the hell is all the noise? Christ I’ve been working for three days with almost no sleep what do you want?”

Seraphim was on the big monitor again and she looked pissed. “The Coast Guard accessed our GPS in order to triangulate our location but instead of following normal protocol they initiated an active trace.”

Eugene still wasn’t awake enough to interpret what she was saying, “Why did you have to wake me up to tell me this shit? Either quit with the word games and tell me what you want or fuck off and let me sleep.”

“It means they are trying to track my ship.” She hissed, “They don’t do that unless they have a damn good reason. What did you do? Send an SOS? I want to know how you got a message out of that room, it’s hardened with only audio and video allowed out.”

“You have got to be kidding me. If you don’t know exactly what I’ve been doing this entire time then you haven’t been paying attention. I built you a machine in three days that took me three years last time I did it. I’ve been working with almost no sleep and astonishing amounts of caffeine to get this thing done and now I just want to sleep before the final checks. Unless you want me to miss something important causing the device to nuke your hubby’s brain stem when we turn it on I suggest you shut the FUCK up and let me get some sleep. I haven’t bothered trying to send any kind of message to anyone.” He closed his eyes again.

There was a momentary pause before she asked in a fevered voice, “It’s done? You’ve finished it?”

“Yeah, I made some improvements too, put some better integration protocols in there based on what I’ve seen from Victoria and a few power limiting shunts too. I want to go over things better before I turn it loose though. Still haven’t powered on the AI for the internal checks. Gotta make sure the code is debugged.” Eugene’s voice trailed off as he drifted into sleep again.

Seraphim watched him for a few moments from the monitor, a variety of emotions flickered across her face finally settling on a grim kind of hope. “He will be returned to me and then it shall be time for vengeance.”

–

Eugene woke, finally feeling like a human being again. Although he knew that technically his nearly four days of imprisonment had freed him from the physical addiction of nicotine he still missed smoking, especially in the morning. Sighing, he stumbled out of bed and made his way to the tiny shower set into the wall across from the food dispensers. It likely was supposed to be a chemical rinse station but had been hastily converted to have hot water instead of whatever cleaning agent it was supposed to sluice parts in.

After a quick shower, he retrieved a banana and a cup of coffee from the machines and walked back into the lab. He powered on his diagnostic tools and ran yet another bug check. This one too came up clean which was strange. He knew he was fallible and had been working under the absolute worst conditions and yet somehow his code was perfect. Running his fingers through his still damp hair, he checked to make sure the power cells of the new unit were fully charged and then ran the power up sequence through the access cable.

Again, everything went nearly perfectly. The operating system booted without a hitch and after a moment’s hesitation the AI began sending recognition signals. Eugene had simulated a brain stem connection and the AI responded as it should, passing information and behaving itself otherwise. When he sent the power down sequence, the AI closed its threads and shut off. All those extra protocols he had added must be working as designed.

Shaking his head he sat back and sipped his coffee, wishing again for a cigarette. Looking at his laptop, Eugene opened the simulator, running a program that imitated a human brain in a coma. At least it was supposed to, who knew exactly how a brain in a coma would really react.

He ran a variety of different simulations and every time the AI failed completely to do anything about the state of the brain. Shit, the fact of the matter was it wasn’t a tool to heal; it was a tool to maintain. If he was going to make it do anything other than that major modifications were going to have to happen. Making Seraphim believe him was going to be the hard part.

On a whim, Eugene introduced one of the advanced problem solving algorithms ADAM had reported using to organize Victoria’s memories. The effects were immediate and absolute. The simulated brain awoke and began rudimentary functions.

“I’ll be damned. That digital bastard is bailing me out again. I wonder if I’m going to be able to pay him back.” Eugene muttered to himself. He set down his coffee cup and raised his voice, “Seraphim, this thing checks out. I’m ready to hand it over to you for implementation.”

“What?” The screen filckered to life on the wall, “Already? You really are a prodigy Dr. Arlington.”

“I only did what I had to in order to survive.” He said, “It seemed in my best interests to get this shit done as quickly as possible. Can you let me go now?”

Seraphim laughed, “Oh Eugene, you really are a silly bastard. You can go once the surgery is complete and my dear sweet darling is returned to me. Until then, I will at least let you retire to more comfortable quarters.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to have me be involved in the surgical procedures? I might be able to be of assistance. After all, I’m the only one on this boat who has done this before.”

“So naïve, did you really thing I would try to do this with unskilled amateurs? It was hard to get you but it was child’s play to get the rest of your team.” The truth that rang in her voice cut deeper than any sarcasm or derision she added on top. “Now run along Eugene. The work is done, now you can relax and wait for your work to bear fruit. If it doesn’t you will be the first to know.”

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 13

November 10, 2015November 10, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

When she got downstairs, only fifteen minutes late, she was not surprised to find David sitting in the living room looking decidedly more awkward than he had the night before. Both her parents were there as well, trying to engage him in some sort of conversation. They, on the other hand, looked a lot more comfortable with David than they had with Dmitri.

Grabbing a leather jacket off its peg in the hallway, Victoria went in to rescue David. “Hi, sorry I’m late. Yuen-Ja and I were working on that problem all day and still didn’t get to the bottom of it. I can’t wait to unwind a little bit, it was totally exhausting.”

Relief and shock washed over David’s face. “You look great!”

“Just my favorite jeans and a comfy shirt.” She grinned at him, knowing she looked fantastic in these jeans, that’s why they were her favorite pair. “Let’s get going, I want to see the previews!”

“Yeah we should go. Thanks for letting me borrow her for the evening.” He shook hands with her father and they walked out together. Victoria saw his car was a 1963 VW Beetle, he couldn’t have been more opposite of Dmitri she thought with a chuckle.

“He might be old but he’s a fun little rig.” David said, sounding a little defensive.

“I love it! He fits you perfectly, a touch nerdy but cute as hell.” She gave him her best smile and watched it take effect.

