Deviation (26 page)

Celeocia's deep brown eyes watched every move Reesa made. If she hadn't already been unsettled Reesa imagined that steady, calculating gaze would have done it. She tried hard to hide her fear because she knew Celeocia - or at least the robotic part of Celeocia - could read it.

"Greetings," Celeocia bowed to her, much more humbly than Reesa had been expecting. "I beg forgiveness on account of my son. I underestimated the depth of his pain and had not predicted such a reaction."

"Hedric has never been predictable," Reesa said after a moment.

"I suppose not," Celeocia's said and glanced at where Matthew waited at the entrance. "You come with a powerful friend."

"I come with a powerful husband."

"You found it necessary to wed?"

"There was little choice in the matter."

Celeocia gave her a compassionate smile. "This will either be a hindrance or a help. Regardless," she turned and gestured toward the back of the room. "I imagine the experience has left something to be desired."

Reesa began walking with the woman, glancing over at Matt, who merely watched. As a matter of fact, she thought, she sort of liked her newfound husband. But she couldn't say that to the Priestess. There was too much at stake here, so she grabbed hold of the one motivation that clearly defined Celeocia Prosser.

"Such as freedom," she said.

"To get to the heart of the matter, yes," Celeocia led them toward the outer wall. "Though it is not something we openly speak of. There are too many who misconstrue a genuine desire for peaceful, equal existence with treason."

"It's more than treason, Priestess." Reesa shook her head. "The Makeem are religious zealots. Treason is more a term for overthrowing governments. The Makeem find everything about the female race offensive."

"Yes, but why? Why do they hate us, Miss Zimmerman?"

Reesa was taken aback by the earnestness of the question. The Priestess truly wanted to know why they had been persecuted to the point of near slavery. Stammering, Reesa looked back toward Matt and tried to find an appropriate reply.

"Well, um, I'm not quite sure." She flinched as she said it.

The truth was, she knew exactly why she had written the female race into such a horrible position. But how could she explain to this woman that her persecution was a matter of Reesa's own self-loathing? How could she tell them that, ultimately, Reesa herself had done this to them?

Distressed, she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

"Are you all right?" Celeocia asked.

"I'm fine," Reesa whispered.

"You look quite pale."

"I was abducted from my home, abandoned on Oahu and married in the space of three days," she hooked onto her annoyance for the situation and managed to concentrate on the Priestess again. "Being pale is the least of my concerns."

There seemed to be a flinch across Celeocia's features. It was infinitesimal at best and for a moment Reesa wondered if she'd imagined it. The hard, angular contours of the woman's face were difficult to read, and she knew the robotics spiking around the base of the woman's neck could control most muscle movement. Celeocia bowed her head, submissive, before speaking.

"I apologize for the manner in which we were forced to acquire your aid ... "

"You haven't acquired anything from me," Reesa snapped. "All you've done is piss me off. Which, by the way, brings me to the question of how you got me here in the first place? I never wrote time-travel into the books."

Celeocia actually smiled, "You sent me."

"I think I'd remember that."

The Priestess turned to the side and waved her hand at the wall beside them. In response, the wall split and pushed a console out into the open. Several blue lights flashed and Reesa waited, watching the woman bring up several files for her review. When she was finished, Celeocia gestured to the screen, positively beaming.

Uncertain, Reesa turned her attention to the screen and gasped.

It was her work. It was fragmented, with only a few pages here and there from each of the books, but there was no denying the pieces on the screen. Those were her novels.

"How did you find these?" she whispered, still staring in shock.

"With difficulty," the Priestess admitted. "But you will find that I am a persistent woman, Miss Zimmerman. I found only three pages at first, but I recognized my son's name on them. After that, I searched everywhere. I put all the resources of the Temple behind it and this was all we could find."

"It's not complete."

"Oh, I know. That frustrated me to no end, but then I found something strange." Celeocia pulled her finger across the screen, highlighting a series of numbers in the lower right corner. They weren't the page numbers, they weren't even dates, they were just numbers sitting off to the side of the prose.

"That's just formatting. The marketing department thought it gave things a more ... techie look."

