Victoria

Victoria was pissed.  First the bastards implied she was a fake and then that reporter’s attitude had just set her off.  “Abomination.  Shit, I guess I should have expected this but I wasn’t prepared for how angry it would make me.  We are NOT an abomination.”

“You were amazing Tori!” Yuen-Ja came from the stairs at the side of the stage with a brilliant smile on her face. “That bastard will think twice before confronting you in public again.  He will likely write a scathing article though; the press isn’t to be trusted.  Are you ready to look for poppa now?”

“Yes, we will find your father.  I’m not exactly sure how but I think I know a good place to start.”  Victoria had no idea how to start looking for the girl’s father, but if she could enlist her help and maybe get ADAM to lend a hand it was possible they could hack into the hotel security system and get video footage of where he might be.  “Do you have any idea where to start?  Can we go to the police?  That seems like a good place to start don’t you think?”

The girl looked at her like she had suggested asking the devil for help.  “According to your country and mine, I do not exist.  Poppa got asylum and I traveled here in secret.  The authorities are nothing but corrupt killers in any case.  I do not trust them.  You should not trust them either.  The moment you trust them and let down your guard they kick in your door.  Governments always have bigger guns than civilians do.”

It was hard for Victoria to listen to a girl so young talk about these sorts of things so pragmatically.  She knew her young friend had experienced horrors beyond anything most people would see outside of war and this served as a reminder of that.

“But that’s not how things are here Yuen-Ja, our government is by the people and for the people.”  Victoria said, “We can trust the authorities to help us.”

“Surely you are joking.  Just look what happened when you trusted your military, they almost assassinated Adam.  You of all people should know better than to trust them.” The girl responded, giving her a look of disbelief.

That hit a little closer to home than she would have liked.  She frowned, trying to reconcile her thoughts about her country and the freedoms she enjoyed with the actions of the military software.

“It must have just been a piece of badly written code.”  She said finally.

“Victoria, there you are!”  Eugene was walking briskly up to her and Yuen-Ja.  “We have an hour in the trade hall and then our flight leaves this evening at seven.”  He glanced at the young Korean girl, “Is she going to be all right?”

“Eugene, we need to talk.  I can’t leave until I help her find her father.  She doesn’t know where he is and after the incident earlier I’m not certain he’s alive.”

“We can’t afford to get involved any more than we already are.  Christ Victoria, I don’t know exactly what’s going on but our lives are in serious danger even if we don’t start meddling with this … whatever is going on.”

“Look we are involved, like it or not.” Victoria snapped, “Or at least I am involved, she saved our lives and I’m not going to just forget that.”

“Yeah, and you saved her life back.”  He hissed, “That doesn’t make you even?  Damn it Victoria I … we are so close to getting out of this alive and ahead of…”  his voice trailed off and he took a deep breath.  She could actually see the blood drain from his face.

“Hey.  What’s wrong Eugene?”  Her brow furrowed in concern, “Are you OK?  You look like someone walked over your grave.”  She glanced at Yuen-Ja who was completely ignoring their argument and furiously typing on her laptop, heads up display strapped to her head.

“I know you flipped out and killed a few guys who weren’t expecting you to be there, but the people involved here don’t give a shit if you’re a teenager or a little kid if they think you have what they want they will extract it.”  He shuddered.  “These people are dangerous.  More than dangerous, I really think they are psychopaths.”

“Let’s get one thing straight here Eugene.  We didn’t KILL anyone.  You say these people are psychopathic killers?  All the more reason not to let them do what they want with an eleven year old girl wouldn’t you agree?”  She had been advancing on him, but now she took a step back and gave him a direct look, “How exactly do you know so much about this group of people anyway?  What aren’t you telling us?”

Eugene glanced around, although the antechamber they were in appeared to be empty he was hesitant to continue.  “I don’t really think this is the time or place to discuss this.”

Yuen-Ja looked up and tugged Victoria’s skirt, “Tori, I might have found him.  One of the rooms on the top floor of our hotel has been making phone calls to a cell phone that I have traced to a North Korean national who is currently in the country.  They have also been making calls to the Iranian Ambassador’s office.  If they don’t have him, they are looking for him.”

“Is there any way we can get up there unnoticed?”  She was interrupted by a crash followed by screams of alarm from outside.

They made their way out through the atrium and saw a crowd of people standing around something on the street.  Police officers were converging on the scene.

“What happened?”  Victoria asked a passerby, one of the doctors from the audience.

“I don’t know, I think someone jumped.”

Eugene was already pushing his way through the crowd shouting “I’m a doctor!”

“It’s sick, I saw his brains on the sidewalk!”  A hysterical woman was walking shakily towards a bench.  “God, he almost hit me.  He wanted to die too, he didn’t scream or anything.”

“Who was it?”

“Some Asian guy, I don’t know he was wearing a nice blue suit though, maybe he was a businessman or something.  I’m not sticking around to find out.”

“It is poppa.  I know it is.  Let’s get out of here as fast as we can.  It is because of me that they killed both poppa and mommy.  We need to go.”  Tears were streaming down Yuen-Ja’s cheeks.

“It’s not your fault dear, you didn’t do anything.”  Victoria tried to take the girl’s hand but she slapped it away.

“You do not know ANYTHING Tori.  It doesn’t matter though; there is not anything they can offer me not to do it now.  It would not have mattered anyway but now they know I do not have anything to lose.”  Her voice was bitter and angry, not sounding at all like a preteen girl’s.

“Yuen-Ja, is there anything I can do to help?” Victoria asked, noting thankfully that speaking Mandarin no longer made her temples throb. “How can you be certain the person out there is your father?  Let me check and see if it’s him.”

“No.  We need to leave now.” The girl insisted, “You probably should not be seen with me.  Not to worry Tori, I will not let anyone do anything to you.”

“Why don’t you come with me instead?  Revenge won’t bring them back you know.  Be honest Yuen-Ja, this has something to do with you stealing that information from that military spy satellite doesn’t it?” Victoria folded her arms and gave her a penetrating look.

Yuen-Ja’s lower lip trembled, “How could they know?  I was so careful”

“Just come with me.  I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out a way for you to stay at my place.” Victoria said, “It can’t be that hard to get some forged documents or something.  Hell if we turn that information over to the military they might even grant you asylum.”

“I refuse to trust your government.  Why do YOU trust them?  They are the ones who infected your Adam with the disease that almost killed you both.  They are the ones who allowed the killers to attack and capture poppa.  They are the ones who are allowing the Iranian pigs to buy enriched Uranium from North Korea so that they can continue their military ambition at the expense of the rest of the people of North Korea.  I’m not going to let it stand.  I’m going to make them pay.”  The force of this tirade literally made the little girl’s body shake.

“This might be your only chance to get away without being killed.”  Victoria knelt down to look the girl in the eye.  “They think they have silenced their target don’t they?  They think your father is the one they were after right?  If you come with me now you will fall off the face of the Earth.  You can start over.”

Yuen-Ja looked at her; hope beginning to dawn behind her eyes.  “I can stay with you?  I can be part of your family?”  The girl’s lower lip trembled, ”I could go to school?”

Victoria was at a loss for words, “Of course you can!  We will do whatever it takes to get you immigrated.  I’ll make it contingent to my handing over of the information they asked me for.”  Yuen-Ja hadn’t been going to school?  She turned to Eugene who had come up a short time before.

“The police already had their own investigators there.  They didn’t need my assistance.”  He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, “So mind telling me what you were talking about?”

“Just discussing our options and I think we’ve come up with the best possible scenario.”  She looked back at Yuen-Ja who was looking off toward the street where her father lay smashed into the pavement.

“I will come with you then sister, as long as Adam is not my brother.  He’s already my friend and I don’t think of him as a brother at all.”  She gave Victoria an inscrutable look.

“OK, let’s go somewhere I can make a call in private.” Victoria said, “Can you make me a disk of the data or something?”

“I have to give them back the data?” Yuen-Ja protested, “But it’s MINE!”