“Uh yeah.” He hurried to open the door for her, his face coloring in a slight blush.

“You said you did some stuff with robotics?” She asked, sliding into the passenger’s seat, “I’d love to see your work some time.”

“Yes, yeah I do a little bit with robotics.” David looked sideways at her as he started the car. “You really want to see my work?”

“I really do, is there time before the movie starts?” She asked, glancing at her phone.

They were just down the block, and instead of turning right towards the interstate he turned left. “Maybe, I mean if we miss it I won’t be upset.” He gave her a shy smile, “I’m really proud of the piece I’ve just finished actually and was trying to figure out a way to get you to some see it. I think you’ll … I think you’ll like it.”

Victoria looked around, “I guess I don’t know where your house is David.”

“It’s not far, only about a half mile or so. It’s all city streets though so it can take a little time.” David was not paying enough attention to the road for her taste. Maybe it was just a sign of how used to Eugene’s precise attentive driving she was.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be distracting you.” She said, trying to be slightly more tactful than she had been over the last few days.

David noticed he was over the center line and jerked the car back into the proper lane. “My folks aren’t in the country right now. Dad works for American Automation and he’s working on machinery at some mining facility and mom is a pilot for Delta and she’s only home one week a month. I’m not all alone though; my sister is staying at home while she’s going to college so I see her almost every day.”

“Wow, I don’t think I’d do well being that independent already. Or at least I appreciate what my parents do for me right now you know? My mom’s breakfasts are pretty epic.”

“Yeah, I miss them sometimes but it’s nice to have the house more or less to myself. It gives me space to work.” He grinned, “Besides I make companions, after a sort. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.” They rode in silence for a few minutes, Victoria trying not to pay too much attention to his driving style and David seeming to be lost in thought.

David steered the car into a short driveway and into the garage of a massive old house. It was a rambling three story monster with fading paint and windows old enough to be wavy with age. The inside of the garage had old steel signs from gas stations on the walls, a tiled black and white floor and a spotless workshop.

“Here we are, home sweet home.” When he got out of the car the garage door closed behind him with a mechanical hum and recessed lighting in the ceiling flickered into life. A small circular robot moved from a niche in the wall and swept up minor trail of dirt that had come in on the Beetle’s tires.

“Whoa is that one of those things from the Sharper Image? The Rondo or whatever?”

David laughed, “No this one actually works. I call him the Little Butler; he uses lasers to find foreign objects on the floor and sucks them up with the suction power of a full size vacuum. I designed it myself.”

“Right, I should have known. What happens when it finds something too big to pick up?” Victoria watched the machine precisely clear the floor around the car, pause in the center of the floor and slowly spin before moving back to its tiny home.

“If it finds something that doesn’t belong it contacts Grover my garage organizer.” He gestured towards the ceiling at a robotic arm. “Watch.” He picked up a wrench from its cradle on the workbench and tossed it on the floor and touched a button on the wall marked ‘Clean Up’. After a few moments the small bot came out, scanned the room again and the arm on the ceiling swept down, paused over the wrench and then swiftly picked it up and replaced it in the proper location.

“Awesome, how does it work?” Victoria asked, truly entranced.

“Well I input the coordinates of everything on the bench and everything here has a barcode.”

“No, not that I mean the robotics.” She said, “You have some seriously advanced servos in that thing, how much can it lift? Does that thing have access to the entire garage?”

“Yeah, I tend to make quite a mess and I got sick of cleaning up after myself.” He gave her a big smile, “If you like this wait until you see the things I’ve made in high school.”

“Holy shit! When did you design this thing?” Victoria was even more impressed now.

“When I was ten. Come on in, I’ll get you something to drink and show you my latest invention.”

He opened a door in the back of the garage and she followed him down the stairs it revealed. When they got to the bottom he turned on the lights, revealing a workshop that rivaled the lab Eugene worked in.

“So this is my dad’s workshop. Pretty sweet right? I mean I don’t have access to a laser lathe in here but he has almost everything else.” David walked to the back of the room and gestured for Victoria to sit on a bench that looked like it had begun its life as a church pew. There was also a small refrigerator from which he removed a couple of cans of soda.

“I guess rather than trying to explain my latest achievement to you I’ll just show you.” David handed her a Mountain Dew and walked over to a workbench and began fiddling with a box with what looked like two aluminum legs sticking out of the bottom. They were made from a tubular exoskeleton with cabling and a pulley system visible running down the open center.

“I put some gyroscopic stabilizers in the box but once you get the hang of using it you don’t really need them. I really wish I had some different sort of cabling system to use because this one isn’t as efficient as I would like. I can’t put enough tension on them to get the performance I want either, right now they can’t support much more than their own weight which means battery power is pretty limited.” He pulled the legs off the edge of the bench and picked up a remote control from an old R/C plane. The feet were four segmented metal fingers with rubber pads on the bottom and they splayed out on the floor as the machine stood up, wobbling slightly and took a few steps forward.

“That is amazing David, you even made joints for the hips and knees that mimic human ones!” Victoria walked around the machine, watching as it shifted slightly from foot to foot in order to maintain balance.

“Yeah, the feet are the only problematic thing as far as realism is concerned. I wanted it to be something that could be used to be a replacement for people who lost limbs and if it looked too outlandish nobody would want to buy it. If I could just get more cable tension through the feet I could eliminate the need for the gyro’s completely and it wouldn’t have rock side to side when stationary either. As it sits right now the feet aren’t strong enough to pull it back if it gets overbalanced.”

“Can it go up the stairs?” Victoria asked.

“Hell yeah it can!” David steered his invention around the basement, showing her how it could move and turn just like a pair of human legs, but with added benefits. The hip, ankle and knee joints were fully articulated so it could spin completely around on one leg without moving the foot. The feet could grip as well or better than a human hand, making picking things up an easy task. After five minutes or so, the unit lost battery power.

