Melody shut the door of her office behind her, pressed her back against it and slowly slid to the floor. Before she could bury her face in her hands, there was a knock. She stood, straightened her lab coat and went to her desk.
“Come in,” she said.
It was yet another adjutant she didn’t recognize.
“How can I help you?”
“Ma’am,” the boy said, “Professor Crane asked me to give this to you?”
“Asked?”
The boy grinned. “Well, more demanded.”
“Here.” She stretched out her arm.
He stepped into her office and gave her a datapad. She added it to the pile on her desk.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about our computer networks being relinked?”
He shook his head. “Sorry ma’am. But I’d be more than happy to find out for you.”
“Do that. And thank you.”
“Of course, ma’am.” He bowed quickly and left.
She snickered, wondering what his name was and why he bowed.
Cute guy, she thought. But too young for me. She buried her face in her hands. Of all the things to think about now. She took the datapad he handed her off the pile and activated its display. The data Crane had gathered didn’t help her mood.
She booted her desk computer and dialed the CIC.
“Omri,” the duke said, “give me good news.”
“I wish I could, your grace. But the Stone Byway’s completely locked down and absolutely every Sentinel is plugged into Samhadi.”
“You’re telling me what I already know, Omri.”
She balled her fists. “And you’re a waste of my time, Salamanca. From now on I’m only speaking with Preston.” Though only she was aware of the impact, she pressed the ‘end call’ button as hard as she could.
Moron.
She stood, went to her door, turned the handle, then leaned forward, banging her head against the frosted window, and cried.
“Mel?”
“Dad?”
“Yeah. I tapped into the comms. All of them.”
She wiped her eyes and went back to her desk. “Nice work. You know the situation then?”
“Sure do. Kinda strange.”
“To say the least. Any theories? Is Eno protecting them?”
“Yeah. But not in the way you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Eno brought Sensus there, but she’s not the reason all the Sentinels are in Samhadi.”
“How’d she get him there? The Byway is completely closed off.”
“Hey kid, you’re asking me how a six-thousand, nine-hundred- and ninety-year-old machine intelligence did something extremely difficult. All I can tell you is she did, but I don’t think you guys are gonna be able to pick that lock. So you keep telling the duke where to stick it.”
She smiled. “You got it, Dad.” She stretched her arms out on her desk and laid down her head.
“You get some rest, Mel. I’m gonna get my ear to the ground and see what I can find out.”
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She wanted to thank him, but fatigue had other plans for her. Music filled her sleep; a chorus of faraway birdsong and waves lapping on an invisible shore.
She dreamed, walking barefoot through grass the color of coal under a black sky cut by a green horizon. Flowers grew on the mountains above her head; mountains instead of clouds. Rain fell, followed by a bloody mist that rose from the grass. She whistled along with the birds, not knowing what she skipped and danced through, then screamed when the mist ran down her rain-soaked body. Horrified she ran, wailing grief and looking for escape she ran, gripping the vines that fell from above and climbing them to flee the mist.
She climbed the vines as far as they rose, but they only took her to an island in between the bloody black grass and the mountainous sky, so she lay on her back, above the rainfall, and searched the distant foothills of the sky for answers.
“Melody,” said a familiar voice.
She sat up and turned her head. It was difficult to see, but the silhouette she saw could be masked; broad shoulders and thick limbs wrapped in hyperfiber brutalism, one pauldron built tall and a skullfort swept back by the winds of war.
She stood. “General!”
“What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I’m… dreaming?”
“Yes, but…”
She woke.
“Hey kiddo. Have a good nap?”
Every part of her body felt stiff, especially her legs and arms. She sat up and winced at a stabbing pain in her ribs. “No.”
“Maybe you woke up too soon.”
“No. I need too…”
He was right. She had no strength to keep her eyes opened, let alone work.
“I have too much to do.”
She opened the top drawer of her desk and searched for her bottle of stims.
“That’s not what you need kid,” her dad said.
“What I need is to find Sensus, get our computer networks back up, and somehow regain control of Albion.”
Her father laughed. “Regain control of Albion, eh?”
“You know what I mean.” But did she?
“Do you?” said a stranger’s voice.
She was old, very old, but not bent like the mother sitting at the oak.
“Sweetie,” her dad said, “go back to sleep. Your people can handle things without you for a bit.”
She held the bottle in her hand, but her fingers were too weak to twist the lid.
The stranger’s hands took hold of hers. They were cold, but not icy like the hearts of the Sentinels.
“Melody, I’m serious. You need rest.”
“Later, dad.”
“No. Not later. Now.”
“I’m serious, dad. I have too much to do.”
“We all do, sweetie. But we gotta know our limits. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t try to parent you now.”
“It’s okay. You’re still my dad, no matter what… no matter what… you… are…”
The fluids ran up her throat, acid to melt the flesh off bones, atoning for its harsh treatment and reconstituting the powder into the capsules Melody held in her hand.
The stranger’s hands tightened the lid.
“No.”
They lifted her to her feet.
“General?”
Sensus looked up from the tactical display on the CIC. “I’m busy, Director.”
The stranger led her down corridors she’d never seen.
“Please tell me what’s going on.”
The stranger stopped, faced her, smiled under her hood. The corridors dissapeared and they stood on a cliff that was an island that was a miniature planetoid held still by the gravity of four mountains. Beneath her was the garden of black grass and bloody mist.
“Walk with me,” said the stranger, “and I’ll take you to a place where you can hug your father, find the general, and see Albion through my knowing eyes.”
The stranger then tilted her head upward just a little, and Melody could see the lady’s face, wrapped in bloody cloth, and her eyes were a constellation of stars.
“Please,” said Melody.
But the stranger gripped Melody’s face in her cold strong hands and, the cold running through Melody’s veins, replacing her blood with glacial streams, pressed her thumbs into the center of Melody’s brow.
Melody woke in a vast white room. She winced as she lifted her head, and wept as she struggled to her feet. Blood seeped through her torn blouse. She searched for a clean patch of fabric on her tattered clothing and, with a strip she tore from the frayed sleeve of her coat, staunched the stab wound in her right side.
The chamber she was in was featureless, white walls blending into a white ceiling and a white floor, corners rounded away to leave the space seemingly infinite. Only a faint shadow at the far end told her where a doorway was.
The walk there was excrutiating. She felt faint when she finaly found the arch, fumbling for the control panel. She leaned her back against the wall while the elevator ascended, looking fearfully at the trickles of of blood staing the imaculate floor. A soft chime alerted her to the elevator. She grunted as she turned to face it, the limped into the lift and rode it into then forbidden depths of the Stone Byway.