A Question of Will (25 page)

“I’m giving you the chance to climb in on your own. You have five seconds.”

“I really will kill you....”

“One...”

“...as soon as I get out...”

“...two...”

“...of this. The...”

“...three...”

“...indignity has been...”

“...four...”

“...uncalled for, and...”

The glove snapped around The Assassin, and he was hurled into the trunk of the vehicle, and the lid snapped shut behind him. He screamed and shouted the vilest curses he could fathom at the Mechanic, though he doubted the man could hear a word he said. The Mechanic climbed into the front of the vehicle as the building evaporated around him, and he spotted the fire and heard the Hunters’ craft nearby. He glanced over at Smokey and whistled. The dog trotted over and jumped into the vehicle with him.

“Too late to run now, girl,” he muttered, giving the dog a friendly pat on the head. “I’ll need to try some trickery on these guys.”

He concentrated, and the vehicle shimmered...then vanished. The craft hosting the Aliomenti flew overhead and saw nothing but an empty clearing.

“So that’s why they couldn’t stab me? How you pulled me through the ground into the house?”

“Yes,” Adam said, still trailing Fil and Angel as the flying craft maneuvered through a seemingly endless forest. “Angel dug a tunnel with nanos to make the passage a bit smoother for you, but we ran out of time when you mentioned your son. I got the nano shield around you just in time. We could have used Energy and teleported you, but that would have told them where we were and we might not have escaped. That’s the nice part about nanos — we can do many things with them that you could also do with Energy, but the Aliomenti can’t detect them.”

“I still don’t understand how they work. Not at this level of sophistication, at least.”

Adam thought for a moment. “Each of the machines has several components - a generator, a small camera and microphone, a small panel capable of showing color, some computation circuits, communication circuits, anti-gravity magnets—“

“Whoa. What? Anti-gravity magnets?”

“We don’t have much to do here outside performing research. We’ve had the individual components for a while. We just miniaturized them down and taught them how to communicate and problem solve together. Form a wall. Form a room. And so on.”

“Or form a flying car?”

“Of course. Might as well take advantage of the anti-gravity capability.”

“Of course,” Will said, wondering if Adam noted his sarcasm. The machines sounded more like magic than all of the Energy abilities he’d seen.

“Each of us in the Alliance has a sizable number of nanos inside them. Some fight illness as a supplement to our immune system. Some repair wounds. And some interpret signals from our brains and communicate those to our nanos.”

“Wait, so you just think something and the machines do...whatever it is you ask them to do?”

“So long as they can figure out how to do it. There are some limitations. They aren’t allowed to do anything to kill another person, for example, though they don’t know how to think of everything that might cause a death.”

Will shook his head. “This sounds impossible. Yet I have no reason to doubt it. A few weeks ago, I’d have considered anyone driving a flying car to be impossible, and yet here I am, chased by people who want to kill me because I have enough Energy to destroy a small apartment building.”

Adam laughed. “You’ve adapted well. We’ll need to get you some nanos for use. You have the health ones in you already...”

“What?”

“The ones that patched you up from your last encounter with the Hunters...you didn’t think we took them back, did you?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought much about it at the time since I’m just now learning about these machines, but...”

“No, they’re still inside you, making sure nothing bad happens. They’ll patch up the bruises you got from Fil pretty soon, if they haven’t already. We’ll need to get the communication nanos inside you, and then gift you a few to get started. I’ll ask the Mechanic to build you a batch of a few trillion when we stop running again.”

“So how often does this happen?” Will waved around. “How often do you have to pack up and move?”

“It’s probably been about twenty years since the last one, I’d wager. We’ve gotten pretty good at evading their traps since we know what they are. They don’t innovate much anymore, which helps. We build out of the nanos exclusively. We don’t have a lot of possessions because we don’t really want any. It’s easy to move when your home becomes your transport vehicle.”

“I can see why Fil is so upset about this, then. He must’ve been extremely young when you last moved. Known mostly a stable home location most of his life.”

Adam chuckled. “Fil’s life has been anything but stable. And he’s old enough to remember the last move.”

“When do we stop flying?”

They’d been weaving through forests now for about thirty minutes; Will could hear no sound of the Hunters chasing them in their flying cars, but he had to consider the possibility that the pursuit teams could travel in silence as well.

“Angel scouted out the next location a few years back; we change it about every three years just to make sure there aren’t any other Aliomenti in the area. This one is about a hundred miles from the last location. Should be there in about a half hour. We like to move enough that they can’t find us again by simply flying circles around our last base, but don’t want to move too far.”

Will glanced around. “Where are we, anyway? I’ve not seen any cities, or rivers, or anything else that gives me an idea where on the globe I am.”

Adam turned a bit, partially glancing at Will over his shoulder. “Is it really important to know?”

Will frowned. “Why is it such a difficult question to answer?”

Adam grimaced. “I knew this would come up eventually. You see, there’s something you need to understand. It’s—“

The craft lurched, thrown violently to the side. As the craft stabilized, Will saw the craft with Fil and Angel smash into one of the giant trees, then plummet to the ground. Adam righted their craft, and then leveled up and over the tree canopy, banking sharply to the right, away from Angel and Fil. “So much for hiding in the trees,” he muttered. “We need to distract the bad guys so the good guys can lick their wounds.”

Will glanced out the side of the craft. He counted six different vehicles chasing them, and spotted the three Hunters piloting half of the squadron. They were dismally outnumbered.

“Angel’s hurt,” Adam muttered. “Pretty bad, too.”

A lump formed in Will’s throat. Angel had been his introduction to this new world, and had always treated him with kindness. If something happened to her because of his stupidity...

“We need to go to her, then, and help!”

