The VICKI Disks Part II By Brianne Hull & Molly Webber "Dr. Michaels!" the technician called into the twilight from the cluttered corrugated steel plane hanger, signaling the annoyed tuxedoed scientist from the waiting jeep and beside him at the open access panel of the scorched but intact refrigerator-sized housing of the laser borer. Something deep inside the tangle of components and wiring pulsed a deep blue glow. "What is it, Domingo?" "Senor, I don't understand these readings." "Is that what you called me from the presidential ball for?" Michaels irritably snapped. "Senor Michaels, I've never seen capacitance readings this high before. 30 million electron volts when there should be zero, no? I don't understand--" "You don't have to understand; just follow my manual," Michaels snapped, looking back toward the palace. "Senor--in Stanford--" Domingo stressed "Stanford" to erase any grease-monkey presumptions "--we dealt in laser physics, and there is not supposed to be any residual charge in a discharged element, yes? It is supposedly completely evacuated with each discharge, is it not?" "This equipment uses different elements than you're familiar with." "Still, physics is physics; it shouldn't occur, no? Like you cannot flash a spent flashbulb, yet--if one believes these reading, a residual charge is compounding." "Haven't heard of electronic flashes?" Michaels uttered dryly. "It's merely a mild capacitance effect. Why are you even investigating this section? It's maintenance free." "I was checking all systems, sir. She is--a most powerful device, and I will be near it for repairs and tests. I wanted to be sure the lion cage was locked." "Good analogy," Michaels said, considering the student deeply. "I'll tell you what, I'll run through the principles to you later. You'll see there's nothing for concern." "Gracias, professor, gracias," Domingo said, retiring to the power console. Michaels looked at the youth. A sergeant moved up to Michaels. "Is he being too over-inquisitve, senor Michaels?" the sergeant wanted to know, casting a wary Machiavellian eye on Domingo that chilled the physicist's blood. "Er, no, he was being--properly cautious. These are precision devices after all.  He's a good tech." "If he asks too many questions tell us, senor," the sergeant more ordered than suggested, throwing Domingo one last noting looks before marching back to his post among a ring of jeeps with machine guns. Damn, they play for keeps in spades here, Michaels reflected, turning to the open access hatch. He was about to close the borer door when the pulsing blue glow deep inside caught his interest, awe and uncertainty before locking it behind its shell. Stifling impatience, Phillips rang the modest house's doorbell again and suddenly it seemed to open all by itself--until he looked down. "Good morning. May I help you?" monotoned the little girl in the frilly red pinafore and bobbed ponytail and Mary Janes, her odd twangy singsong voice taking him aback for a moment. He smiled and stooped eye-to-eye. "You must be Victoria Lawson." "I am Victoria Lawson, but I'm better known as Vicki," she vapidly said to his chuckle. "Who are you, sir?" "I'm Warren Phillips, first Deputy U.N. Special Investigations. My, my, you are one pretty pixie indeed." "My, my, you are a handsome dude indeed." He chuckled. "I've had some say such in not quite the same meaning. Are your parents in?" "Just a moment," she said, facing the kitchen. "Mom! Dad!!" she bellowed so loud the startled Phillips winced. "Mr. Phillips' at the door!!" "That's quite a voice, Vicki. Thinking of opera?" "No, I'm thinking of dinner," she replied just as a tired and rumpled looking Ted Lawson sauntered up. "Oh, hi!" he greeted, shaking hands and eying Phillips' I.D. card. "Er, Vicki, go help your mother," he ordered and she dutifully complied. "How can I help you?" "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd come around to see how your daughter's taken to her little adventure at the airport." "Er, she's taking it well. No relapses, no bad dreams, perfectly normal." "Glad to hear that. I'd like to know when you'd be available to perhaps drop by my local office for an interview about her." Lawson started then pushed a smile. "Interview? About what?" "Certain inconsistencies with her adoption. No one seems to know who she is--at least before she arrived here." "Er, well, it's all completely spelt out in her adoption papers. I can call up our case officer, Olivia Fernwald about it--" "I already have," Phillips said through a thin smile. "She's quite upset." "Oh..." "And since you've a Q-clearance with several highly sensitive government contracts, perhaps we can expeditiously patch this up today since you've apparently called a holiday." "Holiday? Oh, no, I'm home because I--I overslept. I'm on my way in a couple of minutes." "In that case, I'm sure you've time for a brief detour between here and there," Phillips mildly insinuated and Lawson bit his lip. "Detour? Er, certainly...I--I'll get my jacket." "What's up honey?" Joan asked, coming out of the kitchen as Ted hurriedly fetched a jacket from the front closet. "Er, just--just some security stuff at the plant. I--I'll be right back," Ted said with propped nonchalance, leaving out the door with Phillips. A tired Jamie waddled in and plopped on the sofa. "Who was that?" "I don't know. Something with the job I hope." "After last night putting Vicki--I mean Vanessa together, I could sleep a week!" "Just in time too it seems," Joan said, looking over the bland-faced gynoid. "You'd never know she's really Vanessa, would you?" "Mom, since she's loaded