SeaQuest 1. Chapter 1

**AN - this is a re-post of a story I wrote in 2007... I think! I took all my sQ stuff off here because I wanted to use some of my OC's in published stuff, but I ended up changing them a lot anyway.**

**So, here it is. I will be updating once a week on fridays if all goes well, because these fics do need a bit of editing. Much has changed since 2007, least of all my writing ability!**

**If you enjoy these, please check out my Sherlock stuff too (see profile).**

**PS. Reviews make the world go round...**

* * *

**Chapter One**

**An Old Friend**

"How long you gonna be in Pearl Harbor?"

"A week." Lucas wondered what Ben was up to now.

"A week, OK, good." Ben used the same tone of voice when closing a business deal. "Why don't you give this number a call if you can give the old man the slip, ask for Candy, she's got a –"

He abruptly stopped talking when the Captain's hand plucked the offered note paper out of his hand.

"He's not going to be giving anybody the slip. This trip is for training, not recreation."

"Training, sir, yes," said Ben, sheepishly. "Have a good trip, sir."

_You are such an ass-kisser, Krieg_, Lucas thought affectionately, as he made his way to the pressure hatch and looked back to see the Captain bidding farewell to his XO.

"Well, she's all yours, Commander," Bridger mounted a step.

"Thank you, sir."

Then Bridger turned to the waiting Chief Crocker and indicating toward Ben said, "and, uh, keep an eye on him."

"You got it, Cap. Safe trip," Crocker laughed.

Then he said, almost as an after thought, "Uh, Lieutenant..."

"Yes, Sir?"

"How old is this Candy?"

"Forty-three," he said, wondering why that was even relevant, "but she's got a sixteen year old daughter. They're lovely people."

"Really?" Bridger made sure to sound extra incredulous for the Lieutenant's sake. Then he stepped up to the hatch, not looking back.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Lucas sat next to the Captain. They both gazed across the interior of the launch at Katie Hitchcock.

"Who's Candy?" Bridger had been dying to ask. It was against his better judgement, knowing Krieg, but as a scientist at heart, curiosity always got the better of him.

"Yeah... Who's Candy?" said Lucas, backing up the Captain's bold decision. _Surely_ Candy was one of Ben's girlfriends, and it would be like opening Pandora's box by asking Katie about her.

To their surprise, Katie responded in an entirely unexpected way. She ignored the curious glances of the other crew members crowding the launch, gave a wry smile and tapped the side of her nose.

She wasn't going to give anything away.

It always infuriated Lucas how unforthcoming a person she was.

"Maybe I'll tell you when I get back," she said lightly, infuriating Lucas even further.

"You're not going to the symposium?" He asked.

"I'll be there for the second phase, but first I have to give a talk at the space administration about the probe. We're presenting our findings to the board of directors."

"We?"

"The other HR jockeys."

"There's others?" Lucas's eyes were wide.

"Oh come on Lucas, you didn't think I was the only one did you?"

"Oh, that is so unfair. You get to go to NASA, and I get to sit through hours and hours of-"

"Education." Katie exchanged an amused glance with her Captain. She took a chance and said, "well I could use a computer analyst. Would it be possible for Lucas to come along as my aide, Captain?"

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea, Commander."

"It would be _educational_," said Katie, hopefully.

To the rest of the crew it would seem like they were having a genuine debate, but to Lucas it was clear they were playing a game with him. Trying not to show how easily they gave in to a teenager's temperament. They should at least look like they were putting up a fight.

He could tell by the way their eyes smiled, though their mouths did not.

"This symposium is very important," continued Bridger.

"He'll only miss the first half of it. He'll be there for your segment," said Katie.

Bridger pretended to think about it for at least five seconds. He had always gently nudged Lucas towards broadening his range of knowledge. But this was a very rare opportunity for Lucas, he had already discussed it with Katie but they had decided to wait until Lucas brought it up. And they knew he _would_ if he thought he was missing out on something cool.

"Okay, I'll give Commander Keller a call when we reach Pearl..." he announced, "Pull a few strings,", precipitating satisfied smiles from the other two.

Bridger felt comforted knowing that Katie would be keeping an eye on Lucas. There was no way he could get into trouble when he was with her, was there?

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"We have three hours before the shuttle to Hilo," Katie told her young charge. "That should be plenty of time."

"Time for what?" asked Lucas, but he didn't really care _what_ they did until the shuttle. He was just brimming with pride at getting to hang out with _her. _Sure, they worked together a lot, but this was different; she _wanted_ him around. Adults didn't normally _want_ him around, except Bridger and Ben perhaps.

It was just as well, she didn't answer anyway. Lucas had noticed a long time ago that she was the kind of person who was very judicious about the information she gave out, and didn't allow herself to feel guilty about it either. Still, he suspected she was just teasing him this time.

The bus swayed as it sped along the highway. They had given up their seats to an elderly couple at the start of the short journey and they now steadied themselves on the hand rail.

Lucas looked at her profile. She had tied her hair back off her face because of the humidity in the crowded transport. This was something she rarely did on duty; she thought her features were too severe, or so Ben had told him. But Lucas thought she looked even more beautiful that way. Her well defined arm strained against the motion of the vehicle, and he felt himself get a little hot under the collar as a droplet of sweat snaked its way down the bicep and soaked into the hem of her navy-blue tank.

He looked down at his own jeans and t-shirt ensemble. He wondered if Katie thought he was scruffy.

He also wondered if people thought they were together. _Nah,_ he thought, _they probably think I'm her kid._

Katie turned her head to smile warmly at him, and to check that he was enjoying himself. A bus ride in Honolulu was definitely more interesting than one in the other parts of the world he had visited, and infinitely more interesting than a marine biology symposium.

* * *

"What do you think?" Katie and Lucas stood in front of the beach restaurant.

The rustically painted sign above the door said _The Wong Way._

And smaller underneath it, _Candy Wong Proprietor_.

"This is where we used to hang out... Forget Waikiki. _This_ is paradise."

"It looks like the middle of no-where to me." Lucas, looked around at the deserted picnic areas and palm trees. "How many people would come out here, anyway?"

"Mostly locals and sailors," she answered, not visibly perturbed by Lucas's observation of the lack of civilisation.

They stepped up to the veranda. Lucas noticed there was a closed sign in the window of the wooden door but Katie yanked it open and went in anyway.

She was almost immediately set upon by an excited young girl, who wrapped her arms around her and was lifted, squealing with delight, off the ground by Katie's fierce hug.

When she was released she said, "Where's Ben?"

Lucas hung back a little, embarrassed by the sudden reunion. He could tell by the flat tonelessness of her voice that she was profoundly deaf.

_Working_, Katie signed.

The girl sank into an exaggerated sulk.

"Li-Li, this is Lucas." Katie said in an effort to get him involved, and spelled his name for her.

She held out her hand for him to shake.

He took it.

"You'll do." She said and dragged him off to one of the tables where she had been working on her homework.

Lucas threw a nervous glance back at Katie. _Help_, said his eyes but she just smiled and headed for the kitchen to find the owner.

* * *

"Candy?"

Katie peered around the office door, and found her buried in paperwork.

"Katie-Ah!" She leaped up from her chair. "What a surprise. Come here, let me get good a look at you."

She slipped of her glasses and grasped the young woman's face in her hands, turning it this way and that. Katie had to stoop to allow her to do so because Candy was so short.

"Hmmm... Not enough _Shui._ You need water," She instructed her, curtly.

"Thanks for that diagnosis, _'Doctor', _but I'd like you to meet someone."

* * *

"So what did you do to deserve this, ha?" Candy asked Lucas, after they had explained their plans for the week. She laid out their table-mats and cutlery. She had a commanding presence in her dining room, that of a mother, and mother the others she did.

"Deserve what?"

"Katie is a very demanding boss."

"Hey, I'm sitting right here!" protested Katie, swishing her glass of water around.

_"I can't... see your mouth," _signed Li-Li to her mother.

"I said, Katie is very demanding."

"Yes, she _is," _piped up Lucas, joining in with the teasing.

"And Impatient, like my daughter. She shows up early for breakfast, and cannot read the sign that says open at ten," Candy continued. "Spam and eggs, how about it? You like your eggs the right way up or the Wong way, ha?"

"Um," Started Lucas, watching Candy get up from the table and proceed to the kitchen without waiting for an answer. "I don't really know _how_ I like my eggs."

_"You don't know how you like your eggs?" _signed Li-Li, _"you are strange."_

"We've already had breakfast," Lucas said to Katie, a little confused.

"So?" she replied, nonchalantly.

Lucas shook his head, she could be as enthusiastic as Ben when it came to food. He had never met a woman who worried about keeping on weight rather than losing it. But then Katie was no ordinary woman.

_"Do you know anything about maths? Because I have one hell of a homework assignment," _asked Li-Li, picking up her pile of text books.

"Do I know anything about maths? Hmmm..." said Lucas, theatrically. He looked over at Katie, who was rapidly trying to escape. She obviously hadn't told the Wongs about the whole genius thing.

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that, he was used to people dropping a few names when they introduced him. Sometimes he liked it, it gave him status and kudos, but other times he preferred to remain anonymous. It was a relief to sometimes appear normal.

"I'm gonna leave you two to get to know each other a little better..." Katie winked at him and followed her friend out to the kitchen.

* * *

_"How did you learn to sign so well?" _Li-Li asked as they strolled around the edge of the room, looking at the photographs that crowded the walls of the dining room and the bar.

"I work with dolphins."

_"Sometimes I volunteer at the sea-life centre," _she signed, simply.

"That's cool."

He felt rather awkward, as one would when being practically set up with an over-excited and immature sixteen year-old girl.

There was nothing to distinguish her from any other adolescent. She wasn't particularly pretty or clever, she seemed small for her age, she spoke before thinking and she drew love-hearts on her exercise books. She dressed the same way as all the other teenagers he had ever met; with a nostalgic early-nineties twist. She was normal, and he liked that because she made him feel normal.

He focussed his attention on the pictures for a while. They were mostly of the military personnel that had made this their Mecca over the years, but there were a few of the locals, and many of the holidays and parties that meted out the course of a year. There were even a few celebrities scattered about here and there. Candy herself was in a lot of them, hugging her customers and smiling, always smiling.

Li-Li pointed out a particularly large photograph. It was a taken outside the restaurant at night, a congregation of US naval officers in their service whites. About forty people crowded haphazardly onto the veranda and lots of arms around each other's necks, making faces in jest.

He could just make out Ben and Katie. Being quite tall they were put at the back on the step and they still had their hats on, but he couldn't fail to recognise his friends. They were not looking at the camera, they were looking at each other and smiling.

Lucas felt a strange feeling run through him. It was akin to jealousy, but when he thought about it a little more he realised it was because the couple in the photo were not the same people he worked with on a daily basis. _These_ two looked like they were in love. _His_ Ben and Katie never looked at anyone like that.

_West Pacific Fleet Submarine Corps, War Games 2013 , _said the insert.

"What _is_ that?" he asked Li-Li.

_"A fake invasion. Just in case we ever go to war with Asia."_

"Cool."

_"It was a success. Mom was over the moon. She worries about invasions."_

Lucas laughed at the way she signed _over the moon_.

He looked at the menu, scribbled on a chalk board. "Why does everything have Spam in it?"

_"It's the national dish of Hawaii. Didn't you know that?"_

"Of course, I knew that." He didn't. "I suppose it's better than having a lot of spam in your mailbox. What's a dagwood?"

_"It's a huge sandwich. Didn't you know that either?"_

"I don't know a whole lot about food."

_"You look like you could do with a meal like that."_

They looked at each other, and promptly burst out laughing at each other's disbelieving expressions.

That went a long way to breaking the awkward tension. He was beginning to enjoy playing at being normal, whatever _that_ was. Li-Li was giving him a very special gift, acceptance that didn't depend on his abilities. That, he figured, was why people like Ben and Katie came here. To be part of a family when they were so far from home.

They came to the bar, sitting on the tall stools, drumming their fingers on the scarred surface and pretending to be impatient for their breakfast.

_"Why are we waiting..." _Li-Li attempted to sing.

"You can sing? How did you manage that?"

_"Katie." _She reached out took his hand and placed it on her throat, saying,_ "ahhhhhhhhh... See, it feels different. She says there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do anything I want."_

"What's it like?"

_"What being deaf? I'm not missing out on anything. It's 'hearing' people that are disabled. You can never get any peace and quiet. I don't have to listen to my Mom telling me off if I don't want to."_

"But what about music? No-one can live without music."

_"I can still feel music,"_ she laughed. She was used to the questions and she didn't make people feel bad about asking them. _"Sometimes I go to the cliffs and I close my eyes and I can feel the waves hitting the rocks over and over. That is my music. People like you are missing out on it."_

_Maybe I'm not, _thought Lucas, _maybe this is music- sitting here with you._

He then realised why Ben had tried to send him there, Li-Li was a very beautiful person. If he saw her in the street he wouldn't have looked twice, but then he would've missed out on knowing someone who was free and confident and knew who they were. He wished he felt like that more often.

They could see Katie and Candy through the hatch, talking in the kitchen. Lucas couldn't hear what they were saying, but Li-Li translated for him right on cue, as if she had read his thoughts.

_"My Mom said, 'is he still behaving like a Lan Yeung?' Three guesses who they are talking about."_

"What's a _Lan Yeung_?" he spelled out, confused.

_"You don't want to know,"_ she grinned.

* * *

By the time they had finished their breakfast, and the homework, the staff and customers had begun to pour in for the day's service.

Katie was attempting to pay the bill and resisting Candy's protests of, "Only 'Katie' prices for you Bao-Bao. Then maybe you will come home more often."

Lucas headed for the door when they had settled up, (which consisted of approximately zero dollars exchanging hands) and watched Katie kiss her dear friend on the cheek and pinch Li-Li's cheek mock-patronisingly.

Goodbyes and kissing people, especially older people, made him feel icky.

_See ya around. _He signed back at Li-Li, who smiled, turned on her heels and skipped off to talk to the other customers.

"Make sure you bring Ben with you next time... I need to make sure he's eating properly!" Candy called after their backs.

* * *

"Well?" asked Katie, smugly as they left the rustic place, with its clanging door-chime and quirky clientele, behind. It was a reluctant departing, but they had a mission to complete.

"Awesome!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Settling In**

* * *

"Put all your luggage and posessions in the tray. Stand over there, arms by your sides."

Lucas was used to being bossed around and, although he did not appreciate the security officer's tone of voice, he did as he was told.

He watched Katie hand over her sea-bag and then empty her jean pockets of all her belongings. They were few, but they clattered into the tray nonetheless. The probe, in its 'coffin' and all her other equipment and documents had already been passed by the inspection, and taken down to the test centre by the stewards.

"And your son?" prompted the middle-aged woman.

Lucas saw the thunderous expression that came across Katie's face following the guard's mistake. She breathed loudly for a few seconds, nostrils flaring, obviously trying to control her reaction.

_Oh god_, he thought, _please don't mouth off at her_. He braced himself for the tirade that usually spewed from the woman's mouth whenever she was setting someone straight. He recalled the rumours of the dressing down she had given the Captain the first day she had met him. People had talked about that for weeks.

Katie managed to keep herself under control, so he sneaked a tiny mocking smile in her direction, prompting her to usher him forward with a sarcastic, "Lucas."

The single word echoed around the cavernous foyer.

He dumped his bag unceremoniously on the desk and watched the personnel as they sent it through the X-ray tunnel. The woman who had thought Katie was his mother, (he would laugh at that for _months_ to come), looked up from her computer screen and glared at him. Her mouth screwed up and her eyes narrowed in a strange expression, one he suspected she used when she thought someone was trying to smuggle spying equipment into her precious research centre.

She didn't say a word, just swivelled her screen around to reveal items that were on her not-allowed list. The computer equipment glowed against the silhouette of his hastily packed clothing and toiletries.

"No communication devices, no recording devices, no peripheral accessories," she stated clearly.

He smiled charmingly, trying to disarm her.

It didn't work.

"You understand, of course, that I'm going to have to confiscate all of this. You can collect your bags and your keys when you come back through on your way to the accommodation block. I am assuming you are staying on campus. You can either leave the tech stuff with me for the duration of your stay, or we can repeat this process each time you enter the main complex."

He glanced at Katie. Neither of them wanted to repeat this experience.

"Okay," he said, not relishing the thought of being computerless for three whole days.

They stepped through the metal-detector and the alarm went off most disconcertingly when it was Lucas's turn.

Katie's scowl was matched in equal measure by the security guard's. She came out from behind her desk and instructed one of her men to search the embarrassed Lucas. The other guards, standing around, laughed as he extracted another couple of devices from Lucas's pockets.

"How many consoles does one kid _need_?" She tossed the technology into the plastic tray and proceeded to rifle through his bag for the personal computer and the leads and disks.

Any further awkward moments were put to an abrupt end when Scott Keller, striding purposefully towards them from the inside of the visitors centre, called out, "Looks like I came just at the right moment."

"Nice to see you back on your feet, Commander," said Katie.

"Bet you didn't know I was this tall, did you?" he teased, as he shook her hand, warmly. "Lucas. How wonderful to see you again."

The last time they had seen the man, he was confined to a wheelchair, his muscles having atrophied from the long mission to mars.

"Nathan tells me you are studying future technologies, this should be quite an experience for you."

"I can assure you, it's been quite an experience already," said Lucas.

"Well, you ain't seen nothing yet," Scott returned with a grin and a wink in Katie's direction. He handed over their visitor's IDs, which they pinned onto their clothes. "The demonstrations don't start until morning, and I'm sure you are aware of the itinery," he continued, "how about a tour of the museum? Unless you want to attend to your equipment, Commander..."

"There's nothing more I need to do, a tour would be most appreciated."

She was familiar with the visitor's centre, having been here so many times before. Scott was obviously unaware of just _how_ familiar she was with it, as he had been in space the entire time her projects were running at the research centre. However she decided to go along with it because she loved to watch Lucas discover new things. The kid may be a genius but he was far from worldly, and she cherished all the moments she had been able to open his eyes to some of the amazing things that could be found at the bottom of the sea.

In fact, she'd had a soft-spot for him ever since he admitted having a crush on her. It was sweet, and she didn't mind; she was used to it. This endeared the young man to her, as much as the way he brought out Ben's almost always hidden human side.

Lucas shot a look back at his uptight security guard as they followed Scott into the main complex. She gave him an _I'm-watching-you-kid_ look right back. He felt like sticking his tongue out at her but he thought, _no, I'm supposed to be on my best behaviour today. _He looked beyond her, through the thick glass walls into the parking-lot outside. There was a group of people gathered by the gates, attempting to make a point to the personnel who were trying to keep them at bay. He also noticed several news crews trying to get in on the action.

"Who _are_ they?" he asked when he saw that Scott was anxious to get them inside the centre.

"Campaigners... Human rights protesters. They have issues with the Hyper-reality programme."

Katie looked worried.

"Some people take exception to the thought of the test subjects being enhanced beyond the normal range of human ability," Scott concluded.

* * *

Scott, as it turned out, was not only a renowned astronaut, but an excellent tour-guide. He should be; after all he was involved in many of the missions and had a vested interest in most of the research that went on in the centre.

They perused the exhibits, taking their time, Lucas absorbing the atmosphere and soaking up all the information like a sponge. He imagined what Scott's life would've been like up to now. A veteran of the United States Navy, training in Cape Canaveral, Glenn and here in Hawaii, a pioneer of advanced space travel and more time spent in orbit than anyone else alive. Lucas couldn't help but be impressed.

