To Return Home

Thanks to Malady for his help editing and for ideas.

Cover image from Unsplash

3.2

Daddy enlisted Jack and Sylvia to help him work on a way to repair the people’s bodies.

They found that the heinously fast changes that Amos favored, required a commensurate amount of bots inside a person. Structure changes to the skull as well as any in the brain, weren’t made with the health of the victim in mind. As the brain held the person, the repair project started with that. But, due to starting without the person’s original genes, they planned to work back from what they did have, reversing all of Amos’s changes.

Even though Amos-Bot was helping them and knew a massive amount about programming the bots, there was still a lot to do, and they hoped to come up with a better solution. They already tried to find some kind of archive of the DNA of each person. Jack and Sylvia discovered that the brains were almost exactly the same as before the transformation, and it was hoped that the DNA inside was accurate. That, however, quickly turned out to not be the case. The DNA had been modified to keep an accurate brain, but to change the body.

The project would have already been difficult if everyone was still human-size; unfortunately, some of the women had been miniaturized into smaller animals, such as squirrels, and rabbits. There were even some who became insects. For that, their brains were shrunk, so the majority of their personalities were held in their crystals. Amos-Bot assured us, however, that they were fully aware of what they had been, although, it might have been better if they weren’t.

It was John who finally saw the best solution we had. “Those people know what they were,” he pointed out. “They know what they looked like. There’s no problem with their thought processes, so what if we change their DNA to make them look as close to their original self as they remember? It won’t be quite right, but it will be extremely close.”

“Women sometimes see themselves as being overweight when they’re not,” I told him. “There are other inconsistencies between how they view themselves and reality as well. Maybe they think their nose is too big, or their eyebrows are not quite right.”

“That’s well and good, but in their crystals is an accurate view of their bodies, no matter how they felt it looked,” he reminded me. He turned to the faux Amos. “What do you think?”

“Your idea has merit. It will get the people back into human bodies.”

“But the first order of business is to release them from their mental prisons,” Jack said.

“That is true. It will take some time to change their bodies back. While the huge supply of bots in each person can be raised to the unsafe levels that Amos used, they shouldn’t be.”

“To release them?” Sylvia asked. “I would think this would be the one time it should be done.”

“Each time it is done, it endangers their lives.”

“Shouldn’t we give them the choice?” she asked.

“They have been what they are for a very long time now. They might make a spur of the moment choice that they would later regret. I do not think it would be a good idea to give them that choice.”

I had to admit that I understood the bot’s line of thinking. Suddenly, I realized that Amos-Bot had used the pronoun ‘I’. Did that mean they were figuring out more of the human viewpoint? They still used a very formal speech pattern, however. I figured I’d simply have to wait and see.

-=#=-

Doctor Rachel, our resident therapist, and I started working together, along with Carla-Bot, trying to convince the downstairs bots to allow us to communicate directly to their people. The first one we picked had relatively minor changes. They were a palace guard that Carla had suggested.

Speaking of Carla, she had been completely accepted as Amos by the bots downstairs, so she instructed the guard to go check on the new connection tubes to the upstairs section.

He started checking out by the center “U” tubes that connected the command center to upstairs. Paula and some of her people were waiting for him, however, and knocked him out with a stun gun

It was a tough race for Paula’s people to get the guard to the medical bay before the bots revived him, but once they had him there, they put him on an examination table inside a small stasis chamber, at the same level of slow down as Amos’s.

Jack and Sylvia got busy examining the man, while I looked on, a few feet away from the table.

I knew everyone on the ship, but I couldn’t place him. His body probably hadn’t been changed much, but he was simply out of context. He was wearing what amounted to a Roman Centurion outfit, like what the Auton, Rory Williams¹, or Pond, depending on who you talked to, would wear in the old Doctor Who TV Series John and I had binge watched a few years back.

I tried to picture the guard in different clothes, and it was better, but he was still out of place. He felt like someone! His face seemed too wide. He was too bulky. Then I had it. This was Ralph! While he spoke with the sort of conglomeration of accents we all used, he insisted on the British pronunciation of his name -- ‘Raif’.

But Ralph was a small man. He was a doctor who had worked with the people downstairs. But now, he was a huge man. I wondered what types of things Amos had made this gentle man do while a guard. I was certain it was something we’d have to help him work through.

It wasn’t long before Jack turned around and said. “I’m sure you’ve recognized Ralph.”

I nodded.

“He’s physically fit, but, as you can see, he’s been modified to work as a palace guard.”

“Is this something Amos did, just to make people feel out of place?”

“There is that possibility,” Jack said. He looked at me and asked, “Did you see anything like that in his memories?”

