All characters are 18 years old or older.
*****
I was haunted by the look in her eyes. The Rhea I had known, the woman that I had grown to love was gone. In her place was a homicidal stranger that would have cut me down without a moment's hesitation. I took a step back and my heel struck the metal suitcase. We stood there frozen in that singular moment where she would make her decision. I felt my perception of time dilate and slow. Rhea had been the center of my life for so long and once more she was the eye of my storm. Would she kill me? Would she reign in her rage and leave? I watched as her eyes glanced at the case and she bit her lower lip. Any other time I would have found it sexy but this moment was anything but normal. Tears slowly fell from her eyes and caressed her cheek. I could almost feel as she made her decision. I would live.
I kept my body between her and the case as she stormed out of the room. What the hell was that all about? A year ago I would have followed her out and demanded an answer but I knew her too well now to make that mistake. If I wanted answers I was going to have to find them on my own. That other part of me that was the A.I. was equally determined to uncover the truth about Rhea and her armor. I stowed the case beneath my bunk and sat in a meditative pose while we sought out the answers together. Tapping into the base's data hub was easy enough. We ghosted through the system leaving no trace of our passage. I was angry after seeing the expression on her face and the sting of her words left me wounded. What had they done to her? How integral was the armor to her existence? I was damn well going to find out. There is one thing I love about the military, they are efficient. They had digitally archived every little thing to save space and stored that information on secure bubble chip servers.
Getting to the servers was the easy part. Getting passed the A.I.'s guarding it was going to be tactically challenging. If I used my command override there would be a record of it. I would have to explain to Nick why I peeked at national secrets. He may or may not understand. The only other route was praying my digital self was better at sneaking than they were at guarding. What felt like minutes was in fact mere nanoseconds passing in the digital realm. I was still getting used to what Nick liked to call meat time and digital time. As flesh and blood beings we were prisoners of chemical reaction time and neural synapses firing. However, my A.I. allowed me access to a world where the beating of a human heart was an eternity. It was a bit disorientating moving from one to the other. I began to realize how much time my A.I. had to process requests. It must have felt like years working on solutions for problems like Blink and Ares. On the up side it was only days or so in human reckoning.
The A.I.'s watching the gate suddenly stood down and allowed us access. I was about to ask when I realized that Nick had granted us access. My other half must have emailed Nick and requested a brief glimpse into secure files so that we could help Rhea. I sometimes forget that my desires become manifest with my digital self. It wasn't a conscious desire but we knew each other so well that a need was fulfilled without the necessity for words. We entered the convoluted maze of a massive data archive and I let the A.I. take the lead. I watched intently at everything he did. We found the location of the node and plugged in. I was shocked at the size of the file and the amount of data on Rhea. We also pulled any and all records on her armor and left satisfied that we could now understand and help her out. I couldn't have been more wrong.
I was about to withdraw from the hoard when my curiosity got the better of me. I found the table of contents and took a quick list of all of the projects both active and inactive. Since we were here I grabbed a copy of a few of the more interesting files that carried an ultraviolet clearance to access. I figured if I got bored I'd have some reading material. I spent the last of my time in the digital ether reading every scrap of information we had gleaned and it made little sense until I connected the dates. The files went back decades, nearly a century. The last of my doubt fell away. She wasn't just a century old but centuries of experience were locked behind those ghostly violet eyes of hers. She wasn't a Fae. Rhea belonged to a much older and far more alien race called the J'Nai.
I looked at her medical files in great length and they were far more extensive than those that Zoe showed me. Rhea outstripped a human being on any and all levels both physically and mentally. I saw why she spooked Zoe so much. She looked so human and yet she was so different on the inside. There was only a five percent difference between Rhea's DNA and the average human being. I was shocked when I remembered that there was only a two percent difference between apes and humans. How inferior we must appear to her. I pushed that thought aside and continued my research. There was a mention in the files describing her attachment to her armor. The doctors that examined her described a fanatical desire for Rhea to regain her armor. They used almost the same words she did. If Rhea ever recovered the armor she would wipe out every living thing until no one or nothing breathed. But why was she so damn fanatical as they put it?
'There is a second attached file,' my A.I. pointed out.
'Another medical file,' I asked.