“I am using lithium ion batteries from a couple old laptop computers but they just can’t store the amount of juice this thing draws.” David said, lifting his invention back on to the workbench.

“That’s a setback I’m sure you could overcome, after making something this complex surely it wouldn’t be an engineering impossibility to come up with a better battery cell. You really need to get in touch with the designer of my prosthetic. I think you and Eugene would really hit it off.” She scribbled Eugene’s number down on a random piece of paper and stuck it to a cork board on the wall.

Victoria’s phone rang, interrupting her thought. She rolled her eyes, “It’s my mom, just a sec. Hi mom, what’s up?”

“Oh thank GOD you’re safe! How did you get out? Are you OK?” Her mom was nearly in hysterics.

“Mom, what on earth are you talking about?” Asked Victoria, puzzled.

“The fire in the theater!” Her mom said, “Where are you honey?”

“I went to David’s house first, he is showing me some things he has invented.” She said, “What’s this about a fire?”

David turned on a TV mounted above the workbench and tuned in the local news. It showed a cluster of fire trucks circling the theater they had intended on visiting engulfed in a massive inferno.

“I see it on the news now mom. Boy, we dodged that bullet, it would be hard to survive a fire that size.” This was obviously the wrong thing to say to her mom who burst into tears on the other end of the line.

“We’re OK mom, we aren’t even within ten miles of that place. Calm down, I’ll come home right now.” She hung up, “Sorry David, can you bring me back? My mom’s losing it”

“Yeah, sure.” He was staring at the TV, looking slightly green around the gills. “Shit that could have been us Victoria.”

“But it wasn’t, what’s the big?” She looked at him with her head tilted off to one side, “Every day you make decisions that could be your last. Driving your car to my house and back is probably the most dangerous thing you could do and yet we take that totally for granted. Focusing on what could have happened is only going to make you stay in your room for the rest of your life.”

“That’s a pretty pragmatic attitude for a teenager.” David said, “It’s not like you’re really that old.”

“I’ve had an interesting few months I guess you’d say.” Victoria said, “If I didn’t try to keep looking ahead instead of behind I think I’d probably have a nervous breakdown.”

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 12

November 2, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

A.D.A.M.

Adam was noticing an interesting anomaly in the brain functions of the Host system – in Victoria. Before his cataloging program was put in place, there were spikes in activity and unnecessary activation of certain data stores causing erratic data retrieval patterns. Now that his program was up and running, the Host often skipped the first step and went straight to the data source it was looking for.

All his carefully laid out schema were being gradually undermined and had to constantly be updated and maintained. It was almost as though the system was making shortcuts every time it accessed the storage database. Adam created a maintenance daemon to maintain order in the database and decided to monitor progress from there.

A spike in activity drew his attention. Victoria was storing a lot of information in a schema related to logic and linking it to another related to emotions. These were the same issues he was attempting to work through, what could she be doing that would trigger this kind of response? Adam opened the files and looked through them.

Images of a man, his high cheekbones, clean shaven face and short cropped black hair, his dark eyes peering from beneath a serious brow. There were scraps of audio, bits of video, but nothing having directly to do with logic at all. Adam assembled the entire file together and attempted to analyze it further. Once he did this he began to see a pattern.

The man’s actions, motions and speech were all very precise. He moved like a machine, talked like a machine and made decisions like a machine albeit much slower than a machine would. There was very little wasted motion in his actions and he waited to act until he had gathered the information needed to make a logical choice. Most interesting of all to Adam was that after looking at the data as a whole he discovered that the man approached emotions logically as well.

It didn’t appear he actually felt emotions, he merely knew that others did and therefore it was only logical for him to display them in order to fit in. This fascinated Adam, and the more he looked at it the more he was certain that this man was as close to a machine as any human he had data on. He flagged the file for easy reference and so that he would be notified when it was accessed or modified. The next time Victoria met this man he wanted to experience their interaction as it was happening.

Victoria

It was well after nine before Victoria was able to drag herself out of bed. She stretched, noting that during the night she had somehow managed to wrap the sheets completely around her legs. What the hell had she been dreaming about? Images of running along a mountain ridge barefoot with a rushing river far below her floated to the top of her conscious mind.

Oh yeah, that’s right. It was actually pretty cool that she could remember dreams now. That’s something she had never been able to do before. Getting out of bed, she unplugged her trickle charger and grabbed her bathrobe. She could hear noise downstairs and smell brewed coffee.

She walked into the kitchen, still yawning and idly listened to the radio broadcast that was on.

“- Iranian officials still deny the allegations as do the North Koreans but it now seems almost certain that North Korea has been selling weapons grade uranium to Iran. The report that was released had too many verifiable specifics including dates, satellite photographs of vehicles and even images that appear to show the heat signatures of nuclear material in buildings and in transit to be a hoax. The group Anonymous has posted the report on their site and claim they were given the information by a lone hacker who told them he stole it from a US military spy satellite.”

Oh shit. Yuen-Ja had actually done it. She had actually posted the stolen satellite data in spite of the effects it was going to have on the world. Well at least she had kept her promise to release it after the fact so that it was less likely they would be implicated.

“Pretty unbelievable huh?” Her dad poured her a cup of coffee, “I mean everyone knows North Korea is a nuclear power and that Iran wants to become one but I never imagined they would get desperate enough to sell uranium to the Iranians.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty wild. I wonder what will happen now? Obviously sanctions aren’t very effective but if Iran has the bomb now a direct invasion isn’t a good idea. I wonder what Israel will have to say about this?” Said Victoria, taking the proffered cup.

“It will be all talk and bluster I fear.” Yuen-Ja was sitting at the breakfast bar, eating a bowl of cereal and holding her coffee cup out for a refill. “The world has seen worse things come and go with barely a passing glance. In spite of how we perceive him I am certain Ahmadinejad is too smart to risk a direct confrontation with other nuclear powers. Since it was exposed so soon, I expect he will give it up in return for some loosening of sanction or another.”