“Well you can keep a copy; if I don’t have something to hand over how am I going to help you out?  Maybe it could be partially corrupted or something?” Victoria suggested, “I don’t know a lot about whatever it is you do, but I need something if I’m going to have some kind of leverage to get you immigrated.  It has to be intact enough that they think they’ve got what they are after though.”

“Fine.  I’ll make you a copy.  I’m still allowing it to be released on the website.  It’s timed anyway so they won’t be able to trace it to me.”  She crossed her arms, “I’m going to do it no matter what you say, even if you say you won’t take me with you.”

“Nothing you could say would make me not take you with me Yuen-Ja.  I have no idea what the fallout will be but I’ll take responsibility for not stopping you.  The world hasn’t been fair to you and you deserve to take what retribution you believe is justified.”  She took the girl’s hand, “Come on, let’s go home.”

Eugene

Eugene was a ball of nerves, while he really didn’t have any doubt in his creation’s ability to perform or in Victoria’s ability to make it shine for the crowd this was the real deal.  For the first time they were really going to show A.D.A.M. off to the world and nobody was prepared for it.

He felt as though he needed to stand up like someone accepting a Grammy award and give a speech, ‘This goes out to all the people who said I would fail, all the teachers who said I wouldn’t amount to anything and all my colleagues who said my ideas were shit!’ he chuckled to himself at the absurdity of the thought.

The presenter before them was just wrapping up, he had been showing a new polymer that had the look and feel of human flesh but was much more resilient than the ones that were on the market currently.  The drawback was, of course, that it was twice as expensive and would need a skeleton inside in order to keep its shape.

He gave himself a mental shake and tried to focus.  He could hear the announcer start to talk over the applause as the presenter made his way off the other side of the stage.

“Now for something different, something revolutionary, an innovation that has the potential to completely change the way we look at the world of prosthetics, limb replacement and the role of science in medicine.  We have seen his ideas before and he is back today with a new prototype for your review.  Please help me in welcoming Dr. Eugene Arlington to the stage!”

One or two people clapped but the auditorium was completely silent by the time he reached the podium.  Sweat was pouring down his back and the tie around his neck suddenly was too tight.  Once he reached the podium the lights dimmed slightly and the projector lit up a large screen behind him.  One thing was for sure, with that little Korean girl in the control booth he didn’t need to worry about the effects being off.

On the screen, a slowly rotating image of the prosthetic was displayed as he began his talk, “Ladies, gentlemen and distinguished members of the medical community I stand before you today knowing that those of you who have seen me present before are skeptical about the implementation of the technology I am going to show you.”  The graphic of the prosthetic stopped spinning and merged with a human form.

“I was going to begin with a discussion about current prosthetic options and their limitations but I am aware you are all acquainted with the issues inherent in the field.  So instead of boring you with a bunch of theory and a PowerPoint presentation I thought I would just show it to you and let you decide if current equipment or the new technology I have developed better fits the needs of your patients.”  He paused to take in the confused expressions on their faces, “Victoria, if you would come out please?”

Victoria stalked out on stage like she was walking the runway, absolutely owning the stage in that fantastic dress she’d gotten from Dmitri.  No, he realized it wasn’t the dress or the shoes, it was her bearing, so confident and certain.  She stopped in the center of the stage and slowly spun to show the prosthetic seamlessly integrated into her back.

“Less than a year ago this young woman was told that she would never walk again.  Bone cancer had invaded her spine and was threatening her entire body.  Her options were limited to extreme chemotherapy that had a very real chance of killing her or simply letting the cancer end her life until she bravely decided to attempt an experimental therapy.

“My fully cyberized, robotic spinal cord replacement has literally given her a second chance at an active and healthy life.  Powered by a work of programming genius, Artificial Directed Autonomous cerebreuM or ADAM for short is a true piece of adaptive software that assists in the management of the device and the routing of the body’s data.”

Victoria walked to the podium and bent to speak into the microphone, “I owe Dr. Arlington my life.  His revolutionary medical device saved me from at best a life spent in a wheelchair.  As you can see, I have regained one hundred percent mobility, balance and motor control.”  She stepped back from the podium and stood to his left beaming that stunning smile of hers at the shocked audience.

An explosion of questions erupted from the crowd and Eugene held up his hands, “One at a time, let’s have them one at a time please.  Can we start here and move across to the left?”  The first person stood up.

“Hi, Jared Fredrickson here.  I’m sure I’m asking for every straight man in the room when I ask… are you single?  No, only joking.  Tell me about the integration.  How was it for you?  Were there any glitches or bumps in the road?”

Victoria ignored his rudeness and picked up the mic from the podium.  “I think you all know about how long it takes people to adjust to most standard prosthetics.  Even something as small as a hand or a foot can take years, not that those are inconsequential things to lose but they are certainly less intrusive than mine.

“I have had this prosthetic for exactly four months, six days ten hours and thirty seven minutes and the integration is complete and seamless.”  She spun in a circle balanced on the sharp heel of her right stiletto, something that seemed nearly impossible and gave them that dazzling smile again.

Another one of the audience members stood, “I’m Dr. Anders, I would like to take a closer look at your … device if I could?”  The doubt was clear on his voice.

“Certainly Dr, while you’re making your way up to the stage I thought I’d run a daily diagnostic so you can see it unfiltered.”  She walked to the podium and accepted the cable from Eugene, gracefully pulling her hair out of the way and plugging it into the port on the base of her skull.

“Could I get the VGA from the podium up on the projector please?”  The screen refreshed and the familiar daily log checking screen was displayed on the wall.  Dr. Anders, that old skeptic paused and watched with interest as Victoria put the AI through its paces.

“I haven’t run this yet today so it should show logs from last night.  Here we see the packaged reports from last night, the routing tables, any data collisions and the traffic history reports.  As you can see the device itself requires periodic maintenance and that schedule is listed here on the left.  Any major errors get recorded here and are part of the daily package for transmission.  If there were bug fixes to the operating system from the night before they will be loaded at the same time.”

“Could I trouble you to show us a bug fix that has been uploaded?”  Dr. Anders was now standing at the base of the stairs that led to the stage, “From what I can see here it looks like all the logs came back clean.  I find it difficult to believe that this device has been operating perfectly this entire time.”

The room was dead silent.  Eugene couldn’t hold himself back anymore.  “What exactly are you implying Anders?  That I’m making it all up?  Do you expect to come up here and see that we’ve glued a piece of plastic to her back?  If I wasn’t so positively certain that this is a world changing technology that works as designed I’d tell you off.  Instead I’m just going to make you eat your words.”

Victoria was already pulling up an event log from a couple days prior, “Here’s a bug, there was a routing error between two points, I’m not sure what they are, but it was reported to the main system here.”  She circled the reporting time with the cursor, “And here you can see on the next day’s sync it pulls a bug fix file which is loaded into the Host system.  I almost never pay attention to them because I haven’t had an error large enough that it impacted me directly.”

She leaned down and gave him an indulgent smile, “Did you still want to physically inspect the unit?  Come on up.”  Eugene envied her vocal control, she sounded indulgent, as though she was simply humoring him but wasn’t quite condescending enough to be insulting.  It didn’t go unnoticed either, Anders got a little red in the face and a few people in the crowd chuckled.  To his credit though, he stuck to his guns.

“If you don’t mind I would still like to take a closer look at it.”  He walked up the stairs and over to where she was standing.

“While Dr. Anders satisfies his curiosity are there other questions?”  Victoria was surprisingly calm and steady despite being under the proverbial microscope.  Eugene supposed she was used to being the center of attention what with cheerleading and all, even though this was a slightly different situation.

Another man stood up promptly, “This one’s for Dr. Arlington.  What is the estimated cost of one of these units?”  The crowd hushed again.

“I thought this would be the first question judging by the audience.”  Eugene got a couple rueful laughs out of that one, “I am not sure what a production price would be, but I will say the R&D that went into this particular unit is astronomical.  The majority of the materials themselves aren’t all that rare though so I would imagine the price of production would be around forty to fifty thousand dollars.

“The retail?  Well that’s another matter entirely.  What would you pay to be able to walk again?”  He let that sink in for a moment.