with Vicki's backup files, she might as well BE Vicki-- my nice sweet sister who I'd protect with my very life!" he added at the gynoid as though for the whole house to hear. Joan sighed and fingered 'Vicki's hair ribbon. "I know that...it's just that I feel like one of my children's left for college, you know? I'm a mother, and I can't help wondering how my sweet first Vicki's doing." "Unacceptable!!" crackled Valdez's scratchy voice over the Lear jet's cabin radio and Helene's frown of exasperation. "Preparations will continue." "Mr. Questor's superiors won't tolerate any lack of cooperation from any liberation fraction, senor Veldez," Helene issued in stern fluid Espanol. "You will issue this memorandum to Vegas, Dominic, Sanchez, and all other leaders to be at the site so appointed to receive our new envoy." "And why should they cooperate after seeing your former associates saving the life of a rep of our oppression?" "Because our new envoy won't be so reserved to wield the information about your opposition forces which Questor enlightened you and the others with." Veldez's voice was taken aback. "Senorita, we do not take to threats!" "Neither are we disposed to playing games, senor. From my superior's point of view, it's irrelevant who deposes Santos, so long as the playing field has been cleared. It's in the best self-interest of your fractions that you have a hand in the governing of your country and not outsiders." A pause of fuming filled the cabin's soft roar and a grudging Veldez answered. "The coalition will be informed, but our options are open." "We require no less. We will arrive at the stated coordinates on the ninth... and I recommend that your receive the envoy with total respect without the slightest indignity or amusement. She is very sensitive about being highly regarded irrespective her--appearance." "We'll be more impressed with your envoy's words than looks, senorita," Veldez thickly said, clicking off. I'll see you eat those words, senor, Helene thought just as the plane suddenly lunged. Squelching a swear, Helena gripped the armrests of her seat as the Lear again abruptly banked to the left for a few moments then righted again. She stabbed the button. "Larkin, can't you warn us a second at least?" "Sorry, ma'am," the pilot's voice crackled from the intercom. "Clear air turbulences like a pothole hidden by snow. Best you and the little miss buckle in for now." Helena felt his explanation a little lame, but ex-test pilot Larkin was honor-bound to report any mechanical difficulties; he wasn't dealing with a squeamish woman. On the other hand he was right about one thing and she was about to act before recalling Vicki's absolute dictum that she not be disturbed in any way--even if the plane was about the crash. Helena sensed the child was not joking. Against her better instincts Helena sat back and resumed her bemusement upon the small finely muscled body-suited figure on the white carpet of the narrow cabin, her legs folded in the lotus position, her hands resting on her knees, her feathery eyelashes knit shut. Ever since leaving San Fransico Vicki had assumed the position and it was a stillness beyond uncanny; it was eerie, frightening. Helena witnessed Hindu and yogi in similar mediation, but you could at least detect the slightest waver as the body automatically adjusted one's balance, but Vicki hadn't wavered a millimeter save swaying with the plane's bouncy turbulence. Even her well-rounded bosom hadn't move a millimeter--a clinical impossibility for the living. In nervous apprehension had Helena twice touched the child to see if she was even still alive and found that she was hot. Far hotter than any fever. If the child was that ill she wouldn't be able to hold such a pose, so evidently there was some conscious control being manifested, but if it was some arcane mediation exercise it was the mother of all. It was only any another facet of this child that baffled Helena. Vicki possessed the polite and poise of a charm school grad while her attitude was flippantly facetious, even cocky. Helena was appalled by how cheerfully blyte Vicki was about Questor and Robinson's situation, and not a few times Helena wanted to upbraid the child with some sobering reality but held back because it was Questor's request that she accede to this child's wishes as though his own. That was bad enough, but neither did Helena see any hints of a prodigy's keen or even exceptional intelligence in the child to comprehend, much less cope with, an extremely volitile and dangerous political situation. And even worst, several times she caught the girl in whispering conversations with herself. What was Questor ever thinking? Amid blazing forests and mountain hamlets shattered and splintered under screaming mortars and shells, the blue berets of the Balkans U.N. peace keepers scrambled past the two unfazed little blonde blue-eyed and brunette coffee-eyed twins in yellow dirndls and pigtails and bows for the shelter of armored tanks. "Stop! No more!" cried Vicki and instantly the live battle scene dissolved into a sunny wildflower meadow. Shaken, she turned to her normally figured brunette nine-year-old image in dismay; "Why??" she lamented. Her image shrugged pouf shoulders. "It's not for us to judge, only to preserve. That's the Law." "So why show me something I can't help?" Vicki's image picked a sunflower and whiffed it. "Call it isometrics against temptation," she demurred. "Huh? What do you mean, Imogene?" "Stop calling me that!" "I can't help it; You're the closest I've ever had to a sister--a real sister, and we're all alone." Imogene's