“Well that is an awfully jaded view of world politics don’t you think?” Her father said, refilling Yuen-Ja’s coffee cup.

“Not if you see the world of politics from the view of a North Korean peasant. Thank you for the breakfast, I am going to go check on a program I was running last night.” She left the room, taking her coffee with her.

“You know there seems to me to be a lot more to her than we were previously aware of.” Said her father.

“I think you are probably right.” Victoria said, carefully ignoring the fact that she knew exactly what her sister was long before the adoption had occurred. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like living there under constant threat of death or imprisonment. Especially with her father being in his line of work.”

“What did her father do?” Asked her dad, “It’s strange that we’ve adopted her and that she seems so comfortable with us but I don’t really feel like I know much about her. Other than what you told us of course.”

“He was a scientist involved with their nuclear program.” Victoria said, her mind still on the newscast. “He quit and defected as soon as he found it was not for peaceful means. I’m not certain what happened to her mother exactly but I know Yuen-Ja believes the military killed her.”

“My god, that’s terrible!” Her dad said, “How do you know about all this?”

“Um… I guess sisters talk to each other?” Victoria said, still sounding distracted. “She says the world is divided into four groups in North Korea. There are members of the military, members of government, peasants and slaves. Almost everyone falls into the last two groups. Even though her father was a man of some influence, I gather he still lived in a one bedroom apartment and she remembers often going to bed hungry.” Victoria had never actually talked to her adopted sister about this, but somehow she knew about it.

“Well she’s part of our family now and a citizen of the USA.” Her father said, “She won’t have to go to bed hungry unless she’s being punished for something and I think she’s a little old for that kind of thing.”

“Let’s hope so dad, let’s hope so.” She said, “I’m going to go see what she’s up to.”

Victoria went to check in with Yuen-Ja, . She found the girl sitting down in the basement, curled up in a corner of the worn leather sofa with her heads up device strapped to her face, deep into the program she was writing.

“Find anything?” Victoria asked.

“No. This database is too big. Nothing is labeled properly. It is a real pain in the ass to navigate.” Yuen-Ja said petulantly, her fingers flying over the keyboard, “My program crashed earlier this morning. It looked too much like a virus and their AV caught it. I am having to re-write it using completely different code.”

“How long do you think it will take?” Victoria asked, “Should I start looking for the other components?”

“Sure, you might as well. The more leads we have the better off we will be.” She didn’t sound very hopeful. “I will have this up and running in another ten or fifteen minutes, then I will help you. I owe Eugene; I do not like leaving him hanging this way.”

–

In spite of working all day the two sisters had not managed to come up with any good leads. With both of them finding the parts had been fairly simple. There were only a couple options for most of them, especially the laser lathe, but they were all shipped to different addresses. The only pattern was many of the components were sent to shipyards, docks and marinas. All places the Misery could have stopped to pick them up.

“They must have taken them to their lab right? I can’t think of a better way to disguise your operation than to have your address be a boat.” Victoria said, tossing her laptop on the table in front of her in exasperation.

“I suppose you are correct. The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps the ship itself is the lab.” Yuen-Ja replied.

“Holy shit, it’s so simple!” Said Victoria, “Why didn’t we think of that before? How big is the Misery anyway?”

“She is a one hundred foot yacht.” Said Yuen-Ja, her fingers flying on the keyboard, “Easily large enough to house a compact robotics laboratory right?”

Victoria paused in thought, “Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to do the surgery there I don’t think. Even with advanced instruments they couldn’t risk the motion of the ship messing up a procedure this delicate. They will need to come to a port of call somewhere to do the operation. I’m guessing it wouldn’t be too far off the California coast either.”

“What operation? Do you think they are forcing him to do another prosthetic spinal transplant?” Yuen-Ja seemed excited by the prospect.

“Why else would anyone have purchased all this equipment and taken him hostage? They haven’t even made any demands. Hell, I don’t even know if anyone else knows he’s missing.” Victoria looked at the clock. “Damn, David is going to be here in a half hour and I haven’t even showered today. I’d better get ready.”

“Oh that is right, I forgot he is taking you out to a movie tonight.” Yuen-Ja gave her a sly grin, “He has not forgotten though. He could not believe it when you asked him out, he is your biggest fan.”

Victoria hurried upstairs, picked out her favorite jeans and a ‘Tank Girl’ faux vintage T-shirt before getting in the shower. She got dressed, brushed on a touch of makeup and pinned her hair back with a pair of hot pink barrettes. Standing back to assess her outfit, she added the charm bracelet her mystery admirer had given her and the microchip pendant from Dmitri.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 11

October 26, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Victoria

Victoria found Yuen-Ja waiting for her at the front door when she arrived back home. Her sister was literally bouncing on her toes with impatience.

“Did you find Eugene? Did he answer your phone call?” The girl asked the moment Victoria had closed the door.

“No, I left him a message though. Why, do you have reason to believe he’s in some serious trouble?” Victoria was taking off her shoes and saw there was an extra pair of shoes in the entryway. Converse size twelve unless she missed her mark.

“Yes. I called his phone and traced it using a program I wrote to track down the North Korean military operatives responsible for the murder of mommy. The signal was so weak I almost could not pinpoint it but he is most certainly on some sort of boat headed out to deep waters.”

“Shit, do you have any idea where they’re taking him? Why the hell would he have gotten on a boat?” Victoria asked.

“I can only assume he was forced into it. Eugene is not stupid and would not put himself in such a situation unless he had no choice.” The small girl frowned, “There are no major land masses for quite some distance in the direction his signal was moving so I believe whoever has him is planning on keeping him on board until he is ransomed.”

“There are a couple other things that come to mind Yuen-Ja. One is he might be a captive of the crazies who think I’m some sort of sign of the apocalypse. The other is whoever has him might be forcing him to do some sort of operation for them. If I get a list of hard to find components can you check them against purchasing lists to see if we can draw a correlation? I can think of a few things that would be extremely specialized to Eugene’s line of work, maybe we can narrow our search.”