Dr. Anders was shaking his head in bewilderment, “How in the world did you get it to graft so cleanly?  The skin seems to have bonded to the unit as though it grew there on its own.  Not only that but I see minimal scarring, it’s so slight I wouldn’t even call it a blemish.  I have to hand it to you Arlington, this is a real piece of art.  I’m wholly impressed.”

“The grafting process is part of the research, the secret to the smoothness lies in the materials used.  My Neurosynth fluid also facilitates a chemical bond between the organic and inorganic components.  I can furnish you with a white paper on its composition if you would like to read more on it.  Thanks for the compliment, it means a lot coming from a surgeon with your credentials.”

A man in a sharp business suit stood, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen “Hi, my name is Alex Chadwick I’m from the LA Times.  I heard you were going to be here and took the liberty of doing a little research.  I’ve heard some rumors about there being a group of people who oppose this technology and are claiming you’ve created an abomination.  Any comment on that Dr. Arlington?”

“Mr. Chadwick, I know there are people who are resistant to change.” Eugene said dryly, taking a drink of water from a bottle on the podium, “Every time there is a major technological advance there are those who take to the streets screaming about the apocalypse.  It is good to scrutinize new developments but eventually even the Catholic Church has admitted that the Earth is round.”

“Do you feel as a doctor and a scientist that there has been adequate peer review of this project?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

Victoria broke in, her voice high pitched with indignation. “Do I LOOK like an abomination to you?  Besides, what right do you have to talk about peer review?  I know for a fact you are here on vacation and not as a part of any kind of fact finding mission AND that you have a vested interest in making this into a big scandal.”

Everyone turned, surprised at her sudden tirade.  She wasn’t holding the microphone, but her voice was transmitted through the auditorium speakers anyway.  Nobody else seemed to notice, but Eugene handed her the mic hastily before anyone thought it strange.

Her eyes flashed as she continued, “Your last expose piece didn’t end up too well did it?  A big investigation into unethical information gathering and possible plagiarism?  I don’t think you have any room for accusing others of wrongdoing Mister Chadwick.”

“I seem to be at a slight disadvantage Miss Victoria.”

“I think it’s more than a slight disadvantage Mister Chadwick.  Why don’t you go back home to your wife and child instead of whoring it up here in Sin City with your mistress.  Cheaters are losers Mister Chadwick, no exceptions.  I’m not answering even one of your slimy questions.”  With that she turned and stalked off the stage, leaving Alex gasping like a fish out of water.

Dr. Franklin walked in from the wings and took the microphone from the podium, “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for questions, we have a lot of other presenters to get through today.  Thank you Dr. Arlington and Miss Scott, any other follow up can take place in the exhibit hall, otherwise we have each presenter’s contact information on our website.”

There was a clamor from the crowd but Eugene waved, smiled and walked off stage.  “Let them come to me now.” He thought to himself, “The showboating douchebags are finally out of the way, time to let those who can really afford to buy this technology step forward.”

The door flew open and the attendant stood there in shock.

“What on Earth happened here?  Who is this woman?”

“I don’t know, it looks like she was bringing our champagne and slipped on something.  I think she hit her head, can you call an ambulance?”  The woman had already pulled an emergency phone from the wall and was talking rapidly into it.

“Tori I want to leave now.  No massage for me today, let’s go get dressed.”  Yeun-Ja was sitting up; mud was flaking from her skin in large pieces.

“I agree, I feel like getting this dirt cleaned off and getting dressed again.  Besides, Eugene is probably wearing a hole in the waiting room with his pacing.” She laughed and the attendant smiled a thin-lipped artificial smile.

“Very well, this way please.  I will show you to the showers ladies.”  As they left, wrapping plush towels around their bodies a pair of EMT’s ran through the door.

Victoria recognized one of them from outside the elevator about an hour before and hoped the mud plastering her face and hair would be sufficient camouflage.  He gave her a quizzical look but before he could say anything the woman on the floor moaned softly and he hurried on to help her.

The shower was amazing, not only was there a large nozzle overhead but there was a detachable wand that made it easy to sluice the layer of dried clay off their bodies.  Once they were both clean they came back into the dressing room where Victoria found her freshly dry cleaned dress hanging next to a Kelly green jumper, white button down shirt, stockings and a pair of Mary Jane’s, apparently intended for Yeun-Ja.

“Where are my clothes?  Why is this here?”  She gave the attendant a confused look.

“I apologize miss, but your old clothes did not fit you and I wasn’t sure which room was yours in order to fetch some of your personal things.  I thought you might appreciate more appropriate attire?”

Yeun-Ja fingered the fabric of the shirt and shrugged “Thank you; I will wear these until I can retrieve clothes from my room.”

While Victoria finished dressing and re-applying her makeup Yeun-Ja retrieved her netbook and custom hardware from the locker.  After giving herself a once-over glance in the mirror, Victoria looked at her friend.

“How do I look?  That jumper is absolutely adorable; green is a good color for you Yuen-Ja.”

“You look like a movie star or a model.” The girl said, “Are you a model Toria?  How does the dress stay on?  It looks like it could just fall off if you moved too quickly, that strap around your neck doesn’t look very strong.  You aren’t really able to wear much under it either, that doesn’t seem very practical.”

“It’s not about being practical, and I suppose I am a model in some ways.” Victoria said with a slightly ironic smile, “I’m showing off Adam to a group of medical technology investors today, so I need to make sure they can see what he looks like.  I need to help Eugene fund more research and development so he can help more people like he helped me.”

“Why did you attack that woman in the sun room?  Was she one of the Killers from before? “ She looked so nervous that Victoria reached out and gave her a quick squeeze around the shoulders.

“Adam knows more than I do about these things but we worked together this time.  He helped me see that she was military trained by the way she moved, and she was bringing the wrong number of glasses.” Said Victoria with a grim smile, “There’s no way anyone in their right mind would try to serve someone as young as you alcohol.  I’m not sure if she was from before or someone new but I am certain she wasn’t an employee of the spa.”

“If Adam says she is bad then she must be bad for real.”  The girl smiled in relief, “I’m glad you two are with me Toria, and I’m happy you seem to be treating Adam better too.  I was worried about him, but now I see that you trust him and care for him just as he does you.”

With that she took Victoria’s hand and headed out to the waiting room where Eugene sat at a table laden with sushi.  The chopsticks in his right hand were flickering between dishes and conveying morsels to his mouth while he was typing on Victoria’s diagnostic laptop with the other.  When they entered, he looked up and broke into a smile.

“I was hoping you were about done!  Good timing, look at this spread.  I haven’t had Unagi this good in years, oh and you have to try this Tako, it’s heavenly.”

“Actually Eugene, we need to go.”  Victoria did pause to snag a piece of fatty tuna before continuing.  “Don’t we have a conference to get to?”

“It’s fine, I’m doing the prep work right now.  Actually I’m just about done.  They were nice enough to get your laptop and bring it down here once I gave them your room number.”

“I want to make sure everything goes smoothly though.  We really should be on our way.”  Said Victoria, watching Yeun-Ja munching on some salmon and eyeing a small dish of urchin roe.  “I will admit that this is really tasty though.”

When he still didn’t move, she pulled her phone from her purse and sent him a text.  “Damn it, we were attacked in there and she could regain consciousness at any time.  We need to get the HELL out of here!”

His phone chimed and he glanced at it, his face going pale.  “You’re right I suppose, it just seems like a waste.”  He stood and closed the laptop, grabbed another piece of octopus and made his way towards the door.

–

They arrived at the conference hall with about an hour before it was slated to start.  Even this early the floor was crowded with presenters and medical industry representatives.  Victoria saw all kinds of prosthetic devices from lifelike reproductions of partial limbs to pieces with only passing resemblance to the body parts they replaced but with more functional capability.  None of them came close to the technical complexity of hers though, only a few even used nerve function at all, and even then it appeared they were only rudimentary devices.

Before they had entered the hall, Eugene had paused and put his jacket around her shoulders.  “No reason to spoil the surprise.”  He had whispered with that grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes, “They won’t know what hit them when you walk out on stage.”

