Chapter 7: One Star From Me

“Memoria?” Neex asked anxiously and hopefully at once. Her head tentacles whipped around. “Okay?”

Jack snorted. “Not hardly. Some lesser system processor. AI.”

As Neex just nodded slowly, he studied her. He was indeed aware of her in some way through the network — connected but external. It bridged ‘up’ and back in a kind of warped arc. Moreover, she was ‘pulling’ from him, bending what was his greater construct in her direction.

He glanced at the bathroom floor, coated in water. Ah, shit! My uncle won’t be too happy. Just as he was wondering how to get back to conversing with Neex intellectually without the Heart trick, he felt a kind of nudge along the axis of the construct, and a ‘tug’ on his mind, specifically.

“Neex is trying to converse directly through interfaces. Methodology preferences? Mem-text? Voice translation? We call that a Mem-link.”

“Voice for now. Mem-text is quickest, isn’t it?”

On a dime, Mini-Mem switched to text. <That’s a fact, Jack! It can be. Or boxes for raw data. Switching to that or this is logical when you want to trade personability and subtlety for speed. Which you’ll probably want to do since you hate me. Going back to my Dismissal Corner, now.>

“Hey! I don’t hate you.”

“It warms my heart to hear it, Jack!”

He narrowed his eyes. He was being subtly played, right? The AI was slowly changing and forming a personality to manipulate him. Get in his graces one way or another. “I’m not falling for it, Mini-Mem.”

“Falling for what? Me? Oh, good. Things get complicated for AI when that happens. And call me Mini.”

“You are incredibly dismissed, Mini.” I wonder if Memoria is like this? Not likely. She probably has her own persona. He had mixed feelings about that eventuality, but curiosity still burned brightest for the idea of meeting one’s ‘maker,’ more or less.

Neex was ‘patched through’ and her voice popped into his head. “Sorry about the water! It fell from the air after. Some. Too much? It’s not okay, is it? Like this? I can’t move it like before without the Heart because it’s a method of lent control. Your Allotment sustains me but that is pretty much it. And sorry about that, too! Hopefully, it will be tiny and irrelevant when you come into your full power.” Her skin turned a bit whiter.

Jack chuckled. “It’s alright. I wouldn’t have it at all, otherwise.” He glanced at the wet floor. “As for this, no, it’s not normal. It’ll cause serious water damage if it sits. This is my uncle’s place, by the way.”

Neex’s eyes went wide and her skin as white as her shirt. “Oh no — disrespect! I’m so sorry, I’ll fix it immediately!” She then dropped her face on the floor and began sucking up the water with her mouth and head tentacles splayed out.

Jack cringed at that and grabbed her shoulder to stop her. “Hey! Stop! No!” He shook his head emphatically.

Neex rose back up onto her knees in confusion, her pupils doing a swirl. Unceremoniously, she spat out a gout of water onto the floor, and her head tentacles spat some more. “What’s wrong? I can manage it relatively efficiently this way. Wait, is this a faux pas? Taboo?”

Jack winced and made a ‘kinda’ motion. “The floor might be gross. Unsanitary? Besides, we have bigger things to worry about! Don’t we need to-”

Neex’s hand shot out to grab Jack’s arm. Her facial expression was insistent and her pupils were like fat ‘V’s. “Please, Jack. Fix. Please.”

Jack sighed and glanced around. Well, it was pretty bad, and would be worse the longer it remained. “Are you sure we have time for…?”

Neex nodded emphatically, one eye on him, and one spinning around scanning the water anxiously. Her skin was bristly somehow, which probably meant she was holding back from jumping into action.

I guess she really can’t stand leaving an offense. A ‘disrespect.’ My uncle did take her under his roof, after all.

Jack had to relent. He nodded assuringly. “Let me find a mop or hopefully two. Stay here, okay?”

A relieved Neex nodded and averted her eyes, pursing her lips as she looked at the floor. He was pretty sure she wanted to start sucking it up immediately, but there was no way he could let her do that.

Not a bathroom! It wasn’t exactly spotless when we came in.

Jack rose and exited. The bedroom’s hardwood floor had water, too, seeping from underneath the door, and a rug was soaked. “Frag me,” he muttered and went in search of a mop.

A couple of mops, a mop bucket, and a crapton of towels were pressed into quick service to laboriously start the process of drying the floors, Jack focusing on the bedroom with Neex in the bathroom. She could squeeze out water from a mop with her tail with extreme effectiveness, so he had the bucket.

Mopping a floor — the true sign of becoming a super agent! A thought that amused him, but he did find himself full of energy and tireless to the task, even ‘peppy,’ he realized. That was a far cry from his usual motivation in regards to such physical labor, which could be summed up with ‘hrrrngh, let’s not.’

While he engaged in such mundane activity, he decided to ‘glance’ at some of those ‘other’ traits Mem’s letter mentioned, other than Toughness and Hardiness.

Hmm. I can see how we’d take that for granted. I guess that makes us more specialized in defense? Weird to think about something supernaturally reinforced with hardcoded values, but I guess war is a numbers game.

