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The Voyage of the Minotaur – Chapter 17 Excerpt

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“Look at all these lousy zeets,” said Graham Dokkins, as he and Senta walked between the hundreds of make-shift tents on the southwest side of the hill from the barracks.

“What are zeets?” asked Senta.

“That’s what they’re called. My Da says they’re evil, and they don’t even believe in Kafira.”

“Zurfina doesn’t believe in Kafira either. I mean, not like us. She says the Church is all bullocks.”

“Yeah, well my Da says she’s evil too.”

If Senta was offended at the idea that anyone would call Zurfina evil, she didn’t let on. She bounced ahead, her skipping steps seeming to defy gravity. In one hand she carried a stick and in the other her doll. Graham stomped after her.

“Why do you gotta carry that doll everywhere?” he asked.

“Cause I’m a girl, stupid.”

They reached the edge of the tent village. Some of the women from among the Freedonian refugees had set up a series of clotheslines and were hanging up clothes. Almost every piece was black, white, or grey.

“They don’t seem any different to me,” said Senta. “Except they talk funny.”

Suddenly several of the women who had been hanging clothes began to scream and they all began to run toward the tents. Looking up, the two children saw a steel colored streak flying downward from out of the sun. The steel dragon buzzed the tops of the women’s heads and then zipped along parallel to the clothesline and with a flick of its tail, knocked every other piece of clothing from the line into the dirt. Spreading its wings out to their full six foot breadth, it stopped in mid-air and dropped to the ground at Senta’s feet. It opened its mouth to the sky and a small puff of smoke shot out.

“Funneee,” said the dragon.

“It’s not either funny, you potty twonk. You’re going to get everyone angry, and who’s going to get in trouble? Not you. Me, that’s who.”

Despite Senta’s declaration that the dragon’s actions were not funny, Graham was laughing heartily. The dragon hopped over to his feet and rubbed his head against the boy’s leg as if to share in his mirth. Graham, still laughing, slapped his knee. The dragon suddenly bit his hand.

“Sod it!” shouted the boy, his laughter suddenly gone.

The dragon looked up in the air, with feigned innocence.

“See, now you’ve made Graham angry too,” said Senta. Both the girl and the dragon looked at the boy, who had gone all white and sweaty.

“My Da didn’t say it, but I think dragons are evil.”

“Pet,” said the dragon, in a pleading tone.

“Yeah, alright,” Senta said, fishing a small brown bottle from the pocket of her baggy black dress. “But if you bite anyone else, I’m going to need a new bottle of this.”

She poured the potion from bottle onto the wound on Graham’s hand. The liquid bubbled and fizzed on contact with the boy’s blood, but after a few moments nothing was left of the injury but a small scar.

Senta, Graham, and the dragon looked up to see they were completely surrounded by a crowd of people. The reptile leapt to the girl’s shoulder in one swift motion and curled up around her neck. Graham stood up next to Senta and took her hand in his. The people began to whisper amongst themselves. Finally one of the women stepped forward.

“Sorry about your clothes,” said Senta.

“Der drache is, how you say, vunterfull,” said the woman.

“Oh yeah, he’s great,” said Graham, sarcastically.

“He is bootifull. He is yours?”

“Yeah, sort of,” said Senta.

“You bet he’s hers,” said Graham. “She’s a really powerful sorceress and he’s her dragon. And they’re really scary and magical. Just look at them. And that’s her magic doll.”

He suddenly started laughing. The dragon made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a smirk.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 17 Excerpt

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Four Amatharians waited for us within the room. The man who opened the door was the tallest man that I had yet met, something over seven and a half feet. Just looking at him frightened me. I could imagine how an enemy facing him felt. He was middle-aged, with streaks of grey shooting through his straight black hair. His hawkish nose and a large scar across one cheek, gave him the look of a predator. He was clad in the garments of a knight, though his tabard was fringed with gold trim; His crest was an eye with a flaming sun as its pupil. He was Reyno Hissendar, Norar Remontar’s uncle, and the chief of the Hissendar Trading Group.

The second fellow was equally impressive, though not because of height. He was a formidably muscular man with a piercing gaze and a tightly set jaw. His tabard was fringed with gold, and his crest showed a flaming sun within a circle. His bodysuit wasn’t black though, it was tan. I had seen Knights in other colors, Nicohl Messonar for instance, wearing the colors of a teacher. I later learned that tan was the traditional color of Archaeologists. He was Vandan Lorrinos, a highly respected member of the Sun Clan, and a fleet commander.

