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  Wesley felt his breath leave him. He couldn’t remember anything like Roddy described… and yet it rang true, as if he was hearing his own life story absent any details he might remember. He stared at Roddy. “Thank… thank you. I don’t… it feels like you’ve told me who I am, what I am.” He laughed mirthlessly. “It’s still a hollow memory, but… it fits the known facts, doesn’t it?” Mary squeezed his arm, smiling.

  “Dad!” Roddy looked toward the sound of Jack’s shouts. The twins had abandoned their game—John was apparently winning handily—and had begun snooping around the other storage bins inside the cabin. “Dad, you found Whiskey!”

  “I don’t think there’s any alcohol on this ship, son, and even if there was, how do you know what it—.”

  Mary smacked Roddy’s arm as she trotted toward the children. “He means the robot I told you about earlier, idiot.”

  Wesley moved toward the children. Roddy, confused, followed both of them. “This would be far less confusing if you named a robot something like Blinky.”

  The children pulled the squarish pair of boxes from the storage area, tenderly wiping dirt from the robot’s body. John patted the inanimate robot on the head. Wesley did as well, murmuring, “Thanks, buddy,” as he did so. Jill hugged the robot’s arm.

  Mary looked at Roddy. “He saved us, Roddy. Succumbed to the Ravagers; we heard him scream after we’d gotten to safety. I’m amazed you found him.”

  “There was enough power left in him to recognize me,” Roddy told them.

  Five pairs of human eyes snapped at him.

  “I told him about you. Well, the three of you I was looking for.” He glanced apologetically at the other men, but both waved him on. “I asked him what had happened. He told me you’d gone through a door to escape the bad little robots and were safe. And then he… blinked out.”

  He saw the tears flowing from at least eight of the ten eyes. “Maybe the General can repair him. He apparently created him in the first place, or at least bought him from someone else. Maybe he has a repair manual or something?”

  “That would be awesome!” the twins shouted simultaneously.

  Wesley moved forward. “Let me take a look.” He glanced at Roddy. “I apparently have a hidden aptitude for robotics.”

  Wesley set to work, surrounded by two very eager young assistants, while Roddy and Mary rested on one of the cushioned seats. John busied himself studying the interior of the ship.

  Time passed. Roddy felt Mary drift off to sleep against his shoulder.

  The next thing he knew, he woke to the soft alarm chime of the ship. We are nearing our destination.

  Roddy grudgingly untangled himself from Mary, who stifled a long yawn at the disturbance. The twins had gone back to one of the board games, apparently less enthralled by the long repair process. Wesley and John were trying—without much luck—to attach a wire that had come loose, though John kept muttering that it wouldn’t help without additional power to animate the group’s favorite beverage server.

  Mary and Roddy moved closer to the exterior, peering through the one-way glass-like curved walls of the ship. Rolling blue-green ocean waves undulated beneath them, uninterrupted water as far as they could see.

  Except for one small bit of land rising above it all.

  Roddy rubbed his eyes. “I… guess that’s the place?”

  Mary pointed. “There’s a shed of some kind build on it.”

  The ship, without prompting, dropped toward the small islet, angling for the top of the shed Mary had seen. Snapped to attention by the sudden change in altitude, the others made their way over to join Mary and Roddy.

  “Huh,” John said. “Guess this is the place, then?”

  “Must be an echo in here,” Mary muttered to Roddy. Roddy laughed.

  The ship settled down on the flat roof of the shed.

  And they waited.

  “Now what?” Jack asked. “Is this where General Jamison lives?”

  They felt a small thump below and everyone jumped. Then they felt the ship descend slowly into the shed, lowered by the moving landing pad they’d settled upon. The interior walls rose around them until the ship was properly swallowed by the structure. The panel separated beneath them, rolling back up and locking back into place above them.

  They were surrounded by total darkness. Roddy found Mary’s hand. Mary squeezed.

  Lights clicked on. All of them blinked a few times.

  “Look!” Jill pointed ahead of them. “What are those for?”

  Roddy looked. Two large buttons, better described as small panels, hovered before them, attached to one of the sidewalls.

  John leaned forward. “The green one reads TRANSPORT. The red one…” He paused.

  “Can’t read it from here. Bad eyes,” Roddy murmured.

  “But you’re a frigging pilot,” Wesley protested.

  “Quiet, robot man.”

  John swallowed. “The red button reads SELF DESTRUCT.”

  Silence. Then Mary said: “Oh. I… see.”

  “Ship, let us out,” Roddy said. Mary looked as if she wanted to argue, but the rest of them were climbing down the platform before she could formulate an argument.

  “They’re timers,” Wesley reported. “The Transport one is set for five minutes. Self-destruct is seven minutes.”

  “So what do we do?” John asked.

  Roddy shrugged. “The General said to push both.” He glanced back at the ship. “I think we should get back on board after we do.”

  “Do you trust him enough to push a button marked Self Destruct?” John asked.

  “Well, the timer for that runs out after the Transport one, so…”

  “Don’t think we have much choice, do we?” Wesley asked. He stepped forward and pushed both panels, then stepped back. Both timers started.

