Ted Online Pt. 08

Ted,

I'm so sorry I ran out like that, I feel like an idiot. I'll be online on Sunday if you're still talking to me, and I'll explain the best I can. Hopefully, we might even do something rather stupid again.

Jen

He shook his head, women, he'd never understand them. He was happy though that she was interested in talking to him, he hadn't been sure until he read the note if she was his friend at all anymore. He replied he'd be there, or that he'd message if he couldn't make it, and that he loved doing stupid things with her. He snorted as he sent it and then opened the last message.

The last one had been from Amber, and all she said was that she loved him, and had a big surprise for him the next time they met. He genuinely smiled despite the stress he was in, and replied that he couldn't wait.

The car stopped and he looked up, and he was in the parking lot for the F.B.I.

He still wasn't sure what he wanted to do, he was contemplating destruction of government property, even though he could minimize that damage, and of course breaking a suspect out of the building. There was no question he was leaving with Silvia one way or another, but maybe he should go in and talk to them first, before he took drastic action.

He probably wouldn't have even contemplated doing it, if he were still human, but this android body was just a shell, and just one he was remote controlling, his real matrix was still on the ship. So he wasn't exactly worried about incarceration or harm if he walked through the front door. He nodded to himself, the big ass ship was probably entering Earth's atmosphere about now. He got out of the car, and strolled into the building.

He walked up to the desk and waited for the security guard to look up.

"Hi, I'm Ted Stedman, I'd like to talk to the agent in charge that is holding Dr. Silvia Trent under false pretenses."

The guard raised an eyebrow, typed something on the computer, and then picked up is phone.

Well, that was better than a drawn gun, and an order to lay down on his stomach with his hands behind his head. Legs crossed too he thought, that was a thing right? Or just on television shows?

The guard said sternly, "You can wait over there Mr. Stedman."

He considered correcting him, but decided that was petty as he hadn't introduced himself as a Dr., and went over to the chairs and sat down. It wasn't long before Smith and Jones came jogging into the room.

Jones looked at him rather warily, but Smith was more relaxed, so he looked at Smith.

"What the hell is going on? Why did you pull Silvia off the street like a couple of thugs?"

Smith snorted, "We can't tell you anything about our active investigation. Believe it or not Dr. Stedman, the world does not revolve around you. This has nothing to do with you at all."

He frowned, "Then what the hell is it about? She's a doctor, not a criminal."

Jones got a disgusted look on his face and said, "We can't discuss it, it's a matter of national security."

His mind raced, what if she hadn't done anything wrong at all, what if they wanted her Pod technology. They couldn't reach Mars through space, what if they were trying to use her pod system as a way to virtually get there, and take over one of the androids? No, they couldn't be that stupid, as if an A.I.s android could be hacked, he doubted even Silvia would be able to accomplish that.

He was missing something, or there was something about the technology he didn't know.

"So you aren't going to release her?"

Smith shook his head, "As we told the lawyer, she's being held for national security."

He nodded to the agents, "Fine."

He opened an overlay call to Helen and spoke inaudibly, to the agents at least, "Do you have it?"

She smiled, "Hello to you too love. Yes, tenth floor, north side, third room from the east side."

He winked, "Thanks sweetheart, you're a miracle worker."

She blushed, "It was easy enough, she still had her bio implant from Cyber dreams, it was quite easy to get her altitude, longitude, and latitude by routing the query through the ship, and then cross referencing it with the building schematics."

He snorted, easy for her maybe.

"Thanks love, be home soon."

She winked and disconnected.

He said out loud again, "Thanks for explaining agents. Have a nice day."

Then he walked over to the elevator bank, and before anyone said anything he'd hit ten and the elevator doors closed. Although he was pretty sure he heard Jones curse and something about shooting his ass. He snickered, hopefully he'd make it to ten before they locked down the elevator. He needed to move fast if he wanted to do this without hurting anyone.

When he got off the elevator he boldly turned and took the hallway east.

Then at the corridor he turned left, and went to the end. Northeast corner, so he counted three rooms over, and it was locked. So far, he'd just been a pain in the ass, but that was about to change. He stepped back, and then kicked the door with all the strength of his android chassis. The doorframe splintered, and the door swung open.

Silvia looked at him in disbelief, and he felt a rage inside of him. She looked like shit, and for a woman as beautiful as Silvia was, that was quite an accomplishment of the government. She wasn't beat up or anything, but she looked exhausted, as if she hadn't slept in over two days, and her eyes were red and puffy. She needed sleep, food, and a shower as soon as possible.