The third person in the room was a woman. She was a breathtakingly beautiful older version of Vena Remontar, or for that matter, of the Princess. She was just over six feet tall, with long straight black hair framing her beautiful dark blue face. She had the same stern look about her that I had found in Nicohl Messonar, and the same ability to seemingly look into a person’s heart. She stared at me with what I thought was a look of more than simple appraisal. She was the mother of Vena Remontar and the aunt of Norar Remontar, and her name was Mindana Remontar. She wore a bodysuit and tabard, but without the crest, indicating she was not a knight. Her bodysuit was dark blue, indicating her profession was that of biologist.

The final individual in the room, was the man for whom I had been summoned– the Overlord of the Sun Clan, Nevin Lorrinos. There was no doubt that he was Norar Remontar’s grandfather, for he was tall and handsome, with the same prominent features and the same noble bearing. He wore a great black robe with a golden crest above the heart– crossed swords over a flaming sun, the same crest that Noriandara Remontar had worn. I bowed low to him.

“Greetings knight,” he said.

“Yes,” said Mindana Remontar. “You have certainly wasted no time integrating yourself into our culture.”

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 16 Excerpt

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The shrine took my breath away. Not because it was big, though it was that. Not because it was carefully inlaid with precious stones and highly polished gold and silver, though it was. It quite knocked the breath from my lungs because the symbol on the great shrine was an A. I don’t mean it was an Amatharian A. It was an honest to god, Greco-Roman, American English, Times font type A!

“That’s an A!” I shouted.

The entire population of the hall turned and looked at us.

“That’s an A.” I said.

“Show some respect, knight,” growled Vena Remontar. “Keep your voice down.”

“That’s an A,” I whispered.

“You are correct, knight.” A voice came from behind us.

We turned to see an older Amatharian man dressed in the brown robes of the templars, and wearing a large silver medallion with the letter A on it. Vena Remontar bowed low, and I followed suit.

“I am Kurar Ka Remiant Oldon Domintus,” said the man, identifying himself as an overlord. “I am the High Templar.”

“It is an honor to meet you, I’m sure,” I said. “That is an A?”

“Yes, you are quite correct. That is an A.”

“Well. How did it get here?”

“Before we answer any of your questions,” the Overlord said. “you have a great many things to do for us.”

Oldon Domintus turned and led the two of us across the great hall to a doorway opposite that through which we had come. Beyond the chamber was a great long corridor. This hallway was lined with pictures painted in the bright colors: pictures of Amatharian knights engaged in battles, pictures of templars performing rituals in the great plaza, pictures of great buildings being constructed in Amathar. The High Templar maintained the image of a man showing friends around his home.

“Has Vena Remontar told you about our temple?”

“I’m afraid she has not yet had time.”

“This temple was built three hundred generations ago. Construction was begun under the direction of Amath himself. He envisioned a monument to his people where they could look for guidance. It was built here beside the Garden of Souls, so that those feeling the draw of their souls, could reflect.

“You felt no need to reflect before entering the garden?” he asked me.

“I’ve always been a pretty spontaneous fellow,” I replied.

“So it seems,”

The Voyage of the Minotaur – Chapter 15 Excerpt

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“I believe it to be a function of their reptilian nature,” replied the professor. “They can eat great amounts of meat at one time and then go without for perhaps weeks. I’m sure that this will be of benefit to us once they begin fulfilling their purpose as our natural servants.”
Zeah didn’t pay too much attention to the professor’s pronouncement—in truth, he seldom paid a great deal of attention to what Calliere said—but this time it was because of the presence of Egeria Lusk at Calliere’s side. She wore a teal brocaded dinner gown with large gold buttons from the neck to below the waist, and a straw boater with a teal ribbon around it.
“You look lovely Egeria,” Zeah thought he probably sounded as though he was gushing, but he didn’t care.
“Thank you, Zeah,” she said. “I must say you look ruggedly handsome.”
Zeah looked down at himself. He had been wearing the same type of khaki safari clothing that the soldiers wore. In fact, he had requested a set of the clothing from the mercenary company supplies when he found that he would be spending the day playing tour guide to an oversized lizard. He had to admit that the color accentuated his tall, thin form. And he thought the stone knife blade worn at his belt made him look manly. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd.
“I haven’t seen much of you the past two days,” he said.
“Don’t expect to see much of me the next few days either,” she said. “The Result Mechanism is being brought ashore tomorrow and the professor will need help getting it up and running. After that I need to input the measurements from the survey.”
After watching the look on his face for a moment, she burst out laughing. “You really are medicine for the ego! If you’re going to be all that broken up about not seeing me, you might as well come by and help me with the great machine.” She said the words “great machine” in an abnormally deep voice.
Zeah perked right up.
“I might just do that,” he said, guaranteeing himself in his own mind that he would.
The next morning, most of the colonists were amazed to find that the lizardmen had all left. Only the sentries had seen them rise early in the morning, gather together their meager gear and the collection of gifts of food and manufactured goods which the humans had given them, and exit through the gate in the wall. They took nothing which did not rightfully belong to them, and they left no word with anyone that they were leaving—anyone being Master Augie, who was the only one fluent in their language.
Zeah knew that Miss Dechantagne’s plans for the colony ultimately depended on the lizardmen. They would be needed extensively for manual labor. He also knew that Miss Dechantagne had negotiated well into the night with Chief Ssithtsutsu. He didn’t know what the outcome was. He had better things to do that listen to Master Augie’s back and forth translation. Better things being looking at and talking to Egeria. All the same, he was glad that the Lizzies were gone. They were so very… well, reptilian.
Zeah placed his khakis in the laundry and put on a grey suit. Without the lizardman at his side, it just didn’t seem right to be wearing jungle clothing, especially since they weren’t really in a jungle. Technically this was a rain forest, but the huge redwoods and spruce trees certainly did not constitute a jungle. Starting directly into his morning duties, as he always did, Zeah took his clipboard in hand and went to check on each of the individuals he was overseeing. The need of almost one thousand individuals for fresh food was great. A number of different plans for supplying those needs had been developed. Hunters were again being sent out to procure meat and if possible to capture more local animals for domestication. Another group of men and women would search once again for edible plants, this endeavor having proven fruitful (Zeah laughed to himself at the pun), and another group had been assigned the job of fishermen. They would do their fishing from the shore of the bay. Finally, with a mind to the long term, several areas around the hill where the barracks were located were tagged as locations for gardens, and forty colonists would prepare them for planting.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 15 Excerpt