  They all glanced at each other. Then everyone sprinted back up the platform into the sphere, which sealed itself up solid.

  Five minutes after Wesley pushed the Transport panel, the shed interior turned a brilliant white color.

  Two minutes later, the entire structure immolated, leaving the islet looking as pristine as it had when Micah Jamison had built the structure.

  There was no sign that a flying sphere—or any of the six passengers who’d been aboard—had been there, either.

  Chapter 11

  Old Timers’ Fortress

  Deirdre met with a man named Cyrus, who served as something of a technical wizard for Miriam’s group. Cyrus took her to the ground car she’d pilfered from New Venice, and had her walk through all the features she knew about.

  Then he pulled the top off the hood and removed the dashboard and began telling her things she didn’t know about. He took notes on a digital tablet, snapping pictures of different parts, murmuring to himself, muttering about whether he had certain supplies or how he could “kludge” others together. In the end, he nodded at her, told her he’d need a few hours to “modernize” the vehicle—whatever that meant—and recommended that she rest up before the journey ahead.

  Freed of any other obligations, and deciding there wasn’t much she could do if Cyrus destroyed the car rather than enhancing it, she toured the facility. She found the elevator lifts and rode down to the lower level, where she’d seen people sitting about and eating. There she found a number of shops that offered food and drink. She didn’t need any money here, which was a benefit because she had access to none, and realized that her hosts probably didn’t use the currency the rest of the world used. She rather doubted she could access any of the Silver money at this point anyway.

  Cyrus had given her a small communicator, which he used periodically to ask her various questions. Miriam contacted her at one point, asking about her food preferences, which she found odd. Deirdre rattled off a series of elaborate dishes before Miriam stopped her and noted she was collecting food for Deirdre’s journey, which limited preparation options. Deirdre adjusted her list accordingly.

  Cyrus found her sev
eral hours later, standing inside an open area that contained paintings hanging on a wall. She’d never seen anything like it. Art in her time was all digital, bits and pixels on a view screen. These were… different. In a good way. Someone had used the same materials used to color walls in a way that gave so much added texture and value to the imagery before her. The image of a woman, garbed in odd clothes and with a knowing, smirking smile… it was of a different type entirely than what she’d seen.

  “Making friends with Mona?” Cyrus asked.

  “Who?”

  “We’ve lost the name of the artist who created that work, but legend has it that it’s of a woman named Mona. We’ve all gotten lost staring into her eyes, trying to figure out what she’s thinking, who she was, what life was like in her day.”

  “Her… day?”

  He nodded. “That painting… it’s at least fifteen centuries old. Probably more. We’ve preserved it so it won’t fade.” He shrugged, then tapped her shoulder. “If you’ll follow me?”

  She did. They entered the elevator lift and rode up to the garage level, where she found her car looking… the same as it had before. Oddly, she’d thought he’d give it a paint job or add other styling features to it. But it looked the same.

  She wondered where he’d done his work. This segment of the facility seemed oddly ill-equipped for a technical guru to operate on a ground car. But she doubted he’d tell her, and decided therefore that she didn’t want to know.

  “This car has a few new features that should help make the journey to New Phoenix a bit more comfortable,” Cyrus began. “First, given the time of year and climate, it’s going to be quite hot by the time you get there. The heat will definitely impact the interior of the ground car.”

  Deirdre nodded.

  “Therefore, I’ve added in what we like to call a climate control system.”

  “I’ve seen those before. I’ve…” She paused. “Well, I’ve flown in ships that can do that.”

  If he was surprised to hear that she’d flown in anything, let alone a ship with a controlled climate, he didn’t show it. “Then you’re familiar with the operation.” He opened the door and pointed, noting the new controls on the dashboard. “You can set your temperature there. Turn left to make it colder, right to make it warmer. Simple enough. You had some basic features like that already, but this is much more efficient and automated. You won’t even know what the exterior temperature is… though if you need to know, there’s a small panel on the dashboard now that tells you.” He grinned, seeming pleased with himself.

  Deirdre nodded. “Thank you.” It wasn’t a major change, but he seemed confident that it would help her. She wouldn’t be any worse off than she’d been before.

  “Oh, I’m not done yet.” He grinned, and she got the sense that he was starting with the simpler stuff first, building to a grand finish. “This vehicle operates on electricity stored in a series of batteries. The energy source is sunlight, collected via the solar panels.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s the main problem with getting energy from the sun?”

  “Um…”

  “It doesn’t gather energy at night.”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “I’m guessing that you’ve probably driven at night, letting the batteries fill up during the daylight hours?”

  “Well…” She frowned. “I, ah, met all of you after only one day driving, and I’d not really had to consider the whole issue of recharging the batteries. They were full when I… borrowed the ground car. But I suppose they’d drain eventually, and I probably would reach the conclusion that I’d need to do as you say. Rest during the day, recharge the car batteries, drive at night.” She frowned. “Does this thing have exterior lighting?”

  “It does… now.” He smiled. “But here’s the part that’s interesting. If you drive during the day, all day, you’re draining the batteries faster than you can fuel them. Eventually, you have to either cut back significantly on your daily drive time, slow the speed at which you drive… or only drive at night.”