'Yep, I think you might find it interesting,' he said.
I opened the file and whistled. It must be a male of her race. The extensive physical traits were nearly identical to hers. The brainwave patterns also showed the heightened intelligence and reaction time unique to her species. I guessed this was an adolescent about to reach maturity. The ongoing growth was fast and quite extensive. The estimations to reach his peak were a matter of days. I wonder if they even knew each other.
'They do,' my A.I. said with a bit of humor in his voice.
'How can you be so sure?' I asked.
'Easy, that is your medical chart,' he replied.
Mike dropped and there was stunned silence on my end. How the hell had this even happened? I watched a holographic display of sorts play out in front of me. The outer shell was mostly devoid of detail. The one thing that was highlighted was my brain and neck. It showed the implant and it interacting with my mind. All is fine until a week after implantation when the nanites migrated from my skull to the rest of my body. It was a literal invasion of every body system I possessed. What had caused the malfunction or was it a malfunction at all? The display showed some kind of external force reprogramming the microscopic robots and sending them on their way. Many of the nanites harvested fat cells and converted those to their purpose. That is why my weight continued to drop and I packed on muscle so quickly. It wasn't the water at all or maybe that was just part of the change. Did Nick know what had happened? Had this happened to Cindy? I left the digital and like a diver breaching the surface I gasped as I regained my body. I looked around but I was alone.
'I have kept changes from you so as not to frighten you,' the A.I. flashed on my field of vision.
"Changes... what the hell have you been keeping from me?"
'Close your eyes and I will show you,' he said.
I closed my eyes and felt a tingling behind my eyes. After a minute or so I was told to open my eyes. I did so reluctantly and gasped when I saw the transformed room. This wasn't seeing things in a different spectrum. I was used to that. This was something far more sublime. I perceived colors that had no name in any language. I looked at my hand and there was a drastic change to my world. There were whirls and eddies of energy coursing over my flesh. I had heard psychics on television talk about auras. Was this what they were talking about? My A.I. was about to shut it off when I told him not to.
"I have to get used to it sometime, why not now. Rhea did this didn't she?"
'Yes... your link to the element clinched it for her.'
"What element... what the hell are you talking about," I asked feeling the upwelling of fear beginning to consume me.
'The water... the rare trace element in the water bonded with you on a genetic level. Normally people have to keep drinking the water to maintain the benefits. But you were special, well you and Cindy. She is still growing so the effects may be even more profound.'
"Let me adapt to my new world and then we can talk some more."
It felt like I had been in the dark all of my life and suddenly someone turned on the lights. I heard voices outside my door and listened. What I heard didn't sound like typical military chatter. I peered outside and saw a technician walk away and he was cursing about some sort of failure. More voices came and I looked down the other end of the hall and two guards were doing their rounds. The strange part is that I heard more voices than just two. That's when it hit me. I was hearing what they were saying as well as what they were thinking. Oh hell, I see why he kept this locked away. I wasn't sure I was ready for this. How would I do in the outside world with all of those people and thousands of minds trying to crowd into mine? I panicked and closed the door. I sat with my back against a wall and sunk down to the floor. How could I give up one because of the other? I couldn't. I had to find a way of dealing with this new gift of mine.
I felt how close my A.I. was and it was comforting. I wasn't alone in this. I closed my eyes and listened to the thoughts going on around me. Distance fell away as I picked up on technicians monitoring the construction of the ring. I could hear people in the mess hall as they ate their meal. The positive thing was that I could only hear their thoughts and not both conversations at once. I could do this given enough time and practice. My thoughts returned to Rhea. She was the one that had done this to me. My first thoughts were why but the answer was quite obvious. She was alone or more accurately she was lonely. We had hit it off at once and she decided to give me a great gift.
"Oh Rhea," I muttered as I picked up on conversations both spoken and unspoken. "I love you too!"
A few heartbeats later the door flew open and Rhea stood there tears streaming from her face. She picked me up off the floor like I was a ragdoll and kissed me. I could feel her passion. Hell, I could almost taste it like it was a whole new sense awakening inside of me. Despite my promise to the Major, Rhea's hunger would not be denied. This new level of intimacy was addictive. The sheer intensity of every caress, every taste and every pleasure was overwhelming.
