Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

To Return Home 2.1

Daddy pitched the idea of the five-person leadership to the others as if the idea was his own. I didn’t think for a moment, however, that the others believed it, but at least they were gracious enough to pretend they did.

I had suggested that I be responsible for preserving our culture, but now I found that, somehow, the medical aspect of our culture came under my purview as well. I guess it had to do with the need for good health for morale, or morale for good health: one or the other.

So it was that we became a five-person committee running the government. Of course, I figured that, under the circumstances, Paula's position as head of security was more suited to leading the rescue of the people downstairs. Still, Daddy had given the job to me, and our committee reaffirmed it.

Daddy's decision made each of us equal in rank, and the outline I gave of our sections of government were reviewed and voted on by the group. That's how I found myself overseeing medical as well as culture.

-=#=-

The next day, I delegated jobs to each of the people. John and Rashda were put to work, figuring out how we could piece the ship back together. Somehow we needed to be able to connect the halves. Of course, we weren't going to do that until we knew that Amos was neutralized, but it would eventually be done.

Rachel and Carla started working toward a routine to help the people downstairs once we could work on their psyches.

Marc and Daddy were set to work on the bots. They were developing a rapid method of replacing bots if needed.

Mama and Paula began working toward disabling Amos.

And, me? Well... I found I'd delegated myself out of a job.

So, I was sitting in my office, staring at a book on my desk, when my daughter, Pearl, found me.

"Whatcha doing, Mom?" She asked me.

"Reading some logs. And I'm giving some of Marc's computer toys a try. This one takes memories and turns them into text."

"And then prints them out? That seems like a waste of resources."

I laughed. "Not really," I said as I pushed the book to the edge of my desk. As it slid off the edge, it disappeared.

"Is that a hologram? That's cool!"

"Yes, although the feel isn't quite right. It requires such fine control of low-powered fields. It tingles a bit when you turn the page."

“It’s still cool,” she told me.

I smiled and nodded.

“So how does it convert the memories to written text?”

I shook my head. “I’m not really sure. Marc is a genius with his computer programming.” I laughed a bit. “I suspect that your grandpa helped with it too.”

“Can I?” Pearl asked. I nodded, and she moved the book to where she could see it. After reading a bit, she said, “This records every detail. Of everything!”

“That’s why I’m reading it. See that link at the bottom of the page?”

Pearl nodded, and I continued. “Pressing that takes me into the memories themselves. I think some nanobots are somehow linked into this. Don’t ask me how.”

“Who’s memories are you looking at?”

“Amos’ of course,” I told her.

“But you were in his memories, Mom. Why are you going through them again?”

“I’m looking at them like this because the text doesn’t miss anything, and when I look at things, I see it from his point of view. This is like being under hypnosis and being retaken through an experience. Everything is amplified so nothing is missed.”

Pearl looked confused for a moment. “Do you think that’ll help, Mom?”

I paused, then shook my head. “No, sweetheart, but I can’t sit here doing nothing.”

Pearl nodded. “You’ve delegated everything to everyone else. So you’re waiting for results from them. You’re a victim of your own leadership.”

“Ha, ha,” I said sarcastically. The problem was, I knew Pearl was right. What was I supposed to do? “So what do you suggest?” I finally asked.

Pearl smiled hugely. “Let’s brainstorm!”

-=#=-

A few weeks later, I had a surprise. Mama and Paula told me they thought they had a way of disabling Amos. They had been able to communicate with his bots.

Mama called up a recording they had made of the conversation, and across the room, the wall seemed to fade from view, replaced by Mama and Daddy’s living room.

For a while, nothing seemed to happen. We watched as Mama and Paula took each other’s hands. Every movement seemed to stop, and their breathing became almost undetectable. Suddenly both of them spoke in perfect unison.

“We are Amos. You are danger. You will be neutralized.”

A moment later, both said, again in perfect unison, “We aren’t danger. We are Paula Dodson and Bernie Richards.” It was their bots speaking.

“Dodson?” I asked, looking at my sister. “I didn’t know you considered yourself married.”

“I didn’t expect the bots to say that, but I guess they consider us to be married,” she replied.

Mama glared at us both and rewound the hologram a bit. “This is important, you two. Pay attention, Rose.”

“Yes, Mama,” we both said contritely.

“State your business to Amos,” the bots said through Mama and Paula. Mama reached out and paused the recording. It was apparent that Amos’ bots had his attitude.

“We are here to speak to Amos regarding the people and animals on this vessel,” stated Mama and Paula’s bots. It was evident that Mama and Paula left most of the dialogue to their bots. I suppose it made sense. The bots were likely able to communicate their intents easier to Amos’ bots.

“We are Amos. State your business.”

“Amos has harmed many people.”

“Negative. Amos has harmed no one.”

“Amos has harmed many people,” the bots repeated.

“Show Amos!” his bots ordered.

Paula shuddered, remembering the next few moments. “You won’t see this, but my bots pulled his into my memories of the time I spent as a pony and as a decoration in Amos’ palace.”

“And then,” Mama supplied, “My bots pulled them into memories I had of the things Amos made us do.” She paused a moment and seemed to be searching for something. “They also,” she said cautiously, “must have pulled some things out of your mind, Honey. They showed your memories of recognizing Belinda, and then of Amos gloating over killing her and...” she turned green at the thought, “eating her.”

Paula took over as Mama worked to get her emotions under control.“Our bots also took all of us through the memories of Amos programming the bots of each person downstairs to change them, then purging all records of their DNA from the computers.”

