Xavier: An Omnes Videntes Novel Read online

  Gary watched Sparrow as she worked. Soon, she had hacked into Kris Roland’s club. While he watched, he started laughing. “How long will that last?”

  “Until she buys all new hardware and servers.”

  Instead of sexy avatars with risqué wardrobes for Kris’ virtual reality sex bar, they had been replaced with cartoon animals in pastel colors in a pastoral setting. Instead of having sex, they caught fish with fishing poles, ran races, or sang the universal alphabet.

  “I’ll ruin her virtual reality every time I’m in the sector.”

  “It’s only fair, since she destroyed the reality that we could have had together.” Gary placed his hand on top of Sparrow’s and bent his head down enough to be able to catch her eyes with his pleading ones. “It’s not too late. Let me be a father to you.”

  “I don’t know what that entails,” Sparrow admitted. This man made her nervous, and she had no idea how to react to him.

  Gary smiled. “Neither do I. Your great-grandmother raised me.”

  Moved by curiosity, Sparrow asked, “What happened to your parents?”

  “They died from a plague while trying to colonize a planet that had been erroneously labeled hospitable. They had left me with Granny until they got settled.” Pain clouded Gary’s eyes. “They never came back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sparrow said.

  “It was rough. It still hurts.”

  “I think I understand the pain caused by inner turmoil, now. You loved your mother and father. Then, they were taken from you. I love Xavier. When Ocet made me believe Xavier had only been using me, it hurt worse than anything I have ever before experienced.”

  “Xavier loves you,” Gary confirmed.

  Sparrow smiled, and it reached her eyes.

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Oona asked as she and Juju entered the café.

  “Hey, Oona. This is Lieutenant Adair. He is the one who impregnated my whore, I mean mother,” Sparrow said.

  Gary paled. “Sparrow, can’t you simply introduce me as your father?”

  “But the look on your face is so much more amusing this way,” Sparrow observed.

  Oona threw her head back and laughed. Other patrons of the café steered clear of the female bounty hunters, who were heavily armed for such an early hour.

  “I apologize. Oona, Juju, this is my father, Gary. We just met.”

  “Well, hello, ladies,” Gary said with a lustful gleam in his eyes.

  Oona rolled her eyes at him.

  “See, ya, Sparrow,” Juju said as they walked over to the counter to order.

  Sparrow noticed Gary as he tried to hide his glances over at the bounty hunters’ backsides. “They are a couple.”

  “So?” He had an innocent look on his face, but it was lost on Sparrow.

  “Come on, Gary. I need some things.”

  While Sparrow shopped, Gary followed her around and insisted on paying for all of her tools and materials. Afterwards, he took her to a bookstore and satisfied her voracious appetite for Laconian romance novels. By the time they were having lunch, he had gotten her to laugh.

  “So, you’re the weapons expert who struck fear into three governments,” Gary said as he watched the young woman who struggled to get a sauce-covered noodle from her chin into her mouth.

  “If you say so. I spent most of my time in the lab. I followed orders. I didn’t even realize that Bishop had adopted me until a few days ago.”

  Gary had a serious look on his face. “I intend to have the adoption dissolved. I’m your father.”

  “What’s going to happen to Bishop?”

  “He will be turned over to a maximum-security facility. He won’t bother you again. Sparrow, I realize that you are a grown woman and will be making a life for yourself with Xavier, but when my ship visits the Empire, can I see you?”

  “I’m still not sure I’ll be going there. It could be a trick.”

  “Hey, it’s no trick. If he tells you it’s safe, it’s safe. He can read minds. Anyway, he’s one of Teagan’s personal guards. Teagan is married to Commander Bosh, and she’s Captain Alaric’s cousin. You won’t have anything to worry about.”

  During the ride back to the land port, Sparrow watched shuttles as they flew by overhead. Gary drove up the Hadrian’s ramp, parked, and then insisted on carrying all of Sparrow’s bags up to her quarters for her.

  “Xavier isn’t back yet. Would you like to go to the officers’ lounge and play a game or something?” Gary asked. Nervously, he waited for her answer, fearing rejection.