He could hear Scott and Katie having a conversation behind him, something about the Mars landing. It made sense that they had struck up a friendship, having both been captured behind enemy lines in Vietnam, but he was more interested in the display of Mars rocks in front of him. It had clearly been designed for children and he found himself wondering why there were no other visitors today. It was spring break. Where were all the students? He figured it was because of the security issues of having all the HR operators together in one place.

"Since 2012 we've also had a seismic early warning station here in Hilo, along with a listening post to pick up signals from extra-terrestrials," said Scott as they caught up with Lucas, pointing out a diagram of the campus. It was enormous, encompassing the buildings, an air-strip and numerous residential areas.

"They still take SETI seriously? I would've thought they'd given up by now."

"The extra-terrestrials are probably saying the exact same thing," Katie said under her breath.

"Why did they choose this island in particular to develop space technology?" asked Lucas.

"For the volcano," Scott indicated on the map. "It's the closest emmulation we have to the harsh conditions on other planets."

"Can I see the volcano?"

This amused Scott no end.

"Only if you are involved in prototype EVA activities," he laughed.

_"I've_ been in the volcano," said Katie.

"That wasn't you. That was the probe," retorted Lucas. He always thought it was strange when she said 'me' or 'I' when she was talking about the probe.

"Shall we proceed to the test centre?" Scott interrupted.

"By all means," said Katie, as he ushered them into another part of the building, the part that lead to a guarded and locked door. It looked rather inconspicuous, not at all like the door that should lead to one of the most advanced technology centres in the world.

_But then_, thought Lucas, _why should it look grand when it is purely functional and trying not to draw attention to itself._

The serious-faced guard examined their passes and scowled at Lucas briefly, wondering why someone so young had such a high security clearance.

"He's with me," said Katie, with a superior tone, hoping to reassure him.

_I love this woman, she is so cool, _thought Lucas.

Scott swiped his ID through the lock. The light turned green and the door clicked open.

As they were passing through it, Lucas observed with surprise that it was about twelve inches thick.

"Civilian contractors..." Katie muttered behind him.

"I know," said Scott, humourously, "just can't get the staff nowadays."

They were in long conduit, with no windows for as long as the eye could see, which wasn't very far as the corridor was curved.

"Everyone has to go through the visitor's centre to get to the test centre. Even me," Scott told Lucas. "If you come through on your own you will have to get one of the staff to escort you."

No-one said anything until they reached the next door. It was equally well locked and guarded, and equally thick. It opened to reveal the first of many test areas.

This chamber contained the six million gallon tank of water used for weightlessness training.

"The water is filtered constantly," said Scott, for Lucas's benefit. "It's so clear you can't even tell you're underwater."

"Makes a change from the water we have to deal with on a daily basis," said Katie.

"Yeah, but no-one can tell when you pee in your suit when it's sea water."

Katie shook her head at Lucas's comment... And several members of staff overheard and looked up from their work-stations.

"Let's move on, shall we?" Scott guided them both through the double doors and into the next chamber, before Lucas could say anything else.

They were in a maze of corridors, each direction labelled with the appropriate destination.

Aeronautics Tunnel, Logistics Centre, Vacuum Chamber...

"Vacuum Chamber, what's that?" asked Lucas.

"It simulates the vacuum of space. We also have a pretty big fridge," Scott told him. "As you probably already know, every vehicle and instrument our engineers create has to be tested at extreme temperature and negative pressure. Space is usually about minus 270C. I know, I've been there."

"Can someone survive in space without a suit?" asked Lucas as they proceeded down-hill towards a section sign-posted as 'All Engineering Development Programmes'.

"Only for about 10 seconds," he answered morosely.

They then found themselves in the biggest hangar that Lucas had ever seen.

There was a section of tall storage shelves, several prefabricated buildings containing the most precision experiments but the enormous room was filled mostly with white coated engineers working on unidentifiable projects at open-plan benches. The walls were flanked with all manner of equipment, and the walkway was clearly marked around the edge of the area, just in case someone strayed into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Scott quickened his pace and headed for a group of personnel working on a row of three mysterious boxes. A tall guy, about Scott's age, straightened up when he sensed the visitor's approach. He was dressed more casually than the other's and for some reason this really annoyed Lucas.

"Graeme!" called Katie as she neared the group, uncharacteristically excited.

"Hey, Hardware," he said, "long time no see."

Graeme caught Katie's hand just held it for a strangely uncomfortable moment. Not shaking it, just holding it.

Scott hadn't seemed to notice the silent communication between the pair, but Lucas absolutely hated the way Graeme and Katie looked at each other.

He narrowed his eyes as they all ignored him. _You make up your mind about people within 15 seconds of meeting them,_ Ben had always told him, _and first impressions are everything._ Well he'd known this guy all of ten seconds and he didn't like him, one bit. _Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... Times up, and I still don't like you._

"How rude of me," Katie brought Lucas back from his wandering imagination, "Graeme, this is Lucas Wolenczak."

Lucas did a fake smile and stuck his hand out.

"Pleased to meet you," said Graeme with about as much sincerity as Lucas's handshake.

"Lucas is seaQuest's chief computer analyst," said Katie. "He's, uh, here as an observer... And to keep an eye on my software."

"Hardware and Software. What a team," said Graeme. "Are you coming to dinner later? The others are here."

He turned back towards the row of boxes, all about the size of a human coffin and containing, Lucas realised, the hyper-reality probes.

"Of course, when we're settled in. You'd like to go to dinner, wouldn't you Lucas?" Katie looked to him for confirmation.

Lucas didn't answer, playing her at her own game.

"Graeme is NASA's foremost expert on EVA operations," explained Scott. "He was the first to undergo the neurological implants."

They watched the engineers unclip the seals on the largest box and hoist out Graeme's alter-ego.

The metallic beast settled all four limbs on the concrete floor, its actuators responding to the pressure, just like the reflexes of a real animal. Graeme's probe was bigger than Katie's and it had more fingers, being designed for fixing things rather than just looking at things. Every time it was pushed or pulled by the staff it resisted the force and re-balanced it's self automatically. This was the extent of its activity, however, until it was connected to the mind of the man... Lucas was well aware of what these contraptions could do.

* * *

"You could've changed, Lucas," said Katie, a little disappointed in him. "And combed your hair."

"You sound just like my mom."

"Oh, quit it." She was not amused.

They stepped up to the pagoda flanked doors of the Chinese restaurant.

"We're meeting your friends, not the king of England."

"Still," she said, and then to the maitre'd, "Commander Albright's party."

"This way." The maitre'd lead them across the restaurant.

"I didn't realise Graeme was in the Navy." Lucas hissed at his companion.

"He's not," she hissed back, "at least he's not on active service. That was just force of habit."

Suddenly they were at the table. Several expectant faces gazed up at them.

Graeme got up and pulled out their chairs for them, to the sound of an enthusiastic "Hey!" from the rest of the party.

"You're late, Kate." Graeme chuckled at his own joke.

"What did you order?" she asked him.

"The special. You still like duck, right? Ordering in restaurants was never my strong point, I suppose that's Ben's area of expertise. How is the old man, anyway?"

"Still driving me up the wall," she said with what Lucas knew was affection, however Graeme obviously didn't hold the same sentiments about the man.

"Well I suppose the bottom of the sea is the best place for him. The world is a little safer that way."

Lucas didn't hide his antipathy toward Graeme as he sat down.

"Who the hell are you?" asked the blonde girl beside him. The others were highly amused by her bluntness.

"I'm Lucas. Who the hell are you?"

"Lark."

"Introductions." Katie remembered her manners. "Lucas, this is Lieutenant Lark Waldron RAF."

"Thirty-nine squadron," Lark interjected, with a deliciously British-laced accent.

"And next to her is Major John Tordov, US Army," Katie continued as the man reached over the table to shake hands with Lucas. He couldn't help noticing that John had a couple of fingers missing on his right hand.

"JT," he corrected.

"_John_ is in Explosive Ordnance Disposal," Katie explained, and then moved around the table to Graeme. "Graeme you already know."

Graeme's eyes twinkled with what could probably be mistaken for arrogance.

He immediately liked John and Lark; they were confident and un-pretentious. He looked around the table in wonder at the wildly various bunch of people. They had nothing in common. There was just one thing that linked them all, and it was something so extraordinary, that they had forged an uncommonly strong bond. No-one else knew what it was like to be _them_.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Lucas Wolenczak."

"What do you do, then?" asked Lark.

"Artificial intelligence mostly," he said, not giving too much away. He didn't want to look like a freak to these people.

"Military? You're too young to be military..." she continued to quiz him.

"Civilian contractor _actually." _He sent an accusing glare in Katie's direction for her earlier comment.

"Well, you won't find any artificial intelligence around here... Only real intelligence," smirked Graeme.

"They're building a plane with artificial intelligence," volunteered Lark.

"Waldron here flies Neurons. In fact, she can fly anything," explained John. "It's an obsession."

"The stealth bombers? Is Lark your call sign, or something?" Lucas was fascinated that this petite woman, no older than Katie, had such an incredible calling in life. He remembered there was only three coffins in the test centre; Lark must fly the Neurons by remote control.

"It's my _name_. We don't have call-signs in England. You've been watching Top-Gun, haven't you?"

"Maybe. You must have a nick-name though..."

"Cauldron, Pink-Witch, Dirty-Rotten - "

"John - don't even say it!"Lark practically tried to strangle the man, but he was loving it.

Lucas was actually enjoying himself. These people were all highly trained professionals, but they hardly acted like professionals when they all got together and had a night off. None of them were behaving like adults right now. "What about the others?" he asked.

"Hardware, Wrench-Wench..." Graeme pointed at Katie, but she was in her own little world.

"How old do I look?" she asked Graeme. "Be honest."

"How old do you want to look? I'm not falling for that one, it's a trick question."

"The bad-ass security chief thought she was my mom," explained Lucas. "I think she may be almost as tactless as Katie."

"Not possible!" guffawed Lark.

Everyone agreed. Katie sighed. They always ganged up on her.

"Do you know what she did when she first met John?" Lark then asked Lucas.

"No."

"They were talking about going out and John said, 'I can't I'm too lazy, laziness runs in the family.' And Katie says, 'Oh, legs run in my family,' 'cause she thought it was funny... And John just looks at her blankly, like he doesn't get the joke."

"Then I did this." John promptly dumped his prosthetic leg on the table.

Everyone collapsed in paroxysms of laughter, sniggering at Lucas's horrified expression.

"I'm sorry, Kid. That was mean." John recovered himself.

The other customers in the restaurant were all staring at them, wondering what all the fuss was about and why they were suddenly put off their dinner.

They talked and they teased each other, and they ate. Then they made fun of the waiter who could not understand why they didn't want any alcohol. They ordered a jug of biters and soda and Lucas found he hated it.

The hours passed, and the friends caught up with news. Lucas leaned back and allowed himself to bask in the conversation and the camaraderie that flew back and forth between these four intelligent people. He found himself looking more and more at Katie, her shining smile and her supremely confident nature. He wondered why he had never noticed this side of her before, the fun, human side.

He noticed that they were all fiercely competitive, especially Lark.

"You bubble heads are warped," he heard her say to Katie and Graeme. "How is it possible to be afraid to fly and yet do what you do?"

"I'm not afraid to fly," said Katie, playing with her food, "just happen to think subs are safer."

"There's more planes in the sea than subs in the air," offered Graeme in her defence.

"Thank-you. I rest my case. Anyway if I get imploded at 10,000 feet below I'm not going to know anything about it. If I'm in a plane crash I've got the entire descent to think about what I'm gonna look like splattered on the ground."

"Lovely, isn't she?" Graeme thought aloud.

"I've never crashed a plane," Lark stuck up for herself, "but a little bird told me about that LA class tub you managed to back into the sea wall."

"It wasn't _me_ that put the propellers on back-to-front. We got deployed too fast."

"Yeah, yeah..." everyone chimed in.

Lucas smiled to himself at the thought of Katie making a mistake.

"Everyone knows the _real_ reason you become submariners is because you can get away with murder," said John.

"Well, maybe not murder, but I'll admit the regs tend to get laxer the longer you stay down there," Graeme admitted, winking at Katie. "More lax for some people than for others, especially _one_ in particular, if you know what I mean."

"No, I _don't_ know what you mean," said Lucas sarcastically. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"I mean that _some people_ are not just divorced from Katie, they're divorced from reality as well. It's a miracle the man has avoided the consequences of his actions all this time."

Lucas threw daggers at him with his eyes, mouth open in amazement. No-one else seemed to think anything was amiss, and Katie didn't say a thing to stand up for Ben. This upset him much more than what Graeme had said. "I can't listen to this..." he said, getting up and throwing down his napkin. His spoon clattered into his unfinished dessert.

They stared after him, frowning and a little embarrassed on his behalf. Katie was the only one who didn't watch Lucas leave. She just looked down and sighed tediously.

"You know, baby-sitting was never your thing," Graeme said to her. "Didn't I always say, 'never work with children or animals.' Well you ended up working with both."

"Put a sock in it Gray. You never know when to quit, do you?" John jumped in. "This is not the time or the place for Ben-bashing."

* * *

Lucas sat on the step outside the restaurant, between two potted palm trees. Breathing the warm breeze and trying not to get angry. It was amazing how quickly the evening had turned sour.

_It's not fair, Ben isn't even there to speak for himself._

He looked back at the butterfly decorated windows, and wished they had stayed on campus to eat. He didn't know his way back from here, and he was really starting to wish he had never come. Katie wasn't the person he thought she was, and this made the world seem like a little bit more of an insecure place. No-one was following the rules.

_Maybe I'm not who I thought I was. I should've said something._

He didn't know he would react like that until it happened. He really hated Graeme, but it was funny; it was because he could detect the subtle signs of the fascination he had with Katie. How did he know this? Because he felt the same way.

"Not many people stand up to him like that," said a mature voice behind him. "If it helps at all, I agree with you. Graeme is an ass."

"I didn't exactly stand up to him," Lucas said as John sat down beside him.

"You're friends with Ben?"

"Yeah, and I thought _she_ was too. Then she just acts like she doesn't care."

"If you care about that woman at all, you need to know something. She doesn't put anyone else's feelings first. That's just the way it is, and we all have to live with it. Keep that in mind and you won't get hurt."

"How did she get so... Tough?"

"Have you got eyes, kid? When you are that beautiful and a soldier, you gotta grow a tough shell. It's the only way to survive working with all those men who haven't seen their wives for a while."

"Well she doesn't seem to mind Graeme looking at her like _that."  
_  
"I think she kinda likes having someone pine for her. Hell, even Lark has a crush on her..."

"Who doesn't?"

"You too?"

"Yeah."

"It's like that, huh? Listen kid, I shouldn't really be telling you this, but I think it will help you to understand. Graeme was one of their instructors back in sub-school. He got involved with Katie, and when she eventually married Ben he never got over it."

"You're right. You shouldn't be telling me this."

"Well I guess it's none of our business. I'm just looking out for her... And for you."

Lucas took a deep breath. He realised that John was right, it wouldn't do for him to fall out with Katie over something like this.

He looked John up and down. The crew cut, the scars, the gruff voice, he was the archetypal soldier. On the surface he didn't look like the sensitive and wise man he was. But then, Lucas was gradually learning, you cannot judge a book by its cover.

"Does it hurt," he asked, pointing to John's left foot.

"What? Oh, the leg thing. It's been fifteen years now, you get used to it." He lifted up his pant leg and tapped on the solid material underneath. "Still waiting for them to make me one with hair though."

Lucas laughed at the man's cheeky expression.

"How'd it happen?" Lucas ventured. He wasn't sure if it was Okay to ask people things like that.

"The drug-wars in Columbia. Momentarily forgot the number one rule of mine clearance. Don't step on one." John didn't mind; he'd told the story so many times now.

"That sucks."

"Yeah, well. I felt sorry for myself for about five seconds, and then I was in this meeting and they were talking to me about compensation. It just didn't seem right, considering it was my own god-damn fault, so I turned around and I asked for my job back. Something _really_ changed that day. I think it was the thought of all those little kids getting blown up in war zones."

"What about your fingers?"

"A bit of my tibia flew up and sliced them off. All of number five and half of number four. It's amazing what your own body will do to you, when it's propelled by a couple of kilos of M18."

Lucas was astounded by John's frankness, and his face showed it.

"Sorry, kid. I've said enough."

"No, no. It's Okay. This is cool. How did you get involved with the Hyper-reality project?"

"They offered me myoelectronic prostheses but it didn't work because the nerves were frayed. I didn't mind, it was a pain in the ass. But when they told me someone had already undergone the DNI procedures and it was working, It got me thinking what it would be like to feel my toes again, even if it wasn't really real."

"Did it work?"

"Nah, but it wasn't the implants, it was the foot. I just couldn't get on with it, I'd spent too long with one to go back to two. But it opened up so many possibilities with the bomb disposal."

"So you can diffuse bombs by remote control now?"

"Not so much diffusing as dousing with water. This job is a lot less glamourous than the movies make it look. There's no cutting the red wire, that's the first thing I tell my students. If the water doesn't work, blow the damn thing up. The robots just make life easier; titanium is a lot tougher than human flesh."

"That was Graeme, wasn't it? The first guy. He hasn't got any... Bit's missing though."

"No. Gray's all there, except for the tiny little part of his brain that tells him what's socially acceptable." He paused, thinking. "Are you coming back in? They have some of that Kona coffee."

"Mmmm... No, I just need some fresh air."

"She thought you'd say that," said John, handing over Katie's PAL.

"Thanks. You know, I don't wanna be rude, I just can't go back in there."

"You wanna take a walk? I can't take much more of Graeme tonight either. We'll leave Katie with her little fan club, and make our own way back."

"Cool. Have you got any more war stories?"

"Have _you_?"

* * *

Lucas made his way up the corridor, third floor - accommodation block. He walked slowly, thinking over his conversations with John. He'd opened his eyes to a lot of the complexity of life and the dynamic between the group of friends. He'd ended up not feeling too bad towards Katie, she was human after all, and she hadn't really done anything wrong. All she wanted was the approval of someone she'd looked up to for a long time, he could identify with that.

He came to her door, it was quite near his, so he had somewhere to run if she gave him an unexpected bawling out. He was going to have to give back the PAL anyway so he may as well apologise for his outburst while he was there.

He knocked.

There was no answer, so he knocked louder.

The door swung open and Katie came out tying up her kimono. Lucas never realised that anyone could open a door with so much attitude.

She looked at him expectantly for a few seconds, her brow furrowing and her cheeks hollowed in impatience, as she hung in the doorway.

His mind went blank. He could tell by the way the fabric fell that she had nothing on underneath the robe. It made all kinds of feelings well up.

"It's eleven at night. What do you want?"

"I just wanted to give this back." He handed over the communications device. "And I - "

They were interrupted by someone calling, "_who is it?" _from inside the room. Somebody male. Somebody _Graeme._

Katie's eye-lids fluttered in annoyance. She had hoped that no-one would disturb them, and she closed the door behind her, shutting in Graeme and her embarrassment.

It was just them now, in the corridor. Lucas gave her that precocious, disapproving look that only he could do.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice." Katie tried to make light of Lucas's discovery, but he knew her well enough to know when she was acting.

He pouted. _How can she be with him after what he said?  
_  
"I'm an adult, Lucas," she said in response to his hurt expression. "And I have needs."

"No-one _needs_ to sleep with _him."  
_  
"What am I doing? I don't need to explain myself to _you_. Get some sleep, I'll see you in the morning."