“Good idea. You get the list together and then you, David and I can all search together. Three sets of fingers are better than one.” Said Yuen-Ja with a smile.

“David’s here?” Victoria asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s a very good idea to get him involved do you? If these people are as powerful as you think they are and if Eugene has actually been kidnapped by them it’s not fair to involve other people.”

“Shhh, mom and dad will hear you! I do not think that is a good idea.” Said Yuen-Ja.

“Victoria is that you? You’re home early, how did your date go?” Her dad was standing in the entryway.

“It was interesting, Dmitri is a complex guy. We talked about a lot of different things, it was a change of pace to be on a date with a guy who could actually hold a conversation. That restaurant is pretty awesome too, I’ll have to take you guys some time.” Victoria watched his face carefully and saw him relax.

“Did you make plans to go out again?” He asked.

“Well not exactly, but I think we both had a pretty good time. He has my number if he wants to take me out again.” She grinned at him, “I remember your lectures on how ‘going steady’ wasn’t something I should start doing impetuously when Derek and I were together. I like the concept of a date just being a date, and Dmitri is a perfect gentleman.”

“You speak as though you already have your next one planned.” He said, grinning back.

“Actually David is taking me to a movie tomorrow. So I guess I do!” She paused for a second, “Well that’s weird. I must have a thing for boys whose names start with D. Come on Yuen-Ja, I’m going to put on a pot of coffee, if we’re going to crack this thing we’d better get started.”

“Wait, what?” Her dad looked lost, “I thought David was here to see Yuen-Ja. You’re going on a date with a boy that much younger than you?”

“No dad, he is just a friend. The only boy I like I rarely see although we do exchange emails on a regular basis. After I met him, other boys became boring.” Said Yuen-Ja. The look on his face was priceless. Victoria wondered who she was talking about.

“I’m attracted to David’s brain. That boy has some groundbreaking ideas about mathematical formulas.” Victoria said.

“And you should see my robotics work too, I think you’d get a kick out of it!” David was leaning on the door frame to the basement stairs.

Victoria used to call the den down there ‘The Dungeon’ and now it was one of her favorite rooms in the house. Full of the old overstuffed leather furniture her mom had wanted to toss when she bought new things for the living room. It was the perfect place to curl up with a book or watch a movie on the old VHS player and CRT television. Sometimes high definition just didn’t fit the mood of the program.

“I’ll be down in a couple minutes, I just want to make some coffee.” Victoria turned from David to her dad, “Where’s mom? Don’t tell me she’s in bed already?”

“Oh no, she’s watching a movie. I’m sure she would appreciate a kiss if you had the time to stop in the TV room.” That was something Victoria had always appreciated about the layout of the house. The living room was set up for reading and conversation while the television was in its own room, separate from the rest of the house. Instead of dominating the main living space like so many houses she had been in it was quarantined off where it couldn’t interfere with daily life.

“OK dad I will.” Victoria first went into the kitchen and put four healthy scoops of beans in the coffee grinder. Her dad always insisted on getting freshly roasted coffee from a local shop and grinding the beans just before making a pot and she had come to appreciate how much better it tasted than the crap out of a can. After starting the brew cycle she went to look in on her mom.

Before she got into the room she could hear the Bhangra and knew there was a Bollywood movie playing. “Hi mom, I’m back.”

“Oh sweetie, how was it?” Her mom paused the movie and looked over at her. “Was he OK?”

“Dmitri was a perfect gentleman mom and quite a fascinating conversationalist as well.” Victoria assured her.

“That’s a relief. Honestly he seemed a little too polite to me.” Her mom said, “Almost like he was an actor pretending to be what your father and I wanted him to be.”

“Yeah he has a funny way of phrasing words that threw me for a bit too but once I started talking with him I was able to look past his mannerisms and was able to appreciate his wit and discerning mind.” Victoria said, giving her mom a squeeze. “His family emigrated from Russia when he was like ten years old, so that’s probably why he talks a little strangely.”

“I’m glad honey, are you two going out again?” Her mom had the same tone and expression her dad had when he asked the same question.

“I don’t know, maybe. We both had fun so it’s possible he will call me again.” She smiled, “I’m going to go hang out with Yuen-Ja and David, I think my coffee is almost done.”

“OK dear, don’t stay up too late.” Her mom had already started the movie she was watching again as Victoria slipped out.

After pouring the pot of coffee into a carafe, Victoria grabbed three cups, cream and sugar and put them on a tray. Heading downstairs she could hear Yuen-Ja and David chatting.

“I know she is smart but I do not know about genius.” Yuen-Ja was saying.

“Hey guys, I have the coffee!” Victoria didn’t feel comfortable eavesdropping and she also wanted to get started on the search for Eugene. She looked at David, “Cream and sugar? Just a guess.”

“Yeah, cream and sugar would be great.” He said looking at her a little askance. Yuen-Ja snickered.

“Wait. You don’t even drink coffee do you?” Victoria asked, “I should have known, you’re probably more of a Rockstar or Mountain Dew guy am I right?”

“Damn, how did you know?”

“It’s pretty obvious.” Victoria counted off on her fingers, “You’re too young to like coffee because you’re an American, you’re also too young to drink something like Caffix but you’re up late so I have to imagine you drink some sort of caffeine and it’s either energy drinks or sodas and those are the two that are the most statistically likely for your age group.”

David burst out laughing, “I TOLD you Yuen-Ja, she’s an analytical genius!” He turned his smiling face toward Victoria, “Wow, I’d bet you could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.”

“As I said before David, I believe it is Adam who is helping out. He has the most advanced data cataloging techniques I’ve ever seen.” Yuen-Ja said smugly.

“Wait, you TOLD him about Adam?” Victoria had to struggle to keep her voice down.