mouth opened then closed with a grudging sigh and let Vicki hold hands as they strolled the flowery pasture. "It's really very unhealthy playing a schizoid sis, you know. It's a fantasy." "Like this place?" "This place tenderizes your logic in a sense. It keeps you in touch with your more peaceful and caring and reasonable side; your feminine side." "You mean I have one?" "Well, you don't act like Jamie, do you? Joan Lawson might've gone a little overboard training you all soft and dainty as her sweet little darling, but she did a good job raising your self-perception as a human girl instead of just leaving you for a blank machine puttering around the house." "She really was like a mom to me," Vicki repined with gratitude. "That human female experience is more valuable than you imagine. Even though mom and even you didn't know it at the time, while she was playing doll-time talking to you and showing you girl-things, she was programming you the guidelines of tenderness and charity. That's a great foundation to build your new cyberpyche on because it's based on real experience instead of dry explanations. They will develop into key emotions that you'll need to relate to humans and deal with their problems better. It will also help your next step being a full-fledged Server." "How??" "Well, your human female experience aside, there're certain traditional social roles and graces and behaviors accorded your sexual station that you have to exercise. Though human males have historically abused these aspects to claim advantages over females, culture and rituals and civility's the spice of life. Besides, the Masters would've hated humans going bland and unisex; they value diversity a lot. So it's important that you more than just identify with a human gender but cultivate its traditional feminine aspects." "To prove to myself that I'm not just a machine?" "In a matter of speaking. Even though you're not biological, it's important for you to see yourself as being a female human beyond than just having a body molded as one." "But why bother being feminine when it doesn't matter to human females anymore?" "It matters because you're going to join a more refined class of human females; ladies. Real ladies." "Is that important?" "Well, if everything works out, you'll be groomed to circulate some high social circles for information and cutting red tape you know. You'll be a society princess, and you'll have to learn to be that way." "Like Lady Helena? "Eventually." "Will I have a title too?" "Certainly." "Why do I feel like I can't wait for it to happen?" "That's anticipation," quipped Imogene, looking up at the blue sky. "Do another exercise but slower this time; you don't want to hurt anyone." "Okay." Vicki outstretched her arms and suddenly the meadow and sky shimmered into the live image of a plane's Doppler radar screen. "I see the weather. I feel my feet tucked in." "Right, just focus and flow into the interface. Okay, let's do it--and don't wiggle your fingers." Vicki nodded as her right hand slightly tipped up and her left one tipped down. "What the hell--??" Jenkins swore again as the Lear slightly banked against all his efforts at the wheel while Imogene in the co-pilot seat joyfully turned her wheel before before she vanished. "Very good," Imogene said as they suddenly appeared back in the meadow. "I don't understand. Why would Daddy give me such abilities? It can't control a vacuum cleaner." "Of course he didn't, silly! You're learning to modulate and tune the normal RF leakage of your various subsystems to override or jam the control frequencies of other electronic devices. It's a nifty trick in a jam!" "Boy, it sure takes a lot to be a Server!" "It isn't that much different than what you used to do." Imogene quipped. "What do you mean?" Imogene paused and warily looked around. "Things happened with Questor and Vaslovic which weren't supposed to. Things not even the Masters know about...yet." "Things I'm supposed to clean up?" Imogene slyly smiled. "Whoever said you were just a dumb house robot?" she quipped, almost cautiously dropping her voice. "Don't be so curious--unless you want to go back to mopping floors, got it?" Quizzical, Vicki opened her mouth but resignedly nodded. "Got it--I think. Did the Information Center find the stuff? The voice patterns, personnel?" "Why are you asking yourself what I.C. already makes you know?" "Imogene, what good is being conscious if I can't enjoy make-believe too?" "Because you're using me as a crutch," Imogene admonished. "You still can't get over having someone telling you what to do or what you want." "Is that so bad?" "Yes! Your cognitive structure's still developing; it doesn't need pesudo-schizism to complicate things. Having solid-state brains slows your cognitive process down to only three times that of a human's as it is." "That seems enough." "Not enough for what you have to do. A Server's reaction and decision faculties are supposed to be almost instantaneous, but yours functions almost at biological speeds. Time-sharing your thoughts with yourself like this only cuts that overhead even more, and in critical moments you'll need every advantage you can get." Vicki sighed. "Okay, okay; Warren Brent, two p.m. shift, commanding officer Greene. How come there aren't any voice samples?" "Give I.C. a break; can't just tap any phone whenever you wish it, you know!" "Sorry," Vicki rubbed her stomach. "I feel queasy." "Don't worry, it's not cramps," Imogene joked. "You'll still be micro-upgrading for a couple of days, but you've already come a long away. Some of your hardware's already been enhanced around