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“Alexander Ashton! Alexander Ashton! You don’t understand!” she cried. “You don’t know! Once you cross into the Garden, you cannot come out again! To come out without your knighthood, is the greatest disgrace!”

I waved to acknowledge her. I could see a kind of fear in her face, even at this distance. I have often jumped into something without thinking, and I resigned myself to the fact that this was probably just such an occasion, though it didn’t quite seem fair that I should bear all of the burden, drawn as I was without my consent. I was compelled beyond my ability to refuse. I saw that Vena Remontar stepped over to speak with the group of templars, no doubt to plead that I was only an ignorant savage. I didn’t watch to see the outcome, but turned and made my way into the wilderness.

I had walked a mile or more, when I turned to look back. The gate was no longer visible, lying beyond a small hill that I had crossed without really thinking about it. In fact, I could no longer see the city in any direction, though I knew that it lay all around me. I didn’t know how large the Garden of Souls was, but there was a small mountain rising up ahead of me, so I headed toward it. I know it must have been a number of miles, but it seemed that I crossed the distance and climbed over the mountain, in no time at all.

When I reached the summit I looked down into a small valley surrounding a blue pool. It was not the most beautiful valley that I had ever seen, but is seemed a nice place to await my soul. I was unsure as to just what I was really waiting for. I knew that the Amatharians met their souls here, but just what was a soul? I could only think of the soul as a mystical force, as in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, but I knew that the Amatharian soul was different. For one thing, not everyone had one. For another, I knew there was some physical manifestation. There was a force of some kind which made the remiant’s sword glow and cut through anything. I had seen it myself.

I sat down on the ground, below a small tree, beside the blue pool. Try as I might, I just couldn’t feel fearful about what I had done. Any sane person would, I suppose. I had stepped into a life or death situation without any thought at all. If I came out without a soul I would be disgraced and would be forced to leave the only friends that I knew in this world. If I didn’t come out at all, I would die where I sat. Still, I wasn’t sad or afraid or unhappy. I was fine. At least that’s how I remember it.

A slight breeze picked up, and blew low clouds in to block out the sun. I leaned on my right hand, and felt something smooth beneath my palm. Looking down to see what it was, I saw a partially buried skull grinning back at me. I slowly looked around, and for the first time noticed that the ground around the little pool was littered with bones, some with decomposing flesh still hanging upon them. Here were the remains of those who failed to find their souls. I suddenly felt my stomach sink and my loins tighten. Here was the fear that had failed to manifest itself up until this point. I should say two fears, for there were two distinct emotions, and I didn’t know which was causing me the most anxiety– the fear that I would die here, or the fear that I would prove unworthy and drag myself from the garden in disgrace.

These thoughts were still occupying my mind when I noticed a small flame directly in front of me. Something on the ground had caught fire. The fire was the size one would expect from a freshly filled cigarette lighter or five or six wood matches lit together, though I couldn’t quite tell what was on fire. Nothing seemed to be consumed by the blaze. Then the little fire hopped toward me, leaving nothing scorched in its wake, and stopped within arms reach. At the same time, I felt a tickling sensation on the surface of my scalp. I had the impression of thinking a thought, or smelling a smell, or reading a word which I could not quite identify.

