Chapter 19: Regroup Procedure — Part 2

The source of the imagined sunlight proved to be Yap. Yap tore open a piece of wall, taking a small sphere from the chamber and walked back to the first opening. She jumped up, clearing the three yards she had dropped in one hard jump that left indentations in the sub basement floor. Orchid hovered up behind her. Even as she passed back through the holes, drones were working steadily to repair the damage. Though she found Yap’s behavior distasteful, Orchid was cautious to stay out of the way. Yap put the small sphere into her chest, via a slit-like opening that sealed and disappeared almost instantly. When she looked over at Orchid, her look was one of new focus.

Without saying a word, Yap crossed a Snap, leaving her friends behind. Orchid found the paper Yap had tossed, studying it closely. She had no idea what language it had been written in, but Nikkei, who had been drawn from hiding by the sound of Yap’s rage, proved knowledgeable. Nikkei read the paper, her finger moving across the symbols in an odd canter.

“Elec has called Yap back to her using embedded commands.” Nikkei said.

Orchid considered the damage to the manor, worried for Yap’s safety. “What do you think she took with her?”

Nikkei considered the page, unable to fully decipher the language. “I have no idea, the object is defined as a vector of location and by its specific mass and volume, not by its name.”

Yap had ignored gravity vectors entirely, having no urge to complete her orders with any less haste than was physically possible for her to endure. When she dropped into Northrup Corporate Center’s central offices, her body was so hot that her skin smoked in reaction with the atmosphere around her, and some of her systems were in need of minor repair. Yap cooled within seconds to a temperature well below freezing, not wishing to bring any comfort to Elec when the hume would inevitably try to hug her. Elec had been waiting at her desk for Yap, her face somehow mixing stern conviction and genuine concern. Elec did not rise to hug Yap, which caught the android off guard. Yap reached into her chest and pulled the sphere she had taken from Orchid’s cellar and set it on top of the pencils poised in a small metal cup on Elec’s desk.

“You got here too quickly. You’re absolutely lucky you’re not severely damaged.” Elec scolded.

Yap sat down, keeping her hands on her knees, her back perfectly straight. “It was rude of you to issue an order I could not refuse, when a simple and courteous request would have sufficed.”

“You are the most unpredictable friend I have ever made.” Elec said. “Ambria will be waging war against Earth soon, and I simply don’t have time to wonder if you would come here without being forced to.”

“Why should I care?” Yap asked. “Why should you care, for that matter? Humes are always at war.”

“Because Ambria chose to violate our Letters.” Elec paused, a coughing fit overwhelming her, after a moment, she regained her composure. “I confirmed that her memory is indeed intact since she last woke with a call earlier this week.”

Yap’s expression shifted to extreme calm at having heard Elec cough, her emotions flipping from anger to concern. Switching through her senses to frequencies beyond hume sight, Yap gained an insight into her former lover’s condition. Elec suddenly looked like a blackened statue of semitransparent glass with a million tiny pinpoints of light coursing within her. Some of those tiny points were adrift in Elec’s blood, but much of the light was relatively stable, already absorbed into her bones. Elec wiped a trace of blood from her lips, closing the napkin to conceal the red dot that glowed dimly from within. Yap came around the desk, taking Elec in her icy embrace.

“What happened to you?” Yap asked.