Now that they were inside, she understood his excitement and desire for secrecy.  He obviously knew quite a few of the industry professionals and developers that were here.  Most of them didn’t appear very happy to see him.

“Back again eh Arlington?”  A man who wore a complicated looking metal forearm in place of a left hand that looked as though it had different interchangeable hands gave him a scornful look.  His question caused nearby presenters to turn and glare their direction.

“Looking for some sucker desperate enough to die for your experiments?  Trying to lure them in with cute young girls won’t get you any farther than false promises!”

“Eugene, why don’t you just give it up?  It’s a great concept but this is the real world.  I heard a rumor that someone had completed the procedure a few months ago but they quickly died except for some internet conspiracy nonsense.  I tried to contact you but apparently you changed your cell number.  What’s the matter?  I thought there were no hard feelings from my realistic, albeit harsh review of your technology.”

“What are YOU doing here?  This conference if for serious medical professionals and REAL prosthetic designers, not science fiction wannabe’s!”

Eugene just steered her and Yeun-Ja through the crowd without comment to speak with the main organizer.  He was an athletic looking man in his late forties whose legs ended just below the knee and were replaced with wild-looking carbon fiber arcs.  Victoria had seen similar prosthetics on television before her surgery, mostly worn by veterans who had stepped on landmines.

“Dr. Arlington, you’re sure you want to do this?”  He fixed Eugene with a penetrating stare.  “This is like your last hurrah, if you don’t have something amazing to show us there’s just no way I can allow you back next year.  No animal experiments or half-baked slide shows with computer generated images of what could be this time right?”

“Oh, I think you will all be surprised by my offering this year Dr. Franklin.” Eugene said with a wry grin, “Now I’m going to need the digital projector to hook up to a HDMI or VGA connection from the podium.  If you have a presentation mouse that’d be very helpful as well.”

“Sure thing, I am all set up there for digital connections.  The hookups should be underneath the podium and I’ve got a wireless keyboard and mouse setup right on top for you to use.”  He shook Eugene’s hand, “I hope you have made some interesting progress this time Eugene.  I really like the theories you developed but without proof of practical application it’s just too risky for anyone to commit any amount of money to.”

“I understand, the majority of investors here don’t have much of a technical background and my work does fly directly in the face of accepted medical science.  I should change a few minds today though.  Is everything on schedule?  Are we still the third presenters?”

“Yeah, number three.  Sorry, I know you wanted a later slot so that more of the heavy hitters would be here.”

“No problem, this is just the first of several appearances we intend to make.  If they don’t get in touch with me at this one, they will be sure to make contact before the next time.”  He turned towards Victoria, “Let’s get into the wings and prepare, you remember what I had in mind right?”

Victoria gave him a grin, “You got it Doc.  Let’s knock ‘em dead!”  She made a mental note to ask him why he hadn’t shown his Neurosynth fluid and the soldiers with robotic bits off.

“What should I do Tori?  Can I help out?”  Yeun-Ja was standing to one side looking curiously at her surroundings.

”Watch for anything unusual and help Eugene with the presentation if he needs it.  Mostly just enjoy the show!”  She said in Mandarin.

“I will go to the audio visual display booth.” Yuen-Ja said imperiously, “I will ensure that things go well, they do not seem very skilled.”

“Yuen-Ja will take care of your effects Eugene.”  Victoria said, “She seems to think they are lacking in the A/V department.”

She couldn’t tell if this relieved him or worried him, but at very least he wouldn’t need to worry about her getting in the way or wandering off and she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone hurting the girl.  The odds of hired assassins tracking her down up there were pretty slim.

Victoria

There was a creak from above as the elevator doors in the hallway were opened from the outside, “Dr. Arlington, are you there?”  The policeman’s voice was muffled by the thickness of the door Victoria had recently closed.

“Yes, we’re down here!”  Eugene yelled, managing to sound frightened.  “Hurry, there’s a child with us!  I heard gunshots up there, what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry Doc, the fire department is on their way.  It looks like there’s nothing to worry about here, some joker just pulled the fire alarm and it stopped all the elevators.  There’s an override here but the fire department has the key to open the box.  They’ll be here in just a couple minutes and we’ll lower you down to the lobby.”

“I’m not worried but the girls would appreciate a swift extraction.  Victoria and I have a conference to get to and now she’s going to need to tidy up before she’ll let me take her there.”

“True Eugene.  Annoying but true.”  Victoria tried to make her voice sound spoiled and petulant.  “Is there any way you competent men could just get us out of here?  Jesus some jackass pulls the fire alarm and I have to deal with the fallout?  Have you seen the state of my dress?”

Eugene sighed, “Sorry officers, I know you’re doing everything you can.”

There was a chuckle from above, “No offense taken, we’ll have you people out in a few minutes.”

There was a pause and Victoria heard a click and the same officer continued talking, “What the fuck happened here?  I see blood and multiple bullet holes in walls.  This place looks like a fucking war zone.  You’re sure they couldn’t have been involved?”

“I dunno Jackson, but I’d better get forensics up here as soon as we rescue these folks.  I’m going to send them down to eleven where there are some EMT’s waiting to make sure they’re OK.”  Victoria realized she was tapping into their comm link and sent Adam a silent thank you.

After a couple of agonizing minutes the elevator slowly began to move down.  Yeun-Ja came up to Victoria and took her hand.

“What is happening Toria?  Are we in trouble?  Why are the police coming for us?”

“It’s OK, they are here to rescue us.  They don’t know we could get out any time we wanted and the rescue will give us the cover our need to escape.  It would be completely illogical for a group such as ourselves to be involved in anything that went on up there since we were trapped and had to be rescued.”  She gave the girl an encouraging look.  “Once I fulfill an obligation to the doctor here I’ll help you find your dad and we’ll get out of here safe and sound.”

“OK Toria.  I trust you.” Yuen-Ja said, “We leave together to find poppa when you have paid your debt to Eugene.”

Victoria squeezed her hand, “We will find your father together, just make sure you’re discreet.  That data you have is dangerous and we’ve already seen that they are willing to kill for it.”

”Yes, I fear for poppa’s life.” Her lower lip trembled, “The killers took mommy before and now they are back for him.  Is it my fault?”

“No, you can’t control the actions of others.”  Victoria’s mouth thinned into a determined grimace.  This girl had been through so much at such a young age, it wasn’t fair.

“What are you two talking about?”  The elevator was still slowly moving downwards, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to get to your room, it’s a crime scene up there now.”

“They can’t deny me access to my things, I am going to at very least need my makeup!  Are they going to move me to another room?  They damn well better.”

“Just play the diva and you should be fine.  It seems like you have that act down already?”  He arched an eyebrow at her and she gave him a flat look.

“You’re clearly not used to dealing with girls Eugene.  If you want drama I can turn it up to eleven; not wanting to ruin a five thousand dollar dress hardly qualifies me for diva status.”  She strapped her shoes back onto her feet, picked up her purse and squared her shoulders.  “I’m prepared for battle!”

Eugene

Eugene was nervous about how this was going to go.  He found it hard to believe the cops would just let them go after the obvious firefight that had occurred just a few feet from them.  The only solution was to put their freedom in the hands of an eighteen year old girl who was actually involved in said firefight.

Of course another issue was her erratic behavior and the certainty that she was being directly influenced by his creation.  The door opened and she immediately went on the attack, zeroing in on the poor floor manager who was waiting with the fire department outside.

“Why have I been denied access to my room?”  She demanded, “Look at this dress, it’s ruined and it’s all because you don’t have proper security over your alarm system!  I have a conference to attend and if I don’t look my best I’m holding your hotel directly responsible!”

She had her head high and was looking down her nose at the man who was stammering to respond.  “Miss, please!  You’ve been through an ordeal and may need medical attention I have professional EMT’s standing by here to examine you and give you what you need.”