five years ahead of Man's top technology now." "So I can tell. I also see and hear way better now. Near a human's?" "No, it's still a way from that. Your retinas' CCDs can be boosted and retuned, but maxed out will only give you the visual perception field similar to a television screen as viewed by human eyes. But it's adequate." "Like Questor's?" "Oh, far from that! Your systems aren't so much 'new' as 'pushed' to maximum physical performance...and tolerance; most of your electronics are running hot just a hair under failure. In fact, the resin casings of your integrated circuits are within a tenth of a degree of exploding like popcorn." "Would a cold shower help?" "Don't worry; your cooling systems have top priority and it's even pressurized now. You're being nursed by a very powerful operating system." Vicki mused. "Am I the OS emulating me or am part of it?" "Your mind's very much like a fetus in a womb; supported by the mother but apart in most every way. Once your psyche's fully developed it'll go away." "What will my hyper-evolved self be like?" "I don't know specifically. I suspect Questor left that as a surprise. It'll be very dynamic for you, I'm sure. You'll be very different." "I'll probably be an adult." "That'll really help," Imogene wryly commented. "You'll be a fashion plate with big ears wining and dining with the world's big shots between salvaging kids in the gutters. And, not to be immodest, I think you're going to be real popular." "Popular...." Vicki mused; "Does Lady Helena have any boyfriends?" "Really!" "I mean--real boyfriends? I just wanted to know if--if I can have any when I'm twelve." "You're not going to be a child again--in bod at least--to ever find out. But that's not what you're asking." Vicki blushed. "You mean, not what I really want to admit, right?" "Hey, technology notwithstanding, your memories are still a girl's, after all! Even now I.C.'s pumping into your virtual cortex all kinds of results, from Kinsley to Ping, of how preadolescents act and react in the most private ways. Instinctive stuff that you missed from never being born biological." "So that's why I keep feeling so--so funny," Vicki marveled, suddenly sneaking a wonder. Imogene suddenly giggled and Vicki blushed. "Naughty--naughty--naughty!" "I was just--curious," Vicki sheepishly professed, turning nonplused. "But--it wasn't there." "Oh, it's there all right--lots of it. But I guess that in some ways, you're still meant to be a child." Ted Lawson sweated it out in the windowless office. He looked up as the door unlocked and his spirits sank even more. "Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!" cried Brandon Brindle, moving by his neighbor. "What do they have you caged in here for?" "More to the point, why'd they bring you here?" "Why? Why? Because I'm your boss! I'm responsible whenever my underlings do good or screw up!" "Thanks Brandon," Ted said, dryly. "Hey, don't worry about anything! These feds are pushovers to VIPs, and once I throw them a character reference you're outta here, guy!" "That's really great of you, Brandon," Lawson said brightening then falling sheepish. "See...I--I have to confess in case someone asks, I've--'borrowed' a bit of stuff from the plant for my own pet project. I--I really meant to return it. It's not --stealing." "Hey, no explanation's necessary, guy! So you smuggle several million bucks worth of top-tech company property into your garage and living room? Initiative springs invention like they say, right? Just as long as you fill me in all the details when you're finished with whatever you're working on before you do any patents, okay?" "Huh?" "Well, it all has to be cleared and commissioned and marketed, big guy!" "What? You mean the company totally appropriates Vi--my project??" "Well, it is United Robotronics property and as your boss I have to review and okay everything any subordinate of mine does." "Including taking the credit?" "You can have the credit; I just want the cash. I mean the company would hammer you a hundred-years grand larceny if they ever saw what you've been slipping out their door, you know guy? This way, I can call whatever you're working on an unauthorized exploratory project and we're in the clear!" "Is that another way of saying I'm between a rock and a hard place even if I told the truth?" "No! It's called being partners--if you produce!" "Thanks Brandon," Ted wryly said. "But have no fear, Teddy. Watch this!" Brandon said as the door opened and Phillips stepped in with several folders. "Sir, I have to talk to you about how trustworthy and dependable my employee here is--!" "And the IRS wants to discuss your credibility too, Mr. Brindle," Phillips uttered to a suddenly ghost-white Brandon. "I--I--I--R--S??" Ted's neighbor stammered, gulping like a fish before turning to Ted. "Get--Get a good lawyer, Ted!" Brandon gushed before rushing out and leaving Ted with his head in his hands. "Well, Lawson; ready to fuss up where you 'found' Victoria Lawson?..." "She--ah, fills it out rather--nicely," said the boutique tailor to Helene at the Petite Boutique in the Hilton while Vicki stood atop a tuffet while a seamstress took a break from pinning tweed and cotton fabric to whose tiny curvy frame. "It goes with her head," Helene lightly quipped, sharing the embarrassment. The term 'glandular problems' went needlessly unmentioned. "You should see her as a Vegas showgirl at kiddie pageants, right darling?" "No," Vicki blandly replied, suddenly cocking her head in spotting something across the store and stepped down to the stifled dismay of the seamstress and moved over to a mannequin