  “Yuck.” She wasn’t worried about running into something alive; the Ravagers had cleared the slate, as it were. But there were still creeks and rivers and hills she could drive off, especially at night where, even with Cyrus’ new exterior lights, she’d still have her vision compromised. She thought of the plateau she’d used to eliminate the three chaser cars, and realized that at night she could easily drive right off a hill. “I’d really prefer to drive during daylight hours.”

  “And that’s where the next improvement comes in.” He pointed in the area of the engine. “We replaced the existing batteries with some of our own design, which are smaller, lighter, and hold a much greater charge for a longer period of time.”

  “That’s… that’s great!” She thought it over. “Do those batteries charge up faster? I’d still have to keep everything turned off to fill the new batteries, just like the old ones. It would just take longer.”

  “And that’s the key… and what the next enhancement does.” He pointed to several wires that fed into the battery compartments. “We added a kinetic energy converter so that you’re always recharging.”

  “A kinetic… what?”

  “Basically, it turns movement into energy.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your wheels turn, they generate electricity that gets pushed into the batteries. So you can drive during the day and the kinetic charge keeps you going while the solar panels soak up sunlight. And you can drive at night off the solar-based charge while the kinetic converter keeps things filled up.”

  “So… in theory I could drive around the clock? Daylight or nighttime?”

  “Yes.” There was an amused look in his eyes, as if he was waiting for her to ask the next question.

  “But… I still have to sleep. Eat. Make… periodic biology stops.”

  His smile broadened, and then he broke into a toothy, excited grin. “And that’s where the final enhancement comes into play.” He reached in and pulled a covering off a section of the dashboard, revealing a large view screen. “Ta da!”

  “What… is that?”

  “It’s an autopilot navigation system.”

  “A what?”

  “It figures out how to get where you want to go and drives the car for you. And… it doesn’t need to sleep.”

  She finally understood. “So I just hop in, show it where New Phoenix is… and just let the car handle the rest?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How safe is it?”

  “It’s a better driver than you.” He paused. “Begging your pardon. I’ll amend that to say it’s a better driver than me. It won’t drive off a cliff or into a river or crash into a tree—”

  “There aren’t any trees—”

  “And it will travel at the maximum speed possible that won’t leave you with batteries drained. That’s where it’s a better driver than us mere humans. It doesn’t get fatigued and see it’s driving skills or reflexes decline. It will get you to New Phoenix in a couple of days when previously it would have taken you a solid week.”

  Deirdre stared at him, then at the ground car. It suddenly looked different to her, though there’d been no cosmetic changes. It was what was on the inside that mattered.

  That was a lesson she’d needed to learn a long time ago.

  She returned her focus to Cyrus. “So… I can leave now?”

  “Not quite.”

  Deirdre turned toward the sound of Miriam’s voice as the other woman entered the area. She pushed a rolling cart ahead of her, and Deirdre suspected the apparent leader of this curious group was bringing food for the journey ahead.

  Miriam glanced at Cyrus. “You walked her through the enhancements?”

  “I haven’t showed her how to work the autopilot just yet, but—”

  “It’s intuitive; she’ll figure it out.” Miriam gave Cyrus a glance, and the man nodded and left, glancing over his shoulder and shouting “Good luck!”
toward Deirdre as he did so.

  “You have a way with men,” Deirdre said, a wry smile on her face.

  “Not all of us have the same effect on them that you do.” There was no malice in Miriam’s tone, but Deirdre felt the words like a sharp slap. “I have food for your journey, and several other types of supplies you’ll need to complete your mission.” She pulled a cover off the top, and Deirdre noted several packaged meals, bottles of water, several changes of clothing, and other items she didn’t recognize.

  “Timing is critical with your mission. We have reason to believe that the Thirty have a private communication network. While it’s not unusual for one of them to remain silent on that network for days or weeks at a time, it’s also used for the type of communication they wouldn’t widely share… or wait to read.”

  Deirdre thought that over. “So… if I kill one of them… and another notices… they’ll warn the others?”

  “Precisely.” Miriam looked pleased at Deirdre’s deductive skills. “That means that you need to kill them in a way that looks accidental, and preferably all at once. They need to die before they can figure out that something’s wrong, and before they can issue a warning. If they issue a warning… then our efforts to assassinate others will become much more difficult.”

  Deirdre noted that Miriam didn’t think warnings would prevent the assassinations. She liked that confidence. “So… how do I do that?”

  “Guns are noisy and obvious. Unless you can arrange things so that all of your targets show horrific pangs of conscious that lead to near-simultaneous gun-inflicted suicides, they’re impractical for our purposes.”

  “Makes sense.” She nodded. “I assume you’ve brought other means to our desired end?”

  Miriam nodded. She gestured toward the smaller container and the bottle of wine. “Those aren’t for your journey. The smaller bottle is a type of flavoring sauce popular from earlier times, which was called Sriracha. Tell them you received it as a gift and thought you’d share your bounty.”

  Deirdre understood. “It’s poison, not a flavoring.”