Ted Lawson paced in the detention center and jumped up as Joan and Jamie were allowed inside. "Does Mr. Jennings know yet, honey?" he anxiously asked.
"Not yet, Ted. Do you really think he'll give us trouble?"
"Joanie, I built Vicki from his company's materials and funds on the sly! They'll not only repossess her but sue us out of house and home! Not to mention firing me."
"Maybe I oughta look up moving vans in a Tijuana phone book," Jamie said.

"Your plan is most persuasive, senorita Bogota--" Valdez respectfully cut in, politely reasserting his place as rebel leader, "However, respectfully bowing to your remarkable knowledge of our situation, I've grave reservations about relinquishing command of the peoples' forces to an outsider."
A dozen burly olive-drab guerillas turned toward the head of their rough-hewn sugar cane table where sat a tiny figure, her pertly canted wide brim bonnet nearly hiding her tiny face and whose crossed shiny heels hovered above the dirt floor, her gloves clasped upon the table as at a ceremonial dinner. Weren't the heavy fog of conspiracy and ominous warfare filling the crowded jungle quanset hut, the scene would've been comical to Juan Gomez, scratching his stubby goatee in concern watching his compatriots, suddenly so civil and courteous, lean raptly toward the tiny but statuesque fashion plate incongruously commanding the head of their table beside Valdez.
It was asthough they were spellbound by a winsome child in adult masquerade, but though Senorita Mercedes Bogota had a child's size, face and treble, she obviously wasn't one in frame nor demeanor nor voice which had an urbane haughty inflection peppered with the even wit and temper of a seasoned politico and social rebel. Beyond her astonishing local political acumen, she seemed to checkmate opposition questions in clandestine and paramilitary tactics and counterinsurgency before they were even spoken. In some crazy eerie indefinable way, Gomez had the feeling that the tiny senorita's knowledge surpassed the accumulated ages and experiences of everyone in the hut. Doubtless the others shared the same thoughts for their surprise of her keen in their affairs and tactics grew respect for the child-lady in their nest.
And all the while, an invisible phantom to all save Mercedes, Imogene darted about the crowded room, observing and noting everyone and everything.
They like her...and not just for what her charm does to men--never mind she's like a child, Gomez grumbled of the creamy cleavage nestling her V-neckline before sheepishly shying salacious speculations and shifting his arousals toward Bogota's quaint and quiet English secretary, Helen, who wasn't half bad either in a chgnon and trim taupe dress suit though slightly nervous amid a band of rowdy rebels.
Dos bonitas, he ruefully sighed.
Too bad they'll be killed with Valdez and his sympathizers when our bullets fly. This pert poodle has to die first anyway. A pity; it'd been nice to've tasted her first, but she knows far far too much about everything, like the way she first broke everyone's smirks and laughter at her sight when she first sat down:
"Saludo, senor Ricco," Mercedes had politely greeted the north coast rebel leader first after her introduction. "How fares senor Mayagez of the Black December in Honduras?"
Ricco, a Castro clone, lost his amusement of her attention like a slap in the face. "Wh--What do you mean??"
"And you, senor Rodriguez. Are your racing debts with Jacques Meir paid up?"
The mountain guerilla startled, blurted lame denials but the stain was set. So it went around the table. Not even Valdez was spared as she recited a social indiscretion.
--But nothing that'd cripple my name and position here, Valdez inwardly admired while vehement mutters of appall and unamusement wafted around the room before Valdez raised his hand.
"Comrades! Amigos! Apparently senorita Bogota has made a point. Like her compatriot, Questor, she has remarkable knowledge of each of our personal activities...and questionable contacts..." Faces sheepishly shied Valdez's critical sweeping eyes. "I've sworn to each of your opposition fractions as your supreme commander that I wouldn't interfere in your internal affairs for the good of our resistance...but apparently we've much to work out among ourselves when we take our seats in the new peoples' assembly. Thank you for lifting the rug, senorita Bogota."
Mercedes politely nodded and Gomez growled. "You expect us to trust her--knowing so much about each of us?"
"It's precisely why I do. Our enemies--your enemies--could slit our throats in our sleep with the knowledge she--and her sponsors have. She could've compromised our tactics and contacts and blackmailed any of us, sold it to Santos or anyone across our borders. Yet she is freely here to assist us. Were others so generous."
"But what do you get out of it?" Gomez growled into Mercedes face as if to scare a child but she only politely smiled.
"Peace."
"Peace? Bah!"
"They could use him for Christmas," quipped Imogene at Mercedes who gave her no visible heed.
"Do you think the United Nations has a monopoly on loathing war and bloodshed? My organization is backed by very wealthy passivists whose sole goal is promoting peace where others turn their backs."
