The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) (26 page)

I spoke with the other team members.  Chris had managed to take control of the database administrator.  He'd discovered a risky back door technique to changing the database that might work in case of an emergency.  The others on the team felt certain they'd have physical control of their hosts by the next night.  We still had a couple of days so I wasn't too worried. 

As for Kyle and his team of battleship thieves, he informed me that things were on schedule except for one thing:  Harb was missing.  Kyle wasn't too concerned since he already had enough people for the job, but Harb was supposed to be collecting military data by using Azriel's contacts.  Harb hadn't responded to Kyle's calls.

I tried calling Harb but he didn't answer.  I cursed him a few times for good measure and decided to check in on Zhrrii and Ciirr.  Needless to say, they didn't have a way to contact us so I had to go there in person.  Zhrrii was trumpeting something in a worried voice to Ciirr when I arrived.  I tapped into her.

What's wrong?

Lucy, thank goodness you came.  This is terrible.

My chest iced over. 
What is?

The bodies.  They're gone.

I belted out a curse and broadcast the emergency to Kyle and Chris.  Everyone dropped what they were doing and flitted back to the ship.

Zhrrii was beside herself with worry and sorrow.  I tried to assure her that everything would be okay, but she was frantic.

I have failed you, my dear friend,
she said. 
I cannot believe the bodies would vanish.

The first thing I noticed was that Harb was a no-show to the emergency meeting.  The next was that the ship's logs showed Azriel had come and gone a few times.  My mind jumped to the obvious conclusion.  Harb had hijacked our bodies for some reason.  He could hold us for ransom if he wanted to.  But why would he?  It made no sense.  Surely he had as much invested in the mission as we did.

After the yelling died down, I told everyone there wasn't much we could do at the moment.  Like everyone else, I was scared to death.  The end could come at a moment's notice and that would be that.  Chills ran through me every time I gave it a thought.  I couldn't help it.  Somehow I convinced everyone to go back to their assigned tasks.  I pulled my trusted inner circle aside and asked for advice.

"This place is totally automated, right?" Jane asked.

"Yeah," Kyle said.  "So there wouldn't be any guards we could assimilate for information."

"For all we know, he parked an aircar right outside the ship and loaded it up with our bodies," Chris said.

Jane looked at the holo-console.  "Doesn't this ship keep a video log?"

"I guess," Kyle said.

Kyle merged with Bob and brought him into the room.  It took a few seconds to find out how to activate the video log.  In the middle of the night while we had all been in deep meditative trances with our new hosts, Azriel emerged from the ship.  The video could be panned and shifted any way to follow Azriel.  He walked toward one of the large hangars several hundred yards away and returned with a smaller hovering craft.

"Looks like a luggage carrier," Kyle said.

"Why would Shaval need luggage?" I asked.  "Everything they use is holographic."

"I'm sure they have plenty of souvenirs from other planets they visit."

I shrugged and watched as Azriel lugged out the gel cases with our bodies.  Each case had a name painted on it so we knew which one was ours.  We each grimaced as the cases with our names were tossed into the carrier.  Azriel finished loading and drove away toward the same hangar.

"He probably hid them in that hangar," Jane said.  "Let's go check it out."

We didn't waste a second flitting over to the hangar.  I gasped once we arrived inside.  It was massive and stuffed to bursting with containers.  Large cargo shuttles landed in one area and wheeled robots offloaded hundreds of containers then turned around and loaded other crates back on the same shuttle.  Smaller aircar vehicles landed at another dock and picked up goods, probably for local distribution.  This particular hangar had almost nothing but food in it.

"The Shaval keep their fresh foods in stasis at home," Kyle said.  "When they order something to eat, the computer organizes the ingredients and a machine prepares the dish.  This looks like a main hub for food distribution.  I hope like hell our bodies aren't sitting in someone's stasis unit right now."

"You mean our bodies might get served up as food?" I asked, gagging at the thought.

"No, stasis units scan for spoilage and will dump the bad food into the garbage automatically."

"Let me guess, they probably treat their garbage like they did the human structures on our planet."

Kyle nodded.  "They send garbage to a treatment plant where those giant centipedes and Sst's convert garbage into energy."