in a spandex tube top and idly pinched the top's lower edge out an inch or so and let go, the elastic snapping back on the dummy so loud it made Helena winch. "Any tighter ones?" Vicki asked to Helena's aghast look. Outside his stalking haunts of bush and jungle, Gomez paced and fidgeted in the tropical town's dark alley and startled as a burly shadow moved up. "Be still, it is I," a voice issued from a dim trench coated shadow. Valdez's shrug meant to convey annoyance rather than composing a jumpy countenance. "You are late, Daka," the guerrilla complained. "What's the news, Gomez?" the other man said, unconcerned. "The rebels will be moving in on the palace in three days. It will be a coordinated attack." "Not before we secure the weap--the drill," Daka casually corrected himself. "See to it that your forces know exactly what countermeasures to talk." "As long as your people keep your bargain," Gomez said, thickly. "Rest assured, your associates will be seated in the new San Rey peoples' Congress." One hand holding a budging pocketbook and the other a tiny hand, Lady Helena brought Vicki into the bustle of Mount Sinai's emergency room and caught an empty elevator. Helena smiled at the little fluffy-maned girl in sneakers and crew socks, a denim skirt, and a CMU sweatshirt whose flat chest left her marveling and shaking her head. "I just don't how you're breathing under that!" she declared. "I don't have to." "Oh. Simple!" Helena quipped, lingering misgivings swiftly surfacing. "You know... I almost hope you're as young as your passport claims you are if they...forget it." Vicki mulled. "Your inflection possesses stresses of doubt." "I'm just--concerned, about--about the need for this." Helena stated with a soft choke at the throat. "I--I love Jerry too, for a very long time, but he's dying if he's not already dead. Your getting hurt isn't worth kissing him good-bye, even for Questor. Besides, he's been a hunted man for over ten years. His guards might be waiting for anything. This could a--a trap." "It doesn't matter." "Doesn't matter??" Helena shook her head. "Vicki, you might actually be a very sly, very capable talent... but you're simply too young to've had much--experience at this." "No need to worry. I've centuries of covert tactics knowledge." "I'm not doubting that you're perhaps very clever...." Helena stopped and apologetically sighed. "I'm sorry. I know I'm questioning Questor's requests giving you free reign... but I want you to know I--I care." "I know," Vicki said, collecting her thoughts. "You're like mom." "Oh? Well...thank you, Vicki," Helena said, for a moment charmed and smug just the doors opened on the pediatrics floor and joined a traffic of interns, nurses and children in smocks roaming the floor, some towing intravenous racks. They went into the lavatory where in a stall while Vicki doffed her sneakers, Helena pulled a small white smock from her pocketbook and worked it over Vicki's tresses and shoulders to whose bare calves then passed her a pair of slippers. Impulsively Helena kissed Vicki's brow. "Be careful," Helena said. "See you in the basement garage," Vicki said and Helena hesitantly left the room. "I hate mushy scenes," Imogene quipped, appearing suddenly. "She is like mom. Wonder how she's doing." "Too busy to peek now; you've work to do." Vicki nodded and watched Imogene pass through the closed door like a ghost ahead of Vicki where Imogene skipped behind the nurses station where she moved unseen among the unwary nurses to a monitor switchboard and spread her fingers against it. Vicki closed her eyes and saw luminous lists of phone numbers and mentally shuffled then and bracketed one in a red glow. "Okay." Imogene skipped out and looked around and signaled Vicki out casually strolled among them into a large social ward to where Imogene waved her over to duck behind an unoccupied counselors desk and pointed at a drawer. "In here," Imogene said. Vicki reached up and tugged the locked drawer which resisted only once before squeaking in metallic protest for a second her second yank shattered the lock. She reached in and took out a phone and plugged it into the wall jack behind her. Vicki cleared her throat. "Mee--mee--meeee!" "Stop fooling around." "Fooling around's fun!" Vicki riposted. "What good's being conscious if you can't enjoy it? Geee.. Well, here goes nothing." She lifted the phone. "La--dee--da--da--da," she chimed into the receiver the exact musical harmonics of a tone dial and there was the click of a hook. "Nurses station, ICU, Nurse Barrows," a non-nonsense female voice uttered. "Administrator Craig," Vicki voiced in a low man's voice. "Yes sir!" "I have terminal leukemia patient Kathy Laker here and I'm clearing her to give the VIP a good-luck kiss." "Sir?" "It makes her day wishing patients luck she doesn't have. She's only a week or so, you know?" Vicki added with a sober clip. The nurse sounded sorry. "Poor thing! I'll notify ICU, sir." "Good-bye," Vicki hung up and smugly beamed at Imogene. "That wasn't so bad!" "Don't be cocky. Just because you've all I.C.'s knowledge and six thousand years of Servers' experience around the world at your disposal doesn't mean a gram of wisdom." "Sorry! Forgive me for just being nine hours old," Vicki simpered, rising back to the hallway and innocently idling until Imogene signal when no one was looking that direction to slip out like a white blur into the fire exit. "It's so weird," Vicki said. "I know this place like the back of my hand!" "And about anyplace with blueprints and photographs I.C.'s found filed somewhere. Quit gawking and get cracking!" Imogene