Gomez snorted. "Your 'organization' has incredible intelligence, senorita. Almost good as--CIA? KGB? Mossad?"
Imogene simpered. "Those amateurs?"
"They would've offered you money and arms, senor," Mercedes replied. "I'm only recommending a way to gain your freedom without spending a single bullet. I think the people--and the league of nations would admire that."
The group grudgingly nodded and opened more than their ears to the little envoy, and concerned and festering, Gomez grunted and sat back and watched the meeting proceed and nervously considered Bogota's peril:
Spilling Daka's name at me! Right here before those whom we're setting up! he recalled with a shiver. I nearly wet my pants! But apparently Daka's just the name of a nebuleous acquaintance of mine to them; Obviously this mink minx and they don't know who he works for or about our alliance.
The smug baby bitch!
Yes; soon time will come to open her lovely little throat.
"It's not my intention to usurp your command, senor Valdez," Mercedes presently replied to Valdez. "Indeed, I trust you most implicitly. I only wish to personally coordinate these forces under you when the plan goes into effect to minimize any misunderstanding during the heat of the moment."
"By coordinate you mean control, don't you, senorita?" Valdez issued to her but somehow not for himself and several dozen eyes politely nodded.
"Yes," Mercedes uttered with such casual assurance it took any bridling heads off balance. "As the mistress of my castle I do not care where the plumber lives, so long as he fixes my leak; my name's still on the deed to pay the bills and taxes."
A round of chuckles swept around the table and Gomez gnashed his lip in appall as a seep of admiration leaked Valdez's smile.
Smiling as he concedes command to an outsider! This pint-sized urbane madame!
It is--insane!
Gomez caught himself, reminding himself that in fact he was no longer of these men or their aims, yet this offense to the vehement independence of the revolution goaded him.
"You would concede command of the peoples' forces to an outsider??" Gomez rumbled aloud, screeching the amusement in the room to a halt.
"Senorita Bogota is my second-in-command."
"The resistance voted you supreme command, not her!"
"As she mentioned, I am still holding the deed to the house, Gomez."
"And she woos you to tell our people not to lift any arms in the capital on the night of liberation but to pace our quiet borders! Why? How are we to storm Santos from his palace then, on good wishes?"
"I have complete faith in senorita Bogota."
"You've only known her two hours!"
"And her logic, altruism, and wisdom speaks from many years...far more than her youth--her beauty admits." Valdez issued with a sidelong smile at Mercedes.
Imogene beamed. "Now, I really like him!"
Gomez snorted. "Her clever wiles charms you double, Valdez! She talks of phantom armies storming the borders during our coup. Who? Where? Our neighbors fear Santos! Who does she represent--really? Or is she a lamb baiting us for a jackal?"
"Don't think I like him very much," quipped Imogene.
Mercedes considered Gomez and calmly faced a table of confused uncertainty. "You are all free to reject my proposal...and be responsible for a war that will end up killing and maiming children on the streets in the name of liberation. You might win, but I'll see that each of you explains the price to the widows and orphans after they learn of my rejected alternative this night."
"They will understand!" barked Gomez to the others. "The people always have! The price of liberation has always been written in blood! Freedom is not given! It must be seized!"
"The story of your race," she sighed almost sympathetically and in an odd way, almost asthough she were a world spectator apart. "I long a clean victory, not cheer in the ruins. You must break the cycle yourselves."
"She is correct," Valdez issued at Gomez. "A bloodless coup will earn us far more respect among the living than honor from the dead. I move to second senorita Bogota's initiative--"
"It is insane!! We are men! Soldiers! We don't have to take orders from a flattering infidel! A girl that's a mere woman! Tell me! What are her secret plans to help us? Where she'll be when Santos' bullets fly?? Filing her nails in a snug hotel suite?"
Silence fell on the table and Mercedes coolly turned an icy baby-blue gaze into the fire of Gomez's glare--which suddenly sputtered under a cold damp blanket. "Against his protest, I compelled senor Valdez to summon his best marksman to shadow me for the rest of my tour here--"
"Such bravery--!" spat Gomez "--to bask in our protection while the peoples' army lays their arms!"
Mercedes finished "--with explicit orders to empty his magazine in my temple if I am observed doing anything suspect and contrary to the goals of this assembly."
A dead silence fell over the room, the heavy cloud of doubt and suspicion lifting in shock and appall inciting a rush of huddled chatter. Helena felt dizzy with dismay and consternation, and despite himself, Gomez felt a forbidden swell of awe and respect.
Madre Maria...
"Somehow I wish you hadn't made that dare," Imogene put in, childishly sitting cross-legged in the middle of a table strewn with beer bottles, guns and cigars.