"Well, at least one of us is gonna get some sleep," he threw back spitefully as he crossed over to his own door.

"Oh grow up."

"If that's how adults behave, I don't think I wanna grow up."

Lucas didn't look back as he scrambled in his pocket for the key-card. He was very glad he had the room opposite and not adjacent to hers, he didn't want to hear... Stuff.

In fact the thought of _stuff_, with _her_, sent his heart racing almost as much as the sound of it could. He slammed the door and leaned on the back of it, gathering his senses.

The room was plain, not unlike the residences on every university campus he had ever visited, and it had clearly been recently vacated by a couple of interns. The walls were littered with tacks where posters had once been, and he was expected to make the bed by the look of the pile of linen that graced it. He had dumped his bag there earlier.  
_  
Cold shower. That's what I need.  
_  
He crossed the room, pausing to look out of the window on the way to the bathroom. There was a clear view of the campus and the mountain. It was breath-taking at night, a sprawling map of lights that rivalled the stars themselves.

He went to it, drawn by the sight like a moth to the flame, putting his forehead against the glass. He had often felt this lonely, the emptiness of not knowing who his friends were, and of not knowing who he was himself. Confused by the bewildering way that grown-ups behaved.

He was in a lighted room looking out into the darkness, when all too often in the past he was on the outside looking in. He wondered if anyone else had spent their childhood looking into people's windows, relishing the warm light and the laughter of the happy families that resided there. It was a guilty pleasure, a vicarious hobby that set him apart from all his peers. Or so he had thought.

It was becoming increasingly clear that he wasn't the only one to seek comfort in unsuitable places.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Life on Mars**

John leaned on the lamp-post trying to regain his breath, savouring the adrenaline. He'd already done three miles, but the running blade was beginning to chafe his stump. They only had a finite usefulness and he made a mental note to get it serviced when he next got home. It always amazed him that metal and nylon suffered more fatigue than his biological limb would have, had it been put under the same kind of constant pressure. Let alone the pressure he put his brain under.

_Oh well_, he thought, _they just don't make 'em like they used to..._

The sun was just coming up and he anticipated one hell of a day ahead of him. These conferences were always draining, but running usually got him in the mood for battle. He looked sharply behind him when he heard a pair of trainers thudding on the asphalt.

Katie grinned as she passed him.

"Come on old man, surely you can do better than that!" she challenged.

_Oh God_, _here we go again_, he growled internally; he never could resist her goading him into action.

"Doing any marathons this year?" she asked as he caught up, falling into a synchronous step.

"Not enough time. Things are really hotting up at work. The UEO has us reconnoitring every battle field of the last fifty years."

"There's always next year." She continued pounding the road. Their conversations were often short and concise, neither the type to waste words, or precious oxygen.

"You know, you upset the boy last night," he chanced.

"Lucas?"

"Why do you always let Gray do that?"

Katie took her eyes off the road for just a moment. She narrowed them at John, something which he found rather disconcerting. What he did _not_ know, was that she was wondering whether he was referring to dinner or _later_. She took a chance and assumed he was talking about dinner. "Maybe I wanna say all those things too. It's just easier to let someone else do the talking."

"I know how it is. You think you can avoid looking like the bad guy if you just keep your big mouth shut. But it doesn't work that way, you're showing yourself up. Graeme is showing_ himself_ up. Ben doesn't need_ either_ of you to make him look bad, because he does it himself."

"You barely know Ben."

"I know enough. He hurt you. That's... Enough."

"Maybe."

"Definitely. You're hurting _so_ badly, that I wouldn't mind betting you have to jump into bed with Gray every time you see him. Neither of you can keep your pants on anyway, and the two of _you _\- "

"You preaching at me too, now?" she cut him off.

"There's a reason why none of us are in relationships; this job requires too much sacrifice. I'm divorced too, remember."

"Don't remind me."

"I think I got up on the wrong side of the bed today, Kate. I knew then that I was going to be in for a fight. Don't let it be you that I fight with. Just admit that I'm right and we can get on with our day."

They had come full circle, back to the residential complex. She abruptly slowed down to a walking pace and found another lamp-post against which to stretch, concentrating on breathing.

"I'm sick of this." She almost over-extended her hamstring, she was so mad at him. "Every guy I know spends their free time scouting for girls. I hook up with someone I've known for years and that's supposed to be shocking, or unacceptable in some way?"

"All I'm saying is, you shouldn't make a fool of yourself over Graeme. He's not worth it. You're a lady, and _he_ doesn't treat you like one."

"You don't know what you're talking about, John."

"Yeah, I do. None of us have it all figured out. We all mess up."

"It's a mess alright." She pierced his soul with her eyes once more, in one of her rare moments of emotional clarity. "Sometimes I feel so powerless, I can't say no. What do you suggest I do? You're the one with all the answers."

"There's only one thing for it."

"What's that?"

"Jerry Springer." John smiled as he sped off.

* * *

Breakfast had been an awkward affair; all of them sitting in the staff cafeteria and none of them really communicating. Lucas especially felt the tension that passed between the friends and colleagues, as if they were merely passing the butter. The only exception to the rule was Lark, who continued to chat excitedly, to no-one in particular, as if she could not - or didn't want to - sense the strained atmosphere between her friends. Her dark green uniform, similar to the UEO land forces uniform that John wore, transformed her into a business-like creature. She had her fair hair scraped back into a chignon and no obvious make up. Lucas found himself looking at her just a little too often and, even though she was not what he would call classically pretty, she continued to captivate him as he spooned oatmeal into his mouth. She hadn't noticed, just continued to fascinate him with her open-ness and her different-ness. Next to the normally demure Katie Hitchcock she was like a firework. He noted that her personality didn't really go with her image, something he had observed in others close to him, and especially himself.

It was almost a relief for the day's activities to begin. Now he sat in a surprisingly small conference room with surprisingly few attendees, maybe thirty, sporting ID badges that said things like, 'Technical Services Director' and 'Test Director'.

He felt, not for the first time in his life, slightly intimidated as people bustled around him to find their seats, looking like they had done this a thousand times and knew exactly what they were going. These people had been head-hunted from all over the world by the space administration, and they were the best minds for the job. However he was used to putting a brave face on things, and he had a special attitude he put on for such occasions; the _I-see-you-looking-at-me-because-you-think-I'm-too-young-to-be-here-but-I-don't-care_ attitude. That, combined with Bridger's advice of, _'never let people put you down because of your age,' _helped him to hold his head high.

At the head of the table sat the chairman and behind him a very large view-screen and a very special chair.

The chair for an H-R operator.

Lucas tensed with anticipation as Katie sat down to one side of him, and John on the other. He was buzzing now - the thought of gleaning yet more information. No matter how much he thought he knew, there was always more. Katie smiled at him briefly, just like she had done at breakfast. That was her version of an apology for last night, just pretending nothing was wrong. He sighed internally.

_Being young is freaking hard_, he thought, giving in to the familiar round-about of negativity that was the blight of his life. _No-one feels things as deeply as me. Surely no-one else goes through this crap, every breath of every day a struggle to understand. Computers are easy, but people? Especially when they are acting like they are from outer-space or something – _

His navel-gazing was interrupted by a sudden hush to the room. An elderly man, who everyone seemed to revere, was just finishing talking to the Center Director, one Doctor Linton Foster, to whom Lucas had been introduced earlier.

_"Nervous?"_

Lucas wasn't sure if the whispered remark from Katie was a question or a statement. "I'm just here as an observer, there's nothing to be nervous about," he said. _What am I doing to give away my thoughts?_

He was pretty sure that Graeme was looking at him funny from the other side of the table, but he just brushed it off. He didn't really have time to think about it any more as Doctor Foster rose from his seat and began to address the room.

"A warm welcome to everyone, especially those who have just arrived from the mainland. As you all know, this project would not have been possible without the intervention of the UEO scientific committee," he orated, in a well-rehearsed voice. "The purpose of this conference is to ensure the continuation of finance from _both_ organisations, and to convince our Director of Operations to employ the techniques you are going to see here today, in everyday maintenance and reconnaissance operations off world."

Lucas was absolutely sure he caught Graeme looking at him again at this point. _Man, what is the guy's problem?_

"Without further ado, I will pass the meeting over to the very capable Professor Vasily Basmanof, pioneer of DNI."

The elderly gentleman that Lucas had seen Foster talking to before, got up from his chair, with some difficulty, and made his way to the head of the room and the screen. He had a cane in one hand and a remote control in the other. This was a man who had seen most of what the world had to offer, and had gotten to a stage in his life where pomp and arrogance were of no consequence. He did not speak straight away, giving an air of confidence as he looked around the table at the people assembled there.

"DNI," Basmanof said slowly and in what Lucas could only guess was an Israeli accent. "Direct Neurological Interface. I will assume that most of you are laymen when it comes to brain surgery, much as I am when it comes to rocket science," he paused to allow for the ripple of laughter that followed, "so I will try to present my theories to you in an accessible way."

He had immediately endeared himself to Lucas with his amiable tone and the boy found himself relaxing a little. Basmanof reminded him of some of his better lecturers at Stanford.

"Imagine being able to look into the heart of a volcano, to walk in space, unfettered by the constraints of an exo-suit, or being able to reach the depths of the ocean as if our frail human bodies were of no concern. Those were the issues that weighed heavily on my mind for years, until I had a breakthrough in the field of hyper-reality. And _that_ is what has become a reality for these few brave volunteers. In the past two years, my lifelong _dream_ has become a reality. Now we are able to link a computer directly to the human brain, bypassing the need for a user interface and increasing reconnaissance sensor's accuracy by one-thousand fold. This monitor is, what? Ten million pixels resolution. The resolution of the human brain is virtually unlimited. Let us face facts, ladies and gentlemen, conventional knowledge retrieval is a thing of the past." Basmanof paused again to allow his words to sink in. "I'm a firm believer in the maxim _'show, don't tell',_ so I think the best way for me to explain the principles to all you uninitiated financial types would be to simply... show you."

He used the remote to bring up a diagram of a human skull and the footage recorded during the keyhole surgery. Lucas felt a little sick to his stomach. He'd seen many, many gory movies, but this was different - this was _real_. He felt even sicker when he realised who's brain was being excavated on the screen.

"Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock is one of our most successful implantees." Basmanof indicated to the relevant images with the pointer he had produced from the pocket of his lab-coat. "Data from the sensors, in the form of triphasic waves, is fed through transcutanious electrodes at the temples. The subjects temporo-madibular bone is drilled for the bundle of synthetic nerves to be passed through, and clamped onto the optic nerve just prior to the chiasma. Unfortunately in our earlier subjects, we found that this enhancement on its own was not enough. If you've ever watched footage of a roller=coaster, or watched someone else play video games, you will be familiar with the phenomenon that occurs when the things you are seeing do not concur with what you are feeling. We found that the subjects experienced sensations of nausea, disorientation and emotional stress when undergoing tests for extended periods of time, as would be the case during a real-world scenario. I've never experienced true seasickness myself, but I've heard that it is an extremely disabling condition."

Another ripple of appreciation ran through the delegates, the nods of agreement coming primarily from the _mal-de-mer_ sufferers in the group.

"How did we solve this? We found we needed to obtain feedback from the recipient's motor cortex, in order for a feedback loop to be established. The different faculties of the human brain, sight, motor control, the inner ear, are designed to work in unison with each other. The brain needs to feel what it is seeing, and see what it is feeling, in order to work to capacity. Take one of the senses out of the equation and you end up with one very confused operator. This necessitated us to explore deeper into the cerebral cortex and implant a bio-engineered chip into the motor cortex to ease the transition between the real world and the experience of total immersion. The gloves and the helmet perform a double function; both facilitating the feedback between the physical and the illusionary senses and allowing a non-implantee to use the apparatus."

Lucas took the opportunity presented by Basmanof's breather to reflect on what he had just heard. He knew all about the HR probe and how it worked, but it was only now that it dawned on him just what someone had to go through in order to do this. He used to think it was cool, but now he thought it was downright barbaric.

Basmanof smiled warmly and beckoned to Katie with his outstretched arm.

She sank into the operator's chair and put on the visor and gloves, nestling her toes in the foot-pedals just had Lucas had seen her do hundreds of times.

The image on the screen changed to the idle screen of the NASA central processor's user interface. Basmanof smiled smugly to himself as she began to navigate through the menu systems just by thinking about it. Gasps of surprise ran through the delegates as they realised what they were watching.

Even Lucas wasn't aware she could do this. It scared him a little.

"As you can see, the subject has learned to access areas of the brain that are little used by the average person. It works in much the same way as myo-electronics. In the case of an amputee, who would simply think about the prosthetic limb they wanted to move, the peripheral is a mechanical one. Here it is simply an informational one, but the principles are the same. For most people, moving your arm or your eye is not a conscious effort but a passive one, and as I'm sure you will all appreciate, the concentration and training involved in developing these techniques is _phenomenal_. Eventually we will be able to do away with all the apparatus, and find a way to control vehicles with pure mind-power, but for now... Commander, would you care to give us a demonstration."

The image abruptly changed to a view of what Katie's probe was seeing. It was not a great view, distorted and bulbous, as the lenses were designed to work in water. It was a little like viewing the world through a prism, but still she had no problem looking around. The engineer that had been attending to the probe took a step back, to allow it to roll across the room in spherical form, limbs tightly curled. The head stayed stationary, sliding on a gyroscope whilst the body was moving, metal body parts flicking in and out of view. Then it unfolded to sit back on its haunches and shake hands with another of the workers down in the hangar.

Katie amused herself with introducing all the test engineers to the delegates up in the conference room. Then she rolled the probe back into a ball, crossed the hangar and climbed back into its box.

"Any questions?" prompted Basmanof.

Immediately several people started to talk over one another in their excitement.

"One at a time, _please…" _Basmanof seemed overwhelmed by the response.

"I have a question for the operators," began one woman, identified as the Public Relations Manager. "Does it hurt?"

Everyone chuckled a little at this.

"Only when we laugh," said John. "Actually there are no pain receptors in the brain tissue, so no, it doesn't. The only sensations we experience are from the electrodes, a kind of tingling."

"Thank-you, Major. On a more serious note," continued the PR woman, "how do you select the volunteers?"

Basmanof answered her. "The subjects must be, amongst other things, in the prime of physical health, have adequate technical knowledge to maintain the apparatus and have no dependants. The most important factor, however, is a watertight psychological profile. That is why it is primarily military personnel that are chosen, they submit to having psycho-analysis on average twice a year. Does that satisfy your query?"

"For now, but I have another... It has been suggested that the UEO ethics committee should not have passed the bill allowing such alterations to be made to a human being. Would you just explain the moral and ethical problems associated with DNI for us, Professor?"

"Certainly. This project is probably the most controversial of NASA's history; _that_ is why there has been a classification on all DNI activities for the last two years. It allowed the subjects to gather enough information to convince any sceptics that the process was not only safe but also indispensable to both of our organisations. I'm pleased to say, that is _exactly_ what they have done, and that is why we are only now presenting the findings to the board of directors. The techniques are far from perfect but hopefully, now, we have enough data to prove it not only effective but economically viable."

"You didn't answer my question, Professor," she persisted.

Basmanof looked uncomfortable, this wasn't the first time he had been attacked in this way for his work. Lucas felt for him; he had come up against similar accusations of playing god when he was developing his ideas for inter-species communication.

"There are some that would suggest that the project presents a danger of cultivating a group of people with superior abilities. It could, according to them, produce a division in society that has nothing to do with race or poverty as it once may have, but with technological elitism."

"You mean, you've been accused of eugenics?" said the woman.

"That is exactly what I mean. But that is _all_ it is. An accusation. My critics know nothing of the benefits of my work. That is what we are all here to discover. I suggest you persevere before you make any judgements."

Basmanof was clearly in control of himself. He welcomed more questions and the group spent the rest of the morning discussing the finer points of how DNI could increase the safety, and decrease the cost, of EVA activities in space exploration.

Lucas found his eyes were being opened even more to concepts he hadn't realised could be so ingrained in technology; ethics and economics. He certainly was getting a lot out of this expedition, but there was one thing he could not get to grips with; how to handle the situation with Katie.

* * *

Lunch was almost as uncomfortable an affair as breakfast, served in the conference room, and descended upon by the assembled directors as enthusiastically as they had discussed the matters that brought them there. Lucas found himself hovering near to Scott and trying to engage him in conversation, more than he was trying engage his mouth in eating. He found Scott an infinitely interesting person, and he didn't want to seem ungrateful as the man had done a lot to ensure he was allowed to attend the event.

"How are you holding up?" Scott asked the young man, when he had finished a less than enjoyable, but unavoidable conversation with the PR Manager. "I remember being sixteen; sitting still for more than ten seconds used to be agony."

"It beats trying to stay awake in one of Bridger's tube lectures."

"_I never enjoyed those either," _whispered Scott, conspiratorially.

Lucas smiled, he noticed that Scott was child-like and passionate in his approach to life and exploration. Something which drove him on with boundless energy and eagerness, ever filled with wonder at what he would discover about the universe next. Perhaps this was why he bonded with Nathan Bridger so completely. They were two minds hungry for knowledge, and Lucas hoped this was the mould that _he_ fitted into. To be like either of them would be... Well, just awesome.

"You're not like them, are you?" Lucas gestured to the roomful of NASA staff.

"How could you tell? No, I'm an explorer and a pioneer. These folks are all bureaucrats. Very good bureaucrats that make sure I get paid at the end of the month, but bureaucrats none the less."

"What do you think about the eugenics accusations?" Lucas was always interested in controversy.

"All scientific pioneers are initially persecuted for their out-of-the-box thinking. That is exactly what happened when they started giving people pacemakers. So many deaths could've been avoided if society had just embraced the new. I think the same is true of this project. Once it becomes mainstream, people will come around to the idea. Then people will forget what life was like without it. At least I hope so. It'll make my job a helluva lot easier."

"I expect it's easier when you don't have to go space walking every time you need to do repairs. I know which I'd prefer. Hmmm... Walking around outside the skylab in near absolute zero, or relaxing inside with some freeze dried ice-cream?"

"You've hit the nail on the head," Scott winked. "It will prevent most of the injuries associated with the missions. The trouble with EVA is that the gloves are the thinnest part of the suit, we have to compromise between dexterity and getting frozen. With these probes, repairs won't be a problem any more, we can even walk around on the surface of other planets without having to land or even leave the craft."

"Where are you going next?"

"Neptune, but that's not until after another couple of years of preparation. If these demonstrations are a success, Graeme will be going with us as a mission specialist."

Graeme looked over, as if on cue, staring right through Lucas, who tried to ignore him.

"What's it like? I mean, what's it _really_ like, living in space?" he asked.

"Where do I begin? I suppose the things a novice would notice first are the lack of gravity, having to tie everything down... You can't eat as much because you're not walking anywhere, you have to listen to the same music for two years - we don't get MTV that far out. Taking a leak is a mission in itself and then there's the endless maintenance checks."

"So, it's pretty monotonous most of the time. Just like living on a sub."

"But there's so much more out there, Lucas. Being on the dark side of the moon, bathed in Earth-light, walking down dried up river-beds on mars, wondering if the mountains that loom up before you contain fossils, looking out of the capsule and seeing that you're travelling so fast that you're keeping up with the meteors... Maybe you'll get to experience these things, you're a younger generation; one day walking in space will be as normal as walking on the bottom of the ocean."

Before Lucas could express his surprise at Scott's tales, or ask for details, Katie approached him, a tea-cup and saucer in her hands.

