Andena the Rebel Ch. 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Danette's headache was returning with a vengeance as she entered the narrow hall that housed the recovery rooms. She had been free of it the whole day, but she couldn't delay doing something about Andena because the girl was still unconscious and this was having an effect on Danette's mood.

She had difficulty focusing on the fact that she was pleased with the work she had done with the android girls. They were in much better shape, and the overall condition of their additional subroutines was reaching a level which would soon be good enough to start field exercises.

As she stood in front of the door, she felt irritated that Joshua hadn't left a message informing her that Andena had woken up. She slowly opened the door hoping and praying for a miracle. However, Andena was still lying there, in a deep sleep, recovering from the massive surgical intervention. She still couldn't understand why Andena didn't have any scar tissue at all. From what she had read about the upgrade procedure in the paper, Andena should have numerous scars all over her body. Danette wanted to be absolutely sure that Andena had had the upgrade, and she decided to check the girl herself.

Danette shivered a little as her fingers traced the respiration tube which disappeared into Andena's mouth. With a trembling hand, she stroked her hair and was amazed at how soft and shiny it was. Danette was really jealous of the amazingly vibrant red colour which perfectly matched her mystical green eyes and her pale, flawless complexion. Indeed, it was a wrench prising her gaze away. Slowly moving the sheet down she admired Andena's naked upper torso. She couldn't believe how immaculate Andena's skin was: not a single mole or pimple was to be seen, and her skin had a silky lustre quality. She couldn't resist touching the soft skin and marvelled at the toned and flat stomach as she realised that Andena must have been working out for some time. Only the enhancers in her hands looked out of proportion because they were clearly visible. The little pointy bumps on each joint of her fingers looked like little studs.

It was because of the warmth radiating from Andena's body that Danette felt the uneasiness creeping up, making her stomach churn again: this was a real living human, made of flesh and bone. She slowly peeled the sheet away from Andena, feeling a conflicting sense of guilt and jealousy. Andena's body was beautiful: spoiled only by Bionex's bionic enhancements.

Danette sighed and quickly covered Andena with the sheet again because she couldn't bear to look at her body anymore. Instead, she studied the screen which showed the physical status of the girl: everything was within normal parameters. Nothing pointed to a reason why she wasn't awake, and she spent a long time pondering exactly what she should do.

Mr. Yousima had given her an ultimatum: the girl had to be awake by the day after tomorrow, or the enhancers would be taken out and reused on someone else. She hated to be in this predicament.

The noise of the respirator was getting on her nerves, and so she hastily left the room. It had felt eerie when she had closed the door because the intermittent hissing sound of the respirator was just about audible and sounded as if somebody was whispering. Her stomach was in knots, and she knew she had to eat something soon. With resolute steps, she hurried to her apartment hoping she could keep her food down.

"What is going on over there?" Lunn asked as he walked with Alice to the headquarters.

"There's a problem with the secure connections."

"Oh okay, how bad?"

"It seems that we are unable to create stable, secure connections," Alice replied.

"What do you mean by stable connections?"

"As soon as the connection is established it drops within twenty seconds. The boys have tried everything, but nothing stays online longer than twenty seconds."

"Hmm, sounds strange. I have no idea what that could be."

"John is pretty pissed off."

"No kidding."

Alice chuckled and kept her pace steady as if nothing would change her speed. Lunn knew that he couldn't draw any further conclusions until he arrived and decided not to ask any more questions about it. They kept on walking in a comfortable silence. He had no urge to talk which was, to his surprise, a pleasant feeling. He looked at Alice who still had a happy smile on her face making her seem even more desirable. She had noticed him looking at her, and quipped, "What is it with you and women?"

The question took him back to his late teens when he had practically a different girl every night until one of the girls had committed suicide. People had thought she couldn't cope with the fact Lunn had left her. Lunn had stopped seeing her because he didn't want to find himself trapped in a relationship. It was an unfortunate coincidence that it was at that time that he realised that he couldn't sleep with every girl he met.