"Oh crap," Jane said.

"I doubt our bodies will even make it out of the warehouse.  I'd bet a place like this has scans for spoilage as well."

We looked up and down the rows of containers that seemed to stretch into infinity.  I started cursing like a sailor.  "There's no way to find our bodies in this place."

"Might as well give it a try," Kyle said.

I slumped my shoulders.  We had no choice.  If anything happened to our bodies the mission would fail.  Thousands of Rrilk and billions of humans would die; the humans for real this time.  I recalled everyone back to the ship to help.  After a few hours of flying back and forth across my section of the warehouse, I was certain we'd never find the bodies.

I found something useful
, Jane sent to me.

I flitted to her.  She was in a room with a console.  A short Shaval with a stunted lower arm and a potbelly sat inside.  He looked like a social reject and I wondered if bottom-of-the-barrel jobs were given to people like him.

"This guy looks rough," Jane said.  "They could patch him up with cloned parts."

"I guess.  So what's useful here?"

She pointed at the console.  "Video records."

I called Chris and had him grab Gabriel from the ship.  While we waited, I tapped into the dude in the chair.  His thought processes were pretty simple compared to my other hosts.  It didn't take me long to figure out why he was here and hadn't fixed himself.  He'd failed to vote on several occasions and shirked other civic duties thus earning a demotion to non-citizen worker class.  At that very moment he was stewing about his crappy job and how he'd like to get back at his boss.  Seemed like a typical blue-collar guy having a bad day.

Despite his apparent lack of brain power, it would still take a while to assimilate him so I had to wait on Chris to bring Gabriel over.  He arrived twenty minutes later, but it felt like eternity with our bodies on the loose.  Gabriel asked the guy to review the video logs.  The worker refused.

I told Chris to say that he was with internal affairs trying to find video that his boss might have stolen some items and that his boss could lose citizenship privileges.  The worker happily agreed to that and showed Gabriel how to access the pertinent logs.  Then he went outside for a break.

Since the video was compiled into one large file that allowed holographic 3-D viewing, we skipped to the time the ship's log had recorded Azriel and panned in the direction of the ship.  Azriel drove the cart to the local distribution dock and past it.  An aircar waited just past it.  He loaded the gel cases inside and the car took off.

"Son of a bitch!" Kyle said, slamming his fist onto the console.  "Now we'll never find him."

"Harb's in an unfamiliar place," Jane said.  "He knows what Azriel knows, but he only trusts himself, right?"

"That pretty much sums it up," I said.  "Harb is narcissistic and craves to be the center of attention."

"So the first place to look is obvious."

"Azriel's address?"

Jane nodded.  "Unfortunately, none of us know Azriel like Harb so he might have other places to go.  But it's a good start."

"We've got to tread very carefully," Kyle said.  "Harb might do something stupid if he feels threatened."

"Stupid?  He's already done that," I said.  "Chris, put Gabriel away and let's pay Azriel a little visit."

Chris sprinted back.  I flew ahead and updated Zhrrii and Ciirr with the news.  Zhrrii pulled up Azriel's bio on the console and found his address.  I told her I'd keep her updated.  She trumpeted out a few notes of good luck which roughly translated into "I hope the Rruukk doesn't eat you."  I knew the Rruukk was a giant carnivorous fish on her home world.  You could at least see a Rruukk coming.  Harb could pull the trigger at any moment and vaporize our bodies.  We'd never even know it happened.

Whatever happened, it was imperative to sort this out by nightfall so we could finish assimilating our targets.  The committee members were especially important since their meeting was happening in less than two days.

Since we'd never been to Azriel's place we had to fly there.  His building had the same numerals on the side as did Fergie's so it didn't take long to pinpoint the apartment.  It wouldn't have been hard anyway since he was on the penthouse level.

"Guardians must get paid pretty well," I said, whistling.

"I get the feeling his military contacts have something to do with this," Chris said.

Azriel's high rise started broad at the base and reached for the skies in undulating waves.  His penthouse capped the top like the dome from a mosque.  A columned terrace surrounded the penthouse complete with a large pool of dark blue liquid that I figured might not be water.  The window portals facing the sun were open.  I zipped over to them and looked inside.  The place was palatial, all columns and marble floors.  It looked almost earthly.