Scott sensitively made his apologies and traversed the room to talk to the Professor, leaving them alone and out of the vocal range of any of the others.

"I need to talk to you about last night," she said.

Lucas sat on one of the vacated chairs, pouting and giving her a taste of her own silent-treatment medicine.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she sounded like she was giving an order rather than making an apology. "Friends?"

Lucas thought about this for a few seconds. He was still mad at her _really_, but he thought it wouldn't do to seem childish or jeopardise his being here for such a petty reason.

"Friends," he confirmed and shook her outstretched hand.

"Would you do something for me, Lucas? Would you make the presentation for the probe's discoveries tomorrow?"

Lucas almost choked. She was asking him to stand up in front of all these people and talk about their exploration of the world's oceans. He couldn't believe his ears, and his utterances reflected this.

"I... Uh... Yeah... I mean... Aye, Commander..." he frowned.

She gave him a strange little smile then that made him kick himself for being so inarticulate.

She changed the subject. "You know, we are going to have to put in some serious overtime when we get back."

"I know." He felt better. _Yeah, maybe I will forgive her_.

They re-joined the rest of the group and Lucas felt accepted again, human and not an emotional freak, with Katie talking to him like she always did when they were working. He chatted enthusiastically to the other scientists and NASA personnel, trying to put his night of _tossing-and-turning-and-not-understanding_ behind him, grateful that he had someone in his life that valued him for his self and not just for what he could do.

* * *

The rest of the day was spent comparing the probe's abilities to those of the EVA suits they already used. Most of the testing was done in the enormous tank of water, Lucas watching the strange ballets between the humans in suits and the probes with enchantment, as they toyed with the mock-up of part of a space station. He was not allowed to take notes, no-one was, but he stored away all the knowledge nevertheless. He was virtually oscillating with excitement the whole afternoon, at the sheer honour of being allowed to witness this, but he did well to keep his cool and put on a mask of stoicism. He wanted the NASA types to take him seriously. Also, to a lesser extent, he wanted to impress Lark.

_How many sixteen year-olds get to see all of this? Come to think of it, how many sixteen year-olds get to see anything I've experienced in the last eight months or so?_

He realised with a sigh that he had spent the entire day indoors, without so much as a sniff of the fresh air that the Hawaiian spring promised. _So much for getting out more, may as well still be on the sub._

It was seven pm, early evening, and most of the directors were giving good reports of their support for DNI. The only problem they had encountered all day was a glitch in some of software that allowed the NASA mainframe to communicate with the DNI hardware. Not a big deal, but it had raised a frown from the professor. They had been working with this equipment for years but it was only when it was being tested to the extreme, like today, that the problems started to come out of the woodwork. Lucas considered the NASA computer to be a little backward and he longed to be allowed to interfere with it, to set it to rights. The arrogant part of him, the part he knew he should try to suppress, was compelled to do some digging and say, _'here's your problem,'_ and receive some praise for his efforts.

By now the director's energy and concentration was flagging, and the H-R operators were nearing exhaustion, so Basmanof decided that they would call it a day.

The Professor put his arms around Katie and John as they watched Graeme's probe perform the last of its operations in the tank. Graeme himself was several rooms away and when he had finished, the divers hooked a winch onto the probe and set about taking care of it, just as if it were a dangerous creature that should be treated with respect.

"Well done, and thank-you _so much_ for all your hard work today." Basmanof looked at his two charges. "You make an old man very happy."

He glanced behind him to find Scott and Lucas coming over, as the rest of the personnel and the directors packed up for the day.

"You know I've backed your projects from the start, Professor, but today..." Scott shook his head in wonder, "by God, I think we're actually winning them over, despite the technical hitch."

The smile that lit up his face was matched by the others', and they all looked upon the melee of staff setting down the test centre, with equal satisfaction. That was until John, always observant, noticed that someone was missing.

"Where is Lark?" he asked.

The others, Lucas included, all looked at each other blankly.

"She was here before the Professor announced we'd finished," said Katie.

The test director called over from one of the work stations that lined the outer walls, "She headed for the main concourse about ten minutes ago. She said she had an idea what the glitch might be, something about this happening to her before."

Katie and John exchanged nervous expressions.

"She'd better not be getting herself into trouble, you know what she's like..." started John, heading for the double doors.

"Come on, you can help us find her," Katie said to Lucas, gesturing after John with a jerk of the head as he burst through the doors.

* * *

They had split up, Lucas staying with John and Katie searching for Lark on her own.

Lucas was struggling to keep up with John's purposeful march.

"Why are you so worried about her? Is it because of the protesters?"

"Nah, she butts heads with the IT manager," he said, still marching down the corridor. "Last time she was here with one of the Neurons, it almost came to blows because he let the two-way communication cut out when she was in the stratosphere... Uh, what protesters?"

"Oh, they have a petition to stop Basmanof wiring people's heads, or something."

"Talk about the flat earth society." John skidded to a halt outside a blue door. "Here we are. IT."

"Who is it?" Came the accented voice, drifting over the intercom when they had rung the bell.

"Major Tordov. Is Lieutenant Waldron there with you?"

* * *

Katie tried to think like Lark. It proved almost _impossible_. The girl was a complete enigma to her. So what if she was the UK's best fighter pilot; sometimes she was like a misbehaved youth. She was always getting hauled up for fighting, and the only reason she hadn't ended up in the glasshouse, was because she was willing to try any experimental techniques the brass asked her to. She was a loose cannon, some might say a maverick, but she was a _brave_ loose cannon.

Katie abandoned the idea and concentrated on searching the various laboratories in a systematic way. This brought her blood pressure down to a healthy level. Just thinking about how undisciplined Lark was, had made her anxious. She often wondered how anyone could spend a career in the military without any of the discipline and rigidity rubbing off on them.

_Actually_, she corrected herself, _I do know. Ben is exactly like that; a free-thinker. Remind me not to let them spend any time together._

She needed to get to Lark before _she_ got to the IT manager and said something she would regret. The door to the vacuum chamber complex stood curiously ajar, inviting her to investigate. There was no-one around; it was late in the day and all work had ceased. The door should have been locked.

She went in.

The hatch to the actual vacuum chamber was closed and the indicator lights told her that an evacuation was taking place. The pressure and the temperature were counting down, slowly.

_That's odd... Very odd._

She crossed over to the hatch and peered through the frosted-up window.

Across the sizeable chamber, opposite this hatch, was another much larger hatch for bringing equipment in... Also a fail-safe... And sitting cross-legged in the corner, head in hands, was Lark.

Katie gasped in surprise. The temperature had reached about minus five degrees centigrade. Lark happened to look up then, and seeing Katie leaped up and threw herself on the hatch, as she probably had done many times. She had a desperate look in her eyes, clinging to the window ledge with white fingers.

Katie tried to operate the locking mechanism, knowing that saying anything at this point would be futile and a waste of time. It soon became clear to her that the computer had control over the system and the magnets that secured the hatch were too strong for her to over-ride manually. She looked through the window again at the frantically shivering Lark.

She held up a scrap of note paper that she had been scribbling on.

_Looking for hard copy of your negative pressure test results. Heard hatch banging - Came in to investigate but someone closed it behind me. Safety latch not working. _She had written.

_Do something. _She mouthed to Katie, beginning to panic.

"I'm trying." Katie reached out for the phone on the wall, reluctant to take her eyes off Lark.

"Get me IT," she said urgently when the switchboard answered.

"IT," came the manager's voice.

"Is that Doctor Hajime? This is Commander Hitchcock, there's someone in the vacuum chamber and they've got about five minutes before they freeze to death. _Please_ tell me why the computer won't let us open the hatch."

"You must be mistaken, the vacuum chamber cannot be locked without two technicians present and the correct codes. Everyone left that department hours ago."

"I can assure you I'm not mistaken, Toni. Look at your status readout. Just do something... _Now."_

Katie glanced apologetically at Lark. _We're gonna get you out of there, she mouthed_, as she waited for Toni Hajime to check his monitors.

His voice floated through again, "don't touch _anything_, I'm coming down."

* * *

In Toni's office, Lucas and John were left staring at each other in wonder and fear at what they had just overheard.

"_Lark," _breathed Lucas.

"What's she done _now_?" said John.

* * *

Toni raced into the vacuum chamber control-room. He completely ignored Katie, and made for the computer, muttering to himself.

Katie looked over his shoulder. "Already tried that," she said.

He hit a few more keys and what he did next really alarmed Katie; he took a couple of steps back, shaking his head in disbelief and said, "Oh my God."

"What's the matter? Can you get her out?"

"No," Toni admitted as he swallowed dryly.

Lark could see everything that was going on. She slumped down into the corner of the chamber in defeat, trying to protect herself from the falling temperature, which Katie noted with dread, was now about minus ten.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**The Ice Queen**

"What _exactly_ is the problem?" Katie asked, urgently looking over his shoulder at the layout on the screen.

Toni gave her an _I'm-trying_ expression. "There's an error... But I can't sort it out from here." He'd tried every default access code and every safety measure he could think of.

"Forget it," she shook her head, looking like she was going to leave the room. "I'm gonna do this the old-fashioned way."

"You _do_ know, even if you get through the magnetic door, the servos will still be engaged, it's a fail-safe."

"Can you cut the power to the electro-magnets?"

"I think so, as long as the corrupt code isn't affecting the grid, but I need to get back into my office to do it."

"Then do it! Leave the rest to me."

He signed off from the terminal and ran for the door.

"Send John down, will you!" she called after him.

_Hang on in there, Honey_. She willed Lark, as she peered through the frosted hatch, and checked the pressure gage again. It was reducing, slowly but steadily. Lark huddled against the inner wall of the chamber, balling herself up, conserving her heat.

Katie then set about finding some tools.

* * *

The door burst open, to Lucas and John's surprise, and Toni tripped back into his office, falling on his work-station and frantically accessing the parts of the virtual building he needed. He completely ignored the others, except to say, "she want's you," without even looking up.

Lucas and John looked at each other. "I think she means _you_," said Lucas.

"Stay _here_," John stressed.

_"Damn greasers."_ Toni muttered under his breath when John had gone, fingers flying over not just one, but many key-boards. "Don't touch _anything_."

"Can I help?" Lucas asked, loitering with his hands clasped behind his back. He noted Toni's bad attitude toward the engineers, they probably butted heads quite a lot.

"And what makes you think you'd be of use to me?"

"Um... Is that _my_ computer over there?" Lucas pointed to the other side of the room where his equipment was bundled on the desk.

Toni was surprised. He decided to skip the part of the conversation where Lucas said, _'yes'_ and he said, _'I don't believe you', _and then Lucas said _'why?', _and moved straight to the part where they understood each other. He was trying to save someone's life here, after-all.

"Security asked me to verify your 'ware. You have a whole lot of illegal stuff on there, kid."

"You say that like it was drugs or something."

"Well it speaks volumes about your credentials. You know anything about HeadMaster?"

"Yeah, I've used it before."

"This whole complex is more wired that Bill Gates' house. I can control everything from here. But obviously the HeadMaster has other ideas today. There's a glitch in the AI. I need to cut the power to the vacuum chamber, but it's not letting me in. It would take half the time to solve this with another pair of hands."

"Are you _allowed_ to let someone mess with the system like that? I mean... You don't know me, I could do anything." Lucas looked at Toni in amazement. He got the impression he was reluctant to admit he needed help.

"Do you _see_ any of the other techs?"

Lucas glanced around at the other empty desks. "No."

"They've all gone home. Do you want the girl to die?"

"No."

"Then help me."

Lucas grabbed the second swivel chair at Toni's workstation, and waited for the guy to log him into the system. He began to dig deep into the source of the environmental controls.

"I found the problem," he told Toni, as they both furiously scanned the lines of code.

"Where?"

"You'll see it any second now." Lucas leaned back in the chair, relishing the feeling of getting one up on an adult, of beating his own personal record.

Toni caught the corrupt line of code, like a stubborn fish in a net, and replaced it with the correct characters, hopefully allowing them to turn off the power. They were both about to congratulate themselves when the strangest thing happened.

The digits on the screen flickered and changed back to what they were before. The monitor reflected a frowning young face and an open mouthed older one.

"No!" Toni yelped, "oh, no you don't." He tapped in the correct code once more. Again it flickered back to its damaged form.

He entered the information again.

It changed back _again._

"I don't believe this," said Toni.

"I have something that could help." Lucas kicked against the desk and launched himself across the room, the chair gliding in the direction of his computer equipment.

* * *

Katie and John watched, confused, as the indicator lights blinked off and then on again repeatedly.

As soon as it looked like it was going to _stay_ off, they descended upon the controls and swung open the hulking, clanging outer door.

"Katie, you know how you are always saying you can take anything apart in two minutes flat?"

"Yeah," she said, selecting a huge spanner as he checked on Lark.

"You'd better do your thing. I think she's unconscious."

* * *

"How'd you do that?" Toni frowned.

"I have a master's degree in AI."

"So do I, and I _still_ don't know how you did it." He wasn't satisfied with the answer and he narrowed his eyes at the young man.

Lucas looked uncomfortable. "It's uh, something I created, for weeding out rogue thoughts in intelligent systems." He looked down, feeling bad for lying to Toni, but he felt he couldn't trust him... not yet.

"Well whatever it was, it worked. Your friend should be OK, now. Provided Commander Hitchcock puts her money where her mouth is."

"You don't like her, do you?"

"How could you tell?"

"Something about your tone of voice," Lucas added, lightly. He checked out Toni's ID badge. It said _G. Hajime_.

"Why does everyone call you Toni?"

"It's Genji, but I prefer Toni." He tapped away at his main keypad, repairing the system. "I transfered here from JAXA, the Japanese Space Administration. I requested a tryout for the HR programme three years ago, but they wouldn't even consider me; they prefer military personel. Hitchcock got the position despite the fact that her programming knowledge stops at level three."

"Actually, she's a pretty competent hacker," Lucas corrected. He'd already made the mistake of not standing up for one of his friends; he wasn't going to do it _again_.

* * *

"What the _hell_ is going on here?" Graeme bellowed, as he rounded the corner of the vacuum chamber control room with the Professor, to find the floor scattered with the demolished door components, and two UEO officers working away on what was left of it.

"Lark got herself stuck in the 'fridge." John looked up. "Help us."

"Oh, my _God_." Graeme rolled up his sleeves and picked his way through the litter of discarded equipment, his face the picture of unease.

Professor Basmanof stood by, wringing his hands; this was all a bit of a shock for his old heart.

"OK, we're ready to break the seal," said Katie. "On three."

"One... Two... Three!" prompted John, and all three of them tugged on the exposed hinges, muscles straining and sweat dripping down temples with the effort.

"This isn't going to work," said Katie, giving up, "We need a lever of some kind."

They had successfully dismantled the many layers of the door, disabled the servo-mechanisms that locked it in place, and now the only thing keeping it closed was the actual pressure inside the chamber. The extraction fans had stopped removing the air when the power was cut, but the non-return valves ensured that the conditions inside remained constant. Lark was rapidly using up the little oxygen that remained.

John held up one of the spanners.

"No good, not long enough. Is there a pry bar?" said Katie.

"There's a fire axe in the corridor," offered Graeme, heading for the door without waiting for an answer. There wasn't enough time to go hunting for something more suitable.

"We could chisel off the seal," was John's next suggestion.

Katie didn't answer him. "Are you alright, Professor?" Basmanoff didn't look well, leaning on his cane.

"Don't worry about me, just get her out." He pulled out a chair and sat down, breathing heavily.

At that point Graeme returned with the axe. "What about the view port?" he asked Katie, wielding it ominously.

"Three inches of poly-carbonate."

"Oh well, so much for that idea."

Metal clashed on metal as Graeme lodged the axe in the silicon door seal above his head. He put all his weight on the handle, kicking against the air, praying it wouldn't break.

Nothing happened.

He concentrated all his might on the task. Two pairs of grimy hands joined his, knuckles white with tension... Until there was an excruciating BANG! The seal broke, sending the three friends sprawling to the floor, covering their ears from the sudden change in air pressure.

The influx of air into the chamber prevented the door from falling on them. Graeme was the first to recover and gather his wits about him. He held up the broken axe handle in wonder, but then he realised that the door no longer had hinges or anything to hold it in place. He leaped up and caught it, tossing away the piece of wood, breathing a hasty sigh of relief.

"Quickly!" exclaimed Katie, helping Graeme remove the door, and rushing to Lark's side as he placed it out of the way. She needn't have said it; there was no mistaking the urgency of the situation. She felt for a pulse and put her face close to her blue mouth to see if she was still breathing. After an agonising few seconds Katie let out a "she's breathing," and then moved aside for Graeme to pick up Lark's limp form.

He carried her out of the freezing chamber and laid her on the ground among the pieces of the door. He rubbed her limbs, rapidly trying to warm her up. She stirred, groaning but incoherent.

Graeme slapped her on the cheek a few times to get a response. She batted his hand away, groggily.

"You gave us a helluva scare there, kid," he told her.

"We have to get her to the infirmary," said Katie, "she could have damaged her lungs - "

"No!" Interjected Basmanof, coming over to stoop down and examine his young charge. "We're not taking any chances. Take her _straight_ to hospital, I'll come with you."

"We'll take my car," said Graeme, scooping her up in his arms again and ushering the Professor toward the door.

Katie stood wiping her forehead on her shirt sleeve, stunned by the intensity of the rescue that had taken minutes, but felt like a lifetime. She only then noticed that John hadn't said anything. In fact she'd totally forgotten about him since they'd gotten the door open.

She turned around.

John was still sitting where he had fallen, eyes squeezed shut in concentration, nursing his hand in his lap.

"What happened?" She came over, kneeling down and coaxing him to show her. There was the glint of stinging in his eyes.

He unfurled his hand to reveal the mass of blood and torn skin where a large shard of the axe handle had impaled it.

Katie swallowed hard, taking some Kleenex out of her pocket and padding the protruding wooden stake to try and stem the bleeding.

"Relax." John tried to joke. "It's just a splinter."

"Some splinter...This has turned out to be one _long_ day." She leaned against his shoulder, the pair propping each other up, Katie still holding the tissue paper onto his hand.

"And it's not over yet."

* * *

"One more time," said the unsympathetic head of security, as she scribbled in her incident log. "Major Tordov got injured trying to save...?"

"That would be Flight Lieutenant Lark Waldron..." said Katie.

"... From getting frozen to death." The woman finished with a flourish of her pen. "Now, who's going to sign this?"

"Don't look at _me_," said John, getting sutured up by an on-site medical technician. "My left-handed signature isn't much use."

Katie reluctantly took the pen from the woman who had mistaken her for Lucas' mother the day before. She made her mark and handed the log back.

The woman, apparently called Carrie-Anne Sieder and new to the base, although not new to NASA or the security business, glanced at Katie's ID and then at Lucas'. The understanding was visible as it dawned across her face. "Oh," she said, flatly.

_"Yes,"_ said Katie, just as flatly.

Lucas stifled his snickering.

They both looked at him, with very similar disapproving expressions.

He stopped.

The med-tech finished up dressing John's hand, packed her things and left.

"How could someone get locked in there without the door codes?" asked Sieder, changing the subject.

"There was a glitch in the AI. The same kind of glitch that ruined Commander Albright's demonstration earlier today," Lucas explained.

"It wasn't a glitch; it was sabotage. Someone interfered with it," said Katie. "Ms Sieder, would you be so kind as to ask Doctor Hajime to identify any suspicious activity, as soon as he comes in tomorrow morning?"

"We don't know there _was_ a saboteur. It could've been a natural evolution of the HeadMaster's programme," protested Lucas.