“And do what, exactly? Fil’s there with her, and that’s the best we could hope for. It will do her no good if we get shot down as well.”

Will shifted backward to watch the Aliomenti aircraft. “What are they made of?”

“What?”

“What are their aircraft made of? Ours are made of the nanos...what about theirs?”

“Not sure. Some type of metal or plastic, I’d assume. Glass. Electricity for their various control systems. Not sure what the fuel is. Why?”

“We need to get them heading away from Angel. I have an idea.”

Adam shrugged. “I thought that’s what I was already doing.”

“I know. Can you go faster? And a bit lower? Just skim the tops of the trees.”

Adam nodded, not questioning his pupil’s plan, and the craft shot forward and banked down. “What are you doing?”

Will grinned. “Playing a video game.”

He turned around and faced the rear of the vehicle, spotting all six of the Aliomenti craft following.
They’ve assumed the other craft is destroyed and the occupants gone
, he thought, and then grimaced.
I hope they’re wrong on that point.

Will channeled Energy into his hands, forming it into a large ball, roughly the size of a bowling ball. He maneuvered it out of the craft, suspending it in the air, adding more and more Energy until it was the size of a small house. He then froze it in one place, rather than letting it move with the craft carrying him and Adam. Then he watched.

The lead craft hit the Energy field and lost control, spinning wildly down into the trees. Two others crashed immediately after, following so closely that they could not react, and followed the rapid descent of the first craft. The Hunters veered wildly around the invisible barrier, but did not stop to check on their companions.
Nice guys, real team players
, Will thought. “Looks like Energy and their electrical systems don’t mesh very well.”

Adam snickered. “Old-fashioned punks getting what they deserve, if you ask me. Are the Hunters still coming our way?”

“Unfortunately. I’m thinking we may need to take the attack to them.”

Adam nodded, and swung the craft around until he was facing the Hunters, then accelerated at them. Will shot bursts of Energy at the three aircraft, managing to strike Porthos and Athos. Both men gave looks of surprise as their aircraft plummeted down into the tree line. Aramis stared at Will as the Hunter flew by, his face a look of shock and fury. Will smiled, and flashed a taunting wave his way. Aramis decided better of it, and flew his craft down to check on his colleagues.

“That should keep them busy for a while,” Adam remarked. “By the way, you’re leaking Energy. Get your Shield up.”

Will’s hand shot to his mouth. “How long?”

“I just noticed it in all the commotion, but...I suppose it’s possible that your Shield has been down since we left camp.”

“No,” Will whispered. He’d led the Hunters to them originally. Had he set a trail for them to chase after them as well? He set up his Shield, and Adam confirmed that the Energy leak was stopped. Adam took a circuitous route back to the downed aircraft belonging to Fil and Angel, making sure that there was no actual Energy trail or direct path for the Hunters to pick up again.

Fil held Angel in his arms, tears streaming down his face from behind his sunglasses. Angel looked horribly pale, her deep green bodysuit stained red. Will and Adam sprang from their aircraft and raced to them.

Fil looked up at them. “She’s lost blood. I used machines to stitch her wounds and internal damage, but I can’t replace blood.”

“I have type O-negative blood,” Will said. “That’s the universal donor type.” He pushed up his sleeve, and looked at Adam, somehow sensing the man could actually do something as obscure as a blood transfusion in the middle of a jungle. “Take mine. She needs it more. This is all my fault anyway. Take it all if you need to, but save her.”

Adam nodded. He fashioned the necessary needles and tubes from nanos and fashioned a crude blood transfer link between Will and Angel. Will watched the young woman’s face, desperate to see her pale features gain more color. And gradually, they did, and Angel began to breathe more easily. Adam stopped the transfusion and began bandaging the wounds.

Will insisted that Adam take more, as much blood as he needed. Adam shook his head. “She has enough. You’ve saved her.”

“I owed her that much. She’s the closest thing to family I have any more. I won’t let someone else suffer for my mistakes again.”

He was weak from the blood loss, and started to drift to sleep, but he caught the emotion from Fil without needing to focus on it. The emotion was powerful. And unlike previous emotional bombs directed at him by the man in the sunglasses, this emotion wasn’t one of fury, or rage, or anger, or even sadness.

It was admiration.

XVIII

Reprogramming

As had been the case for most of the unplanned relocations in his time with the Alliance, the Mechanic was the final member of the community to leave the original campsite, and also one of the last to arrive at the new. As his craft circled the clearing for the new camp, the Mechanic scanned the community and noted the familiar patterns. Many of the buildings had reformed in their usual layout, and people began to explore the environment around the clearing to locate sources of water and the foodstuffs they consumed. This was what the Alliance referred to as unpacking. There were a few minor injuries, but the healing nanos in each member of the Alliance could be seen working, knitting the various scrapes and scratches closed.

As he descended, the Mechanic had a vision of something happening several miles away. It involved a small cluster of people, including Fil and Angel. Fil held Angel, who looked extremely pale and bloodied, while Adam and a third man stood nearby. He frowned, as he was uncertain who this other man was. He watched as Adam ran a tube between the stranger and Angel, and watched as the clear tube turned a deep red. The Mechanic nodded. Angel had been hurt and lost blood, and the stranger was providing a transfusion. She would be fine, and that made him happy.

The craft landed, and the nanos surrounding the vehicle separated and formed into a building around him. The vehicle he flew was unique, as it was one of the few structures in the entire Alliance camp that wasn’t constructed of nanos; rather, this craft was formed entirely of “normal” materials. It needed to be, for it was a craft unique in the entire Aliomenti universe, and only a very few people knew its true purpose. The Mechanic needed to work on a few modifications he had planned over the next week or two, and was pleased to see that the craft had come through the escape and relocation without suffering any damage.