"Miss Zimmerman, for the greatest prophet this world has ever seen, you are remarkably unaware of your own talents." The Priestess folded her hands in the traditional, Novo Femina way and continued to smile. "Those numbers recur throughout your work no less than eighteen times."

"So?"

"So, they're pointing to something. Literally. You have longitude, latitude and depth."

Fear crawled up Reesa's spine as she stared at the incriminating numbers. "That's absolutely insane."

"Many people thought so at first," Celeocia admitted. "But Rebecca was adamant. She flew the first mission. She nearly died. Launching her antimatter discs was a defensive move."

"But ... combining matter and antimatter like that ... wouldn't it have repercussions?" Reesa finally turned away from the screen. "Antimatter is dangerous."

"Quite dangerous." Celeocia glanced at the console. "But then, so is the twenty-first century, since that's where she eventually died."

"So you ... accidentally discovered time travel, is that what you're telling me?" Reesa frowned at the computer screen. She was fairly certain that what the woman was proposing was impossible.

"I took a leap of faith. And it brought me to you." Celeocia turned to face her, an excited gleam in her eyes. "Miss Zimmerman, you must know why I have brought you here."

Reesa looked up from the computer screen, suddenly remembering David's research. The original map of the Mavirus Carcinoma strain blinked in her mind and clear understanding hit her. The Mavirus had been created. It wasn't a fluke of nature and it hadn't just happened, it had been made.

But who and why would someone make such a horrid thing?

Gazing at Celeocia, Reesa realized that she already knew the answer to that question. After all, it was the Makeem who had managed to come up with a cure. It was the Makeem who continued to require the oppression of women.

If the Scientific Community discovered that their religious icons had been the true downfall of the human race it would destroy the whole of their society. The Novo Femina and the Makeem would succumb to outright war. The human race would be forced to redefine itself again. Still, war seemed a cheap price for freedom. Women should never have been forced into such a lowly state, no matter Reesa's motivations for writing it that way. Just because she hated herself didn't mean these women needed to pay for it.

But she could fix this. She could give the Novo Femina what they needed to fight the Makeem. And she could get Kate home. With a deep breath, Reesa looked the Priestess in the eyes.

"I have what you need to fight the Makeem," she said at last. "But you have to release Kate first."

"That is impossible," Celeocia said. "Kate has become the face of the female redemption."

"You will not need her."

Hope flared in the Priestess' face.

"But first I want Kate." Reesa said.

"Kate is safer with us."

"Apparently I am not being clear," Reesa frowned at the woman. "Either I get Kate or I take this information elsewhere."

"Reesa," Matt stepped into their conversation. She wasn't certain when he'd walked up, but she couldn't hide her relief that he had. He gripped her elbow and paused, and for a moment Reesa thought she saw his left eye twitch. Then he procured a handkerchief of sorts from his cargo pocket. "Your nose is bleeding," he murmured.

For a confused moment Reesa tried to remember what code that was and then she felt wet on her lips and pressed the linen to her nose. Dark red tinged the pale cloth and she felt suddenly weak and dizzy. Matthew's grip on her elbow kept her upright as the great, rounded hall began to swim in her vision.

"She's infected," Celeocia said with a gasp.

"Compliments of your son, yes," Matt said. And then his head cocked to the side and Reesa knew he was listening to the Fomorri. An instant later he swooped her up and into his arms, fitting her securely against his chest. "We're done here."

Now that was code. Either Kate was safely aboard the Io or they were aborting the mission. Reesa didn't care either way. It wasn't so much that she was in pain but more that she felt queer. Off, somehow. Something was very, very wrong with her body and she knew it.

"Wait," Celeocia raised a hand to stop them. "Patient Zero."

"No Kate, no patient zero. Those were the rules, Priestess." Matt walked past her without a second glance.

Relieved and comforted by the sheer strength of his presence, Reesa let her head rest on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her relief was short-lived. Matthew hadn't gotten five steps before she heard several weapons powering on. She'd know that sound anywhere, the sudden humming of an R413 preparing to chamber a round, and felt the pit of her stomach drop. She opened her eyes to find that they were surrounded, with Celeocia very calmly moving to stand before them.

