Kamikaze by Jayel

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Kamikaze, Part 12
by Jayel

True wasted no time in passing the good news on to the rest of the group, and soon the atmosphere in most of the camp resembled a somewhat restrained Mardi Gras. Tara's enthusiasm was contagious; soon everyone was as certain as she that victory over EVE was only a night away. Even I began to feel a cautious optimism--if Yale said he was free, I was prepared to believe him, even if I still had doubts about Tara.

But once I went back into the med-tent, any confidence I had was shattered. Devon's condition hadn't changed even marginally; in fact, she was obviously getting worse. Her metabolic rate had slowed so much that only the barest quiver of the life support instrumentation indicated that she was still alive at all, although her brain waves were as strong and as erratic as ever. Alonzo hadn't moved either, although he must have heard the celebrating from outside. He didn't even open his eyes when I came in. "No luck yet?" I asked, touching his shoulder. No response, not even a grunt to acknowledge he'd heard me. For all I knew, he was past hearing me altogether.

I sat down at the computer and ran a series of routine diagnostics on Devon, but it revealed no surprises; nothing I hadn't seen at first glance. Still no sound from Alonzo. "You know, I am really hating this," I said, no longer really expecting an answer. "I have never responded well to the silent treatment; you could ask my mother . . . " I picked up my glove just to have something to do with my hands, then dropped it on the table again. "But then, she isn't here, is she?" I went on, hating the desperation I could hear in my voice. "No one's here but us . . . and Devon, of course. Except . . . is she really here, Alonzo? Devon, I mean? Are you, for that matter? I mean, I can see you, but then I can see Devon, too. Are you with her someplace? Someplace I can't go?" I was crying now, on the point of hysteria, and for once I didn't even try to regain control. He wasn't listening anyway; why shouldn't I lose my mind? "You promised," I choked out, pointing my finger at him like an angry child. "You promised you'd never, ever leave me by myself again. Do you remember? I remember . . . you're breaking your promise, fly-boy."

Nothing; his eyelashes didn't even flicker.

"Julia?" I looked up to find Ulysses standing in the doorway.

"Uly--"

"Don't be mad at him, Julia," he said, coming in. "He isn't gone; not really." He put his hand on Alonzo's shoulder and trilled softly, like a Terrian, and to my shock Alonzo trilled back, an eerie sound pitched deeper but otherwise identical to Uly's. "Neither is Mom," Uly continued, turning back to me. "They're here; it's just that they're someplace else, too."

"I know, Uly," I said, trying to smile and failing. "Come here, all right?" He came and climbed into my lap, and I hugged him tight. "I just need him here, that's all," I said, burying my face in his soft, curly hair.

Suddenly True tore through the tent-flap, at a dead run as usual. "Sorry, guys," she said, catching sight of us. "But Julia, you have to come. There's something wrong with Yale, and Tara's barricaded herself inside the ship."

I don't care, I wanted to scream. What do you want me to do about it? I'm just as scared as you guys--why is it always me?

I said none of that, of course. "You and Uly stay here," I ordered, snatching up a med-kit. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

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By the time I got to Yale, his condition had stabilized on its own--from listening to the reports of the rest of the Eden Advance, I gathered he had suffered a brief but intense seizure. "Do you have any idea what caused it?" I asked him, checking him out with the glove and discovering little more than the residual effects of shock.

"I think I know exactly," he said grimly, opening his holo to show me the familiar pattern of his own brain functioning, a brain-shape covered with a network of glowing blue lines which indicated activity. Another, smaller pattern of red lines was growing slowly but steadily outward from a braided trunk near his brain stem--the foreign matter we had determined to be a connector to EVE. "Somehow it has managed to reconnect itself," he said.

"We've all got that in our heads?" Magus asked, sounding dismayed.

"I'm afraid so," I replied, reaching out and closing Yale's fist--I didn't want or need to see any more. "Are you all right?" I asked him.

"I believe I am at the same level of fitness I was before our experiment this afternoon," he said. "I suspect my seizure was merely a bit of vengeance from our orbiting nemesis."

Suddenly I heard Val shouting furiously outside and a loud banging noise, but none of the others seemed particularly alarmed. "What is he doing out there?" I asked Magus.

"Trying to make Tara open the door," she said. "As soon as we saw what was happening to Yale, she locked herself in the ship--apparently she knew how to access the security systems. Wolman says he saw her hands light up, and her face, but there's no way to be sure." She shrugged. "She's pretty fast when she wants to be."

"Perhaps you should go and talk with her," Yale suggested gently.

"Me? Why me?" I demanded, sounding petulant even to myself. "If she won't talk to her own husband, what makes you think she'll talk to me?"

"She feels a certain kinship with you, I think," Yale said. "After all, you are the only one of us who truly understands her relationship with Citizen Reilly."