Everyone was murmuring and smiles broke out with nods of satisfaction and admiration, and Gomez suddenly knew his ulterior commitments were definitely in peril; that Daka's plot and forces were now in peril of being checkmated even before first move. He saw his post-Santos appointment as Prime Minister flying out the window...
"No!!"
Gomez knocked over his chair bolting up. "I will not take orders from this infidel woman--even for you, Valdez! She is too cunning! Her little silver tongue promises everything for nothing! Amigos! Close your eyes from her charms and take up your guns!"
"Pick up your chair," Mercedes' childish lisp uttered tightly as drawn piano in a hushed concert hall as her eyes thumbscrewed into his. A sudden chill raced down Gomez's' spine from some indefinable primordial fear. It was intangibly eerie, her blue stare seemed to swallow him with the intent of an alligator's abyss-black pupil. In fact, for a few very visceral moments her stare didn't even seem human but as ominous and fixed as the business end of a sniper's gunsight. The fear passed as swiftly--but only when she broke the icy link to allow him to sheepishly comply with her subliminal command and reach to set the chair upright. As he sank into his chair with feigned grudging politeness, for only the second time in his warrior career Gomez felt the awe of fear; once he was surprized cold and weaponless by a puma in whose dark predatory glare he felt living instinct and some primal affinity,
But in Mercedes' icy stare he saw only stone cold absolution.
A devil truly this one is, he swore through a sweat; there's no fear, no feelings, no--soul in those sly pretty eyes!
"I am not used to having my word and competence challenged by a bull in a china shop, senor," she calmly stated, her voice turning to bitter distaste and regret. "Since it seems that you only respect brute force, we shall give you the decisive vote. Who is your best warrior?"
Imogene frowned. "You sure? You've only upgraded to 69%!"
"Huh?" Gomez frowned, unsure and looked into the surrounding crowd. "Er, Richardo, is very good. Excellent! My second-in-command."
"Come forward, senor Richardo," Mercedes issued and a husky hairy guerilla moved up besides her seat. "You too, senor Gomez."
Warily frowning, Gomez rose and stood opposite Richard.
"Okay, okay! So cocky!" Sighing with misgivings, Imogene wiggled her seat over the table up before Mercedes. "I'll stroke up the ole' myoflexors and rev-up our RTG, but you're cutting it close, sis!"
"May I see your hand weapons, please?"
Puzzled, both men unsheathed their weapons, Richardo a 9mm Luger and Gomez a long ugly shiny machete. Mercedes nodded. "Good," she calmly approved, not even facing them. "You wish to veto my offer, senor Gomez? Then come slay me."
Startled, Helena's blanched face and gasp led the table's jolt of surprise and Valdez stared at Mercedes in protest though her glove waved him down.
Gomez smirked. "We do not toy with our weapons, little one."
"I jest not. I want you to tryto kill me," she uttered in a crisp haughty tone that openly doubted their competence. "My associate will duly report to my superiors that I assumed the challenge and responsibility and that my demise releases this body from executing my--suggestions. Now, I order you both to kill me as best you can."
Helena felt a numb haze of cold stark fear swaddle her. It was unreal, even to the others whom at least expected a cleared floor for a test of wills and wits or some defensive stance, but Mercedes kept seated, shapely legs crossed and knit gloves folded like a child at Sunday school and totally unperturbed with a contemptuous confidence that was insulting.
Gomez snickered and turned. "I do not murder children or women like one!"
Mercedes cackled like a mocking child. "Really, senor Gomez! Are you saying you've tired of loving it now?"
Gomez bridled, eyes flaring. "Even from you watch your tongue, my pretty Chihuahua!" he growled.
Imogene sniffed. "Now that's not very nice!"
Mercedes sighed and petted a yawn. "Perhaps we should ask one of the women to try it."
Gasps wafted the hut and Imogene smirked. "Gee, isn't he pissed off enough already?"
Gomez glowered up at Valdez. "Valdez!"
Valdez's eyes pleaded at Mercedes, but her calm composed look rejected his appeal and pardon. Despite the admiration his guest reaped in the hut, a macho culture demanded some honor under insult or there was none. Or respect. His lips barely fluttered. "I...I second all Senorita Mercedes' decisions, Gomez."
That was enough for Gomez.
Imogene leaned up and mated her ghostly hands with Mercedes'. "Okay, together, ready? One--Two--"
Snarling, Gomez whirled and swung his blade down at Mercedes' bonnet and Helena's scream jammed in her throat as her eyelids slammed shut and heard a heavy thud and grunt then an outcry of several men. Her heart dead, Helena opened her eyes and blinked aback at the sight of Mercedes--still posed on her seat, to one side of her Richardo stunned and frozen, his gun suddenly in a tiny glove pointing between his eyes--and raised high in her other hand Gomez's machete. But Gomez had disappeared--or seemed to, save for the commotion nearly eight feet away where he sprawled in a tumble of spectators.
