I Am Not Junco Omnibus: Books Four - Six (13 page)

The panel cycles through a series of start-up processes and I wait, tapping my foot, as the sequence counts down the checklist.

I jump a little when it starts barking orders at me. "Enter access codes now. Process will cease in three seconds. Two—"

I enter the code and it barks again. "Enter domain ownership protocol. Process will cease in three seconds. Two—"

I punch in that code. "Retinal scan mandatory. Process will cease in three seconds. Two—"

I flash my peepers. "DNA scan mandatory. Process will cease in three seconds. Two—"

I push my finger down on the small silver pricker and wait.

"Congratulations, Junco Coot. Your AI will be accessible in five minutes."

Shit. I check my vision screen. The batteries have already been running for eight minutes. Why the fuck didn't we get more batteries?

The seconds tick down on my screen and I hold my breath as it reaches zero.

"Press yes to initiate the AI called HOUSE."

I press yes on the screen.

"This is HOUSE, how may I help you?"

"HOUSE? It's me, Junco! Are you OK?"

"Junco, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened. I'm missing pieces of memory. I am missing one thousand and sixty-two days of memory. I'm sorry—"

"HOUSE, listen to me carefully. You aren't at home, you're in backup and you'll run out of power in"—I check my vision screen and swallow again—"less than two minutes if you can't get yourself inside my body."

"How can I insert myself into your body, Junco?"

"I don't know. Shit. I don't know, HOUSE, but it's possible. I'm gonna put my palm up against the DNA scanner and you just try and get inside me, OK? There's a place for an AI in me, you just have to find it." I check my vision screen and slap my hand back down on the scanner, pricking another finger this time. "Now, HOUSE, find a way in. You only have one minute."

"I can see you, Junco!"

"HOUSE! Please, listen to me! Find a way inside my body right now! That's an order!"

"I am looking, Junco. I think this might harm you, I probably shouldn't do it."

"Now! You are not allowed to disobey me!"

"You're mistaken, Junco. I can if I will harm you."

"Goddamnit! We only have a few seconds, get inside me, I promise you." I stop and think for second. "HOUSE, I sister-swear that I will be OK if you come inside, OK?"

"You sister-swear?"

"Yes, dammit! I sister-swear! I sister-swear!"

Her delicate probing sends the chills up my body as the seconds tick down. "Now, HOUSE. Now!"

My whole body seizes up and I crumple to the concrete floor as she enters me, filling me up, just like Sera. Only better. I try to laugh with relief but my head spins and my world goes black.

Chapter Thirteen

The snow-stars flicker in my vision field as I try to turn over and open my eyes. A small hand touches my shoulder and warm breath spreads on my cheek. "Are you OK, Junco?"

I moan and fight off the pounding in my head.

"Junco?"

I cough and croak out an answer. "Fine, HOUSE. Just fine."

She rolls me over on my stomach and I push up with my arms until I can scoot my legs underneath me and lift my head.

The whole room spins.

I look over at her and smile despite the pain, then fight off a massive wave of nausea and swallow down the saliva collecting in my mouth. "I feel sick."

She takes in a sharp breath.

"What?"

She shifts nervously.

"I've missed you, you have no idea, HOUSE!"

"Well," she starts in her little-girl voice, "I would've missed you too, Junco. But I was put to sleep." She scowls at me and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"Shit, you tried to kill everyone." I amend my statement. "Actually, you did kill a whole bunch of them. Thank you for that."

She sticks her lip out and pouts. "He tricked me, that Aren who you said was not dangerous. He was. He tricked me and I almost made a big mistake. Next time I say you should do something for your own good, you should listen to me, Junco."

"Yeah, OK. How long was I out?"

"Twenty-three minutes and four seconds."

My head feels funny and I look over at her for a second. "Did you do something to me, HOUSE? I feel weird."

"Well, I know I didn't have permission but your vital signs were not looking good, Junco. I had to."

"You had to—what?"

"Stash away that man and fight with that nanotech inside you."

I stare at her with my mouth open. "What?"

"That man. Isten. And a Sera."

I swallow. "What did you do with Isten, HOUSE?"

She gets up off the floor and pulls me up with her. I teeter for a second and she steadies me. "I just packed him up, that's all. He was taking up space and—"

I turn away and she stops talking.

"I still have him," she says quickly.

"Is he retrievable?" I ask, turning back.

Her little-girl face scrunches up, making her nose crinkle. I wonder if my nose used to crinkle like that. Her eyes dart around a little, like she's about to lie. No wonder my dad always knew. "HOUSE, I'm not interested in a lie. Just tell me the truth, OK?"

She swallows. My AI friend who should not have a body, but who absolutely does have a body that can come and go as she pleases, just swallowed.

My life is not normal. Not normal at all.

"I still have him, if that's what you mean."

That's not what I mean. I check my vision screen for my scope sight.

It's gone.

I check for my invisibility gift.

Gone!

"Fuck, HOUSE! You took away my gifts! Twenty minutes ago I could make myself invisible, and now I can't." She's very pouty now and I'm too tired to think about what this means, so fuck it. "Sorry. I'm sorry, OK? It's just, those gifts were pretty valuable."