"We'll have to assume there is a saboteur for the time being," Katie told him, "for our own safety."

"You think someone would try to hurt us deliberately?" asked John.

"Somebody _already_ hurt us," she answered, sternly.

"Maybe it's the human rights protesters," said Lucas.

"No. It would have to be someone with inside knowledge of the NASA computers." Katie's face changed as she realised the truth. "That put's everyone in this room under suspicion, and about half of the people who work in this facility."

"That's a large pool of suspects on the loose," said Sieder.

"Speaking of which, can we get out of here now?" said John, "I'm starving."

"No," said Katie. "We need to get to the bottom of this."

"Can't we just sleep on it?"

Katie glared at him. "I'm not gonna sleep. I _can't_ sleep, until I know for sure this was just an accident."

Sieder jumped in. "Wait one God-darn-cotton-pickin' minute. If you are serious about this sabotage, Commander, I need to call the police department, and you people aren't going _anywhere_."

"No, we call the _military_ police. Violence has been perpetrated against _military_ personnel."

"This is a _civilian_ organisation. And you are on _civilian_ property. I'm not having military CID over-running _my_ base, thank you."

"Actually, NASA is a governmental department, just like the UEO." Katie retorted, smugly.

John and Lucas looked on from their place seated on the other side of Sieder's desk, amused by the women's debate. John let a grunt escape. It was a mistake.

Katie shot him a withering glance. "This is not a laughing matter, _Major_."

Lucas whispered in John's ear, "you're not going to let her talk to you like that, are you. Don't you outrank her?"

"Nah, technically it's the same rank,"John conspired, as the women continued to discuss further action.

"But you're a task-force Commander. That's like having your own boat."

"There is that. But do you really think I'm gonna try and pull rank on her?"

Lucas thought about it for a second. "No!"

"Are you going to help us or not?" Katie asked the security officer.

"I want to help, I really do - "

"Then let me see the security recording of the vacuum chamber."

"It's not that simple. I _have_ to do things by the book."

"How about _you_ call the cops, and _we_ conduct our own investigation?" Katie negotiated.

Sieder didn't look pleased, but she gave in, sighing tediously and beckoning Katie toward the computer. She brought up the footage from the last hour or so. Toni wasn't joking when he said the whole place was wired; Sieder had access to _everything_.

She rewound the feed to moment before they knew Lark had entered the room. They saw her go over to the filing area and pull a volume out of the shelf. Her head snapped up from the folder at an unheard sound. She placed the folder back in its place and crossed over to the vacuum chamber. Katie and John felt a chill; they knew all too well what their friend was about to go through, and knowing she was Okay didn't make watching it any easier. Lark poked her head in the door. Then she leaned further in.

"Stupid girl," breathed Katie.

Then Lark went right into the chamber. They watched as the door slammed shut by itself. They couldn't see Lark through the hatch at this angle, but they knew she had desperately tried everything to get out, because when they _got_ her out, her fingertips were raw.

Sieder fast-forwarded to the part where Katie came in and discovered what had happened. They all watched her posture and her expression change to horror as she stared through the hatch and reached for the phone.

"The rest is history," said Sieder.

"Rewind it to before Lark, I mean Lieutenant Waldron, entered the room," Katie instructed.

Sieder did so. They watched until the recording caught up with the part they had already seen.

"Nothing," said John, "and Foster is not going to be happy about this." He was referring to their handiwork on the dismantled door.

"Don't worry about Foster, I'll fill him in," said Sieder.

"What was Lark looking at... in the folder?" asked John.

"Something about glitches in our previous test efforts. I'm going down to have a look," said Katie. "I'll meet you back at the rec-room."

"I don't think you'd better go alone, what if there really _is_ a saboteur?" John asked, but he found himself on the receiving end of her disapproval again.

_"Nothing's_ going to happen to me," she reassured him.

"Don't disturb the evidence!" Sieder called after her as she left, feeling less and less in control of the situation.

The three of them were left in the security office, looking at each other in awkward silence.

"I think we'd better go wait for Gray," said John after a while.

Sieder got up and held the door for him and Lucas. "How's your hand?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

"I've had worse. I was lucky, it missed the tendons." He smiled, looking at her properly. She had brown eyes. Deep, rich, brown eyes.

"You should still get some stitches in it, you know."

"I'm not keen on hospitals." He didn't tell her _why_.

Sieder looked down, taking in his blood-stained pants and bandaged hand. "You handled the whole situation pretty professionally. I thought it was rather heroic."

Outside the doorway, Lucas mimed retching. Luckily Sieder didn't notice.

"It's all in a day's work." John brushed it off, but still he lingered. "You're new here."

"Yeah... A couple of months now. You know, you'd better go, I have more paper work..."

"We'll see you tomorrow." John punched the door-frame as they headed for the main concourse.

When they had gone a few hundred yards, Lucas turned to him and said, "was it me, or was she _digging_ you, Major?"

John just smiled and shoved him in the arm.

Then he turned serious. "I hope to God Lark is gonna be Okay, 'cause I don't want to have to kick someone's ass."

"Me too."

* * *

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November," Katie muttered to herself as she perused the bank of back-up test records. There were a _lot_ of files, but she had already memorised both the location of the relevant ones and the details of each of their experiments at the centre, each time she was there. She hooked out the folder that Lark had been examining when she was distracted.

The gaping doorway of the vacuum chamber loomed menacingly at her back.

She could've just looked up all the logged data in HeadMaster's memory, but she knew that Toni would spot her accessing the computer. As far as she was concerned, he was not to be trusted. The less evidence she left of her investigations, the better.

There it was. Fifth November 2018. The graph showed her that she'd experienced some breakdown in the transmissions between the NASA sensors and the probe, when it had been in the vacuum chamber. She'd passed it off as a fluke at the time; that kind of thing happened to her all the time on the sea-floor. But now she was not so sure.

Then she took out Lark's test flight results, the figures representing how well the sensors were standing up to being outside the earth's atmosphere. Again, exactly the same thing had happened to Lark on a number of occasions. A total loss of communication preceded by a slight power surge to the system.

John picking up rocks inside the volcano; same thing.

Graeme on the bottom of the tank; same thing.

More files, more experiments and more graphs. Every single glitch, she noticed, conformed to the same parameters. She kicked herself for not noticing any of it before, but why would she? The incidents were too far apart to be of consequence to the analysts. No-one would noticed a string of seemingly unconnected incidents. Now it was obvious they were _not_ unconnected. Someone had been interfering with the system for at least a year.

Katie put the files back where she found them. She was going to have to explain all of this to the cops tomorrow, but for now, her main concern was finding out how Lark was getting on at the hospital.

* * *

"You need anything?" Graeme sat on the edge of Lark's bed, while the Professor occupied the only chair, both of them watching her intently.

"No, someone left these crossword puzzles on the side. That should keep me occupied for a while." She flicked through one of the puzzle books. "Actually, all the answers are filled in except for one. What's a _'Holmesian seed'?"_

"Doyle wrote a story called 'The Five Orange Pips'," said the Professor.

"Well, there goes my entertainment for the next - " she glanced at her watch, " - twelve hours."

She tossed the book aside.

Graeme picked it up off the bed covers. "Seriously, what were you thinking, going in there by yourself?"

"Curiosity killed the cat." She seemed unperturbed by her near mortality.

"Curiosity nearly killed _you_," Graeme warned.

"I needed to get to the bottom of what's going wrong with the HR, Gray. We can't let a little thing like this ruin the project." She looked to the Professor for approval.

"_Nothing_ is going to ruin the project," he affirmed. "We've all worked too hard for this."

"I know what you think, but it wasn't my fault," said Lark. "Someone shut me in there."

Graeme and Basmanof shared the same disbelief.

_"What?"_ she persisted.

"Personally, I blame the AI..." Graeme began, but he stopped when Lark's doctor breezed into the room.

"Are you her partner?" she immediately addressed Graeme.

"Oh, no, no, no, we're just colleagues." Lark smiled. "He's not my type."

Graeme rolled his eyes. "Too much penis. Is she going to live?"

"The burns are only superficial and there's no damage to the Alveoli," the doctor continued, "it's not uncommon for someone who is young and fit to come through a decompression like this unscathed, but I still want to keep her in over-night for observation."

"No!" Lark grasped Basmanof's arm, "Professor, tell her I have to make a presentation first thing in the morning."

"I'm sorry my dear, but the good doctor is right. You need to stay here, just in case."

"Just in case!" Lark nearly jumped out of the bed, she was hopping mad. "I've flown a Lynx through a hurricane... I've survived a catastrophic loss of pressure in a jump jet... I don't _do_ 'just in case'!"

"Just get some rest, OK," said Graeme, pacifying her with a squeeze to the hand. "I'll pick you up in the morning."

"_Fine."_

"Professor?" Graeme looked at him.

Basmanof got up with difficulty and followed Graeme out of the door.

They left Lark to be prodded and poked some more by the doctor, and ambled down the corridor, as fast as the Professor's cane would allow. Graeme offered his arm for support.

"That was a close call," uttered Basmanof. He looked up to see Graeme smile warmly at him and then turned away. He did not see Graeme's expression change to utter seriousness, as if someone had flicked a switch.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Talk About the Weather

The sun was beginning to set, painting the huge windows with orange and pink, showing all the detail in the space centre that the architect had originally intended.

It had been a long day and soon it would be over, but there was just one thing that needed doing before she could rest.

Katie burst through the main doors, out into the fresh air, and found herself instantly confronted by the scene of Graeme deep in discussion with a young woman. Natural blonde, well groomed, violently purple skirt-suit.

_What now?_

He looked up as she strode toward them. It became obvious from their emotive exchanges and the smashed indicator lights on the parking-lot floor, that they had been involved in some kind of prang. Graeme's BMW had come out the worst off.

"You're not supposed to be here anyway," he finished saying to the woman, almost for Katie's benefit.

Whatever he was up to, she didn't have the patience for this right now. She wanted to know how Lark was but she held her tongue for the time being; she didn't want to divulge any sensitive information to a stranger. Still, there was something disconcertingly familiar about the blonde. Her fighting instinct kicked in again. She loitered, waiting for an in.

"This is_ not_ a restricted area," said the young woman indignantly.

"You wanna write down your insurance details? Or do I have to call security?" said Graeme. "And trust me, after the day we've had, you do not want me to call security."

"What exactly is going on here?" asked Katie, echoing Graeme's question earlier that day. She looked the blonde in the eye and saw something akin to recognition.

"She was just leaving." Graeme tried to steer her back to her pickup, but she veered away, pointing at Katie with one vividly painted nail.

"I _know_ you."

The two women locked eyes and a spark of understanding crossed between them.

Katie had to think fast. She grabbed the blonde by the elbow and beckoned Graeme with a jerk of the head. "Come with me."

"What are you doing?" asked the blonde. "I have freedom of the press... Do you know who I am?"

"Listen, I'm a UEO officer. You're coming with us. I just want to ask you some questions."

If she _was_ who Katie thought she was, and she knew who _she_ was, then she could do untold damage. The HR operator's identity was supposed to be classified, for their own protection, but if the blonde put two and two together, she could put them all in danger.

The blonde acquiesced; it was too good an opportunity for a scoop.

Graeme left his injured car and curiously followed the two women in the direction of the accommodation block.

* * *

"I keep a vial of sand from each location we're sent to, to remind me how many times I've cheated death." John explained to a mesmerised Lucas, "This one time, when I was still in the fourth, before I decided I wanted to be an officer, we were on this training mission. I tell you, there's nothing like the first time you think you're going to die. After that... you get used to being in danger all the time."

"I din't think you engaged the enemy all that often."

"Bad soldiers can be more deadly than the enemy. You have no idea how stupid people can be."

"I guess people like that disprove the theory of evolution," said Lucas.

"What do you mean?"

"If Darwin was right, then people would be getting smarter. All the stupid people would die out because of natural selection."

"You may have a point there, kid," said John, clearing up the table and putting the cues back in their holders. They had the room to themselves as all the other visitors had gone to dinner in the cafeteria. Lucas and John hadn't felt like socialising or eating, they were too concerned about Lark, and they wanted to stick around in case Katie needed them.

With impeccable timing, Katie and Graeme marched into the room with the blonde between them, instantly changing the atmosphere.

"Take a seat." Katie ordered her into one of the chairs that lined the edge of the lounge. Then she turned to Lucas, "Go to your room."

"But - "

"No _buts, _Lucas_. _Go to your room, NOW. And lock the door."

Lucas skulked out and up to his floor, leaving John looking a little bewildered at the unexpected guest. Katie then rolled up her sleeves for the second time that day and grabbed the next chair, completely ignoring the men, and placing it in front of the blonde.

"If you're wired tell me now," she said, straddling the chair.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" Graeme interjected, his posture uncomfortable.

"I know exactly what I'm doing. This is Liana Hayes." Katie looked up at the two men as if this was enough explanation. "_Liana Hayes. _Political and home affairs correspondent for the state of Hawaii._" _She gestured with her eyebrows and was met with blank and slightly concerned expressions. "Jesus, don't you guys watch the evening news?"

Liana was starting to look a little upset that they weren't fans.

"You dinged Graeme's car on purpose, didn't you? So that you could meet him. Come on, admit it."

The suspect sheepishly exhaled. Katie took this as an admission of guilt and crossed her arms, satisfied, leaving the rest to Graeme's wrath. It made sense now; Katie was one step ahead of them all.

"Why would you do that?" Graeme stood with hands on hips, thinking of his tail-lights. "Why... Would someone do that?"

"She's a reporter," said John. "She's on the scent of a story."

"You think she's involved in what happened today?" Graeme sounded more like he was _telling_ than asking.

"What happened today?" Liana's ears pricked up.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah, I'm asking the questions." Katie quietened everyone down with her hands. "What were you doing in the compound?"

"I don't have to take this." Liana suddenly remembered who she was, rising to leave. "You have no right to interrogate me."

"Listen here, someone tried to sabotage my work and hurt one of my friends today. That's put me in a very bad mood, and so far you're the only person I know of that is somewhere they have no business being. I suggest you co-operate."

"Let me get this straight. You think someone is out to get you, and you haven't a clue who it is?" Liana almost laughed.

"Answer the lady." John pushed her back down into the chair. "Otherwise you're going to find yourself saying the exact same thing to the cops."

"I was _trying_ to get in with the campaigners," she finally sighed, knowing that they were right.

"But they've all gone," said John.

"_And_ I was trying to meet... Graeme, is it?" Liana had already memorised each of their ID badges. "I admit I did hit his car on purpose, but I didn't mean to do it so hard; I was just trying to get his number."

"You could've just asked," said Graeme.

"I thought you'd be suspicious."

"And we're not suspicious now?" asked Katie.

"It's not what you think," protested Liana, "I was just after a story, pure and simple. Now, I don't know why you people are so jumpy, but I'm pretty sure that I know something you don't. You wanna know what I know, and I wanna know what you know. So maybe we can turn this situation around and make it mutually beneficial."

"Oh, she's good," said John, "_very_ good."

"Now she's talking my language," said Katie.

"_Did_ you find out anything significant from the picketers?" asked John, all three of them crowding around the young reporter.

"What's in it for me?"

"We don't tell anyone you pulverised my M5," said Graeme.

"Oh come on, I need a little more leverage than that."

"You tell us what you already know, and anything else you find out, and I'll make sure you get a story your producers won't be able to resist," Katie offered.

"What story?"

"Yeah, what story?" the two men chimed.

Katie hiked her thumb toward John.

"What? No, Katie, no. I'm a very private person..."

"But you have a very inspiring story. I'm sure people would love to know."

"No. Period."

"This man," Katie continued, selling the idea, "has devoted his life to saving children's lives, all over the world."

Liana's eyes seemed to light up with greed.

"This _man," _said John, "isn't happy when his so-called friends use him as a bargaining chip." All of his aggravation was directed toward Katie.

"Actually," said Liana, her eyes glazing over with ideas about documentaries, "we could really use an uplifting human interest story to boost the ratings. I can see it now, 'a real life hero'."

"Gimme a break," said Graeme, rolling his eyes. Then something occurred to him and he turned serious. "Why me? Why did you have to get my number?"

"I saw you leaving in a hurry with Professor Basmanof, and a girl. She didn't look well, is she alright?"

"She's _fine_," said Graeme defensively, and then to the others, "they're keeping her in as a precaution."

"How do you know who the professor is?" John asked the inquisitive looking reporter.

"Doesn't everyone know who Vasily Basmanof is? His experiments on monkeys angered a lot of people. Now he's gone one step too far. I mean, he may have revolutionised computer interfacing, but I think the campaigners may have a case."

"I thought you were supposed to be morally unbiased," said Graeme.

"They weren't monkeys," said Katie, "they were _apes_. And they're still perfectly healthy."

Liana stared at her, understanding once more overtaking her pretty face. She virtually shot up from the chair, "you're _them_!"

John forced her back down again.

"_Please_." Katie tried to appeal to her compassion; the tables had turned and the ball was now in Liana's court. "Don't make this public."

"Oh, my _God_," Liana was stunned, "no wonder you're so jumpy; you _really_ think someone's out to get you."

"Help us." said John.

Liana had to think about this for a long minute. Hanging around all day had paid off; it was the best lead she had stumbled upon for a long time. Still the moral ramifications were, she would be culpable if the HR operators' fears were realised. That was the dilemma that the press faced every single day. She tried to weigh up the pros and cons of putting her career before her obligations to her fellow human beings. Human decency won in the end, but it was a close call. She reasoned that if she was to withhold her assistance, she may as well be an accomplice to the saboteurs... And she still had the soldier's story... She _hoped_.

"OK," she said, a trace of reluctance still in her voice. "I'll help."

"You mustn't let anyone know that there's been a problem with the project today." Katie looked at her intensely. "We can't afford any bad press right now."

"Okay, Okay."

"And I wanna know everything about the human rights people."

The men pulled up their own chairs and settled down to hear what Liana had to say. She cleared her throat.

"Their leader is a guy called Lloyd Moberly. He's not here, he's hiding out somewhere on the mainland, mainly because of the recent bomb threats."

"That was him?" asked John.

"Not exactly. These guys just go underground every time someone cries wolf. I waited all day to get an interview with the instigators over here, but they are very... How can I say this? Confrontational."

"Cowards more like." John shut his mouth when he received a scowl from Katie.

"What exactly do they hope to achieve by standing around the front gates?" asked Graeme.

"Publicity." Liana simply stated. "I've worked on enough of this kind of thing to know, they just want to draw attention to their campaign. If they show up in enough places enough times they start to get a following among the public, and if they get enough momentum, that means congress has to listen to them."

"And it's people like you that give them that exposure," said Katie.

"Now wait, don't you go accusing _me_. I just go where my producer sends me and try to gather information. The public have a right to know what's going on in their world."

"And what about _our_ rights?"

Liana ignored her. "They want exposure but they're not willing to sacrifice their anonymity. It's virtually impossible to get one of them to talk about themselves. It's all side-stepping and politics."

"Should we be worried? I mean, are they a threat?" asked John.

The reporter had to take a breath and think about that one. "Well they did letter-bomb Millenium Life Science."

"Have you done any ground-work on Moberly?" asked Katie.

"Well, he's not a psycho. He's unstable and unpredictable, but not a psycho. Oxford education, law school, then worked for the European court of human rights. All went a bit wrong when his wife was killed in the War on Terror."

"So now he just terrorises us? Where's the logic in that?" John tapped into his righteous indignation.