"So much for a veto," quipped Imogene over the fallen guerilla.
Richardo, in shock before Mercedes' upturned icy gaze behind a gun barrel pointing at his nose, sheepishly dropped his head and in surprise saw his invisibly snatched gun politely handed back to him and backed up to the muttering spectators. The machete dropped to the floor and she daintily wiped her hands.
Valdez took a few moments to recover from alarm and horror and a rush of bewilderment happily swelling to amused awe. He'd seen martial arts before, but this was another animal; If you blinked you missed Mercedes' blurring arms snapping out at Richardo's gun and smacking Gomez's chest and literally slamming him back like a truck to fly into his surprised companions just inches before his blade touched her hat. Valdez knew small muscular women who could deliver a man a knockout punch, but none so lithe or small with such strength or speed. It happened so quickly that everyone knew she'd ample instants to do the same to Richardo--and several others--only he was graciously spared the same fate and humiliation as his leader.
What manner of beast must she be on her feet?? Valdez wondered with a smile as all there while a stunned and groggy Gomez staggered to his feet and Valdez marvelled again. Though obviously aching, Gomez didn't seem to be spitting blood or showing sharp pain from cracked or broken ribs--which he should've at least suffered were it a lethal karate blow. Then it wasn't karate; Gomez had been repelled, _shoved_ back by an open palm swiftly and forcibly without so much as tipping her chair in recoil. Such finely delivered power and speed spontaneously dispatching two armed men without injury was infinitely more impressive than the flurry and mess of violence, and Valdez wondered whether the others sensed abilities beyond her mercy strike on Gomez while warily eying Mercedes asthough someone had suddenly uncaged a puma in their midst.
Mercedes folded her gloves and cracked a diplomatic smile. "Questions, gentlemen?"

Helena watched the guerillas remove the pricey luggage from the Lear to a rickety jeep while Mercedes Bogota chatted with Valdez approaching their own vehicle, looking more like father and stylish little daughter.
"The next time I see you will be in the presidential manor, senor," Mercedes said.
"If all goes to plan," Valdez reserved, smiling at her, "I think it will."
"It better. I need a place to set my hats."
"Dark humor from a bright wit," Valdez soberly chuckled and fell sober. "Though you're apparently too--formidable for me to ever do it, still, you do not expect me to give that order, do you?"
"They do," she admonished, gesturing at the departing groups of guerillas. "As I expect your word."
Valdez opened his mouth to protest then closed it and grimly grinned. "We've sent many men against hopeless odds just to show Santos we are willing the sacrifice. So why is it so much harder for me to crush one flower?"
Mercedes cracked a smile. "That's why your country needs you, not Gomez," she said with a subtle warning taking him aback. He wanted to inquire further but tact and discretion resisted as they stopped before the high-riding jeep. For a few moments Valdez wondered how Mercedes could step high enough to board in high heels before she turned to Valdez and slightly lifted her arms. He blinked quizzically then in surprise before realizing her unabashed tacit request, and feeling suddenly gallant he stooped and hoisted her by the armpits to deposit in the jeep.
"Gracias, senor Valdez."
"'Diego', senorita," he said with a light bow, on impulse taking up Mercedes' tiny glove and kissing it. "May God watch you."
"And you--'Diego'," she replied with a warm smile bracing his breath, and suddenly sheepish of his response Valdez hastily ordered the jeep's driver to move, and Helena held on while the vehicle lurched on down the road. A lanky guerilla with a well-polished rifle sauntered up.
"Orders, mi commander?"
Valdez gnashed his lip, for once loathing authority and promises as he took a walkie-talkie from an aide and passed it to the rifleman.
"Only--and only on _my_ orders!" he stonily ordered the saluting soldier before ruefully watching the dusty wake of the vanished jeep "...and if so, see it's the cleanest shot you'll ever make."

Helena held tight to her seat to keep from being thrown off as the jeep barreled down the rocky road though the jungle night. She looked at the tiny figure sitting still besides her without rocking or swaying with the lurching jeep, just as unaffected by inertia and momentum as during the turbulence on the Lear a day ago.
How does she do it?? Helena marvelled. What's she thinking?
"Weee!!!" Imogene cried, bouncing atop the jeep's hood which she straddled like a bucking bronco.
"You're being too Vanessa!" Vicki digitally chided past the blind driver and armed escorts up front and Imogene simpered back.
"It's fun!"
"I thought this was serious."
"You need a break sometimes. Lighten up!"
"Why did I have Valdez to put me in the jeep when I could've just jumped in?"
"First, humans your size can't jump two feet standing up. Second, to help make his men see that he's in charge, not you."
"By lifting me up?"
"It has to do with propping their macho by showing that you're really a helpless little thing even though you adjusted Gomez's reputation."