She puffs out her lip like a child. "I still have them, Junco. I can let you borrow them when you need to."

I doubt that's even possible but she's upset now, so I drop it. "What about Sera? She's not supposed to be inside me anymore."

"There is nanotech in your blood, it has a tag that has an alert that states, ‘I am Sera’. I tried to corral it and put it aside, but it won't let me.”

HOUSE shrugs. "That's all I know."

I take a deep breath. "Yeah, all right. We'll sort that out later. We gotta get out of here before people spot the truck."

I grab her hand and my pack and we go back up top. It takes almost thirty minutes to fill in the hole and half-ass some concealment with the scant vegetation and rocks. We reach the truck just as the sun is coming up and I fight off another wave of stomach cramps.

"Shit, why do I feel so sick?" I look down at her and she winces at me. "What?"

"I'm making you sick, I think. Me being inside you. I need a lot of energy, Junco. I'm sorry. I have to take your nutrients to make energy and I think it's making you sick."

Just perfect. I push down my rising annoyance and smile. "OK, well, we'll figure something out as well, OK? I can handle it for a little while." But this makes me wonder at all the nausea I had when Sera was inside me on ship and during the Sibling mission. Was she the cause of all my sickness?

"Where are we going, Junco?"

Her question pulls me back from my thoughts and I look down at her in the new dawn and take her in. She's still about eight years old and looks just like I did at that age. Straight auburn hair a little past her shoulders, wide hazel eyes that match her heart-shaped face, and that upturned mouth that makes her look sweet.

I wasn't sweet and neither is she.

"Peak City. You always did want to see Peak City and I never got a chance to take you. So that's where we're going."

I push her into the passenger seat, get in my side and drop the pack of weapons between us. The codes make the truck come alive and I back up, turn around, and head back towards the road.

"Junco, my sphere access says Peak City was destroyed in a nuclear bomb initiated by your father."

"Yeah, it was. But they're rebuilding it, aren't they? They have parts up, don't they?" I know they do, partly because I can see the massive construction going on over there in the early morning light and partly because when I accessed the sphere at Gid's house I looked it all up. The entire project is almost a blueprint for the planet pad in Dallas, with thousand-foot-tall pillars sticking up out of the ground and the beginnings of a train system hanging from the underbelly.

She's quiet as she searches. "Yes, the city center, called the Circus, is open for workers and their families and there are several pods for housing. But no outsiders are allowed in."

"Well, we just became locals, HOUSE. Because I'm going back to Peak City before I leave this place. I don't give a shit what the regulations are."

We drive in silence as I make my way south. HOUSE hijacks a satellite to get the lay of the land and charts a course that almost takes us all the way back to Trinidad before we find an illegal entrance to the highway and start heading north again.

We're still a good thirty minutes from the new city and my stomach is roiling with nausea when she disappears. The cramps almost make me veer off the road. "Where'd you go, HOUSE?"

She flashes back. "I'm tired." She even rubs her eyes for emphasis. Where did she pick up all these human mannerisms? I don't recall her being so child-like before. "I want to go to sleep."

"What's that mean, HOUSE? Sleep? Where do you go?"

"I need rest, Junco. I'm tired. I don't know where I just was or where I go and I don't want to talk about it. I've never been a body this long before. It makes me tired."

Hmmmm. This might be a problem. She blinks out again and the cramping in my stomach returns with a throbbing headache to match.

I make the first checkpoint with no problems. It's just an automated station that scans for vehicle credentials and since this is a government truck, we cruise right through. The second checkpoint requires a personal scan by a real human and HOUSE has to rig the tags coded into the truck so we're not linked to the asshole I left in that sleazy hotel in Trinidad.

We park the truck in the structure reserved for workers, then grab my pack and hike to the hotel HOUSE procured through the sphere. HOUSE says she's got us covered as far as security goes, and frankly, I'm exhausted and if you can't trust your AI to keep things secure, well, who the fuck else is there?

We check in remotely and by the time we enter our room codes and walk through the door, it is well past noon.

"Oh, shit! HOUSE, what did you do?"

She stands there and says nothing but when she turns around to look at me she's got a cheesy smile that is nothing but trouble. "I love it! Can we shop here?"

I let the door slam behind me and bend down to her. "Look, I'm fucking tired right now and I'm not in the goddamn mood, OK? So, tell me right now, how did you get us this suite?"

She sighs and frowns at the same time, then turns her head. "We are important people as far as the hotel is concerned, we had to have a nice room. Besides, if this is my only chance to see Peak City, I'm gonna see it right."

The place is huge. The living room is bigger than the one at my old house in Council 3, the terrace is massive, and the faint smell of chlorine tells me there's a pool in here somewhere.

"You're gonna get us caught."

"I promise, I'll keep an eye out, OK? We won't get caught. I promise." She crosses her heart with a fingertip.

I'm really too tired to argue with her so I drop it. "I'm taking a shower," I say, dumping my pack of weapons on the dining room table, then fish around until I find what I need.

I grab the little black box I took from the bunker and go into the bathroom. The weapons inside clank back and forth as I move and I feel my heart rate speed up. I don't control it. It's exciting and I want to experience it the way it's supposed to be.

I open the lid and smile.