It had taken a long time before they had found the girl's letter which stated that she had ended her life 'at the will of the gods.' Lunn was pleased that he wasn't the reason she had decided to commit suicide, but it had contributed to drastic change in his attitude towards life. He had made the decision then to be celibate and ignored the many temptations around him.

It had left him cold until Danette re-energised his love life with a steaming hot experience. He had been alone for a long time until Danette had managed to break his vow of celibacy. She was the first one he had allowed to be intimate with him, and it had amazed him how completely different it felt with Danette. Their open relationship had enabled him to enjoy a colourful sex life again although, apart from a few meaningless flings, Danette was still number one.

Then there was Andena. The sex with her was amazing, but he knew it had only occurred as a result of the heightened state of arousal brought on by the alien aphrodisiac. He enjoyed her company: she was different, not as self-indulgent as many other women. Now as he looked at Alice, he wondered what he admired most in her. He sighed and confided insecurely, "I think I like women who have high self-esteem."

Alice snorted.

"What?" he asked surprised wondering whether he had upset her.

"As if I have that."

He stopped walking and said, "Hmm. You surely act like you know what you want."

Lunn studied her aware that his comments had shocked her deeply. He kissed her softly on the lips and as he pulled away he whispered, "You are a strong woman."

She grinned as she rested her forehead against his and said, "Maybe."

"How so, maybe? You kick ass if it's necessary and you're not afraid to bare your teeth."

Lunn saw her fidgeting and realised that she wasn't comfortable with the way the conversation was going, he slapped her playfully on the bottom as he mused, "Right, let's move on before I'm accused of negligence."

Alice laughed, genuinely relieved as she retorted, "Yup, John is pretty pissed that you left him alone to set up the initial part of the new headquarters."

Lunn laughed and said, "He could have contacted me."

"Not when you leave your phone in your office."

Her answer made him jump, he just about managed to suppress a gasp as he remembered that he had deliberately left his device at the office. The financier had explicitly told him not to bring it for safety reasons. He confessed, "Hmm, you're right I don't know why I did that."

Alice looked straight at him, and he could see that she didn't quite believe his story and said playfully although with a stern undertone, "You just can't run away and hide. You're too important now."

As they entered the headquarters, Lunn murmured, "I guess I am."

Meleda had enjoyed a good brunch after a long lie in bed. She'd needed her rest after the long, taxing conversation she'd had with her brother the previous night. She was very pleased that Haruz had finally given her the necessary access to the main system. At least now she could easily browse around without the fear of being caught. She had been using other means to get the same information, but now she could dig a little deeper, which was what she planned to do today. She knew she wouldn't be able to access all the information that she needed but with her neat set of little program bots: she could gather most of the data without being noticed. Once the little bots were started, she could relax and wait for the results.

There was one thing in particular that she wanted to find: the contract which Arnost had signed with Tancred as the emissary of the aliens. But she reckoned, considering the conversations she had had with Haruz, that it was doubtful whether there would be a contract at all.

The other major challenge that she had already spent quite a lot of time attempting to overcome was finding a way to breach Bionex's security gates. It was only after several frustrating nights of rigorously reprogramming her bots, that she had finally gained access. She discovered that their systems were far more complex than she'd thought they would be but had loved the challenge, and she was incredibly pleased with her success. With a sigh of contentment, she realised she'd got nearly all the information she was looking for, and that she needed just a little more patience before she could start reading the next batch of documents. She had been shocked to discover how far Bionex's technology had evolved.

She had checked the credit balance of her reserves, and there was still enough to fulfil the next installment. She knew there were two more instalments to pay and after that, she would have less need for the harvesting bots.

Now she had done the easy part of her to-do list, and there was one thing left to do, which probably would take the rest of her afternoon to get organised. She knew that nearly all the meeting rooms had their own particle array, but had never been used since the last civil war which had ended long before she was even born. Her knowledge of the quantum physics was limited, but she knew enough about how to connect to a particle array. The real challenge was to gain access to the heavily secured gate which had been purposely built to keep out nosy people like her.