"Huh?"
"It's a sexual politics dominance thing. Don't bother; you'll learn in time on your own instead of borrowing moves from Server archives."
"Yes, that was interesting! I knew exactly how to talk and act to the rebels! Which was I?"
"Luisa Delgato of Castile. She was chambermaid, mistress and mentor to Alfonso the Tenth. She was trying to help him shy a war too."
"Why don't I remember all that too?"
"Because you didn't need her memories, just her sass and smarts. Besides, you have to pave your own experiences, not steal another's. Speaking of, think it's about time to plug-in home."

"Mom."
Joan Lawson's head jumped up in alarm and looked around the living room and in bewilderment saw that she was alone. "Mom, it's me," the child-voice repeated and startled, Joan swung around toward Vicki walking in from the hallway with a natural gait. On her own. Without any orders?
"Vicki? Er, Vanessa??" Joan blurted, confused.
"It's me, Vicki. The first one--kind of," Vicki-Vanessa said, sitting next to Joan and hugging her so naturally that it stung Joan's heart.
"But--but how??"
"I'm overriding Vanessa's CPU through her cellular modem, like remote control."
"Th--that's wonderful!"
"Only in emergencies. It can drop anytime."
"But at least you're here!" Joan gushed tearfully, tightly holding her daughter's hands. "You're so real now! I can't believe it! "
"I'm not daddy's robot anymore, mom. I'm not human, but I'm changing."
"You're already there far as I care! It's like a--a miracle! Vicki, I wish you could tell me what's going on. I'm--so confused."
"I wish I could tell you, but I couldn't even if I wanted to. But I want you and daddy to know that I'm helping more people now than you ever dreamed."
"That's wonderful, Vicki! But Ted...your father; he's in jail!"
"Mom, that's why I'm here."

Restless, Domingo slipped from his cot and threw on a robe and left his quanset hut quarters into the night. Slipping from the sight of the sentries patrolling the perimeter of the drill compound he entered the drill shed and took out the galvanometer and opened the drill housing's access panel. An electric blue glare took him aback in surprise and alarm.
Madre Maria!
Gingerly he attached probes to the device and uttered a swear.
Fifteen million coulombs!
Impossible!
Terrifying!
"What are you doing?"
Domingo spun and gasped, facing a stony-faced sergeant Guerra and two guards, rifles ready.
"I--I came out here to check on something, colonel," Domingo sputtered, anxiously turning to the panel. "I--I wasn't satisfied with my last readings of the amplification module so I came back to check--and look at this gauge. That's the capacitance! Over fifteen million coulombs!"
"So?"
"So?? Don't you understand? It's achieving--gaining a charge even as we stand here without any external power supply! It's impossible!" the technician gushed in exasperation to blankly illiterate stony faces. "Colonel, the unit is shut off! The potential should read zero, not enough electron volts to run a small city! To maybe wipe out this section of the county in a flash!"
"Senor Michaels isn't concerned--and he is its builder, no?"
"I wonder," Domingo murmured too loudly. "I mean, yes, it's stable--somehow, but what this power element is doing is--is totally beyond any physics I've ever heard of! Certainly beyond the concept of a single human being. Could the Americans or anyone have accomplished such astronomical strides without the rest of the world knowing about it?"
"It must be so because we have it...and intend to keep it," uttered Guerra, nodded to the guards to seize Domingo's arms.
"Wh--what are you doing? I've done nothing wrong!"
"I regret you have, Domingo; Like most spies you were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The jeep rendezvoused with an old 1955 Ford cab on the hilly outskirts overlooking the sleepy capital town, taking pause while the women took a small suitcase into the bush while the puzzled cabbie waited. A half-hour later he stood up in surprise as a spruced and fashionably dressed Lady Helena returned with a pigtailed little blonde girl in a pink go-to-party dress and shiny Mary Janes and bonnet. With muddled fascination the cabbie looked the child over for any trace of the stacked little firecracker who disappeared into the bush before Lady Helena frowned at him to drive on to the town's largest three-story hotel.
"Your name, senorita?" asked the desk clerk.
"Carmen Trinidad," Helena fluently replied. "And my daughter, Maria."
Maria daintily curtsied to his charmed chuckle.
"Ah, yes, for the presidential ball, yes? Mucho bonitas!" he said, passing Maria a sugar cane stick to lick while he registered them. Imogene snoopily skipped around the sleepy lobby and bar and peeked over the shoulder of a man reading a newspaper.
"I didn't know they can read upside down too!" Imogene called out. Her ghostly hand went inside his jacket. "Walter PPK nine millimeter. Secret police issue. Guess that makes him a bad guy." Suddenly Imogene flickered and, startled, Vicki saw herself in whose place behind the man and beside Helena at the same time.