“No,” I answered, “but I don’t think that the memories I received were real. It seems he constructed ones that would throw me off what he was actually doing.”

“Yes, he did,” Carla-Bot said. “In my ‘talks’ with Amos-Bot, I’ve found out worse. It wasn’t just women who were turned into things not human.”

Rachel and I simply stared at her.

“Hal, the man who ‘owned’ you was immune to the the effects of bots.”

“Immune?” Jack asked.

“Yes. His natural immunity was extremely strong.”

“Was?” asked Sylvia. I was afraid we wouldn’t like the answer.

“Since his immune system was able to defeat the bots, when Amos found out what had happened, he had some ‘surgeons’ convert Hal to ‘female’. He was then forced to take your place in the chandelier.”

“Why did you say ‘was’?” I quietly asked.

“The massive infections that resulted from his ‘alterations’ proved too much in the long run.”

“So he died when they ‘made him a woman?’” Sylvia asked.

“No. The surgery was successful. He died from being installed into the chandelier.”

“So in escaping, I killed him,” I said sadly.

Rachel put her arm around me. “In helping you, and others, he took a risk. He’s a hero.”

I nodded. The revelation that he was dead, at least partially, because of me, was hard to take. I looked up at those surrounding me. “Could I have some time alone?” I asked.

I didn’t wait for an answer, and as I was leaving the room, I heard Rachel say to Carla-Bot, “You may as well shut down. I’ll let you know when she’s back.”

“I would prefer not,” the bots said. “I would like to explore the bay.”

“Suit yourself,”Rachel told her.

-=#=-

I wandered down to the restaurant, where I knew I belonged. It seemed strange that I was part of the command staff. I knew Paula had been furious with John, Marc, and me. I knew Daddy had as well, and I wondered if the two would ever really forgive me.

I entered my kitchen and looked around. Everything was the same, but it felt completely different. What had been my refuge was now breached. I couldn’t relax here. Instead, I felt restless. Something had to be done so noone else had to die like Hal had.

Wait a minute!

Carla-Bot said he’d been immune to the bots! Was there any way we could use that to rid ourselves of them? I didn’t know, but I’d ask Jack and Sylvia! Maybe there was a way!

Then I remembered what Carla-Bot said as I exited. It -- she wanted to explore the bay. Were the bots developing personalities? I started to panic. What if this was another of Amos’s traps for us? Was he setting us up for more troubles? I sure hoped not!

I couldn’t stay by myself in the kitchen, so I decided to see what John and the other men were up to. I made my way back to the town, and over to Daddy’s lab. When I entered, John looked up at me from where he was working with Marc. Instead of acknowledging him, I sat down in one of the chairs in front of Daddy’s desk, and closed my eyes. I felt for the link to John. This close to him, it was very strong, and comforting, but I also sensed concern, making me open my eyes and look toward him. He started toward me, but I shook my head and gave him the best smile I could. He stopped and gave me a confused look, but turned back to where he was working.

I watched the two work together for some time. They were both consummate professionals, and worked like they knew what the other was thinking when their areas of expertise overlapped. I felt like they were twins sometimes, and had started thinking of them that way. ‘The twins’ -- Paula and my husbands.

John and Marc were working on the schematics for a new set of computers. There was a blonde woman working with them too. Very blonde, with porcelain white skin. She was extremely familiar, but, surprisingly, I couldn’t place her. With the bots in our brains and the memory crystals, we didn’t forget anything. So why... Suddenly, I had it. I almost didn’t notice the aura around her until she moved her hands. This was Amos-Bot! But why as a woman? Amos hated women!

I suddenly realized that John was grinning at me. “Amos-Bot realized how on edge we were with someone who looked just like Amos hanging around. It made it harder to trust him. So he suggested we modify his body to a female version.”

“It makes very little difference to me,” the woman said, “whether I present as male or female.”

Suddenly, I found myself laughing out loud! I wondered what Amos would think of this situation. I knew he had made himself look like Carla, and Kari, and who knows how many other women, but that had been out of necessity. He would hardly see his bots taking on this form as necessary. It wouldn’t help him at all.

John stepped over to where I was sitting. “Are you okay?” He asked, again concern plainly written on his face.

I nodded, but I couldn’t stop laughing yet. After a minute or two, I was able to calm myself down, to stand up. I placed a kiss on John’s lips and told him, “I’m just fine now.” I turned to the woman and said, “Thank you. You’ve made my day.”

With that, I gave John another quick peck, smiled cheekily at him, then started walking back to the examination room. I was still very sorry about Hal, but it almost seemed bearable now.