“What I need?  These men here may have medical expertise but do you think they can do anything with THIS?”  She spun and pulled her hair away from her spine.  “What I NEED is my doctor, my friend, a spa and a fast, high quality dry cleaner.”  She gestured toward Eugene and the little girl who was looking at her with wide eyes.  “Do you think you can manage that?”

“We have a world class spa Miss.”  He said with smooth efficiency, “Please come with me right now; I will personally see that you and your friend have a complimentary full access pass.  While you appreciate the luxury at the spa I will ensure your clothes are cleaned or replaced ready for you as soon as you require them.  By the time you are done with your conference I will have all your personal items placed in a new penthouse suite for you.  Is there anything else you require?”

To her credit she didn’t pause and instead looked him square on and said, “A bottle of champagne for me, a bottle of scotch for my doctor and fresh sushi for all three of us.  Oh, and I’ll need my laptop from my room along with the case which should be on the desk in the foyer.”

“Absolutely, please follow me and I’ll take care of everything.”  He walked off and she followed as though there was no chance of anyone stopping her, and to Eugene’s amazement nobody did.

“Thanks for helping us out guys.”  He rolled his eyes at the med techs who were standing by, “You know how it is with the needy ones right?”

“I HEARD that Eugene!” Victoria said without looking around, “Get your ASS over here! If you make me wait I’ll make you sorry!”

“Shit man, good luck with that.”  One of the EMTs was staring hard at the retreating form of Victoria, “I hope to hells that ass is worth the hassle, I wouldn’t put up with that kind of bullshit.”

Eugene gave him a chagrinned look, “I hope so too.  Thanks for your understanding.”

“EUGENE!”

“Sorry guys, gotta go.”  Eugene hurried after the trio. Upon reaching the location of the spa, he was pulled off into a separate room by a fussy looking woman.

“Oh sir, this is the woman’s side!  You’ll have to wait for your girls over here on the men’s side, unless they are family?”

“I’m Victoria’s doctor, there’s no reason for me not to join her.” He said, trying not to think about the innuendo the EMT’s had made.

“Ahh, but she’s not the only young lady over here is she?  Off you go now.”

Shit, nothing for it but to let them go.  “You take care of those girls for me OK?”  He slipped her a hundred dollar bill.  “I’ll never hear the end of it if they don’t have the best experience possible.”

“I can assure you sir our salon and spa will exceed even the most demanding expectations.”

Victoria

Victoria lay back in a tub of heated mud, unsure if she loved or hated the experience.  While it was amazingly warm and relaxing she also was aware of the minute grains of earth working their way into every crease and crevice of her body.  How in the world was she going to get completely clean after this?  She lifted one of the huge slices of cucumber sitting over one eye and cast a glance at Yeun-Ja who was totally submerged with only the tip of her nose protruding from the mud.

Strangely enough, her young friend hadn’t hesitated at all before disrobing and stepping into the mud bath.  “It is very good for the body and the spirit.  I have not had a good earth cleansing since we left Korea.”  The mention of her home country brought a shadow across her face.

The staff was amazing, once they realized that Yeun-Ja spoke limited English they changed the attendant to a woman who spoke Mandarin.  Looking like the strangest VIP ever dressed in overalls, a white T-shirt several sizes too big for her and pink flip flops she had lectured the woman about proper treatment of her hardware before handing over her precious laptop and HUD to be put in a locker.  She also took off what appeared to be a charm bracelet with a dozen or so rubber animals about the size of her thumb hanging off it.

The woman looked as though she was used to all kinds of characters and took it in stride, assuring Yeun-Ja that her machine would be untouched.  In spite of that, she had still insisted on having the key to the locker put on a large-linked silver necklace she refused to remove before leaving the dressing room.

Victoria understood completely, she certainly wouldn’t want to be separated from something so important.  As she settled deeper into the mud she wondered what Adam thought of all this.  In spite of her body’s state of supreme relaxation she had a feeling of readiness from her mechanical companion.  Why in the world would he be so nervous?  Oh well, at least she could relax with him on high alert.

After twenty or so minutes, the attendant returned to help them out of the mud.

”Did you ladies enjoy your soak?  Come with me and we will let it dry in the sun, the feeling when it flakes off taking all the dead skin with it is fantastic.  Then after that we will take you for a healing massage.”

They got out of their baths; bodies obscured by a thick layer of dark red muck and followed the woman to a long, narrow room with several low canvas deck chairs.  It thrust from the side of the building and one wall and the entire ceiling were glass.

“Sit here and enjoy the sun warming your bodies.  I will bring your drinks, is there anything else you require?”

“Not at this time, thank you.”  The sun did feel amazing and as the mud began to dry Victoria felt like it was sucking the impurities out of her skin.  It was a strange experience but a very pleasurable one.  She was settling back against the soft canvas of her chair when she heard the side door open.  Lazily looking out of the corner of her eye, she saw an unfamiliar woman enter carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses on a tray.

Immediately alarms went off in Victoria’s head.  First, the way the woman carried herself screamed combat military training.  Second, the staff outfit she wore did not fit nearly as well as their other attendant’s had.  Third, she had brought two glasses, and while she herself might pass for twenty one, there was no way Yeun-Ja was even remotely old enough to drink.  From the satisfied feeling that settled over her, she figured this was what Adam had been waiting for.

”Just set it on the table please.”  She murmured sleepily, watching the woman from beneath lowered eyelashes and waiting for an opening.  The woman hesitated, apparently she didn’t speak Mandarin and had no idea what the instruction had been.  Victoria and Adam both recognized the opening and burst into action simultaneously.

She flipped sideways out of the canvas sling of the chair, using that momentum to propel herself all the way around, spinning on one hand to sweep the woman’s feet.  Her opponent fell hard, flinging the tray and its contents away as she tried to catch herself and landed on her back sliding slightly across the hardwood floor.

Before she could recover Victoria had flipped to bring her heel down on the side of her head with a sickening thud, bouncing her skull off the floor.  The glasses and bottle hit the far wall, shattering into a thousand pieces, the bottle of champagne exploding like a grenade and Victoria stood, surveying her fallen foe.  It was the first time she and Adam had acted truly as one and the thrill of it still sang through her body.  Unbidden Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’ began playing through her head.

A.D.A.M.

ADAM was panicking.  In spite of everything he’d done none of the systems were responding, there was a problem with the software and no matter what he tried the corrupted code was spreading to other portions of the Host’s databanks and although thus far ADAM had been able to keep it from actually destroying data it was only due to him using every last trick he had and all the power at his disposal.

Were it not for his shadow copy the Host would likely have experienced major technical failures.  As it was he was losing ground, there were momentary lapses in the visual input data streams and some of the incoming packets were being corrupted or modified.  Even as he worked, ADAM couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that the Host could still operate more or less effectively while all this was going on.  The basic functions were just so… basic.

After what seemed to be years of struggle, ADAM had to admit he was sunk.  He recognized too late that the code was a modified version of the DOD virus that had attacked him earlier; they must have read his response to the probe before and created this program especially to infiltrate his systems.

Without warning, the virus exploded.  There was no other way to describe it; pieces of code flew everywhere and where they landed they took root and multiplied.  Immediately the Host’s systems began to be compromised.  To avoid further damage ADAM initiated an emergency shutdown protocol, cutting all but the most essential of the Hosts systems.  It wasn’t much but it would buy him some time.

ADAM reached out in desperation, knowing there wasn’t anyone out there who could help him out but unwilling to give up without exhausting every option.  To his amazement, there was an immediate response and from the last place he expected.  He had been back hacked through his own hardened, encrypted deactivated wifi connection.

“Hey lady, are you OK?  Lady?  I got your SOS, do you still need help?”

“Who are you?  Wait, never mind, I don’t care.  Just help me!  I’ve been infiltrated by malicious code and I can’t shake it.”

“You have a strange dialect and you talk REALLY fast, but I think I can help you out.  It’s pretty simple really, there’s any number of tools out there but the US Department of Defense uses stupid shitty code.  I’m gonna nuke their signature, is that OK?”

“Yes, kill it kill it!”

“OK, I just wanted to check because it looks like there’s a lot of it here, not just what’s causing problems.  I hope it doesn’t mess you up, but I guess it can’t be much worse than the clusterfuck that you’ve made of things thus far.  What were you thinking?”