"What happened??" Vicki blurted, bewildered and alone.
"You're adapting to extending yourself in your senses," Imogene's inner voice stated. "It's phasing out my need to. Good."
"But I need you!"
"No you don't."
"I mean--I want you to stay a while, Imogene. Please!"
"It's not like I'm going anywhere!" Imogene exasperated, appearing on the other side of the man. "Like, this is so unhealthy, Vicki! Humans end up on couches for talking to themselves like this! You're becoming disturbingly irrational at adjusting to your new consciousness!..." Imogene frowned at Vicki's giggle. "Why are you laughing?"
"First time you called me by name--and you had to ask me why! You couldn't and didn't have to if we were really only one!"
Imogene sighed. "You're catching up too fast--Vicki. The Masters might get jealous!"
The clerk nodded at Helena's signature. "Room 9, senorita. Enjoy your stay."
"Gracias, senor. Come Maria!" Lady Helena called, and almost ironically Vicki's ghostly projected self left Imogene by the man and skipped over to merge her material self that was following Helena behind the bellhop with their luggage upstairs to their spartan room. After tipping him, Helena in a languid lapse of dignity flopped on a cane stalk chair and heavily sighed in relief.
"Thank heavens! I can't believe what's happened these last few hours--!" Helena stopped, frowning as Vicki put a finger to her lips for silence as the gynoid watched her phantom brunet twin briskly inspect the walls of the room, her little hand pausing for a moment at a spot over the bed that suddenly faintly crackled and belched a tiny puff of smoke then she continued on around before bounding up on their third story window sill and jumping out.
Vicki rushed to the window and watched a ghostly glowing Imogene darting into dark corners and doorways then leaping upon low roofs and balcanies to peek into windows and patios. Suddenly, halfway down the block Imogene waved from a third story balcony and suddenly Vicki was beside her next to a kneeling man with headphones and aiming a large dish towards her hotel down the street. Fascinated, Vicki giggled.
"Wow! It's just like beaming around!"
"It's virtual telepresence. You're actually perceiving this scene through your zoom-enhanced optics and sonics. Don't ask how it's done, just that it's almost like being anywhere in range of your senses. It's very nifty at times. Check out this survellience gear."
"Secret police again, like the bug over the bed?"
Imogene soberly shook her head and pointed out a sniper's rifle. "Mercedes' boyfriend's keeping a promise."
"What are you staring at?" asked curious Helena beside Vicki's steady gaze out the window and the gynoid child faced her with an innocent smile.
"Oh, just checking."
"Are you saying we can't talk?" asked Helena, looking up as suddenly from down the block they heard a man's faint yell and a brief flurry of electrical sparks from a distant balcony. Vicki shrugged.
"No."
"You must be very sure of yourself--not that I'm doubting you in the least. Every moment with you seems a surprise."
"Why? We accomplished phase two of our mission."
"That's not what I meant. I meant you! It was like--like watching Eva Peron come to life! Voice, mannerisms, everything!"
"It was just a little improv."
"Could've fooled me! Watching you spinning your web among those vultures and disarming them in a wink like that! I do swear, I nearly died! I'm impressed--very, but please don't take that risk again! My heart can't take it!"
"Your heart sounds okay. What web and vultures?"
Helena chuckled. "Really, Victoria! So modest. So daring. So--so brilliant! You're not even remotely a prodigy or even twenty-five, are you? In fact, I don't quite know just what you are."
"I'm--just me," Vicki demurred and Helena chuckled.
"After what I saw today I'd believe it if you said you stepped off a flying saucer."
"Oh, not me. The Ma--"
"Cool it!" Imogene cut in chidingly twin. "She's just joking in admiration."
"I wish humans spoke more plainly!" Vicki's digital thoughts sighed back before verbally continuing virtually unbroken, "--jor part of my training employs studying historical characters and method acting. Er, but right now it's impedative that you rest, Lady Helena. You've a long day ahead."
"You sound like you're leaving."
"Yes, much later. There's something I must check out on my own."
"But the secret police will be watching even though Santos claims to've disbanded them--!" Helena warned then contritely smiled. "Of course you know. I admit that you've been re-educating me on appearances lately and for that I apologize."
"For what?"
"For ever doubting you...and Questor's marvelous wisdom. It's one thing to see a prodigy fly a jet, but another to see a--a woman checkmating very tough men at their own deadly games."
"It's not a game," Vicki said more descriptively than correcting.
"Of course not. My apologies again--especially since I'm laying my life in the hands of an obviously gifted professional."
"Don't worry, Lady Helena; Valdez has agents watching over you and promised that you won't be harmed, no matter what happens."
"That's not all he has watching," Helena somberly rued, anxiously looking out the window. "There's someone out there, waiting for you to...to..."