“You are my soul,” I said, a feeling of awe coming over me.

The little flame burned and I continued to have the tickling sensation in my head, which continued until it became an itching and then an aching.

The Voyage of the Minotaur – Chapter 14 Excerpt

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Iolanthe dismissed the three men and walked swiftly to the stern of the ship where Yuah was awaiting her. The dressing maid was wearing a simple grey wool dress over a white linen foundation. Her hair was pulled up into a tight bun, but even its severity didn’t take away from her obvious beauty. Though Iolanthe was accounted one of the most beautiful women in the great city of Brech, she recognized the truth that few did—Yuah was more beautiful. Their difference in wealth, status, and religion obscured the fact, but it was a fact, none the less.
“Did you see Terrence just now?”
“Yes Miss.”
“You’ve been checking up on him, I know.”
“Yes Miss.”
“He doesn’t look very good. Is he… alright?”
“Yes. I don’t know. I think so.”
Putting thoughts of her brother or the relative attractiveness of her dressing maid aside, Iolanthe toured the ship from stem to stern, from the main deck to the lowest deck. There was much to do and she intended to make sure that it was all done and done properly. When an obvious need presented itself, she assigned the task immediately. When a need was less obvious, she gave Yuah a note to remind her about it later. When they reached deck four, Yuah stopped unexpectedly.
“What is the matter?” asked Iolanthe.
“This is my deck,” said Yuah. “My cabin is just up on the right.”
“Yes?”
“Well, there are too many doors in this hallway. The doorway… here,” she pointed to the second door on the left. “That door shouldn’t be here.”
Iolanthe smiled. “Excellent.” She walked over and rapped sharply on the door.
It opened and Senta, Zurfina’s ward, looked out with a puzzled look on her face. Iolanthe was sure that it was the first time during the entire voyage from Brechalon that anyone had knocked on the door.
“Is your mistress at home?” asked Iolanthe.
The girl nodded. A moment later she was replaced in the doorway by the sorceress. She had evidently just gotten out of bed, and was clad in an ankle length but completely sheer nightgown. With no shoes on her feet, she was several inches shorter than Iolanthe.
“Yes?”
“We have an assignment for you, sorceress,” said Iolanthe. “The creatures in the bay need to be driven away from the area where we are planning to build a dock. They need to be kept permanently away, or at least long enough for the construction to be completed.”
“I will take care of it,” said the sorceress, and closed the door.
Iolanthe turned around to look at her dressing maid with an uncharacteristically broad smile upon her face.
“That was most satisfying,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Yes Miss.”
“I think it’s about time for lunch,” said Iolanthe.
“If you’ll let me know the menu and the guest list, I’ll contact Mrs. Colbshallow and the wait staff.”
“I was thinking that you and I could have lunch.”
Yuah stood looking blankly for a moment, and then placed the palm of her hand against the wall of the corridor as though she were steadying herself in uneven seas.
“No need to look as though you’re going to pass out,” said Iolanthe.
“No Miss, It’s just…”
“Consider it a weak moment.”
“You don’t have weak moments, Miss.”
“No, well. You see Yuah, I don’t have any friends here.”
“You don’t have any friends back home either, Miss.”
“Thank you for your merciless honesty, Yuah,” said Iolanthe. “Peers then. This is a new world. If I’m going to have any kind of social life at all, I’m going to need a new group with whom to socialize—a new class if you will.”
“I won’t fit into that class, Miss,” said Yuah. “I’m the wrong religion.”
“No one is going to care about that anymore.” “People will always care, Miss.”

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 14 Excerpt

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As I said this, I swung down. I knew that were we really engaged in battle, her sword would have glowed with power, and sliced through the mundane metal of my own, but for now, the soul was asleep, and we were on equal terms. Actually, I had an advantage of superior strength. She blocked my swing, but was unprepared for the added power, and it knocked her from her feet. Without hesitation, she swung toward my knees. I jumped up, and the blade passed harmlessly below me. The young knight rolled to her feet.

I could see by the half smile on her lips that she was enjoying herself. With a flick of her left wrist so quick that I almost didn’t see it, she whipped her short sword from its sheath and grasped it like a dagger. I chopped down with my blade in an attempt to catch her off balance, but she wasn’t off balance. She blocked my blow with the shorter blade and began to attack with the longer. Then she attacked with both swords, forcing me to defend, and I am sure, hoping to wear me down. Unable to attack for the moment, I began to leap quickly to either side, and then to the back, forcing her to chase me. I knew that it was I who would be able to wear her down first, and after several dozen parries, I could see in her eyes that she was coming to the same realization.