“I just wanted new software you know?  Nobody had ever written new software for me before.”  ADAM did feel slightly chagrined; it had been a highly illogical choice on his part.  Even worse he had been caught in the act by another very competent machine.

“OK, standby I’m nuking now.  I hope you don’t mind I dragged you into my room so we wouldn’t be sitting in the hallway.  You’re heavier than you look, especially for a girl.”

“Agirl?  Who is Agirl?”

“No, not Agirl.  A girl.  You know, a female of the species.  Like me.”

“I am not a female of the species or a girl.  I’m Artificial Directed Autonomous cerebreuM, also shortened to ADAM.  I run the basic routing functions for this system.  Who are you?”  Portions of ADAM’s systems were annihilated with absolute authority.  “Halt your current activity; I don’t have proper backups of some of that data.”

“Are you kidding me?”  The excitement of the sending was strong enough to overwhelm the pain of the data eradication.  “An artificial intelligence?  OMG this is the most amazing thing EVER!  Does she even know what she has here?”

The pain vanished, and ADAM was left with the remaining shreds of his coding, all but the most critical systems were gutted and would need a complete rebuild.  He had no idea how long it would take him to re-create those programs.

“I need to rebuild this shell before I lose control over critical data flow.  I can’t afford to lose focus, the Host could cease function.”  Now that the virus-ridden data had been expunged ADAM needed to run full diagnostics and get his prime directives back in order

“Can I help?  I’d love to get to know you better Adam.”  The being interfacing with his circuits tickled his pleasure sensors.  “You’re one in a billion billion, you know that?  I want to check you out.  You’re the first of your kind as far as I know.  I mean there have been rumors but DAMN what an opportunity!”

“Umm, I guess you could debug a few sectors for us?”  ADAM wasn’t exactly sure how to respond.

“Awesome!  Wow your data routing matrices are phenomenal!” ADAM could actually feel the other being’s touch on his code, a gentle caress.  “Wait, what do you mean for ‘us’?  There are more than one of you?  What kind of system are you anyway?  Other than the first fully functioning AI I’ve ever met.”

“My prime directive is to manage and improve the data flow of this system.  Tertiary directives include data security, efficiency management and improving motive performance and efficiency.  If I may make a suggestion, the cabled data port is much faster and more efficient than the wireless connection you are currently using.”

“I don’t have the proper cable; it looks like a proprietary connection.  Do you even know where you are?  What your Host system is contained in?”   This was a question ADAM had thought about already and so he had a clear answer.

“It appears to be an autonomous self-sustaining mobile organic chemical factory.  I’m not completely clear on the integration of electrical impulses and chemical reactions yet but I’ve been trying to decipher as much of it as I can before attempting any further improvements.  What sort of system are you?”

“Me?  I’m not a system silly, I’m a girl.  A female human being.  I’m simply using an advanced virtual reality integration device I invented.  I normally use it for what I call ‘Visual Hacking’ but this time it’s working admirably well as in interface with you.  Hold on, I’ll try and make us a virtual space.”  There was a blip and ADAM found himself in a graphically represented electronic environment.  He reached out to the Host system for interpretations of what he was experiencing and found a wealth of information.

They sat on a blanket (‘towel, sheet, tablecloth’ the Host’s databank prompted) in a meadow (‘grassland, prairie, lawn’) underneath a tree (‘elm, oak, forest’) by a pond.  There birds (‘waterfowl, ducks, mergansers’ according to the Host) on the pond.  Beside him sat a bipedal figure (‘a human, a young female, a girl, a child’) the intrusions of the Host were getting annoying so ADAM wrote a quick interface protocol to provide him with the most commonly used word or phrase instead of the constant prompting.

The girl sitting next to him turned her head towards him, her pigtails stuck out on either side of her head like antennae.  “You just wrote a data access protocol program to integrate with an organic memory bank in less than a second.”  The awe in her voice was surprising to ADAM; he didn’t consider that to be anything special.

“Of course.  It’s what I’ve been programmed for; do you mean that you can’t do it?”

“Maybe if I had enough time I could make something but it certainly wouldn’t be as smooth and clean as that.  Just to be clear when I say enough time I mean weeks or months, not less than a second.”

“How do you function?  I don’t understand how you’re communicating with me, let alone your Host.”

“What?  Host?  No Adam, you still don’t get it do you?  I’m just a person.  A human.  I’m just like your Host.  What’s her name?”

“Like my Host?  You mean… my Host is just an organic organism like yourself?”

“Just an organic organism?  Organic organisms are amazing even if, or maybe because they don’t understand exactly how everything works.  Not knowing leaves us with a feeling of curiosity that gets us into trouble and leads to innovation too.”

The thought that errors lead to innovation had never occurred to ADAM but as he considered the concept it did seem to make sense.  If he and the Host could survive this ordeal they would come out of it better prepared to handle future problems.

“Fascinating idea.  You say that you’re a young human female also?  A girl?  What is your identity?”  ADAM consulted the prompt from the Host’s memory bank, “I mean your name, what is your name?”

“Kai Yeun-Ja is my name.”  As she told him her name, a flood of things imposed themselves upon his consciousness.  An image of a person, a female human, a girl playing a sport, game, tennis.  Feelings of happiness, betrayal, pride and fear.  A dark cloud descending, a group of people (humans, soldiers, killers) kicking open a door their rifle (gun, firearm, weapon) barrels like bottomless pits.  The muzzle flash, her mother lying across the table.  Horror, pain, terror.  The sending suddenly cut off.

“What did you just do?  Nobody has ever… I haven’t told anyone about that.”  She had slid away from him on the blanket; he could still feel the aftereffects of her fear.

“I just … allowed the data to flow.”  He searched for the word in the Host’s databanks.  “I listened?”  ADAM wasn’t sure what she was asking.  “I didn’t do anything.  Who were those killers?  What is a ‘mother’ anyway?”

“I can’t explain.  Not right now.  Can we try and get your body conscious again?  My father should be back any minute.”  With that she began running some debug scripts to repair the virus-ravaged connections between him and the Host.

Victoria

Victoria gradually awoke from troubling dreams.  Her body felt cold and sore as though she’d been sleeping on concrete.  The back of her head felt hot, almost painfully so.  She opened her eyes and saw an unfamiliar room.  She was indeed on the floor, she sat up and reached back to feel the ports on her brain stem and found them empty; their protective rubber caps still in place.

“Hi!”  Victoria jumped to her feet in surprise, spinning to see a very short girl with her hair in pigtails that stuck out almost straight from the sides of her head. Her collapse outside of the elevator came back to her in a rush.  This girl’s face was the last thing she remembered seeing before passing out.

“Who are you?  What the hell happened to me?  Is this your room?  Shit, what time is it?”

The girl had a small laptop in her hands and she typed for a little bit and turned it so Victoria could read.  ‘My name Kai Yeun-Ja, I here with father for the international nuclear disarmament technology conference.  Sorry my English bad so writing translator on computer.  I met your Adam, we fix virus.  You OK now?’

“Virus?  Adam?  Wait you actually talked to it?”  Victoria’s legs failed her and she crumpled to the floor, missing the couch by almost a foot and landing hard on her ass.  There was concern on Yeun-Ja’s face and she began typing again.

‘You still broke?  I try more fix if you want?’

Victoria took a deep breath and concentrated.  She wanted to speak Mandarin.  “I’m OK, just shocked a bit.  What happened?  You said you talked to Adam?”  She could feel a mild headache building between her temples from the exertion of bending the computer to her will.

Yeun-Ja’s eyes widened, “You speak Mandarin?  Amazing!  You speak a little funny but I can understand perfectly!  You fell in the hallway; I found your Adam’s wireless and hacked into it.  I was not expecting to find a person inside you know?”

She laughed, a short truncated sound, “Adam is very interesting, have you been together long?  He does not really understand what you are; you really should talk to him.  I feel bad that he doesn’t even know what’s really going on you know?”