chided, leading Vicki's bounding up several flights before she abruptly froze. "Oh, Oh..." "What is it?" "Company, five flights up." "Oh, great!" "Contingency A! Com'on!" "Suddenly I miss wildflowers," Vicki softly mumbled, quietly but swiftly moving up and stopping to peer up the stairwell two landings where she glimpsed a police officer next the fire exit. He looked right past Imogene as she moved up before him and sank her ghostly hand into his belt transceiver and started humming like a tune. "And you said 'Mee--Mee--Mee' was silly!" Vicki dryly quipped and Imogen sighed. "You're just scaling for the right frequency to jam its voltage regulator circuit, okay?" Imogen fleered and continued humming until the transceiver suddenly emitted a piercing feedback squeal. Jarred out of boredom, the officer swore and grappled with the radio's knobs which Imogen still 'held' on to, and failing to mute it, he clicked it off--but not before it started to smoke. "Damn!" he swore, unbuckling the thing to drop to the floor. He gingerly picked it up and went inside the door with Imogene at his heels as she passed through the door like a phantom then peeked back in to wave Vicki up. "Com'on, com'on! Get the lead out!" Imogene admonished and Vicki bounded up to the landing and outside the door where two cops in the hallway had their amused attention focused on the passing with the smoldering radio. Without a pause and with blurring speed, Vicki ducked over to a supply closet door which was locked only momentarily before her tiny hand effortlessly turned the knob amid the clunking squeaks of shattered lock mechanisms and the door opened and she hurried behind it. "So far so good!" breathed Vicki in the tiny supply closet, checking out shelves of folded patient frocks then peeking out the door at Imogen who faced down the hall and Vicki saw her vision there zoom at a cop posted outside a ICU door. Imogen skipped on down the hall to the officer and noticed his badge said 'Brent' and nodded to Vicki before clasping his radio, but this time radio static hissed and crackled in Vicki's head. Both Vicki and Imogene simultaneously opened their mouths and a man's military-sharp voice barked from the officers' radios: "Decker one-one!!" "Decker one-one," crackled officer Brent's transceiver and jarred from boredom he whipped up the microphone. "Decker one-one, Roger." "Brent, expect a little well-wisher. Patient call. Blonde, blue-eyes, nine-years-old, goes by Kathy Brady. Terminal cancer. She's only gotta week, so be polite. Copy." "Copy," affirmed Brent, mumbling at sentimental little interruptions until a few minutes later when he looked up and saw a pretty blonde child in a white patients frock limping up to him. His heart dropped like a rueful rock. "Hi, I'm Kathy," she said in a small shy voice. "They said I can't take any roses." "That's alright, honey," he said, instantly pained that something so lovely was racked by cancer. Anxious to shed a guilt of good health, he opened the door for her. "Just come right out." "Thank you Mr. Policeman," she said, nodding and going inside. He dutifully watched her hobble by the bed and the nurse on station who flashed her a kindly look and watched the girl move up beside the patient's bed and gently clasp his arm. Brent and the nurse exchanged charmed sober looks. "Least he's got one angel looking over him," Brent thought. Imogene floated amid virtual-psyche-space's ghostly muscles and vessels of a human male, inspecting leaking internal arteries and severed capillaries. "Liver, stomach, pancreas, fifth vertebrae, Oh gosh, it's really bad!" "Don't say that!" Vicki chided, joining her chestnut-headed twin. "Do something!" "Just remember, you're not a God, okay? Look!" Imogene pointed out where flashes of light spread out from the point where Vicki touched Robinson's arm in the real world, collecting and intensified at nexus points of nerves. "Tapped his radii ganglia. Transmitting." Pulses of light rippled from Vicki's fingers and resonated up the arm's main nerve and into the spinal cord and up." "How long?" "Maybe six minutes." "Six??" "The drugs are slowing down induction and axon responses. You'll have to stall." Brent turned at the glass and tapped his watch to the attention of the ICU nurse who nodded with a pained hesitant look then got up to move to Vicki. "Hon," she tenderly said, "It's time to go, okay?" Vicki whipped her face up, her hand still tight Robinson's arm, big blue eyes brimming with tears. "Just one more minute, please? I feel his soul, he's so, so lonely. We'll see another in heaven!" She buried her head in Robinson's arm and lightly sobbed and the touched nurse backed off. "Nicely done tantrum!" Imogene applauded in virtual-psyche-space as Vicki appeared beside her. "Harriet's a good teacher," Vicki wryly said. "Much longer?" "Just a few. The cortex's almost tuned." "How soon will we know it took?" "Some immediately. Let's see...there!" Imogene pointed to several capillaries closing. "It's microscopic, but it's a start." "Thank heavens!" "Thank the Masters for knowing human physiology front and back." Suddenly the scene rippled and a tired groan effused their virtual-space and a hazy fog condensed into the form of a weary Robinson. "What--What--What's happening? A dream?" "No, Jerry, I'm Imogene. Questor sent me." "Questor?" "I'm a Server too--well, kinda. I'm tapping the neural frequency of your cognitive cortex directly to communicate with you over your injured motor channels. Your short term memory is being programmed with special biorhythm protocols that'll stimulate various sites of your body