Meleda had created a new program which could fool the security protocol by extending the network paths into the gate. Once she was in, she would be able to access the right time particles to create a grainy video. It took her a few attempts before the secured gate granted her the coveted green light and with trembling fingers she gave one of her bots the command to gather the ancient information. As soon as the bot gave her an acknowledgment of the fact that there truly was data to recover, Meleda slumped back into her chair with a joyful sigh. She could barely wait to find out what data the bot would come back with, but knew that for now she had to be patient. She estimated it would take at least six hours before the bot had enough completed data ready to use.

She was surprised when she saw how long she had been busy and suddenly realised how hungry she was. With a soft groan, she got up from her chair and limped to the kitchen to raid the fridge for food. She chided herself for going without food for so long and knew that she would suffer as a result, later this evening. She knew that she needed to be more careful because she couldn't allow herself to get too weak.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor woke Andena, and when the door opened, she heard a familiar voice say, "Why is she still not responding?"

A nervous sounding male voice said, "Because she has the full upgrade which meant she had to be sedated for a longer period for to heal fully."

The female voice sounded annoyed when she replied, "I see. When do you think we can deploy her?"

The man started to stutter, "I, I don't know because we have never successfully implemented a full upgrade before."

The female growled, "I've been waiting for her to be ready. Every delay is costing a fortune in credits, and she will be too far behind soon."

"But she doesn't need that much training because of the full upgrade. I'm sure she will come to within a day and then it will be a matter of another day or two before you can fully deploy her."

Andena listened to the conversation with a strange sense of apprehension, and she wondered what they had done to her. She still couldn't move any muscles: it was as if something had switched her off. Her mind was very sluggish, and she had great difficulty in comprehending what the two were talking about. The woman's high heels reverberated in the room as she walked away from Andena, and when she stopped, she sneered, "I'll give you one more day. After that, I will personally pull the plug."

The young man was clearly upset when he exclaimed, "You can't do that! That is first-degree murder!"

The woman laughed as she walked away, before shouting, "Come on now! You can hardly claim that she is still human!"

The man sighed. He moved closer to Andena and whispered in her ear, "Why oh why are you still not awake?"

It was strange for Andena knowing she was awake, but she couldn't do anything. She vaguely remembered the woman's voice, but couldn't remember her name. She was not afraid of what might happen but had no desire to die. She could hear the man pacing around the room, and he shrieked when something loudly played a short melody. She heard him nearly shouting, "Patrick! Did you find anything? What? What do you mean by resetting her core?"

The man walked closer to Andena, and he asked, "How can it be so simple? Are you sure? Do I need to do anything before I reset it?"

Andena heard the other voice now clearly because the man was hovering above her head, "No. Just connect to the core and type the word reboot. That should do the trick."

The man asked anxiously, "What if nothing happens?"

"Then we have messed up and killed this girl. A pity, though, she was a beauty."

The man growled, "Patrick, how on Earth can you say that?"

The voice from the telephone snorted and said, "You were the one who suggested giving her the full upgrade."

The man yelled, "Yes, I did because she had the most suitable body for it and she was incredibly fit."

"Hey! Calm down, Joshua! Just reboot the damn core will you?"

The man sighed deeply before he conceded, "All right Patrick, I'm sorry. I just had a bad conversation with that bitch. I'll hang up and call you back as soon as I'm done."

"It's okay, Joshua. Good luck, I'll keep my fingers crossed."

A short beep which reverberated in the room told Andena that he had finished the conversation, and she wondered what he was planning to do. As far as she knew she didn't have a core and why would you need to reboot a person? She heard him rubbing his hands while he said, "Right. Here goes, pretty one."

The next moment Andena felt a surge right in the middle of her head, and everything went blank for a brief moment. However, it wasn't long before she was able to hear her heart beating again, and she was stunned that she was able to see a row of text scrolling in front of her right eye. It went too fast for her to read it and she didn't have time to focus on that because she felt that she was lying on something soft. Something was wrong with her mouth and her breathing. Andena was getting more and more strange sensations and knew that something was very wrong. She grabbed her face and discovered a tube going into her mouth. Her instinct told her that it had to go out, and she started to pull at it.