She cleared her throat, "What are you doing here?"

He grinned, "It's moving day! Ready?"

She frowned, "This is crazy, they have to let me go."

He shook his head, "We've tried lawyers and everything, we couldn't even get in to speak to you. We're leaving now."

She nodded as her eyes widened with alarm.

"How?"

He pointed at the window, and she turned her head in time to see the ship appear, and the large window get pulled out of the frame. Then he heard a lot of loud voices.

"Let's go honey, we don't have much time."

He picked her up, and jumped out of the window. They fell forward and into the ship like a feather, and then the ship closed up. He looked up in time to see Jones and Smith out of breath and pissed off as the ship took off at just below Mach one at tree level to the east.

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, and then shook her head, "I'm exhausted. They wanted my pod technology, after outlawing it, the fucking bastards. I didn't tell them anything. I came really close though, just for a nap and some food. I really need sleep."

He nodded, "Take a nap, we'll be out of here as soon as we get some food. In retrospect, perhaps I should have done the food shopping first."

She started to giggle, and then couldn't stop.

The ship took them to interstate forty east, and then slowed down to ninety miles an hour. The ground radar would dismiss them as a vehicle now that they were following a road. Then they lowered down to the concrete and made like a car.

She asked, "Where are we going?"

He replied, "Our house on Mars will be done by tomorrow, we have everything we need for human life support in the dome already, except food, we need to pick some up. Trudy is handling your stuff. We'll have to come back though when the rest of the city is done to get your brother. They've even got artificial gravity going to avoid bone loss, inside the city is Earth normal right now."

She nodded, "That's fine, thank you for coming for me."

He sighed, and pulled her into his arms and just held her, "I'd have been there sooner, but we didn't know where you were. They were holding you without charges, so it didn't come up in any reports that they'd taken you. Helen eventually got video of it, then traced the van those two assholes used, and here we are. Things are going to hell. They're going to outlaw A.I.s altogether if they can."

She sighed, "That's insane. Or at the very least extremely paranoid."

"I love you honey, go ahead and sleep, I'll pick up some food and we'll go home. It'll be a little cramped the rest of today and tonight, but then..." he trailed off as she touched his face.

"I love you too Ted, kiss me please, and then I'll sleep."

She looked so drowsy, but her lips were soft and welcoming as he held her and kissed her softly. Her smile was a little loopy while she curled up in the seat and closed her eyes. She was out like a light by the time they pulled off the road into a small town somewhere in New Mexico.

They pulled into a Super-Walmart, and he ran in to go shopping. He mainly stayed in the dry food aisles and avoided perishables. He picked up a ton of stuff that would last a long time. They would have meat in a week, but he did pick up a couple of pre-made sandwiches, he could barely believe they hadn't fed her. It was as he was going outside, and heard the helicopters and a few jets doing a flyby, when he realized he might have underestimated the government...

Chapter Thirty-Six

He'd been hoping without an A.I. to help them track him down, it would take time to track him through satellite imagery, but he supposed they simply started where he disappeared off their radar. He should have gone shopping first, but when they'd had Silvia he wasn't thinking straight, he'd needed to get to her as quickly as possible.

He pondered for a moment, as the helicopters with guns and missiles faced him as he walked out of the store, while he tried to maneuver three carts of stuff. At the very least, it would get a chuckle from a great number of people on the evening news. Dumb ass crook caught with three shopping carts.

He sighed and opened up his command window for the shuttle, and launched it straight up behind the helicopters, and with another quick command, the three carts shot up into the air too. The onboard computer could handle loading the groceries in midair.

He could have gone up that way too, but they would have chased him. As he'd hoped, the helicopters ignored the food, and focused on him down on the ground. He was a bit nervous about the jets though, they had missiles that could hit a fly from a thousand miles away. Of course, the missiles wouldn't hit the ship, they'd be deflected by the shield.

Problem was, they'd hit something when they were deflected toward the ground.

"Dr. Stedman!" a loud speaker proclaimed, "Lie down on your stomach, put your hands behind your head, and cross your ankles!"

Huh, he was right about the leg thing after all. He grinned, and then he did as he was told. One of the helicopters started to land, and then there was a large explosion in the empty field next to Walmart, which threw up dirt and debris into the air.