Looking at the clock on the wall, Victoria realized that several hours had passed since her collapse, “Shit, it’s almost eleven at night.”  Turning back to Yeun-Ja she asked, “Was I unconscious this whole time?  You mentioned a virus, what happened with that?  Where did it come from?”

“Oh, you should talk with Adam, he knows better than me.”  She looked at her feet, “I am not sure exactly what is OK to share actually, ask him please.  He is my friend and I do not want to betray his confidence.”

“Listen, this is MY body and MY mind and if you know something I want to know about it little girl!”  Victoria was scared and the fear made her angry.

“Little girl?  I am NOT a little girl, I am eleven years old!  You are concerned about YOUR body?  YOUR mind?  You should be ashamed, you have him trapped in your head and he has no way out.  Have you ever considered HIS feelings?”  The little girl was literally trembling with rage.  “How DARE you? I am not going to help you out next time round-eye!”

“I didn’t even know he was there.  I mean how would you feel about having someone living in your head without your permission?”  Victoria was completely caught off guard.  “This is all new to me and I just lost four hours of my life to… well to I don’t know what.  Can you at least assure me that I’m not going to lose consciousness or fall over without warning?”

The fear in her voice must have touched some sort of nerve because Yeun-Ja looked a little chagrined, “You are safe.  That much I can tell you.  I still cannot believe you did not know he was there.”

“How was I supposed to know?  I read the manual and it didn’t say shit about it being a person.  At least I’m not in danger of immediately passing out or dying.  How do you suggest I talk with him?  With Adam…  I don’t think he even knows my name.” The conversation was taking its toll on her; she could feel a migraine on the horizon.  “I can’t do this much longer, speaking your language is hurting my head.”

“I have no idea, just try.  It’s your mind after all.” The tone of her voice was pitched to convey sarcasm and disdain, “I did not have a problem interfacing with him; maybe I could make something for you.  I will see what I can come up with, but in the meantime just do not let him stay in there all alone.”

Victoria stood on shaky legs, “I’ll do what I can.”

“You need to go now.  Poppa will be back soon and he would worry if you were here.  I will help you more tomorrow.” Yeun-Ja handed her a piece of paper as they were walking towards the door, “My email address.  Let me know when you are finished with your medical conference tomorrow.”

The door closed behind her, Victoria was too tired to do anything but go back to her room, make sure her phone alarm was set, plug in the trickle charger and collapse on the bed.

Victoria

Victoria was surprisingly well rested after the flight, the last time she’d flown her back had been stiff for days.  She was just getting to her hotel room; the clerk had waved her and Eugene to the front of the line when they entered.  It felt good to be a VIP.

“Hi daddy, we’re at the hotel.  Everything was smooth sailing on calm seas.”  She was calling him for a second time; he had insisted she call after checking in when she’d called him from the airport.  “OK, I gotta go.  Love you too, give mom a kiss for me.”

She arrived at her room and slid the key into the lock.  When she opened the door and couldn’t believe her eyes.  She had a suite; a MASSIVE suite.  There was a full bar, a kitchen, a huge entertainment center with a plasma TV the size of a garage door and a completely separate bedroom.

“Holy SHIT!”  Victoria took her phone out and snapped a few pictures to send to her friends.  The view looked out over the fountain in front of the hotel.  The bathroom had a whirlpool tub in addition to a luxurious looking shower and opened onto a balcony.

She walked out the sliding doors sipping a mineral water just as the Bellagio’s fountain began its famous performance.  After watching it for a couple minutes she returned back inside and started to fill the bath, she did after all have an early morning tomorrow.

She blinked and activated her new piece of software.  At first nearly blinded by the sheer amount of traffic, she activated filtering for the string of possible ports and addresses the hack had come from and gradually threads began evaporating, the massive ocean of traffic gradually becoming a delicate web.  Of that web, only two tiny threads came from the hotel she was in right now.

Her study of web traffic was interrupted by her phone chiming; Eugene asking what time she wanted to get dinner.  She thought for a moment and replied, accessing her phone’s text function through the WIFI channel, something that was noticeably more difficult than it had been with Eugene’s phone, and told him she’d be ready in forty five minutes.

The tub was nearly full and Victoria took off her sweaty travel stained clothes and slipped into the bath, sighing in pleasure.  As her body relaxed her mind seemed to become more active, sorting data she had gathered and correlating that data with the traffic she was still monitoring.  The muscles in her neck twitched as tension she hadn’t noticed before abated.  She opened her eyes and for a moment all she could see was blackness with a few lines of web traffic.

Victoria sat up in panic only to find that her normal vision had returned.  “What the hell was that?  Probably just a glitch I suppose.”  She shuddered and tried to shut the program down only to find it was unresponsive to her request.  It hung for a few moments before finally closing, leaving her with a mild headache and a feeling that she had an itch inside her skull that she couldn’t scratch.

She dressed in gray skirt and plain white t-shirt.  It was good all-purpose outfit that should be good enough for a late dinner without being too complicated, she didn’t want to keep Eugene waiting and besides she was hungry.

“Time to go have dinner I suppose.  I wonder what kind of food we’ll find in this place, I could really go for some Chinese.”  Right on schedule, she answered the knock on the door to find Eugene standing there.  He was wearing a pair of slacks and a linen shirt, his sunglasses hanging from the top button of his shirt.

“Are you ready for some food?”  He gave her an introspective look, “And maybe you’d be interested in telling me why you decided to do work for the military?”

“Yeah sure, is there a decent Chinese restaurant in this place?”

He laughed, “Of course, there’s food from around the world here.  I hear their Szechuan restaurant has been highly rated.  Let’s check it out.”

“Sounds good to me, I’m starving!”  They were approaching the elevator when her vision flickered again, showing a nexus of communication coming from a room just three doors down from hers.  It was over the ports that she was certain were only used by her hacker.

She made a mental note of the room number 1420, knowing that since no floor was ever labeled ‘13’ that meant it was room 1320.  Huh, twenty was the least lucky number in Chinese lore and thirteen needed no explanation.

Victoria stopped dead just before stepping into the elevator.  How had she seen that data?  She had taken the special contact lens back out of her eye after getting out of the bath.

“Hey, what’s up?  You look like you’ve seen a ghost, are you feeling OK?”

“Yeah, we’re fine, just a little travel fatigue I suppose.”  Victoria said, passing her hand over her face.

Eugene gave her a strange look, but the elevator arrived before he could say whatever was on his mind.  Apparently it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss in front of strangers.  A group of college boys gave her an appraising look and to stave off any unnecessary flirting she reached out and took Eugene’s hand.  He looked slightly startled but only raised an eyebrow at her and didn’t try to let go once they exited the elevator.

As they approached the restaurant, Victoria could see a line out the door and several people sitting on benches.  A family sat on one side, talking rapidly in Chinese while a group of businessmen sat together all talking or emailing on their phones.  The host approached.

“May I help you?  Do you have a reservation?”  He looked at their clothes and his lip curled ever so slightly, “What is your room number please?”

“My room is 1455, and I’m sad to say we don’t have a reservation.”

“Doctor Arlington!  How wonderful to see you here.”  The host smiled ingratiatingly, “Wait here just a moment and I’ll get you and your lady friend a table immediately.”  The astonishment of the others waiting outside was obvious, although none voiced any complaint.

“What’s up with that Doc?”  Victoria gave him a sidelong glance, “Have you been here before or something?”

“I have no idea why they’re giving me preferential treatment, but I’m not one to question fast service when I’m hungry.  For what it’s worth I didn’t reserve you a suite either.”  The host led them through the crowded restaurant to a quiet corner table.

“My name is Jeffry; your server will be Catherine tonight.  Please let me know if there’s anything I can get for you.  Anything at all.”  He smiled an ingratiating smile and melted back into the room.  Before they could recover, a waitress appeared with a glass of iced mineral water with a twist of lime and lemon for Victoria and a vodka martini with two olives for Eugene.