  “Alright.” Sparrow proceeded to annihilate anyone who challenged her to a game of stones.

  “How are you so good at this?” Gary asked.

  “Well, you are all humanoids. I’ve only ever played against my AI.”

  Eventually, Gary had to report for duty. Sparrow went to her quarters. After waiting and waiting for Xavier, she decided to signal him. When her call was accepted, her blood ran cold in her veins and raised chills on her skin. Glowing yellow eyes stared back at her. The AI positioned the vid-screen to give her a view of the room. Xavier had been bound by his wrists and ankles. He hung by his wrists from a ceiling support with his ankles tied to the bar a few feet below his dangling form.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sparrow looked from Xavier over to the person who had been bound in the same manner beside him, but she had a gag in her mouth. It was Kris Roland.

  “Stay on that ship,” Xavier ordered.

  The AI struck him hard in the mouth. Xavier spit out a mouthful of blood, deliberately splattering it against the white, plasti robot body.

  The AI said, “You will free me from my holding cell and help me escape, or they die slowly.” The AI picked up a blade from the bar and sliced it across Xavier’s chest.

  “No!” Sparrow screamed.

  Xavier didn’t even flinch. He stared straight ahead.

  “You will free me immediately. If you have not freed me in an hour, he dies.”

  The screen went black. Sparrow’s hand trembled. Somehow, Bishop was controlling the AI from his containment cell. Bishop had planned ahead and had used her only weakness against her. Bishop was aboard the Hadrian, and there was no doubt that she had the skill to free him. He would then probably use her as a hostage to get off of the ship. Then, she would once again be his slave. He would continue to use her to create destruction. Bishop wouldn’t allow Xavier to live. She knew Bishop better than he thought. He would kill Xavier to punish her for her disobedience. An hour was all she had.

  No, she thought, “I also have a father.”

  Unsure of what to do, but terrified of losing the only person she had ever loved, the only man she trusted, Sparrow decided to stop obeying Bishop and instead to listen to Xavier. He had told her not to leave the ship. Gary could leave the ship. Leaving her quarters, Sparrow went to the officers’ lounge. She didn’t recognize anyone there. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

  “May I help you, Sparrow?” It was the blonde man with black eyes.

  “I need to speak to Gary, right away.”

  Quaid looked from her frightened eyes and down to her fingers turned white from clutching her vid-screen. “Come with me,” he said. He escorted the young woman to Eric’s office.

  Captain Eric Alaric’s pale blue eyes and black hair had no effect on Sparrow. “Hello, Sparrow. Is something wrong?”

  Gary was working at a console behind him. Ignoring Captain Alaric, Sparrow rushed to Gary. “I need to speak to you in private.”

  Gary looked into his daughter’s brown eyes. “You can speak in front of my superiors. We’re all friends here.”

  “No, please. You don’t understand,” Sparrow whispered as terrified tears spilled from her eyes.

  Patiently, Gary said, “Sparrow, if you can trust me, you can trust them, too.”

  Indecision clawed at her. Xavier was too important to risk. Her love for him was a weakness that Bishop had exploited. He had the upper hand, and t
ime was running out. Xavier’s command to, “Stay on that ship,” gave her a temporary reprieve from the clawing fear. A tremble seized her, shaking her to her core.

  “I love Xavier. I don’t want to lose him.” Deciding to put her trust in Gary was one of the most difficult things she had ever done.

  “He loves you, too. Now, what’s this about?”

  Sparrow forced her arms to extend the vid-screen out to Gary. It shook in her hands, but her elbows felt locked into place. “He had his AIs take Xavier,” Sparrow whispered. “I have less than an hour to free Bishop, or they’ll kill him. He’s at Kris’ bar.” Sparrow shook her head, and tears fell down her cheeks. “I can bypass the Hadrian’s security and get Bishop off of the ship, but if I do, he’ll still kill Xavier. I don’t know how to solve this problem. Xavier told me to stay here. What should I do?”

