He spent the morning finishing up his cleaning work. The table's pieces went into a trash can. The windows were given another wipe, this time with a bit of detergent. The white couch was zigzagged with blue - all Reez had managed to do with the blood was to spread it around. Fortunately, he had a bottle of smell killer, and he sprayed the stuff generously all over the couch. At least it would look remotely design until he could figure out what to do with it.
The carpet was another matter entirely. No matter what he sprayed on it, the dark blue streaks remained, undisturbed. He'd have to borrow a carpet cleaner. If that didn't work, the color would be there to stay... and he'd have to shell out even more cash to replace the whole shebang.
He left the door opened as he cleaned, with a fan pointed that way. The smell had made good time during the night, sticking itself to almost everywhere in the apartment. It was like living in an abattoir.
The phone rang at eleven o' clock.
"You're expected at my office at one o' clock sharp." Mr. Karl told him with a stern voice. "Don't be late."
Click.
Karl obviously didn't look happy. He wasn't grinning at all.
"You will tell us what happened yesterday, in full detail, starting with your morning."
Reez gulped. "Well, uh, okay... I stayed at home and watched TV all morning while the girl browsed around the net. Then in the middle of the afternoon, we went to the grocery store a few blocks away. And then I decided to eat out so we took a walk and went over to a restaurant and ate. And then on the way back, some folks from the Human Society blindfolded me, tied me up and gave her an electric shock to fry her circuitry. After I untied myself, I found her shaking like crazy, so I brought her home and put her on the couch, and then all of a sudden she glew like she was about to blow up or something-"
"Where did you eat?"
"...uh, The Muse. What for?"
Karl shook his head. "I know that place... What's up, Reez? You didn't think you had enough trouble in your life?"
"I'm not sure I..."
"You were assigned to protect an asset of the government and you go and make her tag along straight into gangsta-town! What the fuck were you thinkin'?!"
"Uh..."
"At least you had a twist of luck playin' on yer side. I'm ready to give ya another job, but this time, the Department will demand daily reports at a regular time of the day yet to be announced. You don't do yer report, you don't get paid for yer day. It ain't part of yer job to know how important to your client yer objectives are, but I know that a United Mercenary with a little bit of self-respect treats escort objectives like they're his own mother! You love your mother?"
"Yeah, but..."
"Then, shit, do it! I hired ya 'cause Kod told us you were a good kid! At least do the dead guy a favor and prove the 'good' part right! How am I supposed to recommend ya to my buddies if you do a stupid-ass mistake like that all the time? Are you stupid?"
"No..."
"Well, prove it, man! I'm gonna give ya one last chance at shinin'. You're gettin' the girl back, and this time, you'll have s'more responsibilities and will be under more scrutiny 'till we can be sure you can at least tie yer own shoelaces without any help. You in or you're out?"
Reez' curiosity got the best of him. He had to know more. "Yes."
Mr. Karl stood up, and opened the door behind his desk.
"Get in there. Welcome to the elusive dungeon."
The room behind Karl's office was some sort of hyped-up trauma center. Tools, needles, flasks, computers and various pieces of machinery were strapped or nailed to the wall, with more bolted to the floor and a few hanging from ceiling springs.
Karl waved a hand across the room, presenting its contents.
"This is an analysis room. Whenever we're brought a sample, it goes into one of these. We have the equipment to check everything: machinery, humans, mutants, androids, computers; the works. This is the preliminary area in the Department. We use it to get the gross information about something or someone we're about to examine, and thus send it off to the appropriate floor. The second floor, where we are, is all offices and administration. My analysis room is the biggest of them all. The other specialized floors have more specialized equipment. Now have a seat."
An anonymous-looking man in a labcoat pulled two chairs from the side and placed them face to face.
"Bring us a Nova," Karl told the man, who briskly left the room through a door on the farthest wall, opposite the office door.
Mr. Karl stayed silent, his face showing no emotion. A minute later, the labcoat came back, holding an oddly shaped piece of flesh and metal, about as big as a party balloon.
"You know about Nova units?"
Reez gave the thing a curious look. "Just a little."
Karl released the thing, which remained suspended in midair. "A little briefin' then: these expensive little buggers are given to the best soldiers in our army. Depending on the model, they can be used as scouts, short-range transportation, or to hold a secondary weapon, among other uses. The Department of Technology developed these several years ago when attempting to develop a copy of the Reli creatures. We ended up with a thing that had no mind of its own, but had a limited array of strange powers. So we coupled 'em with a shell and circuitry to give them a form of intelligence. Now, the common Nova is a piece of flesh, which is given a jolt of energy and instructed to use that energy to grow into the desired form, which explains why the shock gun caused the reaction you saw. Kimi, light!"