"You've got to understand, these people see you as a threat to society. You're challenging their perception of what it means to be a human being. It makes them uncomfortable."

"Do we make _you_ uncomfortable?" asked Katie.

"No. Of course not... No. You said someone sabotaged your work. Don't you think it's more likely to be someone on the inside?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Katie. "Listen, do you think you could sit on this until we contact you again?"

"Sure, when will that be?"

"These two are only here for another two days," Graeme gestured toward Katie and John, then began to scribble on a scrap of paper he'd found in his pocket, "but I'm based here. How about I give you my cell number and you call if you find out anything else of significance."

"Sounds good to me." Liana glanced at her watch and took the number from Graeme. "I'd love to stick around to be interrogated some more by you military types, but I've gotta go meet my cameraman. He's gonna think the worst."

"John, would you escort Miss Hayes back to her vehicle, and make sure she stays out of trouble until she leaves the campus. I need to talk to Graeme alone." Katie gave him a glare that showed she meant business.

"Sure," said John, and then to Liana, "come with me."

* * *

"So, you really save children's lives, don't you?" Liana stole a sideways glance at her escort, as they crossed the lot. She noticed his bandaged hand.

"I used to blow things up for a living, but when the wars ended, the emphasis changed to making the world safer for everyone. I've spent the last year in Cambodia, clearing mines, except when I've been here of course."

"You know, I really think people need to know what you do. It would de-mystify the DNI technology, and give the public more confidence in the UEO."

"I'm actually starting to warm up to the idea. I would need to talk to my superiors..."

"Naturally."

"And it would have to wait until after the NASA testing is complete, this project is still classified."

"That wouldn't be a problem."

John looked down at his feet and the grey asphalt, as Liana halted near to her pickup. "God, I can't understand why anyone would letter-bomb scientists who are trying to cure cancer. My unit gets called to incidents like that. It's like fighting a losing battle sometimes."

"Look, I know you people don't trust the press, but I'm just trying to find out the truth, just like you."

"I know, and don't be intimidated by Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock, she's not always like that; she's just had a bad day."

"We all have our off days." Liana looked at him sincerely, getting into the driver's seat. "Thank-you."

"What for?"

"Opening my eyes," she smiled.

* * *

"I'm not sure what just happened, but I don't think it's gonna be good for us," said Graeme.

Katie got up and started to compulsively tidy the rec-room. He followed her around. "You're the one who engaged her in conversation in the first place. What were you thinking?"

"She crashed into me, what was I supposed to do?"

"Uh, see through her."

"I didn't know who she was."

"That's what they all say," Katie muttered. "You put us all in danger, I hope you realise that, and then you didn't do a thing to help; you just gave her your phone-number."

"That was a calculated risk, just like yours. You really think she's going to keep her mouth shut? You know you can't trust the media."

"Gray..." Katie said a little defeated, putting the magazines at right angles on the coffee table. "She's given us valuable information. We have to give her the benefit of the doubt. She would've figured it all out on her own... The moment she saw me."

"Yeah, you never did explain that. How does she know who _you_ are?"

"They did a news spot on seaQuest when she was handed over to the UEO."

"About that valuable information," Graeme said slowly, "you're gonna tell the cops?"

"I don't think we have a choice. I'm convinced there's a plot."

"Are you sure you're not just being paranoid? It's all speculation... You can't prove a thing."

"Did you miss the _entire_ conversation we just had with Miss Hayes? Moberly has the motivation and the influence to put an end to our work, Graeme... and possibly our lives."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you'd rather believe the girl that just _deliberately crashed into me the moment I got back. _Yeah, she's totally sane and reasonable._"_

"You're talking about one of EarthCast's finest anchors. Maybe I'm just trusting my intuition with this one. It's never let me down before."

"_Great. _The future of the project depends on your intuition._"_

Katie straightened up, and tried to re-assure him. "Don't worry."

"I'm not worrying, it's only my life's work at stake." Graeme fidgeted. "You want to get out of here, get something to eat?"

"I don't know, Gray, it's been a long day and I'm tired."

"Please?"

"OK, but I have to deal with Lucas first."

* * *

Lucas was lost without his computer. He'd drummed on the window sill for about half an hour, emulating Keith Moon.

_"Talkin' bout my generation..." _he whined absently, when there was a knock at the door.

It was Katie.

"You didn't have to speak to me like that in front of everyone," Lucas immediately jumped down her throat, "I'm not a child."

"I beg your pardon? You do not get to speak to _me_ like that, young man."

"It's good thing you haven't got any kids, 'cause they'd _hate_ you," he retorted under his breath.

"_What_ was that?" Her face was like a thunder-storm.

"Nothing," he sulked. "Why do you have to treat me like I'm a problem. Everyone treats me like I'm a problem. I'm just a useless freak."

"Hey!" she said sharply, getting impatient with his introspection. "This is not about you. As far as I know, I'm the only person in this room that's getting persecuted for being a freak." She bustled in without being invited and pulled Lucas' sea-bag out from under the bed. "Pack your things, I'm sending you back to Pearl."

"What?"

"Don't argue with me, it's for your own good."

"Something's happened." Lucas became animated, his face falling. "Is Lark OK?"

Katie sighed. "She's not hurt, they're keeping her in overnight for observation. But I just met someone that has me convinced there's foul play. The human rights people may have something to do with it too."

"Who was that lady?"

"She's a reporter. Do you understand what that means?"

"It means she writes the news."

"Don't get flippant with me, this is serious. It means she has ways of finding out things, and she's very good at figuring out who people are. Two minutes with you and she'd twig."

"Twig?"

"Who you are Lucas, who's son you are."

"Oh," he said, kicking himself for forgetting that the media had any interest in who he was, and suddenly feeling very grateful that Katie was looking out for him. "So you're sending me away?"

"That's about the sum of it, yes."

"What would Captain Bridger do?"

"He'd do the same. And it's not just her. It's the saboteur."

"But I can help."

She looked him right in the eye, realising that arguing would get them no-where. Sometimes a soft approach could achieve more. "I can't guarantee that you'd be safe, Lucas."

He was silent for a while, thinking. He'd never had a reason to doubt he'd be safe when he was around his friends.

"You see, on-ship, I can control things, it's _my_ territory. But up here..." she shrugged. "And it doesn't help that I don't know if I can trust the others. I'm used to working with a team."

"You're thinking about Schraeder, aren't you?"

Katie sat down on the unmade bed and closed her eyes. She grasped his wrist and made him sit down beside her. "You know I'd never let anyone hurt you, don't you?"

"I know. I trust you."

She smiled to let him know she still had every confidence in her own abilities as a warrior.

"There's another reason you should let me stay. Well two actually."

"Go on," she said, slightly amused.

"I can hack into the NASA computer and tell you anything you want."

"How did I know you were going to say something like that eventually? You don't need to do any hacking, Lucas. I'm allowed to access the computer, remember."

"_And_, I'm the only person you can trust."

"I think you're right about that." She looked down, thoughtfully.

"I know you didn't do it, and you know I didn't do it. We've got to stick together on this one."

"OK, you can stay until the demonstrations are finished, but you're out of here the moment something happens that might put you in danger. You do as you're told and you're not to argue with me. Are we agreed?"

Lucas seemed satisfied with this. "Agreed."

"You got any insight into what's going on?" She knew that his fresh perspective on life often helped to solve mysteries quicker.

"Well, I'm pretty sure Toni, I mean Doctor Hajime, has got it in for you," he smirked.

"I could've told you that. We'll put him on the list of possible suspects. It couldn't have been Lark. She's the only one of us that's not an engineer and she wouldn't hurt herself, so we can eliminate her."

"I really don't think John has the motivation to try and put a stop to the project. It sounds like his job is his lifeline."

"You like him, don't you?"

"Yeah." Lucas looked a little embarrassed.

"So do I. So do I."

"What about _Graeme_?"

"What _about_ Graeme?"

"He has the knowledge..."

"I've known him for over ten years, he wouldn't do something like this."

"But sometimes you can think you know someone, and it turns out you never knew them at all."

"True. But he designed all the hardware, he has a vested interest in the project."

"_Graeme_ designed the hardware? I thought it was Cyberdyne."

"Graeme came up with the concept. Cyberdyne just built it."

Lucas thought a bit. "Toni has a doctorate, what's it in?"

"Um, heuristics, I think."

"And I thought _I_ was a geek."

"Lucas, I have to go now, but will you do something for me?"

"Anything."

Katie was amused by the depth of his devotion, considering that five minutes ago he hated her for embarrassing him and sending him to his room.

"I'm going to go get you my computer and the footage from the probe. I need you to swat up for tomorrow."

"Oh, I forgot about that. Why do you need me to do it? It's because you can't be bothered, isn't it?"

Katie laughed. He loved it when she laughed, that was when the real _her_ shone through.

"No, Lucas. It's because when I watch you discover new things it's like seeing the world for the first time again. I want the others to catch that enthusiasm."

"OK." Lucas was surprised.

"And if I give you my NASA password, would you go over some of the records for me, just so I know I'm not going crazy. I think someone's been trying to sabotage the project for quite some time. I'll write down all the details. You remember what I taught you about analysing intelligence?"

"Wait a minute. You're actually giving me permission to stay up late and play with your computer?"

"Yes, I suppose I am. But it's not really playing; it's working."

"For me that _is_ playing."

"Just don't do anything _too_ illegal, OK?"

"Um, you wouldn't mind if I just happened to, you know, find out anything about the suspects on the nex?"

"I really wouldn't mind. And if you just happened to chance upon some information about a guy called Lloyd Moberly, I'd mind even less."

"Off the record."

"_Off_ the record," she agreed.

"What are doing?"

"I'm going out."

"With Graeme?"

"Just out. I won't be long, and then we can go over what you've found out. I'm going to get John to keep an eye on you. I'll have my PAL in case of emergency." She tried her hardest to sound upbeat. Keeping Lucas busy was the best way to keep him out of trouble for now.

* * *

Graeme parked.

He'd showered, changed and picked Katie up from the accommodation block, bringing her down to a beauty spot on Hilo Bay. The sun was below the horizon now, but there was still enough light to lend the ocean some color.

Katie placed her styrofoam cup of coffee on the dashboard, not ready to talk yet. He offered her some of his fried chicken, to which she shook her head.

"Not hungry?"

"Not really, at least not for that genetically engineered monstrosity. I mean, who ever heard of a chicken with eight legs?"

Graeme whistled. "Boy, you really buy into all his philosophising don't you?"

"Stop it," she said, knowing that he was referring to Ben. "Just stop it right now."

"Geez, I'm sorry."

"Are we here for a reason?" she asked impatiently.

"Yeah, but I'm rapidly changing my mind."

"Well, forgive me if I'm a little off, but I've had a difficult day. Someone tried to kill one of my best friends, in case you hadn't noticed."

"She's gonna be fine. I'm picking her up in the morning."

"What about the professor?"

"He was a little shaken. I don't think he can deal with this kind of thing at his age. He's staying the night at my place, I thought it would be best considering the security issues."

"You're still at Cryogenic Road?"

"No, I moved to Observatory Street. It's a grade three and there's an alarm."

"Good." Katie seemed happy that the professor would be safe for the night. "It's a beautiful evening. I miss this when I'm at sea."

"It's the kind of sunset you should be sharing with someone special. Listen, I didn't bring you here to talk about the weather. I've been thinking about you a lot since the last time you came."

Katie shifted uncomfortably in her seat, bringing her knees up to her chest, not saying anything for the time being.

"See, I'm not getting any younger, I'm getting on for fifty, and I keep feeling the pressure to settle down before it's too late. I think we'd be good together."

He waited.

Finally she spoke. "No."

"Damn. It's the goatee, isn't it?" he said, rubbing his chin.

"You're not _going_ to settle down. In two years you're going to be travelling to Neptune - God that sounds strange - I don't want to be an astronaut's wife... Or an astronaut's lover." She took a sip of her coffee. "I'm happy with my life just the way it is."

"What? You mean you're happy _using_ me whenever you're in town?"

"Hey, don't turn this around. It takes two."

It was Graeme's turn to fall silent. He ate a few of his fries and then gave up on them.

"You've got the worst possible timing," said Katie, looking out to sea.

"I'm sorry, I just don't want to keep on letting you slip through my fingers."

"I'm never going to be your's Gray, so stop trying. You're just not cut out for commitment. Neither am I."

"I guess I'm going to have to accept that sooner or later."

"You know you'll meet someone else as soon as I go back to sea, you always do. And it would never work. There's a reason why none of us are in relationships."

_According to John._

"I guess that explains last night," said Graeme.

"It's not _you_ specifically. It's... It's..."

"It's the kid?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, everything's going hunky-dory and then the brat comes to the door, I have no idea what you're saying to each other, and the next thing I know, you're kicking me out."

"I realised I was being a bad influence."

"How is being normal a bad influence?"

"There's nothing normal about us. Wake up. Besides, you don't understand the situation."

"You're right, I _don't_ understand. Because nothing you do makes _any_ sense."

She didn't like his tone of voice. "He's not a brat, he just needs guidance. His parents don't have time for him, and my crew have become like, well, like a family. We were involved in a hostage situation a few weeks ago and he hasn't really gotten over it yet. I just feel like I need to be above reproach at the moment."

"Boo-hoo. Go tell someone who cares. Let me get this straight. You're blowing me out so that you can keep the respect of a teenager?"

"Yeah," she said, and then more decisively, "Yes, I am. And I think we've already gone as far as we're going to go with this, Gray. I can't do it anymore."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but this is going to make working together _really_ uncomfortable."

"You forget; I have a lot of experience working with my exes."

"How _can_ I forget? You've dumped me more times than I want to remember. I'm not sure how much more I can take."

"Then we should call it a day. I have to be decisive. Surely you understand that."

They sat in silence until the last vestige of sunlight disappeared, trying to come to terms with the fact that they could extract no more life out their on-off relationship.

Katie didn't quite know how she felt, but she was sure of one thing; Graeme and his bad attitude she could live without. She respected herself far too much. "Let's go."

He started the engine, hoping he wouldn't get pulled over for the damage to the car. "You were the best student I ever had. Did you know that?"

She grabbed the coffee cup before it could fall off the dash. "I know you think I accepted this assignment because of you, Graeme. But it wasn't like that. It was always about the science."

"I should have seen this coming, really."

"Frankly so should I."

* * *

When she got back, Katie went straight to Lucas, to try and take her mind off the conversation with Graeme.

He was back in the lounge, taking advantage of the wi-fi.

"How's it going?"

"Excellent," he said, still tapping away at the small computer, as she peered over his shoulder. "Your presentation is ready. And I've decided not to report you for child slave labour."

"Hey, I'm not getting paid for this either."

Lucas looked at her blankly. "You don't get paid for doing this?"

"It's part of the ethical code. You can't get paid for medical experiments anymore, and this qualifies as a medical experiment."

He turned his attention back to the screen momentarily. "You want some of our pizza? It's got pineapple."

"No thank you. Where _is_ John, by the way?" she then asked.

"He went to bed."

"He left you on your own?"

"Relax. No-one can get in without one of these." He flicked his ID card.

She decided not to mention that it wouldn't matter if their enemy was on the _inside. _"How about the list of suspects?"

"I cross referenced all the regular staff and the visitor's personnel records against the news archives, electoral records, legal notices, everything I could think of. There's nothing suspicious, except a couple of extra-marital affairs."

"I won't ask who they were."

"Yep. They're all clean."

"I'm not so sure about that. Everyone has skeletons in their closet."

"But I think you're right about the test results. It's too much of a coincidence."

"I can't believe I never noticed it before."

"Don't blame yourself."

"I don't. Let me see those personnel records."

* * *

Toni Hajime always worked late. In fact he often stayed the night in his office, curling up on the small couch in the corner. He wasn't supposed to; there were regulations, but he didn't have anyone to go home to and his work was all he had nowadays. More often than not, his colleagues would bring in morning coffee, knowing that they'd find him snoozing with papers still in his hands. He sighed and leaned back in his ergonomically designed chair, mulling over the day's events.

"I'll be damned if someone's going to slip through these defences," he said to himself. He considered himself one of the best problem solvers NASA had ever seen, and catching a saboteur would put him in high regard with his superiors.

Stretching and cracking his knuckles, he set back to the last minute system monitoring before he turned it over to HeadMaster for the night. Two people were signed in. Himself and Commander Hitchcock.

He brought up the view of what she was looking at. "Hmmm, that's odd. Human resources. What's she doing? Gotta stop talking to yourself, Toni, you're starting to lose the plot."

Then something else caught his attention. The wireless security alert, recently installed by him, had picked up an unauthorised transmission within the three mile radius. The red indicator flashed in the corner of his main screen. Toni's heart began to beat faster. Maybe this was the answer.

He clicked on the indicator. It was an encrypted instant messaging service. De-coding it was not a problem for HeadMaster.

_Would you like me to translate the message, Doctor Hajime?_

_Yes, _he typed.

_ Please wait._

_SEON SAYS: You'd better have a damn good reason for this._

_ISYXROS SAYS: They're on to us._

_SEON SAYS: OK, I have to admit that does deserve my attention._

_ISYXROS SAYS: What would you like me to do?_

_SEON SAYS: Continue with the plan._

_ISYXROS SAYS: That might not be possible. People are going to be watching what I'm doing all day._

_SEON SAYS: Do I need to remind you of the consequences of your failure?_

_ISYXROS SAYS: No._

_SEON SAYS: Then eliminate the threat._

_ISYXROS SAYS: I already tried that, and I don't think I could go through with it again. You promised me no-one had to get hurt._

_SEON SAYS: Don't get squeamish on me now. It's people like you that force me to take action. Don't make me come out there and have to clean up your mess._

_ISYXROS SAYS: That won't be necessary. I can handle it._

_SEON SAYS: You'd better handle it. Keep me informed of your progress from now on._

_ISYXROS SAYS: I think they may call the cops. If the shit hits the fan I hope you know I'm not going to protect you. I'm only doing this because I have no choice._

_SEON SAYS: The feeling is mutual._

_ISYXROS SAYS: I have to go._

_SEON SAYS: Go, but remember this. I have nothing to lose, but you have a whole lot to lose. Don't let me down._

* * *

**_To be continued..._**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Identity Crysis

_Who the hell are you? _Lark had said when she'd first laid eyes on him. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the very same words, but it was the first time he'd really thought about what it meant. Lucas tried the sentence a few different ways as he got ready to get into the shower.

"_WHO_ are you? Who _ARE_ you? Who are _YOU_?"

He was still none the wiser, as far as the answer was concerned, when he got in and turned on the water.

It was very hot.

Taking a shower for more than two minutes was a luxury for anyone who spent most of their time on a submarine. He used to consider washing to be one of those things that adults nagged about and teenagers rebelled about, but now he'd really learned to appreciate the little things that surface-dwellers took for granted, like unlimited supplies of fresh water. In his mind it fitted into the same category as waking up early. He'd been woken that morning by a sharp rap on the door from Katie, who knew better than to trust his timekeeping, and dragged himself out of the unfamiliar bed, not quite remembering where he was. He'd shouted to her that he was on his way, even though that was far from the truth, stumbled over his things and ended up sprawled on the floor tangled up in the sheets. He'd held his breath for a few seconds, praying that she'd go away and not figure out, from the noise or his tone, that he'd not gotten up when he said he would. Or expect him to answer the door and from some inexplicable clue in his countenance, realise that he'd been dreaming about her again. She had gone away, but he still needed to be ready to go in ten.

_Definitely__ should turn it to cold,_ he thought, as the water beat down on the back of his neck, cleansing away the ache and the images of his night of clammy tossing and turning.