  Standing, Gary took the vid-screen from his daughter’s shaking hands and held her. He could feel her frightened trembles in his arms. “Everything’s gonna be alright, baby girl. Daddy is gonna take care of everything. You did right to trust me. I’ll have Xavier back here in time for dinner.” Gary gave her a squeeze and smiled down at her.

  “An AI is cutting him.” Sparrow didn’t think that Gary understood the urgency of the situation.

  “Captain Alaric, can she stay here with you?” Gary asked.

  “Yes, are your teams in place?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismissed,” Eric said.

  Quaid and Gary saluted and left Eric’s office. Sparrow stared after them long after the door had closed.

  “Come sit by me, Sparrow. I don’t bite.” Eric gave Sparrow his most charming grin.

  “They’re cutting him.”

  Eric’s smile faded. “I’ve served with your father for many years. He said he would take care of everything, and he will. Look.” Eric pointed at one of his consoles.

  Sparrow cautiously approached so that she could see. The image displayed was of security footage of the holding cells. In it, Bishop and Ocet were secure and had guards posted by their cells.

  “How did he do it?” Eric asked.

  Sparrow understood the question to be about the AIs who had taken both Xavier and Kris Roland. She explained her theory. “It must have been a time-triggered program. He’s used them before. When he didn’t enter a code by a certain time, the pre-set commands went through to the AIs.”

  “Can an AI kill a human?” Eric asked.

  “Normal robots can’t deliberately kill any animate lifeform, even a bug.”

  “But the AI soldiers are different, and one is cutting Xavier?”

  Sparrow nodded. She began to exhibit signs with which Eric was all too familiar. “Hey. Don’t cry.” Eric hated it when women cried. It made him feel like a failure. He needed to distract her. “Think. How did it manage to cut him? What did Bishop do to alter the programming of his AI soldiers?” Eric patted the office chair beside him, and Sparrow sat.

  How had the AI cut him? How had it spoken to her as if it were Bishop? She took her vid-screen and started searching for answers. The AI tenets couldn’t be bypassed. What had Bishop done? She had never before questioned it. The AIs had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. She took them for granted as constant enforcers of rules and schedules. They followed orders, would defend against intruders, and do all that was required to protect the humanoids they served, but she had never seen one torture a humanoid. When she figured it out, all of the color drained from her face with the exception of her bruises.

  “It’s not an AI he sent the commands to. He made a cyborg.” Bile rose in Sparrow’s chest. “He butchered a humanoid and made a cyborg. Oh, stars.” Sparrow hadn’t realized that Bishop had become so corrupt.

  “You didn’t know about his experiments?” Eric asked.

  Sickened, Sparrow said, “No, I’ve read about the process. Integration of humanoid tissues and cybernetics when successful is too short-lived. A super-soldier might be crafted at the cost of millions of credits, but outside of a cybernetic chamber, the tissue rejects the technology and rapidly degrades. It’s a death sentence, and a very painful one for anyone recruited.”

  “Why were its eyes yellow?” Eric asked.

  “How did you know its eyes were yellow?” Sparrow asked.

  Captain Eric Alaric met her gaze unflinchingly. There was a hardness to the man that his charming exterior belied.

  “You were monitoring my communications?” Sparrow asked.

  “I didn’t know if I could trust you. The two men we have in custody are part of a bigger problem. My task is to prevent a war.”

  “I don’t want a war either.”

  “Then, stop making those missiles.”

  “No problem.” The office was filled with silence. Annoyed at her inability to read body language, she wasn’t sure if he was angry with her or not. It hadn’t been her idea to make thermo-resonator missiles. “I can reverse them.”

  “What?” Eric asked incredulously. His heart started to pound.

  “Well, I think I figured it out. I never spoke of it. I knew Bishop wouldn’t approve. I can send you my design if you’d like. The concept of an opposing missile that would slow and destabilize the chaotic bouncing, trap, and rebind the molecules intrigued me.” Sparrow tapped away at her vid-screen, entering her various security codes before finally gaining access to her hidden files. She looked over at Eric’s screen hoping for a glimpse of Xavier. Sparrow tapped her vid-screen to Eric’s console and sent him her design schematics. “I never got to make a prototype….” The image on his console was showing the movements of different Galaxic Militia teams. Absently, she said, “I think of it as a frigostabilizer or frisson dampener. I couldn’t decide which name to go with.” Her attention could no longer be captivated by her ideas.