The Nova glew a bright white color and floated all the way to the top of the room, illuminating it.
"This Nova's based on energy," Karl explained. "It can be used as a lightbulb, flashlight, or can shoot an energy bolt at anything its master orders it to. Kimi, come back and rest."
The Nova quietly landed on a small tray next to Mr. Karl's chair, and went silent. Reez reached over and gave the thing a poke.
"I suppose this has to do with Sierra?"
Karl nodded. "Ya bet. Hey, can you bring her in? Is she ready?"
The labcoat man nodded and disappeared once more into the back room, returning with a Sierra on a wheelchair. He locked it in place, then returned to the back room once more.
Sierra seemed uneasy. In the light of the analysis room, Reez could see her figure in much more detail. Her hair had lengthened and the plates had disappeared, leaving her with just the black and electric blue strands just barely down to chest length. The bangs had been pulled to the back and tied in the bun, keeping the rest of the hairdo in check. Her eyes had gained a much more expressive appearance: the solid orbs had been replaced by human lookalikes, a bit vitreous but at least with beautiful electric blue irises and the ability to let others know where she was aiming her sights.
Her forearms had been replaced. The old, child-sized parts had been done away with, and the new arms had a much more homogenous, sleek look, with electric blue plated and black simu-skin hands and fingers, mimicking the real flesh to perfection. Her legs, however, were not present yet, explaining the wheelchair.
Last but not least: a white piece of cloth had been wrapped around her now developed chest.
Karl looked at her and grinned. "Beautiful, isn't she? Once my expert slave (hehe!) finds her legs, she'll be good to go. You all right, big girl?"
Sierra nodded, but not without giving Karl a disapproving look upon hearing the expression.
"Good! All right, Reez. Here's where we make the connection. We've made a bit of research during the week. We analyzed samples we had taken and the image files of her data. First of all: Sierra is the daughter of Shrike Naïnsev."
"Are you kidding me?!"
Karl chuckled. "No sir! She's the offspring of the big bitch, that's for sure. The reason is that in her log files, we found references to her being called Sierra Naïnsev and responding to those calls. If it wasn't for the hair, and the color, they'd look pretty much alike now. Second news: Sierra is a Nova unit."
"That, I guessed..."
"Not just a simple Nova unit, Reez. Look at her and look at little Kimi here. There's a fundamental difference between those two. The girl has a brain, the pet does not. She is able to think for herself. There are no programs telling her what to do. She has no CPU, no operating system, nothing of that sort. She's a lot more human that even she thought she was."
"Okay... where does that put us? What are you getting at?"
"Well, first of all, we have the first specimen known to the world that's a sentient Nova. And because of the unusual way she was made and our inability to reproduce such a thin', we might never see one ever again. Not only that; Sierra also sports all the powers of the common Nova, which includes creating an antigravity field for herself, detecting Reli creatures within a range of about fifty feet, and whichever powers are associated with the 'base' model she was born from. Since we dunno which one, we'll have to wait until these other powers show up - sorry for the 'teen flick' aspect of my briefing. Finally, unlike a genuine Reli creature, Novas can age. Things like little Kimi have a lifespan of about fifteen years. Sierra, damned if I know..."
Reez looked at Sierra, then at Karl, then back to Sierra again. "She can do all this?"
"Sierra, go as high as you can."
She complied. Her body rose into the air, until her head almost touched the ceiling. As she did this, the labcoat man came back, holding a pair of android legs connected to a skirtless midsection.
"That's as far as I can go." She said.
The labcoat man went next to her and extended a tape measurer. "Six feet." He told Karl.
Karl resumed his speech: "Secondly, because of the importance she has taken, you will be assigned to her protection full-time. She will make regular visits to the Department for testin', so that we may monitor her abilities and try to understand just what makes her what she is. Until Shrike's body is found and analyzed, we fall back on the next best thing."
"What would make her body a reason to stop the job?..."
"Simple, my friend: Shrike's body holds the key as to how she hybridized the rest of the androids who made up her team. We have a hypothesis on the method, but we have yet to find the tool. And the tool is what we need. Was it a psychic link? Was it a morphin' power? Was it a perverted form of her data communication protocols? Her body holds the answer. If we can find it, crack it open and examine the contents of the hard disks and get a good look as to how she's really made... we should make a whole lot of progress on our understandin' of the Reli creatures. 'Till then, sorry to say it this way, but the girl's our bitch!"
