Andena the Rebel (The adventures of Andena Book 1) Page 15

  No! No!

  With a gasp, she jumped from the bed, and rushed towards the door. She had to go! If she stayed here any longer, she would suffocate. It should never have happened! How could she have been so blind?

  Andena sat on a bench in a large hall waiting for ‘the others’ to arrive. Joshua had instructed her to sit on the bench which clearly felt like an order. Her mind was still sluggish as if it was repressed in some way. While she was waiting she tried to make sense of it all: she knew that something wasn’t right. The fact that she saw text appearing in front of her right eye was somewhat disturbing. It was as if she was being controlled by something and it felt unnatural. She had stumbled several times over her own feet and as far as she knew she’d never had such problems before. She was wondering if she could walk around the hall without stumbling if she were to concentrate hard on her movements.

  As she got up, she found herself flying, at least six feet up into the air, and she barely had enough time to adjust the position of her body to break her fall. A little dazed she got up very slowly afraid that she might launch herself again. Andena was frantically trying to fathom what was going on with her body because it was abundantly clear something was really wrong. She knew that she should be scared, but was aware that her emotions had been considerably repressed somehow. It made her realise that she needed to be bolder and after a brief moment of deliberation, decided to explore the strangeness of it all. She had already discovered that her muscles were much stronger than before, and her initial jerkiness was starting to make sense. She needed to investigate her capabilities and decided to do some simple tests.

  As she stood, she bent her legs and concentrated on making a small jump. She was surprised to see a little dial appearing in front of her eye. By tensing her muscles, she could manipulate the number, and she came to the conclusion she could vary her power. She practised with several jumps and quickly learned that the dial only appeared when she concentrated for a little longer.

  Andena prepared herself to jump to the other side of the hall and to her astonishment the display indicated the exact amount of power she had to use to successfully complete the task. Her tensed muscles released the immense power, which felt like a small explosion and she launched towards the other side. But as soon as she was descending she realised she had forgotten that she needed space to come to a stop!

  She knew she would collide with the door, and she brought her arms forward to soften the blow somewhat. At the moment she braced herself for the impact, the door opened, and Andena saw that she was flying straight at a woman she vaguely recognised.

  As soon as she touched the floor, she grabbed the woman’s shoulders which changed her forward momentum into a turn. The woman began screaming when she saw Andena flying towards her, and she didn’t stop until she was lying, unharmed, on top of Andena’s body.

  As she scrambled up from Andena, she shouted, “What the fuck were you doing? You could have killed me!”

  Andena was still a bit dazed from the blow she had endured when she had landed roughly on her back. The collision with the angry woman’s body had slammed all her air out of her lungs, and she could only whisper, “I’m sorry.”

  She ranted, “You were told to sit on the bench and wait for me. Who gave you the order to charge at the door at such a dangerous speed?”

  Andena stood up and said meekly, “Nobody, Miss.”

  She looked straight into the woman’s eyes and the display in her right eye gave the next information, “Danette Williams, Trainer Bionex. Age 31. Weight 140 lb. Heart rate 170. Body temp. 98.4.”

  When she saw the name, she vaguely remembered her being the associate of a very nice man she thought she knew. It bothered her only a little that her past was blurred and that she couldn’t remember his name.

  Danette sighed and said, “Right. Go back into the hall and sit on the bench.”

  Andena knew she had to be polite because Danette was her trainer and whispered, “Yes, Miss Williams.”

  As she started to walk towards the hall, Danette stopped her by sticking her arm out in front of her chest and requested grumpily, “How do you know my surname?”

  Andena felt a little odd as if she wasn’t supposed to know Danette’s surname and she stammered softly, “I, I. If I look at a person I get information about them.”

  “Tell me what kind of information you get,” Danette commanded.

  Again Andena had no choice than to reply instantly and blurted placidly, “Name, occupation, age, weight, heart rate and body temperature.”

  Danette shouted, “Tell me my age! I’m curious as to how the hell you know my age.”

  This time, the urge to tell Danette the information was as strong as before, but she also saw Danette’s heart rate increasing even more. Andena knew she had to give an answer and decided to see if she could avoid giving her the information.

  “I don’t know how I know your age. It is just stated on the list,” she replied. Andena was surprised that it wasn’t that difficult to ignore the urge to comply with the demanded instruction. She wondered if it was possible to ignore it completely.

  “Tell me my fucking age!” barked Danette.

  The command was too direct for Andena to dismiss and said placidly, “Your age is thirty-one.”

  Danette sighed and said, “Right. Go back to the hall and stop using my surname.”

  Andena wondered if she might be able to dismiss any direct command in time. The urge to tell Danette her correct age was strong but she had the time to contemplate whether she should give a different number of years than her actual age. It made her wonder what was controlling her and if she could control it rather than being controlled. She wondered why she felt that there was still something she had to do and realised that Danette had given her an order.