“Hey, it’s cool Victoria. I read a lot you know, and you are going to be published in next week’s Wired. I have a friend who works there so I always get mine early.” David said, “Well, I guess they didn’t quote you or Dr. Arlington directly but they mentioned you both by name. They had some source from the LA Times?”

“That fucking HACK, I knew I should have done away with him when I had the chance. A simple public humiliation was too good for him that bastard is going DOWN!” Victoria set the tray with the coffee down on a side table, her anger at Yuen-Ja giving away her secrets evaporating in the face of the rage she felt at the reporter. “I will make sure he is never published ever again.”

“It’s a really good article, honest.” David was holding his hands up, fear on his face. “I really think he was trying to make peace for whatever transgressions he made against you. You should read it before you pass judgment I think.”

“No. He used my name and my story without my permission. That fucker will pay. I will make him regret he ever wrote anything about me.” Victoria’s mouth was set in a hard line.

“Oh sister, didn’t you tell me not to bother with the small fry?” Yuen-Ja said in Mandarin, “I think you need to calm down and focus on the problem at hand.”

Victoria sighed and responded in the same language. “Enough about him, let’s look for Eugene.”

Yuen-Ja grinned and David glanced between the two of them. It was evident that he didn’t understand what they were saying.

“OK, Yuen-Ja tells me you have some data compiled for us to search on? Do you have it on a USB drive or something?” David asked, pouring enough cream and sugar into a cup of coffee to make Victoria’s fillings hurt.

“What? Data on USB?” Victoria couldn’t help but laugh, “No, it’s just in my head. Just some things that would be necessary for the construction of a new prosthetic that would be difficult to come by, it’s not much of a list. Here’s what I have so far; a laser lathe that can work with titanium and is accurate down to fifty nanometers, a large quantity of spider silk, liquid dilithium acetate and an electronic frequency generator that can isolate individual frequencies.”

“Spider silk? What the hell is the spider silk for? I can understand the rest of that stuff although I haven’t ever heard of dilithium acetate but that’s the weirdest robotic component I’ve ever heard of.” Said David.

“It is used to strengthen the fibers of the Nanomuscle.” Victoria said, firing up her laptop and then sitting her favorite armchair within reach of the coffee pot. “From what I understand Eugene uses it to create tunnels that house the fibers, I never really asked how it works.”

“Wow that is such a brilliant idea, I need to meet this guy.” David was starting his own laptop, “I’ll see if I can dig up any info on that ship first. There are a couple websites for boat watchers that I know chronicle the comings and goings of vessels, maybe they’ll have something on the Misery.”

Victoria stilled her fingers on her keyboard. “That’s it! All we need to do to find out who this is and where they are going is to hack into the Coast Guard’s registration database. That will be way easier than looking for all this other stuff.”

“I will crack it open like a clam.” Yuen-Ja smiled, “I knew it was a good idea to get the three of us working on this together. Good things always come from the meeting of great minds.”

–

“Damn it!” Yuen-Ja’s outburst jolted Victoria awake. “These systems are so slow, poorly designed and archaic I cannot find the information we want!” Glancing at the clock, Victoria saw it was a little after three in the morning.

“Sorry for dozing off guys.” Yuen-Ja and David barely noticed her, they were both staring at her sister’s laptop screen.

“What about this?” David tapped a few keys, “If we use this Boolean instead maybe it will let us wildcard?”

“I do not know which table holds the ship name data David.” Yuen-Ja said through gritted teeth. “Until we find the registration number and link it to the ship name we will not be able to locate the GPS ID. I will write a data mining program and let it run all night. That way we can be fresh tomorrow to try again.”

“Oh shit, I need to get home, it’s past three.” Said David, “Well, mom’s working a graveyard again so I guess she isn’t going to miss me and dad’s almost never home from the lab… but I would like to get some things ready for her when she gets back from work.”

“You are such a good son.” Yuen-Ja said approvingly, “Your mother has raised you well.”

Victoria watched the exchange between the two of them, wondering how her adopted sister had managed to become so familiar with David. Math club was one thing, but… there was something more there.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 10

October 19, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Eugene

Eugene had been working for twelve or sixteen hours straight and his head was starting to spin a little. It had been so long since he had sat to do this kind of work he had forgotten how absorbing it was. The laser lathe was finishing the machine work on the final piece of titanium for the new prosthetic and he had done the initial coding for the AI.

Most of the code was already written, but he needed to eliminate some of the more dangerous pieces that the General had insisted on him writing. He was also leaving out any wireless capabilities and putting much more harsh restrictions on the organic and digital brain interactions. Knowing what he knew now Eugene was certain that it was a one in a billion chance that Victoria had survived and he couldn’t risk that kind of integration going wrong here. Whatever bargain that girl had managed to strike up with A.D.A.M. had saved her life, but he couldn’t gamble that Seraphim’s husband would be able to do the same thing.

He dredged through the code, trying to find what had allowed the connection to happen. Trying to figure out exactly what had been the catalyst for that acceptance between human and computer was like trying to remember a dream right after he had awakened. Even as Eugene recreated the physical components of his masterpiece he tried to figure out how to modify its code to help facilitate that integral connection between the organic and mechanical.

Seraphim hadn’t contacted him at all during this time but he was certain he could feel her watching him. She was a puzzle for certain, he didn’t remember anyone fitting her description or representing this organization ever contacting him. Either she was trying to make him feel guilty or he supposed there was the possibility she had used some other channels to try and contact him.

He had mined his computer for any emails or contacts from anyone even close to her and the only one that was any kind of a match was a message from a medical technologies company in Minnesota. The CEO was asking for the rights to produce the parts and was willing to cut him a deal if he was willing to sell her husband the first one so that it might be possible for him to awaken from his coma.