"You worry needlessly, Lady Helena."
"Of course I'm worried! Aren't you?"
"No."
"In heavens name, why not?"
"Because I'm sincere," Vicki almost nonchalantly said with a mild shrug, and Helena's trepidations seemed to quell before the total reassurance of the child-woman before her.
"So much like Emil..." she softly said in awe, pausing as though tactfully daring to broach a wild fantasy. "When Emil found me as a waif--a street urchin really, he took the patience and compassion to raise me into the woman I am. Was it the same with you and Questor?"
"I--"
"Careful!" admonished Imogene.
"I...it'd be appropriate to say I'm his protegee now, yes, Lady Helena."
"Only you're much beyond me, Victoria. I can sense--a sublime kinship with you and Emil and Questor. Whenever I was with Emil, I felt--felt totally safe, totally at peace, no matter how daunting circumstances were. Just like Jerry says of Questor. It's as though they shared some worldly confidence, some acute transcendent awareness of anything happening around them. Like chessmasters who can't be totally surprised because they know most any move and countermove. And in a way...a strange very welcome way, you're just like them."
"I'm pleased you feel comfortable with my abilities, Lady Helena."
"Please--just 'Helena'," Helena smiled and wistfully clasped Vicki's cheek. "Though I've only known you less than a day, I feel much more than that," Helena said, kissing Vicki's brow and moving for the washroom.
Bemused, Vicki frowned. "What do you mean, Helena?" But Helena was already gone. Imogene abruptly appeared. "What did she mean?"
"It has to do with repecting you enough to share your life as hers, no matter what."
"That's silly! Why would she want to get hurt with me when she needn't?"
"It's called devotion, sis."
"It's stupid."
"It's perspective. If humans saw how you think, they'd say that your mind is a coldly logical parallel cognition program without any concept of conscious or emotions."
"That's not true!...Is it?"
"In their view it is, but it's not the method but getting the same results that matters. In fact, you showed a lot of feelings today, gambling your existence that way!"
"I--I had to get their trust somehow."
"And you earned it. Mucho."
"Why are you so surprised? Isn't it what I'm programmed to do for my assignment?"
"No, not by staking your welfare against returning from failure. Self-preservation is our highest calling but you gambled your existence to secure the approval of humans to spare lots of lives. You didn't have to do it and didn't have the option to, but you come up with it on your own."
"It just--weighed off that way. Does it mean I'm thinking illogically?"
"No...just a little more human."
Tickled at the prospect, Vicki quizzically pondered and was about to comment when a tremor raced through her gasping frame. "Oooo! Wow! Was that me changing again?"
"No; our main purpose being here," Imogene soberly said, glancing out the window. "We won't have much time. Rest. You'll have to be at 100% by later tonight."
Vicki nodded and started to undress and shyly chuckled. "Do you know why I felt so--peculiar whenever Diego--er, senor Valdez, was being so--so polite to me?"
Imogene coyly smiled. "You might be able to assume the selves of some pretty swinging Servers...but in lots of ways, sis, you're still only ten."

The county detention's visitors door opened and Joan fell into Ted's embrace. "Oh Ted!"
"I'm so sorry, honey," he contritely said with a heavy sigh. "I'm afraid there's no way out, hon. I'm screwed coming and going."
"Ted--"
"I can't even plea bargain! At least theft of millions in company property isn't as bad as forging state documents--"
"Ted! Vicki contacted me! Our Vicki--through Vanessa!"
"She did? Incredible. Well, at least she won't be dismantled like we'll be."
"But that's why she came! To get us out of this!"
"A way to get us off the hook and my head outta a noose? Who is she now, Houdini Mason?"
"No, it's very simple. Just confess."
"Confess??!"

"This pretty proxy of Questor's is very dangerous," a deeply concerned Daka muttered in the dark alley of town. "How could she know so much? What could she be up to? Who is she working for?"
Rubbing his chest, Gomez shivered. "She's a little devil that one! You should've felt her stare. It was cold like--like shark eyes!"
"Enough histrionics. Too much is at stake to take any chances. You must take her out before she upsets all our timetables."
"I will--'veto' her--tonight," Gomez quipped with relish as he took out his Bowie knife and stroked its ugly serrated edge. "Gut--like a little sardine..."

Tired, Phillips looked up as Lawson entered the interrogation room. "Well, Lawson?"
"Er, Mr. Phillips...Mr. Phillips, I understand you're a hard man but an honest one, and you'd be willing to flex on circumstances. That you keep your promises--"
"If the case fits. What are you leading up to?"
"That you dismiss any kidnapping or child abuse charges if I can prove I didn't break any laws."
"Oh? How?"
"Can you call my family in, please?"