She heard the man shout, "Stop! Don't pull it! Let me do it! It will only hurt much more if you do it."

Andena felt the man tugging at the mouthpiece and after that, the breathing immediately became more normal, however, when he hauled the tube from her mouth in one swift move she arched her back when the pain became almost impossible to bear. She turned on her side into a foetal position and coughed for at least a minute. Thick mucus dribbled from the side of her mouth, and she came to the conclusion that she must have had this tube in her windpipe for a long time. She was wondering what had happened to her and felt strange. Her rational mind told her that she should be afraid but she felt...normal.

Her mouth was dry, and she longed for some water. She sat up, and she opened her eyes for the first time and saw the man looking at her with a huge grin on his face. Andena saw lines of text appearing in front of her right eye. It said, "Joshua Killman, Tech. Opp. Bionex. Age 29. Weight 165 lb. Heart rate 150. Body Temp. 99.7."

He said, "Thank God. It worked! What is your status?"

Before Andena could think about his question, her display showed, "Status: 100% fully functional, all systems: green."

It was as if Andena had been taken over by something. She was forced to take a breath, and she croaked involuntarily, "I'm hundred percent fully functional and all systems are green."

Joshua jumped a little and yelled, "Yes!"

After she had told the information, the compulsive urge was gone. Andena looked at him, and the taste of the mucus was quite strong in her mouth, and she said, "I would like some water."

Instantly the display in her eye gave a red cross and under a text was blinking, "Water level: 102%. No water intake allowed."

Joshua looked at his device and said, "I see that your levels are sufficient, so you don't need water."

It was a strange feeling for her that her desire for water had somehow vanished into thin air. But again her mind acknowledged that this was an unusual situation that would normally have made her feel upset.

Joshua said in a commanding voice before leaving the room, "Stay here."

Andena was sitting on the bed still a bit dazed about what just had happened, and she couldn't put her finger on what was disturbing her. She didn't have much chance to think about because it wasn't long before Joshua came back carrying a grey suit and a pair of familiar looking boots.

"Put these on," he ordered and handed her the clothes.

It felt strange and quite weird that she had the urge to follow his orders. Without any hesitation and with a certain determination she started to step into the suit which fitted her like a glove. She noticed that her movements were a bit jerky, and she had trouble grabbing the zip's lever. She tried again, but her fingers were not responding as she wanted and she couldn't get hold of it.

Joshua noticed her struggle and helped her to zip up her suit. He followed the zip with his eyes and he slowed down considerably when the suit was pressing her breasts together. Andena was at the point of asking why he had slowed down, but he suddenly moved the zip up until her suit was completely done up.

She felt dizzy as a result of moving too quickly to put her boots on. Her hand shot to Joshua's leg in an attempt to prevent herself from falling over.

He gasped and exclaimed, "Ah! You're hurting me! Let go!"

As he was holding her wrist, she instantly loosened her grip and found that she was able to regain her balance. She used his hand to hold herself and with the other hand she took one of the boots. As she stepped into it, she noticed that it felt strange: as if it was too small and Andena struggled to slide her foot into it. Much as she tried, she was unable to get her foot into the boot and eventually heard Joshua ask, "What is the matter?"

Her voice was still a bit hoarse from the respiration tube when she replied, "It seems that the boot is too small."

"What? But they are yours, and they are auto fitters, it shouldn't be a problem!" he said getting irritated, "Let me have a look at it."

Andena handed him the boot. He fiddled with it until she heard a soft beep and he handed it over to her.

"Try again." he snapped.

This time, the boot adjusted to her foot as she was slipping into it. She vaguely remembered she'd had a pair of carbon boots which had been fitted for her feet, and it was strange they didn't fit. She didn't have any more time to reflect upon it because she heard Joshua say, "Come, follow me, I need to introduce you to your new commander."