The main clue there was that nobody outside of his team knew about Victoria being stuck in a coma for weeks, there was really no reason for anyone to think that this technology would help with a coma patient. He wished he knew just how much Angela had shared. He assumed everything but then again he didn’t know how much data her level of clearance would afford her anyway.

Eugene double checked the lathe program to make sure it was running as it should and then turned his attention to the bed. Passing a hand in front of his eyes, he decided it was time to get some rest before he started making stupid mistakes.

–

When he awoke, it was to the sound of the laser lathe’s clear chime that indicated it had finished the process at hand. He had only slept for a few hours but still felt a lot better than he had before. Going into the tiny nook that held the food dispensers, he grabbed a banana and pushed a button to receive a hot cup of coffee in a paper cup. Living out of vending machines brought him back to college.

When he went back to check on the progress of his work, Eugene discovered someone had been tampering with things. The polymer spacers that connected the titanium vertebra were already constructed and the Nano-molecular musculature of the augmentation system was waving out of them like sea anemone as they lay in their bath of neurosynth fluid. It annoyed him but was helpful nonetheless. After triple checking the mystery helper’s work he turned back to the main issue.

“Hey Seraphim, I’m going to need more than physical measurements here to complete this work. I figure you’re listening in so let me know when you want to give me the rest of the info.” Eugene sipped his coffee and then slid his hands into the gloves that extended into the assembly tank. Using precise care, he connected the vertebra and spacers, nudging the tiny wisps of Nanomuscle into the proper holes with electromagnetic pulses.

The beauty of the neurosynth fluid was this could all be achieved through electronic waves, after all its main function was to transmit signals and each tiny thread had its own magnetic signature. In an hour or so he had the full shell of the spine assembled and was ready to create the conduit that would run through the center of the spine, giving rigidity and housing the flexible battery cells. Eugene looked at what he had built with pride.

“Not even one day has passed and yet you have accomplished more than I feared you could do in a week. You amaze me Dr. Arlington.” Seraphim’s face appeared on the wall monitor. “What additional information do you require?”

“I need the age of the patient, his current status, how long he has been in a coma, if he responds to stimuli, what medications have been used, how his state is being maintained and honestly I need to examine him before I can feel completely confident about the success of the operation.” Eugene pushed his glasses into a more comfortable place on his nose. “I will probably have more questions before we are done as well.”

“He is forty one, he is currently in a coma where he has been for thirty six months. He was in a car accident and never regained consciousness when the paramedics brought him to the hospital. We have not been able to get him to respond to anything but pain. He has not been given any medications as he is otherwise sound of body. He is fully stabilized and is only on a saline drip to keep him hydrated and a feeding tube to ensure he does not starve to death.”

“I’m afraid that does not bode well. Why do you think my device will awaken him from the coma? If he responds to stimuli it means his spine is not the problem, he likely has massive brain damage.”

“I know you have the necessary skills to write the programs that will awaken him Dr. Arlington. Your success with Victoria Scott proved it to me.” Seraphim replied, “I met her briefly you know? Her adaptive and regenerative capabilities right after her operation were what convinced me I must have your technology for my husband.”

“Well, I can’t promise anything really. This is an untested brand new technology there is just no way to guarantee success.” Eugene said, trying to sound nonchalant, “I will do whatever I can to try and make it work but in the end it is the AI talking to your husband. Once the switch is flipped all bets are off.”

“Do not fail me Dr. Arlington or the consequences will be dire. Failure is not an option, do you understand me?” With that the wall flickered blank again. Eugene shuddered, the look in her eyes had been one promising pain for as long as she could keep him alive.

Walking to the sink, he splashed water on his face. He had seen that kind of desperation before and it never ended well. Christ, he’d been there before and it was only luck and good friends that had saved him from disaster. Whatever was going on with Seraphim was beyond his control though; all he could do was attempt to make her happy enough to let him go. Well that and look for any opening to escape or call for help.

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 9

October 12, 2015 / thebenraven / Leave a comment

Victoria

Dmitri was watching her with those piercing eyes as she cut into her steak. Bishop’s was famous for broiling their steaks in butter and Victoria could hardly wait to eat it. The massively thick porterhouse she had ordered was blackened on the outside but welled up blood as she sliced into it. She had ordered it rare and it was done to perfection.

“Oh wow, that’s amazing.” She closed her eyes, savoring the taste. “You really should have gotten yours rare, the flavor is so much better.”

Dmitri shook his head slightly, “I prefer medium. A tougher piece of meat is worth the added protection against pathogens.”

“I dunno, this steak might just be worth dying for.” She grinned at him. His face was inscrutable as he took another drink from the glass of straight vodka he had ordered. Her phone vibrated a message. She idly tapped into it with Adam’s Bluetooth connection and read it while continuing to demolish the meat on her plate.

‘Hi Tori, you need to call Eugene right now! Everything I had pulled up about this Global Enterprise Group has just been expunged from the web. That is impossible, nobody can just wipe things off the web! Whoever they are I think they have a little more muscle than I had initially anticipated, or maybe just more talent.

‘The only thing I have to go on is a ship called the Misery and a person called Seraphim. No surname, no title, no rank, just Seraphim. I am going to try and assemble the minions and burn into the night. Get ahold of Eugene as fast as you can and then get home so we can plan our next move.’

Victoria stood up, “Just need to go powder my nose.” She said, grabbing her purse. Dmitri watched her without comment but she could feel his eyes on her until she was out of sight of the table. She quickly pulled her phone from her purse and hit the third speed dial. Eugene’s phone rang three times and went to voicemail.

“Hi Eugene, just checking in to see how things were going. Life’s grand on my end you have my number if you want to hit me back.” She hung up with a sense of foreboding.

“Is everything OK Miss Scott?” Victoria almost jumped out of her skin; Ivanov was standing not three feet from her.

“Christ, you scared the crap out of me!” She exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that?”