  Xavier hadn’t sensed the robotic attack until it had been too late to escape without a civilian casualty. Regardless of what he thought of the female, Kris Roland had given life to the other half of his soul. If he were to leave now, the woman would die a brutal death. Hidden beneath a shielded patch on his left wrist was a magnetic lock override the size of a flattened stones’ game piece. He kept his hands up within the restraints to trick his cyborg opponent. The cyborg had come within his telepathic range once the AIs had restrained him. Its mind was a discordant miasma of psychotic narcissism, and its flesh was turning gangrenous where it rejected its cybernetics.

  Xavier fought against the repugnant odor emanating from the ruined former bit of humanity. Kris Roland hadn’t been so fortunate. She gagged each time one of the cyborg’s rants brought it near the bar. Her disgust enraged it, and she continued to suffer for it. Xavier wasn’t bleeding alone. The gag in her mouth muffled her screams. He kept running scenarios through his head. There was an AI in front of them and one behind the bar. The AIs’ actions were easy to predict. He could release Kris and shield her from blaster fire with minimal damage to himself. However, the cyborg was unpredictable. Hence, Xavier hesitated to act. Getting a telepathic read on a mentally unstable cyborg obviously wasn’t one of his strengths.

  Then, he sensed a familiar mind coming closer, ever nearer. Into Quaid’s mind, Xavier sent a telepathic image of his current predicament. He regretted the lapse it caused to the concentration he continued to expend while soothing his wife. That she should agonize for his safety shouldn’t please him so, but it did. Also pleasing to him was that she had chosen to trust him.

  Through the telepathic link he had temporarily formed with Quaid, he heard, “The AIs may blast you, but they won’t kill you. The cyborg is a different matter. My team is in place. I recommend taking the female down behind the bar and taking cover in ten seconds.”

  “Understood,” Xavier sent back.

  When the cyborg turned away, Xavier dropped his hands and released his ankles in one swift move before freeing Kris and diving with her down to the floor behind the bar. Then, he rolled with her covering her with his much larger frame.
The front wall of the bar exploded inward, and Galaxic Militia in full battle gear swarmed inside. Xavier could hear as the soldiers battled the AIs. Blaster fire grazed his back leaving a hot line of pain across his shoulders. Kris whimpered beneath him, and unconsciously he soothed her emotions. The blown off head of an AI rolled across the floor beside them.

  Then, Gary was there covering both of them. He erected a defensive shield. Mostly for Kris’ benefit, he said, “It’s alright. You’re safe. It will just be a little while longer.”

  “What’s the hold up?” Xavier asked sardonically.

  “We’re trying to capture the cyborg alive. We want to bring him in for rehabilitation. Whoever he used to be has suffered enough. The Militia wants to see if the effects can be reversed,” Gary said. “We tranquilized him and are waiting for him to go down. If we blast him, he won’t recover from the damage.”

  Xavier shifted his weight off of the injured female. Kris tore the gag from her mouth. “Those things are after Galaxy!”

  Gary gave her a withering look. “Those things are what raised her, my child.” At least the woman had enough decency to look horrified. “It looks like they tore you up pretty good,” Gary said as he evaluated Xavier’s wounds.

  “AIs need to be equipped with bells so we can hear them coming. There is nothing within them to sense. How many of these things does Bishop have?”

  “I’m hoping Sparrow will be able to tell us that,” Gary answered.

  “Secure!” a soldier called out.

  Gary lowered the shield so the medical team could attend to Kris and Xavier. Kris was transported to a local hospital.

  Xavier tried to wave off medical attention. “I’m fine.”

  The medic said, “You’ve lost some blood from multiple cuts, you’ve got close-range blaster burns, and multiple contusions.”

  Gary said, “Give us a break. If we let you walk onboard the ship, Sparrow will not be pleased about it.”

  Xavier considered his words. “You may be correct. Seeing me presumably helpless and injured might earn me some sympathy.”