"This reminds me of the Taj Mahal," Jane said.  "In fact, it looks virtually identical."

"They can alter the appearance to just about anything," Chris said.  "This is a sure sign Harb's around here."

"I am indeed," Harb said through Azriel as he stepped outside onto the terrace.

Chris streaked over to him.  "You asshat.  Return our bodies."

Azriel smiled.  "Or what?"

"Or you'll find an army of Shaval knocking on your door with us inside."

"You'll do no such thing."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.  "I don't understand."

Harb freed himself from Azriel but stayed tapped in.  Harb retained his new muscular look but now he'd added wings and extra arms.  He looked like a Shaval.  "This is why I'm doing it.  Humans are pathetic and weak.  The Shaval were right to kill them all."

"That includes you, buster," I said.  "Lest you forget, you're as human as we are."

"No longer," he said, cutting the air with a swing of his arm.  "Azriel and I are in agreement.  They will clone a Shaval body to be my own.  I will be given a high rank in their society.  Among humans I was an orphan.  I was trash to be discarded or used like an animal.  The Shaval have no such thing.  Every citizen has a place of honor."

"The Shaval are no better than us."

He sneered. "Then you're blind.  True, they aren't perfect, but their society has achieved a level that humans never will."

"Fine, Harb.  Join them.  But let Earth be.  Let us fix their database and we'll go back to Earth and live happily while you stay here.  Everyone's happy."

"Lucy, you can have your own Shaval body.  You can stay with me.  But I'm sorry.  The humans are too dangerous to leave in any form.  They must be destroyed for good."  His eyes locked onto Chris.  "I must uphold my end of the bargain for the Shaval to fulfill theirs."

"Harb, I can't do that.  Please reconsider.  I don't want any more deaths.  What about the Rrilk?  They'll suffer too.  The ones on Earth will be killed as well."

He shrugged.  "They're just animals."

"If I stay with you, will you let the others go and leave Earth alone?"

"Are you crazy?" Chris said.

"Hush," I hissed at him.

"But--"

"Shut up," I hissed again.  I couldn't have him upsetting Harb and wrecking everything.

Harb looked at Chris and a smug smile spread across his face.  "You realize you would be my lover, right, Lucy?"

I nodded.  "Yes."

"Get on your knees and beg me to be your lover and I promise I'll let the others go."

My eyebrows shot up along with my rage.  Somehow I stifled my heated response.  I looked at Chris and the others.  I thought about the Rrilk and the other humans.  It would save them all, even Ms. Tate, The Flying Spaghetti Monster bless her evil twisted soul.  And it wouldn't be such a horrible sacrifice.  Harb would probably get tired of me after a while and move on.  There was no shortage of hot Shaval women for sure.

I stepped toward him, each step leaden and stilted.  I hated him at that moment more than anyone.  Even more than Billy Nichols, who, in the fifth grade had pulled down my pants in front of everyone at recess.  My ego weighed every step down with hate.  I stopped in front of him.  Dropped to my knees.

"Please be my lover," I said unable to keep the sob from my voice.  I glared at him, jaw clenched.

He took my hand, pulled me up.  "Thank you.  That's what I wanted to hear."

"You'll let them go?"

"I will.  I'm a man of my word."  An aircar docked at the terrace and a squad of armored Shaval disembarked and entered the house.  "Unfortunately the Shaval have made no such promise."

"What?"

"It is out of my hands."

Azriel followed the men into the house.  I pursued them along with the rest of the group.  I sent out an emergency broadcast to the rest of the squad.  They flitted in immediately.

Emergency takedown
, I said.

The second I gave the order I could see it wasn't going to work.  There were almost thirty soldiers and only fourteen of us.  The soldiers filed into a large room.  Our gel caskets lined the back wall.  Harb tapped into Azriel and he smiled.  I glanced at the names on the caskets.  Jane, Kyle, Chris, Mike, Missy; all the names of the people I loved and had trained with were there.  Conspicuously absent were mine and Harb's.

"No!" I screamed as the soldiers took aim.