  “Yes, Miss,” she said quickly and walked towards the bench in the hall with firm steps. She sat down on the bench and was utterly surprised when a line of nine women marched into the hall.

  With resolute steps, they headed for the same bench where Andena was sitting, and she had to move quickly aside to avoid a collision with the first woman. Andena felt the bench shudder when the women, as if they were one, sat down when Danette shouted, “At ease!”

  With great interest, she looked at the girl who sat next to her and came to the conclusion that she was part of the same team. She realised she was wearing the same outfit as the other girls except for her boots which were her own. Andena saw the number zero-one on the suit of her neighbour and noticed for the first time that her suit had the numbers zero-zero.

  Arnost was pacing around the room impatiently waiting for Haruz to arrive. He was getting extremely anxious about the whole situation with Tancred and his alien race. The fact that Tancred was missing made it all worse because Arnost started to realise that he had been deceived. The longer he thought about the awkward situation the madder he became. Why had he never asked Tancred the question? How many of your kind are coming to Earth?

  Arnost shivered at the thought that Earth would soon be overrun by aliens and that the whole population of Earth might be used for the production of drugs. He knew that the number of nuclear missiles available might be enough to disable a few ships but what if their superior technology could destroy the weapons in the blink of an eye?

  Arnost slumped down on his chair feeling defeated: he had personally invited the aliens to come to raid his beloved planet. Even though a most of the population realised that Earth was facing ruin: the outcome in the near future would have been the inevitable extinction of the human race. There simply was not enough oxygen left to sustain the huge number of people living on the planet. He started to doubt whether those weird plants would ever be able to replenish the Earth’s atmosphere with the necessary oxygen. How many plants would be needed to restore the level of oxygen?

  Thousands?

  Millions?

  Arnost came to the conclusion that Tancred had manipulated the board right from the start, and
the most devastating part of it all was that he had only just realised it this morning. It had been a full day now since Tancred had failed to attend their regular meetings. Arnost was almost certain that he had been manipulated by a mind-bending ‘spell’ Tancred had cast on him. His mind was cleared from a strange fog, and he could think much more clear by now. The sturdy knock on the door sounded like music in his ear, and he exclaimed, “Come!”

  Even though he was pleased that Haruz had walked into the room, he couldn’t muster up a smile. He felt the huge burden of guilt resting on his shoulders when he said, “Haruz, we are doomed. Tancred has deceived us completely. Soon we’ll be swamped with others of his kind. It will be the end of our existence.”

  Haruz sighed and said, “We are not doomed yet, Arnost. If we can join forces with each group, we will have a chance of fighting them off.”

  Arnost snorted and shook his head several times. He murmured, “They will lynch me when they find out that I made this unbelievably hideous and fatal deal with an alien race.”

  “When is the next board meeting?”

  “In an hour.”

  Arnost shuddered a little when he recalled the first meeting when Tancred had given a very interesting talk which was received very well. He couldn’t understand how the alien had fooled the whole board with his smooth talk. He was convinced that the alien had a special gift to create illusions which lasted for a long time. He knew he had to make certain that Tancred couldn’t manipulate the situation anymore. He looked at Haruz who looked as agitated as he felt and he grumbled, “Make sure that this building is off limits. When we catch him, I want to ensure that he goes to prison, far away from any human.”

  Haruz retorted, “Hmm, that will be a challenge.”

  “How so? Just arrest him.”

  “If he can manipulate us, he can definitely manipulate guards.”

  Arnost sighed and asked, “How about the android guards? Can we re-deploy them?”

  Haruz nodded slowly. He responded, “You mean the old ones? Maybe, if we use the remote controlled androids, we might have a chance. I sincerely hope that Tancred can’t control the men who are operating the androids.”

  Arnost felt a sense of panic rising in his body as he commanded, “Find him, Haruz. I hate that this dangerous alien is nowhere to be found.”

  Haruz nodded, and as he left the room he said, “Yes, as soon as I have him, I’ll let you know.”

  When the door was shut Arnost closed his eyes, but it was only for a short moment because he was disturbed by a vision of Tancred’s ghastly face. He hated Tancred’s strange narrow eyes which right now seemed to be dancing in front of him.

  He had never liked Tancred. He had always felt that there was something creepy about him.

  Now he knew why he didn’t like the alien.

  It was probably too late to change the destiny of his beloved planet, and he couldn’t think of a solution that might save Earth from a horrible fate. With a deep sigh, Arnost went to his office to prepare for the board meeting. He knew he had to be honest about the catastrophe that was looming. He knew it was going to be the toughest meeting he had ever had in his life.

  Danette was staring at the two pills which were lying in the palm of her hand. She didn’t dare to think about how many pills she had already taken during the last few days. She knew the longer she took the Dormancans the harder it would be to wean herself off them again. The pills glistening in the light had a soothing quality, and she wondered whether the manufacturer had deliberately made them so shiny. She closed her hand to hide them for a while: they were distracting her too much.