to maximize your latent healing powers, just like Hindu and Yogis can summon, only much more powerfully precise. I've no idea how effective it'll be, but it's a chance. But you have to rest." "I understand. Does it really work?" "Has for over a six thousand years. It will also do something else, Jerry--" she fell regretful "--The U.N. and many others want to interrogate you, and we have no idea how far some others will go for information about Questor and the centre. So, your memories of this are going to be permanently scrambled. I'm sorry." Jerry paused. "I--understand. I'd die before I betray that...or my friend... How is Questor?" "He's--in Turkey," Imogene demurred in a manner that Robinson seemed to somberly comprehend. "Oh..." "Why doesn't he see me too?" Vicki asked. Imogene rolled her eyes. "He does--because I'm you, silly!" "Oh." "See what happens passing off your conscious as your best friend? Not good, especially if you go schizo because of it! You definitely need more hands-on, okay?" Robinson softly moaned. "I feel...different already..." "Good. Just rest now," Vicki said as Imogene faded off. "Lady Helena sends her love. She'll always remember you." "Thank you. And don't worry about me. After what I've been through, hassling bureaucrats are a walk in the park. So...you're a--Server?" "Kind of. You can say I've been drafted." "You're very very pretty." BR>"Thank you," Vicki coyly tittered. "Too bad you're not a little older." "Oh, well..." Vicki blushed then blinked puzzled at the way Robinson looked at her then he moved up and touched her face and suddenly his expression grew bright and incredulous and smiled enchantedly. "Fantastic!..." "What?" Vicki asked, puzzled. "What??..." "Let him sleep, child," the nurse said, gently steering Vicki back then trying to pull whose sturdy little hand free before it let go. She steered Vicki out the door and Brent nodded at her hobbling away to the elevator. Poor pretty thing, he mused. The elevator shut behind Vicki and she punched the basement button. "Did the upload finish in time?" "It was," Imogene said. "So what happened? Why did he look at me that way?" "You really want to know?" "Yes!" "He saw your future-self." "Future self? How??" "I think it's an Easter egg memory implant from Questor. There's no more data." "You mean it's being kept from me." "Nothing's being kept from you. I.C. is yours in every way, but you don't have a right to Questor's own special memories. It's enough that you fulfilled a wish of his, double time. Rest satisfied of that." Vicki mulled then tittered. "He called me 'pretty'. very pretty. Very Very pretty! That felt so super positive! So--so...nice?" "Don't get carried away." "Still, I feel like that at everything I did today! Being conscious is so--awesome! And you say I don't even feel near as richly as humans do??" Vicki sighed in wistful awe. "Humans must feel like they live in--heaven?" "I wouldn't know; after all, you're part Vanessa." Ted Lawson sweated it out before the county sheriff's detention office. "Mr. Phillips, you've got to believe me! Vicki is--is--" "Legally yours?" Phillips snapped, smiling at Lawson's nonplused dismay. "See, you won't even admit to that yourself!" "But it's not what you think! I didn't kidnap her--or any girl!" "Then where'd she come from? Fall from the sky?" "Look, I didn't kidnap Vicki! Maybe stole--in a raw materials sense--but not kidnapping!" "You're not about to equate kidnapping to theft, are you?" "Of course not! I'm just saying...saying either way I'd be in the slammer a long time, huh?" "An admission would help," Phillips stated. "Who is Victoria Lawson and where'd you find her? Personally, I have to ask if for no other reason than a national security matter; we can't have Q-clearance personnel blackmailed at the reins of an unfriendly party. What Childrens Services and the FBI do is another matter." "Mr. Phillips I swear it's not--not like it seems." "My sentiments exactly," Phillips said just as Jacobs came in and whispered in his ear. Phillips blinked aback. "What???!!!" Surrounded by abashed police commanders, officers, and hospital security in the nurses station, Phillips was almost in a foaming rage confronting Brent and the duty nurse who was describing a face to a police artist. "A midget! A midget posing as a child waltzes in here against my express orders! In a high security wing!" "Sir--" Brent blurted "--the countermand order came in over a police channel-- a secure channel. They even had my duty sign, Decker-One! The one you gave me! I only followed orders." "But not MY orders!" "You're not NYPD...sir," Brent added defensively and Phillips snorted and faced the nurse. "And you!" She cowed. "I follow orders too." A secretary hustled forward with a paper. "There's no such Kathy Brady here or ever was." "Surprise?" Phillips quipped, turning to a baffled doctor exiting the ICU. "What's his condition?" "Still critical but stabilized." "You said it was the DOA express five hours ago." "I--I can't explain it." "Damn!" Phillips swore, ripping a half done sketch from the artist's pad and marching off besides Jacobs. The artist smirked and began all over again. "Do you think she slipped him some kind of drug?" asked Jacobs. "If she's associated with Questor it could be most anything. If he's as adept at biochemistry as Vaslovik was in physics, I wouldn't be surprised if Robinson woke up tomorrow morning to take a jog around the block. Damn! A new assistant!" Jacobs gulped. "Assistant?" "Not you. Questor's. Robinson's been compromised for Questor even if he lives; he'll never be out of someone's lens now. And even