"Hey!" Sierra interjected.
"In the meantime," Mr. Karl continued, "we built new parts for her body so that she can look at least somewhat normal. Her organic body has sockets and extensions specially designed to accept the missing limbs - Shrike really thought the whole thin' out through. Her eyes were also on sockets - good thin', 'cause the old ones broke apart durin' her maturation. I hope the new ones are cute enough for ya. The arms are fully waterproof and can be immersed in water up to fifty feet of depth. The legs can handle rain but don't go and push her into a swimming pool with these on. Okay girl, get into yer new legs."
Sierra floated once again, looking below herself to land squarely into the midsection. The labcoat man opened a panel on each inner thigh, and connected the proper wires together.
Once she was in place, she untied the cloth around her chest and tossed it away. She adjusted the frontal plate, and then secured it, using her electronic connection to tighten the arrangement around her body.
Karl giggled. "She had the instinct to hide her goodies?"
"I did." The labcoat man replied.
"Aw, no fun!"
Sierra gave him a look of disdain. "I happen to have read many articles about sex and customs." She turned, gave the labcoat man a wide smile, said "Thank you, gallant sir!" and kissed his cheek.
All of a sudden, Sierra was like a human being. Reez kept asking her questions on the way back home. How the interface worked. How the sockets worked. Were the new eyes different from the old ones for her? So she could really eat? Could she eat a lot? How was it digested? How could she float like that? Could she do any other neat tricks?
"Ah, come on!" Sierra told him midway. "Am I a circus animal now?"
"Well, uh!... Well, to put it bluntly, you're a lot more interesting now. I had been wanting to know just what the hell you were up to since day one and you wouldn't speak a word. It took an intervention by some thugs to get the ball rolling. What are the chances of that happening?"
Sierra sighed in response. "Tell me. Am I a different person entirely, in your eyes, now that I've grown?"
"Hmmm... Yeah. You're barely recognizable from your old self. Your personality's showing. It's completely different than before. Now you're outspoken, sharp-witted... Hell, you're able to do sarcasm pretty damn well!... We uncovered a secret, didn't we?"
"Well... sort of."
Reez grunted. "What would've happened had you not gotten the jolt? You'd have stayed silent forever?"
No response.
"Hello? A little background here?"
"Sorry..." Sierra looked away. "I couldn't just blindly trust the first person I came across with."
"Do you trust me now?"
"Yes."
"Good. Then your memories go further back than last week when I found you?"
"Yes."
Reez nodded. "Are you gonna finally spill the beans? You're past the point of no return."
Sierra completely turned her head away. She tried to seek a momentary distraction in the skyline but she knew Reez would keep hammering his questions on her until he had the answer he wanted.
"Fine... So long as you keep it to yourself. I don't trust the Karl man enough yet. He doesn't ask for answers; he just takes them."
"Waddya mean?"
"He pulled my data spike out and connected me to a machine. It made a full copy of my log files before giving me back to you."
"Wait a minute - so he knew your whole story even before he gave me the job?"
"He knew the whole story."
"Then what was the point?!"
"I wish I knew..."
Reez put a hand on his mouth and thought hard. Sierra gave him furtive glances from time to time, fidgeting in her seat and looking uneasy. If she could blush, she'd be doing it right now.
They arrived at the parking lot. The way up was done almost the same way as the first time around: She avoided eye contact, and he ignored her presence. Eventually, she learned this was Reez's way of concentrating: he phased out everything around him.
"Karl knew about you, but gave you to me," he thought aloud, muttering as he unlocked the door. "He wants to perform research on you, he thinks you're the only thing of that kind to ever exist in history, you're probably worth billions in his eyes, and yet instead of keeping you in a padded cell so you don't scratch an inch of your precious skin... they give you to me. Why! Just why the hell would Karl be so stupid as to give a priceless asset to someone living in an apartment that could be just easily bombed or raided?"
Sierra came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Can you clarify what you're thinking about?"
"Why am I part of the equation? I'm one guy too many as far as I know."
She shrugged. "No way to know right now. I thought about it too."
Reez reached into the fridge and took out a bottle of liquor. He sat down in the living room and downed half its contents in one go.
Sierra sat on the streaked couch, opposite of him.