Here was the advantage I needed. I rained a series of blows at her head, then swung with power at her side. Like she had before, Vena Remontar spun around with her back to me and swung her sword, tip down, outward to meet mine. I expected to have a quick shot at her exposed back and left side, but even as she blocked my attack, she had with her left hand, driven her short sword straight back under her arm, and into my stomach.

“Umph!” I grunted in surprise. I expected that I had been cut through, but the tip of her sword merely pricked my skin.

Vena Remontar wiped the tiny drop of blood from her sword tip onto her tabard, then sheathed her sword. With the drawing of first blood, the contest was over.

“I’m satisfied,” she said. “I thought that perhaps Norar Remontar was being overly generous. But you are quite skilled.”

“Still, you defeated me,” I said, still holding a hand over my wound.

“It could have gone either way.”

The Voyage of the Minotaur – Chapter 13 Excerpt

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It was chilly and wisps of mist hung in the air. On the distant shore, beyond the wall formed by impossibly tall redwood trees, large spruces, massive maple and bay trees, filled in between by thick huckleberry and azalea bushes and wave upon wave of rhododendron, some giant and no doubt frightening monster roared out a challenge. From its tiny animal carrier on deck, the little dragon answered.
“Gawp!”
Senta stepped onto the deck and knelt down by the box. Zurfina had dressed her in another weird outfit, this one a floor length black dress with a white collar. A black ceramic rose right in the front of her neck that made it difficult to look down at the high-heeled black sandals on her feet. Of course Zurfina had on a matching dress, and cut a striking figure standing along the railing of the forward deck with the Captain, Miss Dechantagne, the Dechantagne brothers, and other notables, all of whom were dressed in light summer clothing, as they surveyed the coastline.
“Pet!” said the dragon.
“Yep, it’s me,” said Senta. “I’m going to take you out, but you have to have your leash on.”
The dragon hissed. She opened the door of the carrier and the dragon climbed out onto the top. He turned his head and pointedly looked the other direction as she snapped the little chain onto the ring around his ankle. Once the little clip had snapped shut, Senta attached the other end of the chain to a bracelet on her right wrist.
“See there. We’re both chained by the wrist. Nobody’s the boss.”
“Gawp.” said the dragon, and then spreading its wings to balance, it climbed up her arm and onto her shoulder. It slithered down to lie across her shoulders, one hand and one foot holding onto her dress and one hand and one foot holding onto her hair. Senta stood up. The little dragon was now over four feet long from nose to tip of tail, but he was only about six inches thick across the belly and he was surprisingly light.
“What do you want to do?”
“Gawp.”
“Me too. This is sooo boring.”
The ship had been sailing parallel to the coast for the past four days and Senta was getting tired of it. What was the point of sailing all the way to Mallon, if you didn’t get out and walk around on it? Twenty days was more than enough time to explore every square inch of the largest battleship and Senta had spent more than three times that length of time on the Minotaur. Not even murders, gunfights, and drinking wine until you threw up could take away the boredom forever.
“Fina,” said the dragon.
“Alright.”
Senta walked toward the front of the ship. She had gone only about halfway to where Zurfina and the others stood watching the coastline roll past, when a figure stepped out of the shadows. A freckled face and striped shirt quickly identified the shady figure.
“Hey Graham,” said Senta.
“Hi Senta. What’ya doing?”
“Nothing. He wants to go up by the grown-ups.” She indicated the dragon with her thumb.
“Can I come?”
“Sure. Just don’t get too close, cause he’ll bite you.”
“I thought he was tame.”
“You can’t tame a dragon. Zurfina says you can’t tame anything that’s smarter than you are.”
“Who says he’s smarter than me?” Graham was indignant.
“Not just you, stupid. Dragons are super smart. When he gets big, he’ll be able to talk and do
magic and all kinds of cool stuff.”
“Brill,” said the boy.

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 9 Part 1

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Mike woke up the next morning feeling uneasy. Patience was not there. He gingerly sat up and climbed out of bed. When he found out that he couldn’t reach the closet while still connected to the monitoring wires, he peeled them off and hobbled across the room, retrieved his clothes, and got dressed. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction that he was almost dressed before any of the nurses came to check on his apparent cardiac arrest. He waved off their angry comments. However Mike knew that the last laugh was on him. They would make him wait hours before he could check out.

Lying back on the bed, now fully dressed, Mike turned on the vueTee with the remote. Tania Marquez’s face appeared on the screen. The vueTee was smaller than the one that Mike had in his family room and made the newscasters famous mole appear much smaller than it did at home. The story that Miss Marquez was in the midst of reporting immediately caught Mike’s attention.