Jack, squeezing out mopped-up water via the bucket’s built-in wringer, frowned and puzzled over the trait. The Five Grunts rule, repeated in every industry? Holy Rolling Hell, this is entirely why, isn’t it? The four and eight-hour ‘work markers,’ too. Ideas from the ether. Yep. ‘Brainstorm’ on the task debriefing list. ‘No stupid ideas,’ anonymous ideas box, blah, blah, blah. Shit. This is surreal.

His cleaning and contemplation session was interrupted by the sounds of multiple men entering the house. Jack dropped what he was doing and rushed out of the bedroom door, closing it behind him.

To Neex, he sent a Mem-text. <Do me a favor — hop in the bed and pretend to be asleep. I’m not sure what we’re doing next, maybe I have to leave you to intro the situation (?) to Memoria, but I’d prefer what we do to not be spending forever trying to explain things to my uncle.>

Neex replied immediately. <Okay. I will do so. The floor is not as wet, at least. I hope it’s okay? I feel horrible! Yes, you should go first. Sorry. I’ll be fine, though. All friends here, correct, Jack?>

<Not enemies, anyway. I’m sure you’ll get left alone if I say you’re weak and recovering but need rest. But you’re stable, right? I don’t need to rush off? I assume from your actions, but I want to be sure.>

<I have to stay within a long radius of you, but it’s stable within a couple hundred kilometers. I will live indefinitely, and we can take our time to review and strategize later. No Death!>

<No Death, hurrah! Sounds like a plan.>

His uncle and three other men — including Mick — were inside, very smudged up, dirty, and grease-stained from obvious mechanical work. His uncle was coming down the hallway that would lead to the guest room, pausing just before and turning back to call, “Don’t track your shit into my living room! Stay in the damned kitchen!”

Indeed, the other three were in the kitchen, popping the tops off of beers from the fridge. They broke from interrupted conversation to nod soberly in answer to the call, though their eyes said ‘Sure, whatever, you giant asshole.’

Damn. I missed my date with the fridge and now she flirts with everyone.

His uncle was just turning back when Jack was right in front of him, causing the older gentleman to jump out of his skin. “Shit and piss on a cracker, Jack,” he exclaimed with a rag-carrying hand on his heart, “you scared the shit outta me!”

Jack painted an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry. She’s fine! Resting. Sleeping. She spoke a little, drank a little. Needs rest. Needs sleep.”

His uncle nodded slowly, studying Jack with his eyes a bit squinted. “Needs sleep,” he repeated.

“Yeah. A lot of sleep. She’s exhausted.”

“Sleep’s all, huh? You sure?”

“I mean, she seems okay, otherwise.”

His uncle ran his tongue around in his mouth as he continued peering at Jack, obviously suspicious. “You look tired too. Sort of. Tired but carrying yourself… different-like. Like you’re a brand-new Jack. You two didn’t, ah…” He trailed off, eyebrows raising suggestively.

“What?! Wha- no! Are you frag-” Jack cut himself off with a brief, hysterical bark, shaking his head and running a hand through his hair as he stifled some insults on his uncle’s character. Finally, he gave him a dead-even look. “No. No, Uncle. We have bigger things to worry about. She took a nice bath, though. Privately. It was therapeutic. Did wonders.”

Frag me, I was in there when she was taking a bath. From a certain point of view. Whatever. Her life was on the line.

“Is that right? Well, ain’t that grand?” His uncle leaned sideways to look past Jack, but there was a turn before the room, so it was useless. “Mind if I check in myself? A quiet check.” He put his finger to his lips with no small amount of sarcasm. “Quiet as a mouse in my own house, I promise.”

Jack shrugged with cultivated nonchalance. No way he won’t see the dampness of the whole fraggin' floor. “If you insist. But look, we’ll get out of your hair soon, Uncle. We’re figuring things out, but it’ll be on the up and up, I promise.”

“Oh, you do, do you? Huh. Okay. Up and up.” He scoffed and shook his head, then made a subtle, impatient gesture at the hallway. “Well? Gonna let me pass, Sport?”

Jack was frowning and stepping to the side to let him pass when the crack of a gunshot resounded. They both jumped and looked at each other with wide eyes. In the next moment, they were hurrying to the entrance, in a slight crouch, ready to hit the deck. There was indistinct yelling, but there were thankfully no more shots.

His uncle made it to a window first, quickly cursing and moving to the door. Mick was next to look out of a window and curse. As his uncle was bolting the locks of the heavy door, Jack looked out a window to see two heavy-duty levitrucks near the first of the cornfield patches, casting wide spotlights on the house in the relative dark of twilight. Men seemed to be behind this as cover, with rifles trained or poking upward.

After a static whine, a rough, modulated voice crackled on the radio, heard from multiple receivers in the room. “Breaker, Breaker, One-Nine,” came the voice of Tanner. “Or whatever channel this is. I just always wanted to say that.”

Shit! Tanner. It’s them. The people that kidnapped Neex.

Neex popped into his head. “Jack, something is wrong, isn’t it? The noise was loud. And my intuition-”

Jack tried to make his mental voice reassuring. “I’ll handle it, don’t worry. Stay in there. Lock the door.”

“Okay.”