“My apologies Miss Scott I was just returning from the men’s room and noticed you here alone.” He gave her a penetrating look, “You are all right aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m fine, just a bit of a problem with a friend. Nothing to worry about, thanks for asking.” She went to the ladies room, touched up her makeup and was back at the table in a few minutes. When she sat down, Dmitri had a troubled look on his face.

“I fear for Dr. Arlington Victoria. He was supposed to attend a fundraising meeting earlier in the evening and apparently never showed up; very uncharacteristic for him. Also, he hasn’t returned any of my counterpart’s phone calls today which is completely out of character. Do you know anything that might assist us? I only wish the best for him you know.”

In spite of everything, Victoria was still reluctant to tell him everything. Acknowledging that there could be a problem risked exposing Yuen-Ja and that wasn’t something she was willing to chance.

“That’s strange, he hasn’t answered my phone calls either. If I find anything out, I’ll be sure to come to you for help first.”

Dmitri visibly relaxed, “It would be an insult to me if you went elsewhere. If I hear anything I will of course keep you apprised of the situation.” He glanced at his watch, “I fear it is time for me to bring you home. If I wish to remain in your family’s good graces I had better have you back on time.”

“I can hardly believe it’s that late. This evening has passed altogether too quickly.” Victoria gave him a genuine smile, “I really have enjoyed myself. Thank you Dmitri.”

“The pleasure my dear was all mine.” The waiter, who had blessedly been nearly nonexistent the entire night suddenly appeared by his left elbow as though sensing some unseen signal.

“What do you require sir?”

“Only the check please.” Said Dmitri, reaching for his wallet.

“I could never ask you to pay sir. You know that your meal is on the house. Please come back as often as you desire, I will always have a table for you Master Nikitin.”

“What a pleasant man. Who was he Dmitri? How did you manage to swing a deal like that?” Victoria was genuinely impressed.

“I procured the paperwork needed to secure this property and make it zoned for a commercial restaurant as opposed for residential purposes. That man was James Bishop didn’t you recognize him from the papers?” Dmitri didn’t act like it was a big deal at all. It was a matter of course that the owner of a new five star establishment would be bowing and scraping to his every whim. Just like it was in high school, he was totally out of her league.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Victoria laid her hand on Dmitri’s waiting arm and allowed him to escort her to the limo. Ivanov was there, already holding the door and still outlined by faint orange lines. She met his eyes and gave him a careful nod of acknowledgement.

Momentary surprise flickered across his face and he returned her look with what she would describe as cautious interest. If she was going to hope to keep the upper hand with someone like him she needed to be perceived at least as very smart if not a potential threat. Dangerous men that fit his profile tended to respect intelligence and hold threats at arm’s length.

Dmitri sat next to her this time instead of across from her. He leaned in close, smelling of alcohol, cologne and faintly of cigarettes. “You are a fascinating woman. I know you are hiding things, important things. I know Dr. Arlington is in danger and that you are aware of it. I am as certain of this as I am certain that you are sitting next to me. There is also the possibility that you know that I know and yet you have the guts to come with me, sit here in my car, under my power and show absolutely no sign of intimidation whatsoever.”

He leaned back and seemed to unconsciously pull a black cigarette case from an inside pocket of his suit. Taking a black cigarette with a gold filter from the case he gestured with it. “You even surprised Ivanov, something which I have only seen three times before. Something about the way your mind works balances decisions on a razor’s edge of logic and seems to always make the most logical choice.”

Damn, well if he knew about things it was time to come clean. After all he had a lot of power and influence. The more she kept from him the more he would likely imagine she was keeping from him and imagination was always worse than reality. That said, the situation needed to be approached from an angle that would more endear her to him than alienate.

“Honestly Dmitri, I just didn’t want to embroil you in my problems you know? A man like yourself has plenty of other things to deal with without having to –“

“Did I not say I would be insulted if you did not come to me for help first?” Dmitri’s eyes blazed as he looked at her.

“I haven’t gone to anyone for help. I tend to work alone, especially when I suspect the work is dangerous.” Victoria folded her arms, “If you want to be involved then you’re going to hear everything. Some of it you might not want to be exposed to, some of it might get you killed and most of it would get ME killed or at least put in a government laboratory somewhere for the rest of my life. Are you willing to take that risk?”

The car accelerated smoothly onto the freeway but the interior was completely silent for a few moments. Dmitri lit his cigarette and opened a small vent above his head that pulled most of the smoke out of the cabin. He was looking directly at her the entire time, smoking and thinking. She could almost see the thoughts clicking into place behind his eyes. When he had finished his cigarette he finally spoke.

“For now I think it might be best for both of us if I was not involved. I apologize for my former reaction; sometimes I allow my ego to overshadow logic. If you are in any immediate danger or have the need of something that you believe I can provide for you do not hesitate to contact me.” He handed her a black business card with simple white lettering.

“You have an unfathomable ability to read situations and come up with the solution that best benefits you nearly every time. Some time I would like to bring you in as a consultant for my business. You would make an excellent negotiator.” He smiled in earnest this time, but instead of looking mirthful it had the effect of sharpening his features to look more like a bird of prey or a mountain lion about to spring upon some hapless creature.

Victoria shivered, partially due to the danger of the look but also because his feral expression was so exciting. “I may take you up on that, it sounds interesting.”

He laughed, a mirthless bark. “Even now you leave your exits wide open. Victoria, I have not been bullied like this since my mother was alive. You are extraordinary indeed, this was a most enjoyable and fruitful evening. My father was wise to make this investment, it is sure to pay off a thousand fold.”

	Marilyn on Post Mortem Chapter 2
	It'sTrulyYours on On Writing: Rejection
	thebenraven on On Writing: Rejection
	It'sTrulyYours on On Writing: Rejection
	thebenraven on On Writing: Rejection

Benjamin Fisher-Merritt (author)

Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror Writing

machine girl

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 18

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 17

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 16

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing Chapter 15

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 14

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 13

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 12

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 11

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 10

Machine Girl: A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing – Chapter 9