"I'm afraid we've misunderstood each other, Mr. Borden." Celeocia gave them an icy smile.

"
Hedric Prosser and the crew of the Lothogy received commendations today from the Community. Their efforts to save Mars have made them a household name, but the Lothogy's Captain insisted that the matter should not be 'romanticized'. Hedric Prosser went on to say that he hoped the Community and Borden Company had learned that even science has its boundaries.
" - A.P. August 2, 2993

"How long have you known you are infected?"

The robotic twang to Celeocia's voice made Reesa's temple throb. She felt weak, like her bones might slip out of place at any moment, and an incessant pinch cramped in her gut. As much as she didn't want to, Reesa opened her eyes to face the Priestess. She stood directly at the foot of Reesa's gurney-like bed, hands folded in front and her trademark expression of passivity staring down at her. Were it not for the glitter of annoyance in the woman's eyes, Reesa might have suspected that the Priestess truly did not care.

But the glitter was there and Reesa could see it.

And the woman was holding them hostage now, so that had to mean that her presence was imperative. Or at least imperative to Celeocia, anyway.

"Since just before we got here," Reesa said. "Thank your son for me, would you?"

"I was afraid of that." Celeocia glanced at where Matthew lounged in the corner. "I appreciate the pains you have taken for her safety."

"You can thank me by releasing us. There is nothing more for you to gain here." He said.

"On the contrary, Reesa may hold powerful secrets to our future, Mr. Borden." Celeocia tilted her head just enough that the light winked off the metal in her neck. "You cannot tell me that you hadn't thought of that. If she foretold everything that we are living through today, how much more can she tell us about tomorrow? We can avoid wars, make fortuitous investments, and avoid ... "

"You're forgetting something here," Reesa said. "If it worked like that, I would have known Hedric was coming for me and stopped it from happening."

Celeocia turned a wide, almost frightening smile onto her and Reesa suppressed the desire to shudder. The Priestess wasn't right in the head, she decided. Scientists had mentioned that sometimes, when the surgical process was over and the robotics had been grafted into a female subject, there were some rare side-effects. Reesa just couldn't remember if one of them was insanity.

"Miss Zimms ... "

"Her name is Mrs. Borden now," Matt said sharply.

Celeocia flinched slightly but didn't turn away. "I do not know how prophecy works. I'm a calculating, strategic creature myself and do not have the gift of foresight. I merely have the benefit of statistical likelihood to guide me. Given what I know about you and the disease you carry, I can confidently say there is a twelve percent chance you will discover something important before your demise."

"Twelve percent? You brought me here on a twelve percent chance I could get you what you want?" Reesa recognized the hysterical pitch in her voice but didn't care. "You are super-nova crazy, you know that?"

"The percentage was a good deal higher when you weren't dying, Mrs. Borden." Celeocia moved to the little doorway at the front of their room. With a slight bow of her head to Matt, she left them there.

Reesa closed her eyes and laughed. Laughter was probably the worst possible reaction, but she figured she'd been down every other emotional road and none of them had helped. Twelve percent, she thought. She was dying and Celeocia intended to keep her prisoner here on a lousy twelve percent chance that she could come up with the name of Patient Zero.

Of course, she did know something valuable.

An image of David's computer screen flashed into her awareness. What would Celeocia do if she knew that the Makeem were planning a biological attack? What would happen if Reesa told them all of the real origins to the Mavirus Carcinoma? All the proof was sitting back in David's lab, after all.

Reesa opened her eyes and let go of a breath. Matt was digging something out of the heel of his boot, looking at the door.

Did he know? Did he know that his brother was a part of the people who had exterminated human females?

Yes, she thought. Of course he knew. There was a reason he'd forced his brother to return home, and it wasn't just because of Mesa. With David under close scrutiny, Matt could ensure the man wouldn't succeed in his project. It was Matt's personal form of house arrest until he could think of the best way out of the situation, and if the Loyalists came demanding David, Matt could uncover the benefactors of the research.