"Karl gave you most of the info about me already," she told. "But he didn't tell everything, so I'll fill the blanks."
"Start with your life story, all right?"
"Sure. I was born Sierra Naïnsev a bit more than a month ago and was intended as a daughter of sorts for Shrike. For what reason, and why she built me out of a Nova design, I'll never know. I could only suppose she wanted someone to cradle and love, and that the Nova body would make me a bit more human according to her standard, but I speculate. The second I was born, I knew her name, her friends, the world I lived in... I knew I loved and cared for my mother, and that my mother loved and cared for me. I'm aware now, taking a step back, that all those bits of knowledge have been artificially planted into my brain. And taking a step back on that too, I gradually think that even if I had not had any prior knowledge, I would have come to the same conclusions anyway. I had no formal processing unit - that was my brain's job. My only android parts were my forearms, my waist, my legs, and a hard disk, which housed everything I had seen, heard and thought since my birth. There's a second hard disk, to which I have no access. Both are fused into my body such that it's impossible to safely remove them, but nothing stops someone from connecting to me and reading the contents of the available disk."
"And the other one?"
"It's protected with an encrypted password. This long." She stretched her arms as far as she could. "I don't know it myself. Anyway, as I lived my life inside the bunker, I began to develop a personality different from my mother's. That, and she realized she had made me too cute and too good - in her eyes, I was flawless, and that was the problem. She grew jealous of me and began doubting her idea in the first place."
"..."
"When she left for Governor Carlest Taylor's building, she wasn't in her highest spirits. She had just had an argument with one of her friends and I had made the mistake of being in plain sight while this happened, so her fury spilled over to me, and then pretty much the rest of the bunker. Everyone was in a sour mood. I was supposed to stay put and wait for them to come back... but when she returned, she was alone and sad, and told me to to go my room to leave her time to think... All of a sudden, I heard her screaming. I tried to open the door but it was jammed. By the time it gave, she had already left, and I found a ton of weird... stuff spilled everywhere in the bunker... Then the power just went away, snap, just like that. I panicked and ran outside. The next thing I found was just next to the entrance: for a reason that still escapes me, she had set her car ablaze."
"Why would she do that?!"
"Again, I have no idea... I ended up just sitting out there in the desert with no place to go to. I knew I'd eventually have to do something, but I couldn't think. I had a... I don't know... Some sort of lingering fear, a bit like you know someone has a knife pointed at your neck but you don't know when he'll strike. It was that kind of fear. So I sat there and waited, and I waited for days on end for the fear to go away so I could start thinking again... But it only subsided once you got me inside New Colombus. Now I get that fear whenever I'm inside the Department's building... It's less invasive than before; it allows me to think almost normally, but it's there. It's still there and I wish I knew what is causing it; if it's instinct or some... power I'm not yet aware of. The only Nova power I knew I could do was float, and all Novas do that. The rest... Well, to be honest, I know I can do something else... but I went to great lengths to forget that, and went so far as to forget how to use my ability to forget! A perfect memory hole... I can only suppose I wanted something out of my log files at all costs. In that spirit, I try not to remember it. Not while Karl can still probe my memories whenever he chooses."
Reez nodded. "That's logical... Somewhat complex, but logical."
"I also know of one other ability - and that was common among Shrike and all her gang: we had the ability to eat food. Not much, only a baby's portion every day (and even then, we'd be pushing it), and we had a digestive system that was impossibly slow, but left no waste to speak of. I have it too - the marinated shrimps tasted very good by the way. As far as I know, it's not something essential to my survival, but I do feel a little boosted some time after a meal."
Reez stared at his drink for a moment, then offered the liquor to Sierra. "Care for a taste?"
"No, thank you. Maybe later. The shrimps are tough chunks to digest... I don't want to push my digestive system. I don't know what would happen if I did. I know a human would throw up, but I don't know what I'd do, myself. I don't intend to find out the hard way! Karl's research might be good in that aspect..."
"By the way, you know Karl's his family name...?"
"I am not calling him 'Mister'!"
Reez chuckled. "Fair enough!... Well, that explains a lot of things. It'll be a bit hard to digest for a materialistic jobber like me, but I guess a good night's sleep will do the trick. What do you want to do now?"
Sierra looked shy all over again.
"If... If we could, I'd like to go back to the bunker one last time. I'd like to get a few mementos from there."
"Sure, that'll give us something to do."
"We'll need a trailer."
"Pardon?!"