_Who am I? _Everyone around him seemed to know who they were, but he'd not had enough time to figure that out before he'd been thrust into a world of academia and research and adult priorities. And worse still; he didn't know how he'd react to certain situations until they arose.

He got out, dried off hastily and started brushing his teeth.

Bridger had told him once, when he'd asked what made a boy into a man, that life was like a tube of toothpaste; you don't know what colour the stripes are until you squeeze it. It is the real man that comes out when the pressure's on.

* * *

"What the hell happened to my door?" thundered Doctor Linton Foster, as he stalked up and down the line of assembled personnel squeezed into his private office. He'd called a meeting so that he could get to the bottom of yesterday's misadventures before the demonstrations began.

"She did," said John, indicating an impatient looking Katie, standing next to him.

"Were you planning on putting it back together?" Foster almost spat, uncomfortably close to her face.

"When the cops have finished their investigation," she replied coolly, trying so hard not to show any unprofessionalism at Doctor Foster's outburst. "I didn't want to disturb the evidence."

Foster continued to stalk up and down the line. He was in control, _God damn it_, this was his research station. "We're not calling the cops."

"Why in God's name - " began Scott Keller, but Foster cut him off.

"Because I won't let one person's paranoia jeopardise this project, and I'm yet to be convinced there's any cause for concern. If I let the directors catch even a whiff of subterfuge..."

"Um, two," Lark corrected him, steeling herself for the impending argument, voice loaded with attitude and the unsaid details of her ordeal, "that'd be two people's paranoia."

_"Lieutenant,"_ Katie warned under her breath. The pilot had only just got back in one piece and it wouldn't do to have her at Foster's throat.

"I think you'll find it's pronounced with an 'f'," was Lark's response to that.

Foster ignored them both. "Does anyone have hard evidence that Lieutenant Waldron's little accident was anything more than her own negligent behaviour?"

The way Foster pronounced "_negligent"_ made Lark almost lunge forward and strangle him. She'd had a bad week so far and she saw him and his comments as fair game. Foster was saved only by Graeme grasping her arm and yanking her sharply back into line.

_"What did you do that for?"_ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth as Foster returned to his desk.

_"Saving your ass and your career,"_ he whispered back, not even breaking his smile. _"Keep outta trouble or I'll take you right back to the hospital, and leave you in the tender care of Nurse Helga."_

Lark tried to rub her arm, where Graeme had dug his fingers in, without anyone else noticing. The thought of more Nurse Helga made her shudder.

"Someone tried to _kill_ her," Katie said, looking around to see if anyone else was as concerned.

"Maybe she pissed someone off," said John, and Lark gave him a sarcastic, but affectionate narrowing of the eyes.

"And they could still be out there," Katie continued, "it's not just Lark, it's all of us."

"You have reason to believe someone has a vendetta out on the HR operators? By that rationale, shouldn't they be after the Professor too?" Foster was becoming increasingly unimpressed.

"I haven't got solid proof yet," started Katie, "but when I've finished collating some of our data, I think you'll come to the same conclusion I have-"

"What," said Graeme, "that all those little adventures you've been having down on the bottom of the sea have gone to your head? This is the real world, Kate, villains are fewer and further between up here."

She stared open mouthed at his audacity, hoping he'd read into her expression exactly what she wanted him to.

"And," Graeme continued, unchallenged, "assuming someone is out to sabotage our work is monumentally naive. If they wanted to stop this they could go through congress."

John was glad the Professor wasn't there to hear them all trying to tear each other down. If what the saboteur wanted was to make them all fall out, then they'd probably succeeded. He distracted everyone from their conflict by bringing up an as yet undiscussed point, "is anyone else aware that there's a picket line outside the gates this morning?"

"Not this again..." Foster mused, "if no-one has actual evidence that something fishy is going on, then I suggest you all get out of my office and do what it is you came here to do. And hopefully by the end of the day I'll still be able to hold onto what vestige of sanity you people have left me with."

Just at that moment Lucas thought it pertinent to open his mouth, but he quickly shut it again when a thought crossed his mind. All the things he'd seen that pointed to foul-play were too far-fetched. As far-fetched as some of the tales they had to tell of their exploits on the frontiers of the oceans. His reasons for thinking someone had tried to hurt Lark on purpose would probably fall on deaf ears; Foster didn't want to believe something was afoot, all he cared about was his research grants and looking good to his superiors. But there was also another reason not to open his mouth; the perpetrator may just be in the room with them. It could be any one of the people he'd met during the last couple of days. He'd keep the information to himself for a while longer.

Toni strained to hear what Foster was now exchanging with Scott, and then saw both of them nodding in reluctant agreement. He noticed Lucas gulping like a fish and looking a lot like he was out of his depth. _Does anyone have evidence... _Foster had said and yes, Toni _did_ have evidence, but admitting it would mean admitting that he had set up illegal listening equipment on the roof of the test centre. How else could he have cracked into the conversation between the two mysterious saboteurs? Foster was not stupid, he'd see through any ruse that Toni could think of. He decided not to say anything... Yet.

John struggled with the choice before him. He could go along with Katie, _God knows, she's never been wrong before_, and tell Foster what they knew, but that would mean including Liana Hayes in the story. If his superiors knew he'd even been talking to her about what he did without getting clearance first, and not only that, but Foster knew about it before they did, he'd be in their bad books for a long time. No, he would sit on it for now.

Lark desperately tried to call on the voice of discipline that echoed in her head whenever she was about to do something _really_ stupid. But all she could think about was the voices of her teachers saying she'd never amount to anything. They'd never understood her, and her frustration had come out in a number of ways; specifically either beating up the boys or kissing them or worse. Her parents retaliated by sending her to an all-girls school. She called their bluff by beating up the other girls and kissing _them_ too. When she eventually graduated flight school she sent a facsimile of her diploma to those teachers and her parents, but not before adding her own touch; she'd scrawled, 'you can wipe your backside on this' in black marker pen. Right now she was faced with the biggest temptation to tell Foster exactly what she thought of him. She _knew_ she was right, she hadn't had a chance to talk it through with the others yet, but she was _sure_ there was a pattern to the sabotage. And she _knew_ she deserved more respect than Foster was giving her. But rocking the boat was the last thing she needed to do, she was constantly on report, and the fact that her unit couldn't do their job without her, wouldn't stop the brass making her life hell until she shaped up. If she made a big deal out of this, then she may as well go ahead and prove the teachers right.

Katie fumed as she listened to Foster explain that the days demonstrations would go ahead as planned, and that the directors wouldn't be informed of a possible saboteur. She was still a little sore from Graeme's unfair comments, and anything she said now would be coloured by her demolished emotions. She decided not to push the issue; she needed to ask someone's advice first.

They all filed out, at Foster's bequest, to get on with the day's work. Lucas shot Lark a sympathetic look as they passed the doorway, and out into the clinical looking corridor.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'm indestructible, me."

Katie passed them, trying to put the conversations behind her, when Scott caught her up.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I'm with you on this one."

* * *

"Gum."

"I beg your pardon?" said Lucas, confused as to what that had to do with the demonstration he was about to give on Katie's behalf.

"_Gum_," she repeated and held out her hand.

"Oh, sorry," he said with an embarrassed smile, and placed the chewing gum in her waiting hand, before getting up from his seat and preparing to address the directors.

She looked down at the mass of gum with disgust and hoped she wouldn't regret this.

Lucas shuffled his notes and his feet, visibly trying to remember where he decided he would begin the night before. He caught Katie's eye and her smile spurred him on a little. Lark had already gone first, so that made it a little easier. She'd once again transformed herself into the sensible version of herself for the purposes of the demonstration, almost like flicking a switch, and Lucas watched her talk about her work with fascination and admiration. The directors were impressed, and it would be a hard act to follow.

"I... Uh…" He faltered when he saw the thirty odd people all staring at him expectantly. He'd been planning to sound like he knew what he was talking about, but his mind suddenly went blank. He noticed Katie trying to mouth something at him, and he frowned, hoping no-one would notice. When she realised she wasn't getting anywhere, she signed.

_Tell them who you are._

She was in the front row, so no-one could see her hands. All they could see was Lucas crack a grin and settle more comfortably at the podium.

"I'm Lucas," he said, much more confidently, "Lucas Wolenczak. I'm seaQuest's chief computer analyst. Commander Hitchcock has asked me to present her research because she's hoping some of my youthful enthusiasm will rub off on you all."

Some of the directors laughed. Katie cringed and tried not to see the heads turning in her direction.

The audience was much less intimidating now that he'd gotten a humorous response. Lucas launched into an explanation of their discoveries, punctuated with some of the video documentation he'd edited last night, and peppered with his attempts at humour. He'd started with the discovery of the Library of Alexandria and the biologic in the Tonga Trench, moving onto some of the search and rescue missions - paying attention to the difference the probe made in the crews efforts - and finishing with particularly impressive footage of the _King George_.

By the time he'd finished talking, most of the people in the room were blown away.

"... So, as I'm sure you'll all conclude, this technology makes a significant difference in all of our extra-vehicular activities, not to mention the people who owe it their lives. Thank-you."

He stepped down from the front of the room to the sound of appreciative applause from those who'd understood what it had taken for him to do that.

Katie got up and took over from him as he sat down.

"Thank _you_, Lucas, for that extremely eye-opening experience." Even though her words were slightly mocking, he knew that her smile was real. He could see it in her eyes that he hadn't let her down.

Everyone listened as she filled in some of the gaps in his knowledge and took questions, until Foster stood and announced that they would break for lunch.

* * *

"I don't know who else to turn to." Katie nervously pushed her coffee cup around the table, and her voice echoed a little in the near deserted cafeteria. "I'm afraid this could sound a little whack, even to you."

"Try me," said the Professor, "I may surprise you."

She smiled with as much warmth as she could muster, but she was left cold by the last couple of days. Basmanof wasn't just her surgeon, he was her mentor and her teacher, and she was privileged to be able to call him a friend. She might even say, when pressed, that she looked up to him like a daughter would.

"I think... I _know_ that someone is trying to stop us."

Basmanof didn't say anything, he just stirred more sugar into his coffee.

"Professor?"

Finally he spoke. "You know, my doctor, bless her soul, keeps telling me to stop taking so much sugar and caffeine. Do you know how old I am, Katherine?"

"Are you listening to me?"

"How _old_?" he persisted.

"I don't know."

"Eighty-five." He let his words sink in a little then continued. "I've seen, heard and done almost everything there is on the face of this planet. I've survived more tragedy than you can even imagine. Do you think that some petty-minded armchair philosophers would get me worried?"

"Still, I don't know what action to take. I can't exactly bypass Foster's authority on this. I don't even know if it's a real threat, or I'm just losing my mind."

"Use your intuition. The intuition that, in my experience, women are innately gifted with. Just between you and me, my dear, you don't need advice, you just need to listen to the alarm bells that are ringing in your mind already."

Katie sat back, wondering if his cool approach was the confidence of his success or just denial. She also couldn't deny that she'd been stifling her instincts in favour of logic in this problem.

"Is that all that's bothering you, or are you just using this to distract yourself from a heart issue?"

"Sorry?" she snapped out of her thought-train.

"Something's bothering you, that much I can tell."

"Graeme." She self-consciously smoothed down her hair. When Basmanof gave her an inquisitive expression she continued. "We've been seeing each other."

"I see." He was clearly not happy. "I warned you all about getting involved with each other, but..."

"It's not a _recent_ thing," she told him, "It started when I was taking my master's."

"I never even saw it..." Basmanof shook his head, his powers of observation were slipping.

"I'm sorry we hid this from you. It was disrespectful, but it's all over now."

"I've noticed he's not been himself lately."

"That's probably because of me."

"Go on..."

"He gave me an ultimatum and I turned him down. Tell me, is there something wrong with me?"

"No," said Basmanof, with renewed compassion, "there's nothing wrong you."

"For some reason I insist on pursuing an affair with someone who's not suited to me, is twenty years older than me, and is essentially my boss. Then I baulk the moment anyone mentions commitment." Her tone of voice was steadily escalating, "oh, yes, there is something wrong with me."

"You're the saboteur," he said simply.

"I beg your pardon?"

Basmanof almost laughed. "You're only suffering from the same disease that affects the entire human race; you keep _sabotaging_ your own relationships."

* * *

_"Almost as good as being there... 'Cept I don't have to get my feet wet." _Graeme muttered to himself as he manoeuvred his probe through the six million gallon tank of water.

He was seated at the work station he'd set up in the tank room, expertly manipulating the mechanical beast's silicon coated fingers in a display of its potential manual dexterity. The delegates scrutinised his every move, assuring themselves of his efficiency as the engineers monitored his progress. The aim of this exercise was to prove that he could fix anything without human assistance.

Katie watched over his shoulder, giving occasional guidance as was sometimes necessary with these tasks, and tried to put his harsh words behind her. If he wanted to behave like an ass-hole, that was his problem. She'd decided that she was going to be above reproach and turn the other cheek, because deep down she knew he was stressed and under a lot of pressure. It was _his_ creations that they were trying to prove worked.

_Everyone is entitled to snap occasionally_, she thought as she watched what he did, and then smiled as he turned the probe to look at its own reflection in the wall of the tank.

_"How'm I looking?" _he whispered.

_"Vain," _she said as he turned back to what he was doing. "Try a little more torque on that bolt."

"Thanks, but I _have_ been using a wrench since before you were born."

She barely had time to formulate an answer when he suddenly raised one gloved hand above his head, in order that the probe would catch the now removed section of airlock before it fell.

"More torque, eh? How about less _talk_," he said.

The men and women in the room watched as he lay the section of space craft on the bottom of the tank, gently, almost caressingly, as if were something brittle and precious and not just a sheet of metal. Katie had always admired his attention to detail and loved to watch the man at work, even if their personal relationship left a lot to be desired.

She was just about to say something, when -

The lights went out.

Not just the over-head lighting; every single electronic device in the chamber fell dead in an instant. If there was a trace of light left in the place, then the directors would've seen each other all staring around in awe, unprepared for something like this and unsure what to do.

"Great," said Graeme, still jacked into the HR equipment.

"What _now_?" growled John.

"_Still_ think I'm paranoid?" Katie called in Foster's direction.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7**_

_**Fox to the Hounds**_

* * *

"Don't panic." Foster contradicted himself. His words demanded calm but his shaky demeanour was anything but. "Everyone stay where you are. Ms Sieder, where are you?"

"Here, Doctor." She was easily located by the flash-light.

"Initiate your emergency procedures."

The flash-light beam twirled around the room and illuminated nervous faces as she took out her walkie-talkie. "Code nine. All units remain at your posts. Whitten and Chappelle, meet me in my office. Alert the authorities. I'm assessing the situation."

Scott did little to disguise the astonishment in his voice. "What exactly is going on?"

"Code nine, red alert," she explained impatiently. _He should know all this_, she thought.

The tone of her voice made the others realise that this was no ordinary power failure. It was a state-of-the-art building, this kind of thing just didn't happen unless it was deliberate.

"What about Graeme? Graeme, can you see?" Katie sounded more concerned, Lucas thought, than Graeme deserved, judging from the way he had spoken to her earlier, and this only served to make Lucas hate him even more.

"How would I tell? It's pitch black in here," said Graeme.

"Good God," exclaimed Basmanof, "no-one's ever suffered a complete power failure while they were online before. He could have damaged his brain."

"I feel fine," Graeme insisted.

"I still need to get you down to the infirmary, run some tests."

"Very well." Foster turned to Sieder who was still talking to her men via the walkie. He tried to catch her eye.

Sieder held her hands up against the harsh light. She'd gotten flash-lights to the team of directors as the others were talking, and the misdirected beams almost blinded her as she tried to make her way over to Foster. "Whitten's reporting we've been plunged into total lockdown. In other words we're trapped inside the centre." She whispered so that only Foster, Graeme, Scott and Katie would hear. It wouldn't do to have everyone panic.

"Ok, you escort the Professor and Commander Albright to the infirmary. Let's hope you're not locked out." Foster turned to Toni. "Doctor Hajime, would you check the computer system - "

"Already on it," he said from one of the terminals. "Looks like our saboteur has found a way to send us into lock-down without the building's life support systems coming online. HeadMaster is running off the back-up generator, but we have no user network and no coms. I need to check the servers, access the mainframe directly."

"Just do whatever you need to do... And hurry," said Foster.

"Can I - " started Lucas.

"You go with him," said Katie, knowing that if there was anyone who could solve this problem creatively, it would be him. "John - you too. Try to get HR online first."

"Aye Commander," said John with what she thought was the slightest hint of cheekiness. "I've wanted to say that for ages."

Katie didn't need to tell him to be careful and protect the other two. She and Lark were left with Foster, Scott and the directors, who talked among themselves, taking some of the chairs scattered around and wishing they had their personal electronic devices with them to pass the time. Katie got the impression they didn't really get the seriousness of their situation.

The PR manager sidled up to Foster. "Why the rush to get the computer back on?"

Everyone who was listening in started to look worried in the torchlight.

Katie answered for him, giving Lark a glance first. "If we're locked down, that means no-one can get in or out. It's a fail-safe; a counter-terrorism measure, in case of espionage or if there's an extra-terrestrial biological hazard loose in the building. HeadMaster seals all the external entrances. We compromise convenience for security."

"Hoisted by our own petard," said Foster, sounding evermore defeated.

"So we just wait until help arrives." The PR manager was indignant.

"No-one can get _in_." Foster tried to get the message through to her.

Katie continued, her expression grim, "we have no environmental controls. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing."

"So we're going to run out of air?" said one of the directors.

"That's about the long and short of it." All Scott received was a searing look from Foster for his comments. "They deserve to know, Linton."

"Aren't you scared?" asked one of the other directors closest to Katie. She wasn't sure of his name. They all blurred together after a while, all these suits.

She looked at Lark again for approval; a knowing glance that contained references to all the dangers they'd endured. The answer was _'no', _the nameless director could see that much.

Foster sat down and rubbed his face with fatigue. "We weren't ready for this..."

* * *

"Who would have thought, she was right all along," said Graeme, stifling a humourless laugh as they made their way down the corridor. A place so familiar, without the lights, seemed so threatening now.

"Commander Hitchcock or the Flight Lieutenant?" asked Sieder.

Graeme didn't answer. They were nearly there.

"I hope they can get the power back on," said the professor.

"How did you know the lights were out, if you weren't even sure you could see?" Sieder turned to Graeme. "It doesn't make any sense."

He abruptly stopped walking. The other two stopped beside him. Basmanof looked at him for an explanation.

"I guess it was one of those instinct things." He tried to shrug it off, smiling, but Basmanof could see that his face was far from sincere.

"And why didn't you react when it happened? It's almost like you were expecting it," she continued, hand instinctively going to her weapon.

Graeme stayed quiet for a moment more, and then his face fell, ghostly in the light from Sieder's flash-light.

"Smart lady."

* * *

Katie's PAL beeped. "Hitchcock," she answered.

"I can't get the intranet back up, but you have full power to the HR apparatus." Toni Hajime wasted no time with small talk. "It's on a different network to the other terminals."

"Thanks Toni."

"Actually, it was Lucas that got it up and running. He knows that 'ware like the back of his hand." Toni sounded reluctant to admit it, but it still brought a smile to her lips.

"Keep us updated." She left the channel open and quickly took up Graeme's place in the HR chair.

"What are you doing?" asked Foster as she donned the headset.

"Finding our saboteur. If they're still in the building we may have a chance at reversing this."