  Today was one of her better days, considering the progress she had made with the android girls. Joshua was right about the fast rate at which Andena was adjusting to the rest of the group, but there was something about her which concerned Danette. If she compared her with the rest of the androids, she wondered whether Andena’s conscience, which had been overruled, was seeping through somehow. It seemed that she was starting to become more aware of what had happened to her. It was something she needed to pay more attention to because if Andena started to rebel against what had happened to her, she would become a real danger. Danette had already noticed Andena’s small and hesitant delays when she had given the group a command. Sometimes Andena had asked her for more information which would justify why she had ignored the direct order, but there were a few times where it looked like she might have deliberately ignored the direct command.

  Danette was wondering whether the remarkable recovery since Andena’s full upgrade might have had an effect on the inserted computer core in her brain. From what she had read, it was the most sophisticated part of the upgrade. It had taken Bionex a long time to master the integration of a computer into a human brain. She shuddered when she thought about how many people Bionex had experimented on before they had fully mastered their technique.

  She gasped when she realised that all of them had the same AI software and that Andena’s full upgrade was the muscle and joint enhancers. Andena should behave like the others, but she was definitely interacting at a much higher social level! Something was not right with Andena. Was it possible that the AI software had become different from being implemented in a human instead of an android? She suddenly remembered the conversation with Joshua when he had mentioned that Andena would be deployable much faster, but he had never mentioned that the AI software would be affected as well.

  Danette knew that she had two more days to investigate the situation before the girl had to perform at the big event: Mr. Yousima would pay her and the group a visit. She had informed him that the women would be ready for the next step of the training. She hoped that Andena would be prepared enough and that Mr. Yousima would be pleased with the progress she had made with the ten ladies. She was a little relieved that she was ahead of schedule because she reckoned that the training outside in the open would be much harder than they had anticipated. From her own experience, she knew that the rocky surface of the plateau would be a serious challenge. The loose rocks were not always obvious, and she had fallen several times when her father had trained with her there. Danette’s stomach churned as she nervously realised that she would soon have to demonstrate the skills that the girls had acquired. She knew that she couldn’t sleep because she would start to ponder if she had trained them well enough.

  When she opened her hand containing the pills, she saw that the shininess of the surfaces was gone. They were stuck on her sweaty palm, and when she pulled them off, there were two little red patches visible where they had been all this time. She quickly popped them in her mouth and swallowed them down without any water. A skill she had to learn when she was too far gone to be able to get a glass of water.

  She double checked her alarm and let herself fall on her bed. She didn’t bother to get undressed. She would need a long shower in the morning anyway to awaken her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Andena was lying in her bed still fully awake. The fact that she was confined to such a small room troubled her. She had tried to get out, but she couldn’t open the door. Today’s training was not that strenuous for her, but it had been difficult. Keeping her balance on a small beam took most of the afternoon to master. It was only after she had concentrated on the beam that she was able to walk across it without falling off. She saw the two lines appear which had followed the contour of the beam and when she stepped on the beam, at any small unbalance her arms waved just the right way to keep her from falling. Andena knew something was helping her, but it only happened when she concentrated on something.

  While in the shower, she had found out that if she focused on the water, her display showed the temperature and that the water was potable. Once she had glanced at one of her classmates and the information on her display confused her. It was telling her which kind of model the girl was, and the power supply was green. She remembered how strange it was when she saw the text of her first status report appear at her eye after Joshua had asked
for it. She was wondering if she could let it happen again by querying it herself and asked softly, “What is my status?”

  Nothing happened. Strange.

  Maybe she had to concentrate on the question internally, and she asked the question by projecting the words in her mind, “What is my status?”

  Again nothing happened, and she thought back to the training when the lines had appeared. She recalled that she had focused inwards to block any outer influences, and then looked intensely at the beam. She had to try again and brought her attention inwards and asked the question, “What is my status?”

  This time her display showed, “Status: 100% fully functional, All systems: green.”

  Andena was pleased it had worked, and she was even more pleased that she hadn’t been compelled to say it out loud. She wondered what else she could ask and without actually thinking about the implication of her question she asked, “Who am I?”

  Andena felt a search of anxiety coursing through her body when her display showed:

  “Hybrid: 00, Name: Unknown Model: Female Full upgrade core: H_UNICS/AI version: 2.124 written by Danette Williams.”

  She had to ask the question again because she was too dazzled by the answer to fathom its meaning fully. It was completely unsettling that she still didn’t know her name and the answer raised, even more, questions. Her mind told her that she must have a name, but she couldn’t remember it. The other part of the message was telling her she had a core which was dampening her mood even more. Fighting against her rational precautions, she asked, “What is H_UNICS?”

  She had to find out what those letters stood for, and she was somewhat surprised when her display showed, “Operating system: H_UNICS, Hybrid Uniplexed Information, and Computing System. Better known as UNIX or LUNIX.”