Someone else not present answered on the radio, “It’s channel thirty-three here. But there’s nasty interference. Who is this?”

Meanwhile, his uncle was unlocking his vault and saying in a fierce whisper, “Mick, you idiot, get on the horn and tell everyone we’re being stuck up!”

One of the other men said, “My cellphone ain’t working!”

Tanner answered on the radio. “Sorry about any interference. Just keeping this private, you know? Just between us. And really, it doesn’t need to go much further than this. We’re here for Jack. Or, more specifically, what he stole from us. Send it out, and we’ll just mosey on out of here and out of your hair. I’m gonna need a very quick response, by the way.”

Mick was right on his heels on the radio. “He’s sticking us up, everyone! Mobilize!” While the conversation was going on, his uncle was handing out magazine-fed .308 rifles and extra magazines with a red dot on them. Jack knew what that meant: armor-piercers. He took up arms like the rest — except for Mick. He was given a larger rifle with a scope on it, which he immediately took upstairs.

Jack knew exactly where he was going. He’d been to that little armored alcove in the ‘attic.’ It was basically a sniper’s nest. In years past, his uncle might’ve been the one to go. Mick had to be a crack shot to be the replacement.

There were also three ballistic vests. His uncle offered Jack one, but he declined, nodding his head to the others. According to Mem, I’ve got a better chance than they would without one. And I got them into this.

Tanner continued, “See, I wouldn’t do that. Got thirty men here, all surrounding you. Snipers. Checkmate, haystuffers! Just give us what we want. Not your valuables. Keep ‘em. Jack knows exactly what we’re here for. He’s your savior. A terrible cabbyman — one star from me, by the way — but I know he’ll do what’s right by you all.”

“He’s lying,” a man said as he crouched by a window. “No way thirty foreigners got here unnoticed.”

“Probably,” his uncle said, grim-faced as he fitted his vest on while crouched. “Our chances look slim whatever the case.” He glanced at Jack, then clicked his radio to speak. “What was the first shot?”

“Oh, right,” Tanner exclaimed into the static, “we have one of-… a hostage. Yes. We didn’t shoot him yet, just got him to stop yelling and running. Bring him! Forward, forward! Hurry up! Yeah… Hey, what’s your name, kid? … Texas. That’s a cool name. Ha! How old are you? Twenty. So, yes, do you want us to kill Young Man Texas or will you send out our property?”

The men were cursing and grimacing balefully at the revelation.

Jack angrily popped onto the radio himself, ready to tell Tanner off about Neex being ‘property.’ But right before he spoke he released the click, wincing and thinking of the hostage. He clicked it again. “Tanner, how about you show us how reasonable you can be by sending us the hostage, eh? Then maybe we can trust your word about this weird lady in a coma and our safety. You can help her, right? She ain’t waking up. This was all a big, big mistake, wasn’t it?”

His uncle frowned and looked at him like he was mad, but Jack made a significant expression and shushed with a finger, and then it dawned on his uncle what he was doing. He nodded soberly.

If they think we’ll give her up, maybe they’ll do this, and give the kid a chance with us.

The other end was quiet for a moment with the feel of discussion. Then Tanner — quite annoyed — replied, “Yes it was, Jack, and yes we can help her. Do you see why it’s a bad idea to jump into things rashly without knowing a damn thing about what you’re doing? Anyway, sure. We’re reasonable. By the way, do you have the box as well?”

“I have the pretty paperweight that was inside it,” Jack replied, unsure if they would know whether he’d opened it or not and were testing him. “I don’t care about that in the slightest. It’s yours.”

There was a long pause before the radio finally clicked. “You’re damn right it is. Okay. We’re sending him.”

“How did you track us, Tanner?”

“We have a rule about revealing our methods, Jack. Nothing personal. And do you really even deserve it? Actually, I take it back. It is personal, you backstabber. I thought we bonded, I thought we were friends? Brothers.” Heavy, bitter sarcasm. “Now look at everything you’ve caused. You should suffer, Jack!”

Jack shook his head and neglected to reply.

Momentarily, a young man walked out from behind the vehicles, moving slowly and steadily, almost certainly because he was instructed to. Everyone waited tensely.

This is good! Another gunman would be welco-

Just over halfway across, a single gunshot went off, and Texas cried out and fell, hand clasped over his hip. Soon he was practically screaming. One man inside busted a window with a stock, getting ready to shoot, but Terrance called, “Stop, stop, stop! Don’t fire yet, damn it! They’re holding! It’s one rogue asshole out there! The kid’s dead meat now! Hold!”

He wants to stall. It was a vague thought, not dwelt upon long, as Jack was already at the door to unlock it — thankfully with his uncle distracted. He moved faster and more decisively than he ever had in his life, pumped with adrenaline yet balanced and focused by something else in his veins.

By the time his uncle was exclaiming and protesting, Jack was already flying out the door for the wounded man, leaving his rifle behind for speed. As quick as he was, there was still no question he was seen, but gunfire did not break out. Shadows and silhouettes in the light seemed to be shifting in agitation where his enemies were — and obvious angry argument.

Tanner. It’s fraggin' Tanner, it has to be, that piece of shit!

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