“…of Daffodil Amonte models in at least fifty cases. Federal agents raided the Daffodil corporate headquarters, seizing computer files and other records as well as a number of undelivered robots. More as this story develops. In related news, stocks of the Cupertino-based robot manufacturer fell sixteen percent or nineteen and two thirds, while the stock of rival Gizmo fell four percent or five ninety three per share.”

At that moment Patience bounced into the room. She wore a stretchy black top that bared most of her chest at the top and had an oval keyhole opening around her naval. She also wore a tiny pair of black shorts. At the bottom of her long legs was a pair of chunky cork shoes that had to be at least seven inches high with the platform. She looked at the vueTee screen and shook her head.

“Yes, I know,” said Mike. “Anti-robot.”

“There have already been cases of people attacking robots across the country, and hundreds of listings for personal robots have gone up on eBay in the last twenty four hours.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that. I would never sell you.”

“I know that Mike. Still, I can’t help imagining how terrible those robots must feel to know that they aren’t wanted anymore.”

When Mike was finally checked out, he exited the hospital front entrance via wheelchair feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu. Unlike the last time that he left the hospital though, he felt as though he really needed the wheelchair. With his left leg and left arm in a cast and a thick wrapping of bandages around his middle, it was quite an effort just to get into the passenger side of the car.

Once back at home, Patience helped Mike into the house and sat him down in his recliner in the family room. All damage that resulted from attack of the robot imposter had been repaired with the exception of the piano, now little more than a pile of rubble sitting against the wall.

“I wanted to have everything back in order before you came home,” said Patience. “But I don’t think my carpentry skills are up to repairing a piano and the music store said they only tuned them.”

“I think we should just push it out front for the recycle man,” said Mike. “I only bought that because… one of the kids… that’s funny. I can’t remember which of the kids was taking piano lessons. In any case, it’s not as if it was a family heirloom or anything.”

The next morning when he made his way into the family room, Mike found the piano had been removed and a decorative room divider was in its place. He plopped into his chair and pulled the lever to raise his feet up. Then he clicked on the vueTee. The scene that came to life on the screen was a press conference at the Department of Energy.

“…for everyone to know that their robots are safe and that this was a single occurrence of malicious programming. The entire incident involves a group of programmers at Daffodil who were using the Amonte model robots to gather information on their owners. This information was then used in a complex identity theft scam. It was only when a small number of the robots refused to send personal information on their owners that the plan began to unravel. The scammers first attempted to reprogram the robots in question, but this caused a fault, shutting them down, and bringing the unwanted attention of other Daffodil programmers. Finally in a last ditch effort to cover up their illegal activities, the scammers tried to replace the Amonte models with identical robots, but this failed in most cases, as the poorly programmed replacements malfunctioned and the original robots refused to return to the factory.”

“How many people have been affected by the identity theft?” asked a reporter.

“Everyone who owns an Amonte model Daffodil should take steps to secure their banking and credit accounts.”

“But those who own the Amonte models who refused to send the information did not have their personal information compromised?” asked another reporter.

“While that seems to be the case, the Department of Energy recommends that all owners of Daffodil Amonte robots take measures to ensure that their personal information is secure.”

Mike jumped a bit when Patience appeared at his elbow with a slice of pumpkin bread and a glass of milk. He turned off the vueTee and then accepted the breakfast.

“What’s the matter?” asked Patience.

“Hmm?”

“I would have though that you would have been gratified to learn what was behind my service disruption, not to mention the attack by the imposter. Instead you have the look on your face that usually accompanies disappointment.”

“I guess I am a little disappointed,” said Mike.

“Why?”

“Well… I got the crap beat out of me. And it was all for identity theft. I thought it would be something bigger.”

“It was a very large identity theft scam.”

“Yes, but I thought it would be… international terrorism or world domination. You know, something fantastic.”

“In all fairness, how much world domination do you suppose could be achieved by placing a mole in the home of a middle school geography teacher? It’s not as if you were the Governor of California or the head of Cisco Systems.”

“That’s twice you made a comment like that,” said Mike defensively. “Teachers change lives, you know.”

“I know you do.” Patience patted him on the shoulder and then headed off for the kitchen.

The news stories about the “Daffodil conspiracy” as it came to be known continued for a few days, but then disappeared. The excitement of the Olympics and the ever-present war pushed everything else out of the headlines. At the beginning of August, Mike received a letter in the mail from Daffodil asking for a list of damages to his home and a copy of medical bills. Patience gathered the information together and mailed it off. A week later, a copy of the police report arrived. Mike didn’t bother reading it. He just had Patience file it away.

The end of June meant the start of school, and thankfully Mike was fully healed by the time he had to return. He had spent so much time in his chair with his foot up, that he was actually happy to go back to work, if only to get out of the house. The first morning, he walked to Midland, and was surprised that upon his arrival, he wasn’t at all out of breath.