I could tell that there were things Paula didn’t want to say about the experience, but I decided not to push her for any information.

"Did he do them individually?" I asked.

"Some, yes. But not all."

I didn't dare get my hopes up, but I asked, "Did he see any DNA that we could use to turn people back into their own selves?"

Mama shook her head. "No, Sweetie. I wish he had, but he didn't."

I watched the rest of the holo, and it was enlightening. Amos’ bots were extremely arrogant. I'm not sure if he programmed them that way or something they picked up from his brain. Either way, it grated on me.

-=#=-

I was in charge of the rescue, but I still wanted others to look at my decisions and tell me if they agreed, so I asked the administration to meet with me. I also thought it wise to include Mama, Rachel, and Carla.

We used John and my Living Area for the meeting. While my office would hold everyone, the living room was much more comfortable and didn't place me behind a desk when speaking to the others in the administration.

Rachel and Carla were hesitant when they heard of the arrogance of the bots. They were concerned that the bots might be more under his own control than they seemed. I had to admit. The thought had occurred to me as well.

“Even if they are, they can't hurt us,” he commented.

“That's not exactly true,” Paula told her husband. I hadn't heard them argue since they bonded, so this difference of opinion was interesting. “When you and John figure out how to reconnect us to the downstairs, they will be able to.”

“I'm not so sure, Paula,” he said. He turned to Mama and asked, “Mom, can you search Amos’ memories and see if he can communicate with his bots?”

She answered, “I've searched, and I've found no evidence that he can, but that doesn't mean he can't, just that he never tried. You can only prove the existence of something. Not the non-existence.”

Marc nodded. “I think we'll have to try this. It seems like it'll be our best bet.”

I nodded, then asked. “What do you think, John?”

He shrugged. “I'm not sure yet,” he answered. “I don't think we can execute this plan until we have a way of joining the two halves anyway.”

“Daddy?” I asked.

“I'm with John on this. I don't think we can make a decent decision yet,” he answered. “I think we should put this idea on the back burner for now. We need to look at more information and see if we can find anything else out.”

“Paula?” I asked.

“This isn't a command decision, Sis. You're in charge of this operation.”

“I still want everyone's opinions,” I told her. “This could potentially kill us all. Or worse.”

She sighed. “My honest opinion is this might very well be our only option. I recognize John and Daddy’s reluctance, but this may be the only chance we have when the time comes. If it is, I'm willing to take it.”

“I didn't say I wasn't, Paula,” John told her. “Neither did Dad, but while we have the time to examine other options, we should.”

“That extra time is because of your project?” Carla asked him.

“We're sure we can do it. In fact, we're ironing out the bugs.”

“Will those bugs become more complicated now?” she pointedly asked.

I was immediately enraged. “Carla!” I shouted.

In a complete reversal of how we did things as ’kids,’ Paula came to her defense. “Wait a minute, Rose.” She turned to our little sister. “I know you want that bastard dead, Carla, but John isn't that kind of person. He's not going to delay his project because he doesn't like what we're doing when it's done.”

Carla didn't say anything for a bit. For several minutes she stared at Paula with fire in her eyes. I didn't think Carla would back down, but finally, she turned to John and me. “Sorry,” she said simply.

It took me a few moments to calm down, but John held her gaze for a moment, then said, “Apology accepted.” He turned to me. “Give me a deadline.”

“Say what?” Marc asked. “I've got to replace a lot of wiring, and I'm not sure what it looks like over there!”

“The electronic connections between the two sides aren't important for the physical joining,” John told him.

“I beg to differ, John. We need to have control of the entire downstairs so we can segregate Amos from everyone else.”

“I may be able to help you there,” Daddy interjected.

“How?” I asked.

“The entire ship can be controlled by the command center, correct?”

“Of course, Daddy. You know that.”

“Then, what if we were to design a bot that could make its way to the command center and fashion a remote control device. Give us the ability to control everything from here.”

“And then while we're joining the halves, we let it loose,” Marc said. “That's intriguing.” He thought about it for a few minutes. “I'm wondering if it would be simpler to build a relay system in the command center, or program the bots to repair everything where we blew it loose.”

“I don't know much about the control systems, but you know what needs to be done in the command center. You haven't seen what needs done at the connection points,” I offered.

“Not to mention,” Daddy said, “you wouldn't need to fish through the connection points on this side. You could simply build the sending and receiving units here.”

“Why the receiving unit?” John asked.

“From my point of view, it will be much simpler to have the bots disassemble a premade unit, then reassemble it over there.”

John nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. They won't have to look for material to build it with.”

“That's part of it. Also, I won't have to program the entire unit into them. They'll do that as they disassemble it. It's actually how the bots learn lots of things.”

Marc was nodding. “That sounds great, Dad. I'll go that route, but once I'm done constructing the units, I'm going to continue rebuilding the connections on this side. As a backup.”

“Good idea,” Daddy told him.

“It sounds like we have a plan,” I said.

“I still need a deadline,” John told me.

“That's not necessary, John,” Carla said apologetically.

“I want one anyway,” he told her. “I want that skunk dead. He killed so many people, including our parents. He needs to be removed from our lives.”

Carla shook her head. “Have you any idea how many women he's had as furniture or decorations? Light fixtures suspended from ceilings. Statues in his ‘palace throne room?’”

“That’s why I want him dead,” John told her.

“I want him to spend time as he treated those women,” Carla explained. “I think it’s only fitting.”

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--Rosemary