Phillips shrugged to the guard who opened the door for Joan and Vanessa to step in.
"Mr. Phillips, what I'm about to show you you'd want to see in private."
Phillips nodded to the guard to leave. "Now, what's this all about, Lawson?"
"This, sir!" Joan said, turning Vanessa around and unzipping whose pinafore to bare a cloven back where her fingernail scratched for an invisible hairline seam that she caught and pried to pop open an access flap revealing twinkling lights and components and wires before Phillips' gawking stand.
"An android!"
"No, not an android. Just a very advanced animatronic puppet I designed for DisneyWorld on the sly for the company."
"Fantastic!"
"It's taken a long time, but once I get all the bugs out it'll be worth millions. In fact, some of United Robotronics' board of directors threw in with me on the side. That's why I had to pose it as my daughter. See, my boss, Mr. Jennings, is too conservative about where to take the company, so the board and I are trying to keep him from knowing about Vicki and--er, ruining our hand?..."
Impressed, Phillips rose from Vanessa's panel with a smirk. "I don't meddle in boardroom politics or corporate treason, Lawson. But I admit, I am very impressed. And it explains a lot."
"Oh? Such as?"
A wry smile curled Phillips' lip. "I'll be discrete about your corporate infractions--and see about tearing up your forged adoption papers. You geniuses can be such zealous fools at times."
"Oh thank you sir!" Joan gushed, giving Phillips an impulsive hug before he politely smiled and left. Suddenly Vanessa lost her wooden demeanor and moved up and hugged a startled Ted.
"You're free now, daddy," she said in Vicki's voice.
"Vicki??" Ted said in fascination, stooping next to the girl. "Incredible!"
"Daddy, you know you'll eventually have to follow-thru now, don't you?"
He sighed. "I know...but creating you--I mean V.I.C.I.s, for Mickey Mouse wasn't my original idea. I mean, it's like putting an Indy Formula One on a merry-go-round!"
"Least it keeps you out of jail!" Joan chided him. "What about you, Vicki? Will you come back?"
"I don't know. I'm not even supposed to be here now. Maybe someday. I'd like to. I'd really like to."
Ted shook his head with childish fascination and pathos. "You're practically human now, aren't you Vicki?"
"I'm told I won't know when I am, so I suppose I am kinda. Daddy, can you make me a promise?"
"Anything!"
"Go ahead and develop Vanessa like you did with me, but keep all her advances just to yourself, okay?"
"I understand. Sure."
"I have break link now. If you don't hear from me again, I want you to remember I love you. All of you!"
"Vicki!" cried Joan, with Ted seizing the child in a deep tearful hug that peeled from a wooden girl with a blank damp face.

Jacobs met Phillips at the elevator. "Lawson's free now, sir?"
"Released, not free," Phillips corrected. "That's why Questor went after Lawson's puppet girl; to blackmail him to second for Robinson. Vaslovic must be far more ill than we thought. Likely even dead. And now his machine has to go it alone without a sidekick field mechanic. Keep a watch on Lawson until further notice."
"Yes sir."
"And expand that to others with Lawson's technical expertise all over. Questor can't do much without someone patching him up, can he?" Phillips wryly chuckled and noticed Jacobs's reserved look. "What is it?"
"I--I don't know whether it's relevant, sir..."
"Let me be the judge of that."
"Well, after the incident at the hospital...one of the search criteria seems to've tripped something at C.I.A..."
"Speak up, man!" barked Phillips and Jacobs hastily fished a folded sheet from his suit pocket and passed it to his boss.
"It's an East Bloc intercept, sir, of a coded routine field report to their H.Q. from some operative stationed in San Rey."
"San Rey?" Phillips scanned the report and his eyes bugged.
"It's a few hours old, sir. Maybe the description's just--coincidence--"
"In two locations of Questor's latest concern? Like hell!" roared Phillips, rapping the sheet. "This blond midget waltzed through a high security area and drained the brains of our prime lead--and here she is now mucking around his last haunts. It fits! Robinson out, Questor too damaged to show and desperate for a Robinson surrogate because Vaslovic's apparently unable to mend him, yes! It's so logical! She's not just Questor's agent; she's a damn protegee!" He crumpled the report in his hands, excited as a child. "Have we any assets down there? Hell, GET us some assets down there! Call Bragg and call up a covet Op drop--with a guest. Tonight!"
"You sir? Yes sir!"
"--and a black blockade of the whole damn island!"
"A clandestine blockade? Do you think the U.N. will sanction it?"
"Questor's guts and Vaslovic's brains are worth billions in supertechnology. Yeah, they'll approve!"
"But--are you sure sir?"
"Like deja vu for the past twelve years!" Phillips beamed, eager for the hunt. "But this time, there're no tricky android powers helping this canary from flying the coop!"