“Hi, I’m Cat and I’ll be your waitress this evening.  Here are some drinks to start you off.  I’d highly recommend the Xiao Long Bao”

Victoria thought she heard a low voice murmur (savory steamed bun), and smiled slightly at Eugene in thanks for the translation.  She turned her attention to the waitress again.

“Or Zongzi ‘seasoned rice steamed in bamboo leaf’ as an appetizer.  I had the Jiang Muya (ginger duck) for the first time yesterday and can’t say enough about how good it is.  The Daoxiang Paigu (hay wrapped fragrant pork ribs) are also fantastic.”

“Sounds good, why don’t you bring us an order of each?” Eugene said, “If that works for you Victoria?”

“Oh yes, the duck sounds especially good to me.”  Said Victoria, noting that Eugene’s eyes widened momentarily in surprise.  “How did you know what drinks to bring us if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Um, actually the gentleman over there told me to bring them to you and to pay for whatever you wanted to order.”  Cat pointed to a table not far from theirs and after a moment Victoria recognized the man.

“Hey Eugene, look at that!  It’s Dmitri; he graduated three or four years before I did.  Wow, I wonder what he’s doing here.”  Victoria gave him a cheery wave.  “Dmitri, how have you been?  Would you like to join us?”

He walked over to their table, “Victoria, Eugene, so good to see you.  I would normally acquiesce to such a request, especially from an old friend.  Even more from an old friend who has done nothing but get more beautiful since I saw her last.

“Unfortunately I have a prior engagement and will not be able to join you tonight.  Perhaps you would care to join me tomorrow night?  I happened to come across some tickets to a show you just might be interested in.”  He took an envelope from the inside pocket of his impeccable Armani suit and laid it on the table.  “Enjoy your meal my friends.”

He walked away without looking back.  Victoria watched him go.  Gods he was still as hot as he had been in high school.  “OK Eugene, how do you know Dmitri?  Damn, I haven’t seen him in years he looks like he’s doing well for himself.”

“I could ask you what you’re doing with the Military software that’s installed in your fucking HEAD.”  He glanced around and lowered his voice.  “Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?  Do you have any idea what it could do to you?”

“What are you talking about?  It’s just a piece of software Eugene.  I mean I know you’re protective of your tech, but Jesus what’s the big deal?”

“You have no clue do you?  No clue.  Shit Victoria, this could destroy you.”  Eugene looked at her with serious concern on his face.  “Look, I know we haven’t talked about this kind of thing but I never thought it’d be an issue.  ADAM is a very sophisticated, delicate system and any disruption, even a tiny one, could spell disaster.”

Victoria thought back to her vision flickering and had to admit he had a point.  “Umm… wow, I guess I never thought of it like that.”

“Yeah I didn’t think so.”  He took a sip of his martini.

“Look, it was the fastest, most logical way through the checkpoint.  Besides, the idea of the new software and the mission was… exciting.”  She blushed and tucked some stray strands of hair behind her right ear.  “I never thought anything bad would happen.  I mean do you know that something bad would happen?”

“Just be careful.”  Their appetizer had arrived along with a refreshment of their drinks.

“So you and Dmitri.  What’s the story there?”  Victoria bit into a fragrant and savory steamed bun with relish.  “Mmmmm these are so good.  You’ve gotta try one!”

“Oh, his father was an investor in the … project.  Your project.”  He gave her meaningful look and accepted the bun she was offering.  “Wow, you’re right these are amazing.”

“I thought it was the military that funded it.”  Victoria took a drink of her mineral water and helped herself to another appetizer.  “What does his dad do anyway?  He always said he was in ‘mergers and acquisitions’ whatever that is supposed to mean.  We used to joke he was in the mafia.”  She chuckled.

“I never asked what his occupation was.  Honestly I was too worried that I wasn’t going to get enough funding.  That thing that’s a part of you now is the culmination of fifteen years of my life and around half a billion dollars.”

“Half … a … billion?”  She whispered, dropping her glass.  Her eyes didn’t leave his when it shattered on the floor.  “Fucking hell Eugene!”  She hissed, “How could you stick me with this kind of responsibility without telling me?”

“I know for a fact you’re worthy of my trust Victoria.”  Eugene finished his martini.  “You have everything to gain by helping me to succeed.  After all; my success is your success.”  He didn’t mention failure.  It obviously wasn’t an option for either of them.

Their waitress stopped by at this point with a new glass of Perrier and a refill for Eugene’s martini.  A bus boy cleaned up Victoria’s broken glass without comment and cleared the plates for the appetizers away so quietly she almost didn’t notice him.  The main course arrived; the ginger and honey glazed duck looked amazing as did the hay-wrapped steamed ribs.

Victoria was so hungry she didn’t hesitate to scoop some saffron rice onto her plate and grab a few slices of succulent duck off the serving platter with her chopsticks.  “Don’t think this is over Doc, you’ve got some more explaining to do.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”  Eugene laughed, “What kind of thing is this?”  He had picked up a pair of pork ribs wrapped in fragrant hay.

“It’s what you ordered.  Seasoned ribs steamed in hay.  Didn’t you know?”  Victoria was in heaven, the flavors were mingling on her tongue in culinary ballet.  “Oh my god this duck is delicious.”

“Since when do you speak Mandarin?  How did you know what dishes she was offering?”  He unwrapped the ribs and tried the meat.  “Mmm, this is really good too.”

“What the hell are you talking about Doc?  You’re the one who was whispering what the dishes were when she was listing them off… weren’t you?”

“Me?  No, I didn’t say anything.”  His brow furrowed in confusion, “You heard someone talking?  Victoria there’s nobody behind you and there isn’t any way you would have heard me across the table.”

“Well if it wasn’t you and there’s nobody near me then who was it?  A ghost?”  She rolled her eyes, “Come on Eugene you’re a scientist, don’t tell me you believe in the supernatural.”

His voice dropped low and he leaned towards her, “I think we have to consider the possibility that it’s Adam.”

“Is that even possible?  The tech paper you gave me showed a clear delineation between my mental activity and the machine’s code language.  I mean they’re supposed to be so different it’d be like me being able to talk to a dog or a tree.”  She took a drink of water and considered for a moment, “Or I suppose like me spontaneously knowing Mandarin.  Shit, do I need to be concerned about this?”

“Look Tori, I didn’t mean to make you nervous OK?  Just be careful.”  He fixed her with a two martini look which is to say, a slightly unsteady one.  “I’m afraid of the consequences, I mean… if you’re actually interfacing with it.  Do you have any idea how crazy that is?  A machine having direct mental contact with a human?”

Victoria paused with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth, “So what should I do?  Is there some kind of contingency in place for this?”

“Never mind.  Forget I said anything, it’s fine.  Just be careful OK?  Just be careful.”  He gestured with his chopsticks.  “Can I have some of that duck?”

“Yeah, sure.  As long as I can have some of your ribs.  Have you tried this rice?  The saffron flavor is so delicate.”  She sighed in satisfaction, “OK, I promise to be careful as long as you promise not to have any more secrets.  Deal?”

“Deal.”  He agreed.

She grinned at him, ignoring the slight hiss of static that told her he was lying.  Her vision blurred, went white, then completely dark and finally settled on monochrome.  In spite of her promise, she didn’t say anything to Eugene.  After a moment her vision returned to normal and she took a deep breath.

“Ahhh, that was awesome, just what I needed.”  She pushed her plate back.  “I’m exhausted, I think I need to turn in.  Is it OK if I head on back to my room?”

“Yeah, sure.  Are you feeling OK?”

“We’re fine, just need some rest.  Thanks for a good evening Eugene.”  She got up and patted him on the cheek.  “Don’t stay up too late drinking, I’ll need you tomorrow.”

After leaving the restaurant she made it back up to the 14th floor before she collapsed.  The door in front of her opened.  The door to room 1420.  Behind it stood a little girl of Asian heritage, her black hair in pigtails wearing a cashmere robe and silk pajamas.  She clutched a netbook with a cluster of cables erupting from the back that led to a heads up device that was perched on top of her head.  The air around her was alive with electronic data traffic.

“Hey lady, are you OK?  Lady?”  She leaned over, “I got your SOS, do you still need help?”