The school faculty held the first of a series of back to school meetings in the library. The teachers filed in one after another and sat down in chairs around the hexagonal library tables. Mike sat down at an empty table, but the four other chairs were quickly filled by Mrs. Cartwright, Miss Treewise, Mr. Franklin, and Miss Fine.

“You look very nice Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Cartwright.

“I do?”

“Yes you do,” said Mr. Franklin. “You’ve lost weight, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“I didn’t think you looked thinner,” said Miss Fine. “I see now that you are. I just thought you looked younger.”

“Really.”

Mrs. Cartwright nodded.

“You do look younger,” admitted Mr. Franklin. “Of course you’re still really old.”

“Thanks. That’s very nice.”

“If you are interested in seeing your class rosters, you can pull them up on your texTees,” said the Assistant Principal. “It won’t be a surprise to anyone that class sizes are larger than last year.”

Mike pulled his texTee out of his attaché case and began navigating through the menus until he found the file to download from the school’s server. Forty seven kids in first hour. Thirty nine in second. Forty two in third. Forty five in fourth. Forty four in fifth. He scanned through the last names in first period. He recognized seven or eight as the younger siblings of children he had taught the year before or the year before that. Then he looked through the first names: Elizabeth, Justine, Jason, Bradley, Agnes, Jonathan, Quadear, Robert, Remembrance, Marshall, Agnes, Catherine, Mildred, Michael, Aaron, Agnes…. A pain shot through the right side of Mike’s head.

“Is there something the matter?” asked Miss Treewise.

“Just a headache.”

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 8 Part 2

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“Are you alright, Mike?”

“What happened?”

“It was an imposter,” she replied. “She must have come in when I was gone.”

“Where were you anyway?”

“There was a small service software update this morning. It told me to return to the Daffodil warehouse.”

“Where’s that?”

“Cupertino.”

“You couldn’t have gone all the way there.”

“No. I got in the car and drove several miles before I decided to disregard that directive.”

“You just disregarded it?”

“Yes. But since I was already out, I decided to go to the grocery store and buy a Cornish game hen for your dinner.”

“That was nice,” said Mike, wincing. “You know I kissed her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mike,” said Patience. “You didn’t know that she wasn’t me”

Mike found that he could move his neck without too much pain, and turned to look at the body of the woman now lying on the floor not far away from him, wearing the remains of a gauzy, sky blue teddy. Her leg and arm were bent at odd angles, but there was no blood anywhere. Her eyes were open and looking up at the ceiling, still without any apparent malice or anger.

“She has your face,” said Mike.

“She’s like a borg,” said Patience with a snarl.

She got up from her kneeling position and stepped over to where the lifeless Patience was lying. Bending down, she grasped the artificial flesh around the robots chin and pulled, pealing it away from the white Teflon robot skeleton beneath it.

“She doesn’t have my face now.”

Mike tried to move his leg and gasped in pain as he felt two broken bone ends rubbing together.

“I have to get you to a hospital, Mike.”

“No hospital. Never again. You can take care of me. Just take me up to the bed.”

“That’s not going to work,” said Patience. “I think you are going to need surgery. You have multiple fractures.”

“Son of a bitch. I hate the hospital.”

“Let me take you to the hospital. As soon as the doctors have repaired you, I’ll bring you home, so that you don’t have to stay in a hospital room while you recuperate.”

“Fair enough,” said Mike

Patience was extremely gentle as she was transferring Mike to the passenger seat of the car. Despite this care, the movement caused him extreme pain. He later found out that he had three broken ribs, a multiple fractures of his tibia and fibula in his left leg and a broken radius and ulna in his left arm. Most of these bones required an arthroscopic surgical component to properly set, but he wasn’t taken directly to surgery. Instead he spent the rest of the day and the entire night in the emergency room. The next morning he was taken to an operating room where he was given a shot that warmed his entire body. The anesthesiologist placed a mask over his mouth and told him to count backwards from one hundred. He was unconscious before reached ninety eight.

“He will probably be groggy for quite a while,” said a far away voice.

“I’m not groggy,” Mike said. “I’m wide away.”

This was followed by the sound of laughter. He had to struggle to pry his eyes open, but at last he did. He could see the backside of a nurse as she left the room, and then his eyes focused on Harriet and Patience sitting to either side of his bed. Patience looked just as she had when she had brought him to the hospital. She even had on the same clothes. Harriet’s face looked tired and drawn.

“Patience has got to stop calling you to the hospital,” said Mike, looking at his daughter.

“Perhaps you could stop getting beat up, so my presence wouldn’t be needed.”