He laughed, nice. Deflected missile from a jet, and it was giving him cover. A few seconds later he couldn't see the helicopters at all, though he believed it was probable that they could still see his heat signature. He shrugged, the groceries were loaded, and he sent another command to the ship, and then fell straight up at four gravities of acceleration, which was wickedly fast.

There was no way the helicopters would catch him.

At twenty thousand feet he met the ship, and the canopy opened up just long enough for him to slide inside. Seconds later, they were in space. Silvia was still asleep, all that movement hadn't been apparent within the gravity field of the ship, and she hadn't noticed a thing. She looked so peaceful he didn't have the heart to wake her. She could eat after she'd rested...

She must have been exhausted, because she didn't wake up as he carried her from the ship to the bedroom, and he crawled in with her and held her as she slept.

He figured she would be out for hours, so instead of hovering, he went ahead and logged into virtual world after Mia crawled into bed and spooned him from behind, and they had their scheduled date as they normally did.

As usual, Mia had dressed very provocatively for him, and they teased each other over a meal, and then he ravaged her in bed, only to make sweet love to her once they got it out of their system. It was a little weird but comfortable at the same time when he logged out for offline sleep, and there were four women in his bed instead of the usual three.

He was almost positive he'd adjust, and enjoy it very much as he did so...

The next morning, after Silvia had that sandwich for breakfast, they got on one of the ships and headed down to the surface. There was a small tunnel airlock for the ship to get into the dome, and then they flew to the top of their building. He could barely believe his eyes, the city had been going up so fast, though he knew only the one building was completely done, the buildings themselves were three quarters done.

Silvia asked, "Aren't you curious where I was all morning?"

He frowned, "What do you mean?"

Silvia grinned, and took his hand, "That morning, you came to my apartment at eight right, and I wasn't taken until just after ten. Did you not wonder what I was doing that it had taken me so long to shop? I actually left the house at six-thirty that morning."

He nodded slowly, "I was a little curious, but it didn't seem that important, why?"

She kissed him, and said, "I was having an outpatient procedure done that morning... dad."

His mind blanked for a moment, until he figured out what she said.

He grinned and kissed her hard, "Really? That's incredible."

Holy shit, he was going to be a father in nine months.

Things were looking very good, and Ted was really happy about life at the moment.

There was a lot left to do though before he could settle into a new life, raise a family, and be a design engineer.

They still needed to finish the building for Silvia's pods, and for the humans that would be coming. They'd have to come up with a way to smuggle them out peacefully, and also how to advertise it, since it was against Earth law he doubted a television spot would do. He also thought they should fight and protest A.I.s being completely outlawed, though he had no clue how to do that.

He also had more studying to do to be competent enough to help Trudy in the lab, though he'd only missed his goal because their building was ready so much earlier. He was looking forward to the day he could contribute there.

He grew closer to Trudy, Mia, Helen, Silvia, and even Amber all the time, but his changing relationships to Nicci, Kara, and Jennifer were rather complicated. He wasn't so sure what to do about that, except maybe to just see where it went.

Last of all, they had the mystery of an alien artifact, and if there would be a visit coming soon. He imagined if there was it would come when it did, in the fullness of time. It'd only been a month now since they landed on Mars, and he imagined that type of visit, friendly or not, would take time to put together.

Then his eyes widened and he chuckled with delight when they landed on the roof, and he saw what awaited him by the access door. She had long raven black hair that shone in the sun, chocolate brown eyes, and a smile that was impossibly wide as she looked at him. She was stunningly beautiful in a light blue sundress, and he felt his heart soften at her huge smile, and the deep love and adoration in her eyes.

When he got out of the ship, she jumped on him impulsively, and kissed him passionately.

She grinned again, as she dropped to her feet, and said, "I told you I had a surprise for you next time you saw me."

Turned out he would need to adjust to five in his bed, instead of three. He smiled in return, he couldn't help it.

Amber giggled at the look on his face, and then went and hugged Trudy, Mia, Helen, and a bemused Silvia that to his relief didn't look jealous at all at the display.

Amber turned and headed down the stairs, and led them all over to the door to their top floor condo and opened it for them.

Then she turned back and said happily, "Welcome home Ted."

*

Author's Note: Well, that about covers Ted book two. I won't have book three up quite as quickly, I've written... about a hundred and seventy thousand words in the last few weeks, I need a break. Book three will be coming though, soon. I hope you all have enjoyed it. It's been fun to write.