"You think so?" I asked bitterly. "Let me enlighten you--I don't understand anything about Tara or Citizen Reilly or any of the rest of this." They were both looking at me so expectantly, I didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. "All right," I said wearily. "I'll try--but I'm not promising anything."

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I found Val slumped despondently on the steps leading up to the ship's hatch. "Has she answered you at all?" I asked.

He looked up as if surprised to hear my voice, like he hadn't even noticed my approach. "Yeah," he replied. "She said go away." He rubbed his temples like his head ached. "You know, Doc, she really is a good person," he said. "She isn't doing any of this on purpose--she really thought she could help you guys--"

"I know," I said, resisting a sudden urge to hug him. His brand of despair sounded too much like mine; if we started commiserating, nothing would get done. "Val, she loves you so much--"

"I know," he interrupted, holding up a hand to stop me before I could go on. "You don't have to help me, Doc. Just help her." He got up and tapped on the hatch. "Hey, honey? I'm leaving now. Really. I promise." He glanced back at me. "Julia is here. She wants to make sure you're all right. You let her in there, okay?" No answer was forthcoming, but he seemed satisfied and turned away. "See if you can put her back together just one more time, okay, Doc?" he said, walking away.

When he was well and truly gone, I walked up to the hatch and tapped on it myself, or at least I tried to. As soon as I touched it, it swung open.

But instead of walking into the familiar wreck, I walked into an empty barroom I had never seen before, at least not outside of an old "movie." The little cavern of a room smelled of stale beer and cigarette smoke, but it seemed to have closed down for the night. The spindly chairs were stacked upside-down on the tables, and the only light came from the neon signs over the bar and one dim lamp sitting on the lid of a battered baby grand piano in the corner. Turning around, I could see through the still-half-open hatch--Danziger and Baines were walking by, deep in conversation. But inside was a world entirely of Tara's making.

She was sitting at the piano, one finger moving over the keys. "'What'll I do . . . when you . . . are far away . . . and I am blue . . . . what'll I do,'" she sang in soft bursts, each one preceded by a single note.

"I know that song," I said, not sure whether I should move closer or leave her alone. This was like walking into her speakeasy the day we met, only I wasn't wearing gear--I even reached up and touched my hair, feeling for a headset that wasn't there. "Tara, how are you projecting this?"

She didn't seem to have heard me. "'What'll I do with just a photograph . . . to tell my troubles to," she sang on, a prettily tender soprano roughened with tears. "'When I'm alone . . . with only dreams of you . . . . that won't . . . come true . . .'" Her head sank down on the piano, her fist striking an angrily dissonant chord. "I hate him," she raged, banging her fist down on the keys again and again. "He should be dead--"

"Tara, please!" I ordered, going to her whether she wanted me or not. "Where are we? What is this place?"

She stopped trying to destroy the keyboard and looked around. "Noplace," she answered. "My place, I guess . . . Elizabeth always said my mother must have been a singer or something. My head's always been full of places like this, even before I met Val . . .We're in my head now, you see. Only it can't hurt you, because I've focussed . . ." She broke off and got up. "It's just a program," she explained, wiping her eyes. "I can hide here, from Reilly, until I can break any connection he may be forging with me through Yale." She looked at me, seeming to really see me for the first time. "Is Yale okay?"

"He's fine," I assured her. "Well, as fine as can be hoped."

She nodded, gesturing for me to stop. "I should have known," she said, opening the lid of the piano to reveal the computer-access pad. "I should have known he'd beat me in the end."

"He hasn't won yet," I protested. "We just need to try again--"

"What, so you guys can all have seizures?" she asked. "No way, Doc. It's over. This connection it has to you, it's too strong. You guys will continue to rebuild it." She looked down at her screen, which now looked like a perfectly normal navigational monitor. "I can find her in the sky, but I can't touch her."

Suddenly, I heard the one thing I'd been waiting for all day and all night--Alonzo's voice calling my name.

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We found Alonzo at the rocket, banging on the hatch. "Damn it, Val, how do you open this stupid thing?" he demanded impatiently.

"Alonzo, what are you doing?" I asked. "What's--"

"Julia!" He turned around and grabbed me up in his arms, hugging me tight for a moment, then letting me go and returning his attention to the rocket. "I found her," he said, as if this would explain everything. "Or she found me . . . It doesn't matter. The point is, I know what to do now." He jammed the heel of his hand against the latch, and the rocket's hatch sprang open with a rusted whine. "Tara, how do you fly this thing?"

"Who wants to know?" she demanded suspiciously. "Who did you find?"

"Devon," he explained impatiently. "I finally caught up, or she finally broke free for a minute--Hey, Val, I think I know what those dreams you were having meant."

"Terrific," Val said, putting his arm around Tara's shoulders. She seemed to shrink against him, hiding her face against his chest. "What dreams?"

"About the rocket," Alonzo said, avoiding my eyes. "We have to use the rocket to blow up EVE."

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