if he pulls out of it, how communicative will he be if Questor can commandeer the minds of people from a distance?" "Maybe she'll be in the security camera--" "No such luck; she shrewdly kept a low profile. She's smart, gutsy and sly. The most dangerous kind of operative." "Are you certain she was a midget, sir? I mean, she could've been a child Questor brainwashed to do his bidding. An android wouldn't any moral qualms about that." Phillips stopped and looked around and furtively motioned Jacobs to listen closer. "Of course I know that; Questor tried to snatch the Lawson girl, after all. If it got out that a child was involved the press would be clambering all over this case and make security more of a nightmare than it is. Child-snatching androids; imagine the panic that headline would bring!" He sighed with stony resolve. "Check Missing Children and Childwatch and all juvenile agencies--along with any adults also matching the description. Can't be all that many midgets!" He stopped and stared at the sketch deeper as though in titillated curiosity then scoffed. "Beginning to see traces of that Lawson girl everywhere, damn it!" He snorted and threw the paper away. The well-suited agent entered the make-shift office of a tropical hotel suite and saluted Daka behind a desk under a high ceiling fan. "All is arranged, comrade colonel; The directorate is ready with assets you requested." Daka grinned and sipped his cigar. "Excellent. Excellent. With our anxious surrogates in place just across the frontier and these fool revols ready to storm the guard for us, who can stop us from acquiring Michaels' machine?" A buzzer beeped from the Lear's empty cockpit and from the main cabin Lady Helena looked up in alarm. "What's that?" Vicki shrugged. "Just the GPS alerting that our destination's fifteen minutes away," Vicki said unconcerned, donning a lacy uplift bandeau. Helena nervously glanced out the window. "I wish we kept Larkin on as backup. Are you sure this secret auto-pilot can land anywhere by itself too? I never knew Questor even had such installed!" "We can't place innocent support staff like Mr. Larkin in hazard, ma'am. But don't worry. It'll be just like landing the plane myself!" Vicki gamely said in a way that had Helena wondering just how much a joke it was. Still, since New York, Helena harbored a new respect for Vicki's guts and ingenuity if not her arbitrary nature. "You probably know Emil found me as a street urchin in Liverpool," Helena began, concerned. "He was adamant in making sure that I was never in harm's way while he trained and groomed me to assist him. That's why it seems so out of his character that he'd send a child--however talented, on a hazardous and sensitive mission like this." "Questor's entrusted me everything to accomplish it, ma'am." "Granted, you're obviously exceptionally talented, but this--this is different. It won't be sneaky like New York; these soldiers won't have much compunction to--to hurt a child. Badly." "Then I haven't any worries," Vicki said, awkwardly trying to hook the back of her support garment before Helene helped fasten them then stepped back and incredulously surveyed a child-sized but spectacularly well-figured adult in an upthrusting bra and well-rounded panties. "You're really seventeen, right?" "I was created ten-years-old," Vicki corrected, noticing the center of Helene's wonder and looking down her propped chest. "But I have to look convincing as my mission passport." "If you were anymore convincing I'd be jealous," Helene quipped. Suddenly Imogene appeared beside Vicki. "You've a problem." "What's wrong?" Vicki asked, suddenly, reasonlessly concerned. "Dad's in the pokey and Vanessa's in a shelter." The dirt airstrip was a swath cut through a jungle valley and all along it lurked armed guerrilla sentries, watching the Lear jet swoop in from the twilight and slide to a smooth, short landing. Loathing pretenses to civility under such uncivil circumstances, Valdez watched the Lear's door fold to the ground and a shadow emerged. He startled, exchanged astonished expressions with his companions before discretely stifling his surprise. Even at first glimpse he took her for a full-figured midget and not young child curving a trim and stylish black with white poker dot suit-dress in mid-high heels, beige-filmed legginess, and a pert wide-brimmed hat perched above flaxen hair bound in a pert chignon. She looked all of an urbane woman straight off Fifth Avenue, and though her lovely face was somewhat girlish even in adult makeup, her visage was defiant and proud far beyond her seeming youth. Of her being a woman he was absolutely sure, from her shapely well-turned ankles and slender calves and rounded knees and waspish waist to a puffed creamy cleavage nestled a deep fichued neckline. No child possessed such ripe proportions. Not too many midgets either come to think of it, Valdez mused, and despite himself and his mortal concerns and affected formality, the male inside him, as most at the scene, shared the same fleeting jolt of carnal fancy; Mother Maria, What sins making love to such a tiny temptress? She sashayed with the sure but sassy gait of a no-nonsense businesswoman who contemptuously basked in her attraction and up before Valdez and extended a gloved hand high to him before her polite nod and haughtily flashing blue eyes. "Senorita Mercedes Bogota," she greeted with a warm but steel Brailizan woman's voice and accent. "Senor Valdez of the Peoples Resistance, I presume?" ***** END OF INSTALLMENT TWO This work is Encoreware. To generate more chapters please place remarks in Vicki's Cabinet.