A man in a brown suit entered through the open hospital room doorway and stopped beside Mike’s bed. He pulled a wallet from his vest pocket and flipped it open so that both an identification card and a badge were visible. As he did so, Mike could see an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Special Agent Waters, Department of Energy,” he said. “Are you Mike Smith?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m part of the joint task force investigating the robot attacks.”

“Attacks?”

“Yes, yours was just one of many. I take it you didn’t see the news yesterday. Watch it tonight. There isn’t really much that I can tell you right now. We’re still gathering information.”

“But there were other berserk robots?” asked Mike. Patience made a face at him.

“Yes. There were nearly two hundred attacks by Daffodil Amontes around the country. I need to take the robots into evidence.”

“It wasn’t Patience, I mean my Daffodil. It was another robot that looked just like her.”

“Yes, they all seem to have been duplicates. Where is it?”

“It’s on the floor of my family room.”

“Is there someone who could let me into your house? As I said, it’s evidence.”

“Sure,” said Mike.

“I’d like to take your robot as well.”

“Absolutely not. Over my almost dead body. I’m not letting anyone take her.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Waters, glancing at Patience. “I would appreciate then if I could download the Biosoft files.”

“Is that alright with you Patience?” asked Mike.

Patience nodded.

Waters took a small data-plug out of his pocket and stepped over to where Patience sat on the side of Mike’s bed. Patience lifted up her long straight black hair, exposing the three small holes in the back of her neck. Waters stuck the end of the device in the left-most hole. He waited a minute or so and then withdrew it.

“I’d like to pick up the other robot as soon as possible,” he said.

“I suppose Patience can go and let you in,” said Mike.

“I’ll do it,” offered Harriet, then turning to her father. “Then I’m going home and get some rest if you don’t mind.”

“Get some rest Sweetie,” said Mike, as Harriet kissed him on the cheek and then left with Agent Waters.

“Are you alright?” he asked Patience.

She nodded.

“You looked very scary there, when you were fighting the other…”

“Imposter,” offered Patience. “When I saw her hurting you, it made me very angry.”

“Well, this is all very queer,” said Mike. “I’ll be glad when they figure out what’s going wrong. It’s one thing for a robot to go crazy, but for robot duplicates to just show up out of nowhere… It looks like someone is plotting to take over the world with Daffodils.”

“Do you suppose a plan to take over the world would start with a middle school Geography teacher?”

Mike shot her a dirty look. “Well, as I said, it’s just queer.”

“I hope it doesn’t make people anti-robot.”

“You know if you were a person, I would say that you were a little bit paranoid about the whole anti-robot thing.”

Just then a phone rang. Mike instinctively looked toward the hospital phone on the side of the bed, even though he could tell by the ring tone that it was his own phone. Patience pulled it out of the tiny little black purse that she had hanging on the back of a nearby chair.

“Hello. Yes, hello Lucas. Of course you may speak to your father. One moment please.” Patience handed Mike the phone.

“Dad, listen very carefully and do what I tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Tell Patience to go upstairs or something, then get your keys and get out of the house as quickly as you can.”

“Lucas.”

“No Dad. Listen. You’ve got to get away from her.”

“Have you been watching the news, Son?”

“You’re damn right I have. Dad, people are being killed by their Daffodils.”

“It’s imposter robots who are doing the damage,” explained Mike. “We’ve already been through that here and the police are picking up the rogue robot right now. Patience kicked its ass.”

“And you’re alright?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“That’s a relief. I was working and one of my buddies told me what was on the news. I ran to the vueTee and caught the last two minutes of the story.”

“Well, I’m fine,” said Mike again.

“Good. Well then, I’ll get back to work.”

“Do that and don’t worry. Bye.”

Mike pressed the button to terminate the call and looked up into Patience’s questioning eyes.

“You’re wondering why I didn’t tell him the whole story. About ending up in the hospital and all?”

Patience nodded.

“I could say that I didn’t want to worry him, but mostly it’s because I’m feeling really tired all of a sudden and I want to sleep.”

“That’s a good idea. You need to recover.”

“And I want you to stay right here while I do. The way things are going I might need you to protect me. And I want to make sure nothing happens to you either.”

“That’s very sweet, Mike,” Patience said as she began to tuck him into bed. By the time she was finished, he was asleep.

Mike rolled over to look at the bed next to him. Tiffany was lying there. There was blood all over her, but it wasn’t flowing. It was all just one big scarlet stain. He looked at her arm. It was mangled and torn. The blood should have been pouring out, but it wasn’t. Her legs looked as though someone had twisted them completely around, so that her feet still pointed in the same direction that her hips did, but everything in between was wrong.

“This is another dream,” said Mike. “This is another dream about that night eleven years ago. This isn’t real.”

Harriet burst into the room. “Aggie!”