* * *

"What's she doing?" asked John as he looked over Lucas's shoulder at the monitor. They could follow Katie's actions remotely as she navigated the system.

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it," said Lucas.

"She's searching the registry of headMaster's events and all the motion detector's logs for what happened ten minutes ago," said Toni.

"Just with her mind?" said Lucas.

"It always freaks me out when she does that," said John.

"Man, I wish I could do that," said Toni.

"She's fast," said Lucas.

"The speed of thought," said John.

* * *

"Where are you?" asked Lark, not recognising the menu that Katie was navigating, as page after page of information flowed past, at lightning speed on the HR operator's monitor.

"Got you!" Katie was triumphant, but her joy was short-lived. Her mouth dropped open.

"What is it?" asked Foster.

"Exactly ten minutes ago there was a surge of activity crossing over between headMaster and the HR apparatus. Someone delivered a massive package of script, over-riding the AI and giving the building new instructions."

"Who would do something like this? More to the point who _could_ do this?" asked Foster.

Katie took the headset off and exhaled heavily, resting her elbows on her knees. "Graeme… It was Graeme."

Foster didn't look happy. Words were unnecessary at this point.

"Give her the benefit of the doubt," said Scott, reading his mind.

"It's just a glitch in the AI," foster insisted. "HeadMaster did this."

Katie picked up the PAL again. There was no point in trying to convince Foster herself. "Lucas, are you there?"

_"Commander?"_

"You see what I see?"

_"Yes."_

"Is that a glitch in headMaster's AI?"

_"No,"_ he said distantly, precipitating a triumphant stare from Katie, in Foster's direction. _"AI doesn't work that way. It just gives the illusion of rational - or irrational thought, rather than free will. Some academics have theorised that the software naturally evolves, a bit like natural selection, but it's never been proved - "_

"We haven't got time for a lecture, Lucas," Katie snapped.

_"Sorry,"_ he continued, and the words fell from his tongue, slowly as the ideas came to him, _"it looks... like someone... has been... controlling the computer with their mind. The, uh, HR software merges with the AI every time there's an incident. HeadMaster didn't do this, Doctor Foster. Commander Albright did."_

"Thank you, Lucas," said Scott.

"That's crazy," said Foster.

"That's impossible," said Lark.

"It's not impossible," said Katie, "it's _improbable_, but…"

"How can you be sure it was Commander Albright?" Foster then asked her.

She looked uncomfortable for a second. "It just feels like him. He left a... a shadow, like an imprint of his personality, everywhere he went."

"This is ridiculous." Foster shook his head.

"Will you just hear her out," Scott scolded him, "If we're all going to get out of this alive we need to work as a team."

"I'm not having someone military take charge."

"Listen here, Doctor," Katie stared him down in the half-light. "This is what I do. If there's a situation, we manage it. I know what I'm doing. You spend as much time with your brain jacked into a computer as I do, you get a feeling for these sorts of things. You have to trust me."

"So you're basing this on a feeling?"

"Yes. Yes, I am. There's no other way to quantify unexplored territory such as this." She wished the professor was there to back her up. It was he that told her to trust her intuition. Then something occurred to her... "The professor! What if they're in danger?"

"Where are they?" said Scott.

Out came Katie's PAL again. "Ms Sieder? Carrie-Anne?"

John had heard the whole conversation over Toni's walkie. "What do you want me to do?"

_"I need you to go down to the infirmary. We've lost contact with Sieder and the Professor, and you're closer."_

"It _was_ him, wasn't it? Kate... Tell me now and I'll believe you… I don't _want _to believe it, but if you're sure..."

_"I'm sure… John…. John?"_

He couldn't answer.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to plummet, along with John's shoulders. He'd only dared to suspect Graeme before, but now he had confirmation he was devastated. "Yeah… Sorry. I'm Okay. Lemme know how it goes. We'll go find the others."

As Katie signed off, John turned to Toni and said, "can I take these?" He needed the walkie and the flash-light, but Toni was one step ahead of him. He handed him a bright orange voltage weapon that he'd taken from his desk drawer, as well.

"What is this?" John examined it.

"Non-lethal."

"What's the point of that?" John flashed him a dry grin as he passed through the door into the darkness.

Lucas was left with only Toni and the glow of the monitors for company, feeling a little nervous. If he'd understood correctly, Graeme was the perpetrator of all the sabotage, yet the fact brought him less satisfaction than he thought it would.

"Come on," said Toni "let's see if we can get any of the essential systems operational. Why does this kind of thing always happen when we're running on a skeleton crew?"

"Tell me about it," said Lucas, as they headed for the room that housed the servers.

* * *

"You Okay?" Katie was concerned that Lark hadn't said anything for a while.

"He shut me in the fridge," she whispered, struggling to understand.

"I know," Katie began, but she was interrupted by Foster once more.

"So let me get this straight. You have Dr Hajime working on the environmental controls; Sieder's men have the situation under control on the outside, but you can't find _her_, or Commander Albright, or the Professor, and now Major Tordov has stopped checking in too."

Foster was really starting to get on Katie's nerves. "If I can get some data from the motion detectors, we can track him."

"I've had enough of this," said Scott. "I'm going after him. Talk some sense into the man."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Foster.

"It's not safe, Commander," Lark urged him.

Katie grabbed his arm and pulled him back before he could go anywhere. "Graeme cut the lights because he knows it'll make us all vulnerable. He's not stupid; he'll expect us to come after him, and he'll factor our every action into the equation. He could hurt any one of us very badly, look what he did to Lieutenant Waldron."

"Assuming he has complete control of the building," said Scott.

"What do you mean?" asked Katie, realising what she was doing and releasing his arm.

"He'd have to be jacked in to be giving commands in real-time. So he's either in one place, in which case he'd be easy to find; or he's given HeadMaster a finite set of instructions..."

"Including a way out?" was Lark's next contribution.

"He must have left a door open," Scott concluded.

"Oh, Scott, you're a genius! I'm going back into the system, try to follow the trail of breadcrumbs," said Katie.

"So what do you suggest _we_ do?" asked the unidentified director.

"Stay exactly where you are." Katie put the HR headset and gloves back on.

"And let _her_ do all the hard work," said Lark, "I mean, the other 'her'."

* * *

John shook his groggy head and was immediately hit by the sickly, coppery smell of fresh blood. It was either his own, or someone else was in deep trouble. The only thing that hurt was the back of his head, so it could be that, but it took him a little while to figure out that he was tied to 'someone', and who that 'someone' was.

"Uh..." came the voice of 'someone'.

"Ms Sieder?" John chanced.

"Major?"

"Yes."

"It's me."

"I know."

"What happened?" she asked.

"I think I head-butted a fire extinguisher. Quite stupid of me really."

"You can joke at a time like this?"

"Well, you have to admit, this is quite clichéd. I think a little black humour can be appropriate, don't you?"

"No, I don't. What did he tie us up with?"

"I think it's electrical flex." John tested the wrist restraints.

"Where are we?"

"The last thing I remember was coming into the nurse's office."

"Maybe if we push against each other, we can stand up," Sieder suggested.

John moved his legs. Correction, leg. There was nothing on his right, below his knee, just his empty twill pant. _Oh, no you didn't_. He remained silent for a moment, thinking about this. It was going to be impossible for him to stand up, hands tied behind his back, bound to a woman the same weight as him, in the dark, with only one leg. And Graeme had known that. _You bastard, Gray. You are going to pay for this._

"Major?" Sieder sounded worried, when she got no reply. "Major? MAJOR!"

"What?"

"We can stand up," she said.

"No we can't. I can't."

"Why?"

"I just can't!" he snapped.

They fell silent once more.

Eventually Sieder broke their discomfort with a soft, "didn't think I'd end up here when I got up this morning."

John started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"No-one ever does. How long have you been here?"

"About ten minutes."

"I meant at the centre... At Hilo."

"Oh, only a month. I transferred over from Glenn."

"How'd you get into this business?"

"It's a long story. I'll probably bore you to death."

"You may as well take advantage of a captive audience."

"I used to run a surveillance consultancy with my husband."

"I didn't realise you were married. You don't wear a ring."

"We're divorced."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's tempting to tell you all the sordid details, but I think I'll spare you on this occasion. To cut a long story short, he got the business, I got custody of the fish."

"The fish?"

"Koi."

"I keep fish too," John admitted, stunned that he'd found a kindred spirit in such an unexpected place. "If you're ever in town, you should stop by. Come and see my Shubumkins."

"I'd love to see your Shubumkins."

John wished he could see the smile that he could hear in her voice. "And we haven't even been on a date yet."

"Would you like to go out on a date with me, Major?"

"You don't waste any time, do you?"

"At my age, one can't afford to waste any time."

"I'd love to take you to dinner sometime, but there's something you should know about me before you make up your mind." John took a deep breath.

"What's that?"

"I'm missing."

"I know you're missing. They'll be looking for us both before long."

"No," said John, _"'Missing'. _It's what amputees call themselves. Missing a limb."

"Which one?"

"It should be pretty obvious it's not either of my arms."

"Is that why you can't help me get up?"

He could smell her subtle perfume through the pall of metallic blood. "I've… I've only got one leg. I… I, uh lost the other one below the knee. If you want to change your mind, I'll understand."

"Why would I change my mind?"

"It doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it?"

"Most women... Nah, forget it. You don't need to hear that."

"No, go on. I want to hear it."

"Most women... I've just had some bad experiences, is all. Most of the women I've dated since I got divorced haven't been very accepting when they found out."

"You're a great guy, John. I don't care how many legs you've got. You could have twenty three legs for all I care. Twenty three might make the sex difficult though..."

"Thanks. That's sweet of you to say so." What he thought was even sweeter, was how she'd stopped calling him 'Major'. "Wait a minute. There's going to be sex?"

"Just laying my cards down on the table. Was it another man?"

"Was what another man?"

"I'm sorry, you said you were divorced? I just assumed..."

"Actually, it was my fault. I used to drink too much. I was, now what was it she used to say, shut-down?"

"Was that before or after... You know."

"Oh, before. A long time before. I've done a lot of growing up since then."

"I know exactly what you mean."

"So you think you could date a one-legged, carp-loving, shut-down, reformed-alcoholic, divorced soldier?"

"Just as soon as I get my other hand free."

John snapped his head around involuntarily to make out her barely-visible-in-the-pitch-black left hand, which she'd spent the last few minutes wriggling free from the wire.

"You've done this before, haven't you?"

* * *

"It doesn't have to be like this, Graeme, we can figure something out." Vasily Basmanof tried to sound like he was still in control, as the man he'd worked with for years and thought he knew well, dragged him down hallway after hallway.

He'd watched Graeme snap, become someone he barely recognised within seconds of Sieder figuring out that he was involved, watched powerless as he dealt with both of the others. Basmanof wasn't a coward, but he was eighty three, god-damn-it…

"Shut up." Graeme pushed him through yet another doorway and closed the door behind them. His flash-light beam gave him that Hallowe'en-mask face again. "We can never figure this out. What do you expect me to do? Strike a deal? It's gone too far now. I have to get out of here."

"She'll never let you get away with this, you know. She's smarter than you."

Graeme didn't have to ask who he was talking about, as they plunged deeper and deeper into the underground labyrinth that made up the mostly unused part of the test centre.

"I have to stop. My heart..." Basmanof breathed heavily. He leaned on something he recognised as one of the old particle accelerators, the one they'd often used for firing space-dust at high speeds into the prototypes.

"Come on, old man," said Graeme, pulling him by the arm, as if they were merely out for one of their Sunday strolls.

"I'm not intimidated by you, y'know."

Graeme ignored the statement for a while, trying to find his way out of the room, remembering the plan in his head. "Do you ever feel like you're going mad, professor? I do. Every single day. You did that to me. Why didn't you warn me? You should have warned me what it was going to be like. Seeing things that no-one else will ever see... Communicating with the devices... The codes... It's all burned on my brain, going round and round in circles, never ending, always increasing. You did this... You created this monster."

"You're not making any sense."

Graeme ignored him, marching on. "What would your family say if they knew what you've done? Surviving the holocaust only to conduct the same kind of experiments they tried on you. Shame, professor, shame."

"Graeme, you've been like a son to me. Please don't do this."

It was clear now, that the battlefield was in Graeme's mind. He was at war with himself, as much as he was at war with his enemies.

Suddenly, he turned around, snarling, shining the flashlight in the professor's face and grabbing his shirt collar, just like those NAZI interrogators he'd encountered as a small child. "Don't you get it? It's all your fault. All of it."

"Please..." Basmanof begged.

Then as swiftly as he'd changed mood, he changed back again, overcome with compassion for the old man. Realising he'd been lifting the professor off the ground, he let go.

* * *

"I see what you're doing," said Scott with fascination, to Katie as she walked the probe down the empty corridors. "You can see infra-red."

Most of those present had gathered round to try and make out the images of her efforts on the monitor. It was slow going as the probe was not designed to travel long distances out of the water, but it was quiet going; its silicon-rubber coated digits stalking the tracks left by warm bodies in the much cooler environment.

"There's something warm," said Lark, pointing out a slightly brighter patch in what looked like one of the trash receptacles.

Katie dunked the probe's right hand in it and pulled out something that made some of the directors gasp. When she switched one of her lights on they could all see what it was; John's upturned shoe, complete with his lower leg.

She replaced it, making a mental note to retrieve it later and carried on, under the cover of darkness, to silently hunt down her prey.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Chapter 8_**

**_Colour Blind_**

* * *

Detective Burton switched off his dictaphone and wished you could still light up indoors. In fact, the powers that be had taken all the fun out of police work. You couldn't rough up the suspects either now.

"I think we need a break. You want a cup of coffee?" he asked the young woman on the other side of the table, his star witness. "_I_ need a cup of coffee... Anything to stimulate my brain right now."

"A glass of water will be fine." Katie Hitchcock folded her slim white hands in her lap and tried to remember it wasn't she who was under suspicion here.

Burton got up and left the borrowed conference room, passing his partner on the way. He whispered something to her that Katie couldn't hear.

The seconds ticked by.

"Is this going to take much longer? 'Cause I have to pack," Katie broke the tension.

The other detective didn't answer her question, just lazily said, "First time we've ever had someone resolve a hostage situation before we even arrived at the scene."

"Thanks."

Before she could say anything else, Burton came back in carrying the glass of water and two mugs of coffee, balancing the three drinks between two hands. He gave one coffee to his counterpart and placed the water on the table.

Katie didn't touch it straight away.

"One thing I'll give NASA, is that they always have good coffee," said Burton, sitting back down. He clicked the recording device back on. "Recommencing interview with witness, Lieutenant Commander Katherine Hitchcock of the UEO Navy, eighteen-fifty-six pm, twenty-first April, twenty and nineteen."

"Look, I've already told all of this to the military CID. Is there any way you can let me go now? I have an early start tomorrow."

"Did _they_ believe any of it?" his partner half-laughed, knowing Burton's attitude towards this particular case.

"I'm afraid I can't let you until I've gotten a satisfactory explanation. NASA is under the jurisdiction of my precinct and I have paperwork that needs completing, so forgive me. Now, where were we?"

"I'd just discovered Major Tordov's prosthetic leg in the trash can."

"OK, tell me what happened _after_ you found the leg in the trash."

"I realised that I'd never catch up with them on foot... Well, it wasn't 'foot' exactly, it was the probe, but it's not designed to move fast out of the water, even though I, uh, _it_ can see the whole spectrum of infra-red and ultraviolet light..." Katie caught herself; she was starting to babble and Burton's eyes glazed over every time she said anything technical. _Ugh, men._

"You couldn't just go after them on foot?"

"I know Commander Albright and I know what he's capable of. I wouldn't let anyone take that risk."

"And this is when you say you," he consulted his notes, "decided to, _'beat him at his own game'?"_

"When you're dealing with someone that intelligent, you have to think laterally. It was time for the student to become the teacher."

"If he was that intelligent, he wouldn't have gotten caught, would he?" said the woman propping up the doorway.

"Okay, Okay, this is when you say you found the open door with your _'mind'?" _said Burton. "How does that work exactly?"

"If you're not going to take this seriously, then I'm through..."

"I am taking it seriously, I swear. Is this like that thing with the monkeys that play Nintendo? Darlene, you remember that thing with the monkeys?" He turned to his partner.

"They were _apes." _Katie tried to bore a hole through him with her eyes.

"So you're one step up from an ape."

She tried to ignore that. "Albright had been practising controlling the entire mainframe with his mind over the last few months, he had the whole building in the palm of his hand. I have evidence, it's all there, all you need to do is liaise with the IT department."

"Okay, for argument's sake, let's say that's possible. How did you stop him?"

"It was Keller that caught up with him and disarmed him. All of the security personnel were locked out."

"But it was you that came up with the idea to lock Albright in?"

"Well, I thought since he had a thing for shutting doors on people, I'd give it a try too. He'd left a door unlocked somewhere, all I had to do was follow him and lock it before he got there."

"And by follow him you mean...?" asked Burton.

"... Through the trail he'd left in the computer files," she completed the statement for him, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. For her, it _was_.

"Is it me, or is the line between reality and virtual-reality starting to get blurred?" said Darlene.

"To be honest with you, with the whole controlling-the-hardware-without-the-feedback thing… I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I'd never tried it before, and I don't think I want to experience it again." She paused and the two detectives waited, because she seemed to be far away. "I don't know if it was the adrenalin or the determination or just the fact that I was angry with him for what he did to the professor, but I just directed all my will into the computer... And it listened... It listened to me and I slammed the door shut in his face."

After another pause, she said, "you don't believe me, do you?"

"I think I just need a second to let this sink in." The detective sipped his coffee.

"Imagine... Imagine just getting rid of all the paraphernalia you normally need to interface with your computer. It's like information flowing like water through your brain - like music, instantly making sense, no effort... It's something you can never understand, detective, and it scared me. I don't mind admitting that."

Burton looked over at his companion and they shared an almost imperceptible nod of understanding.

"Why do you think Mr Albright would want to sabotage his own work?"

"Sounds to me like he was an accident waiting to happen," said Darlene.

Katie spoke up again. "I'm not sure about his motivation at this point, but I know why he went down the road that he did."

"And why would that be?"

"He knew that if he damaged any of the equipment physically, it could always be fixed. If he was going to succeed he'd need to poison the minds of the directors against the project, by causing no end of technical problems, sowing seeds of doubt. Only trouble is, we got onto his scent before he could really get going, and he panicked. That's why he shut Lieutenant Waldron in the fridge."

"Why do you think he cut the power today?"

"Just a convenient way to ruin the demonstrations, but he didn't count on anyone figuring him out so quickly."

"Hence the catalogue of assaults."

"I don't believe he planned for it to happen this way..."

"No-one ever does," commented Darlene.

"But he had no-where to run, he was trapped and that makes people do uncharacteristic things," insisted Katie.

"You're standing up for him now?"

"I didn't mean it to sound that way, but he's really not a bad person, he must have had no choice..."

"He held an eighty-three year old guy hostage with fifty thousand volts to his head, and you're making excuses for him?"

She looked so down-cast that Burton decided to leave her alone.

"You should be happy Commander, you _did_ beat him at his own game," said Darlene.

"No-one _wins_," she said poignantly.

"Okaaay." Burton's posture showed that he'd decided to call it a day; he rubbed his hands together and said, "I think that's enough. Together with the others' testimonies, I should be able to form a coherent report out of this. You're free to go."

"Thank-you, Detective."

"No, thank-_you." _They got up and he guided her out into the hall.

* * *

"Well, you're always saying you want something interesting to happen around here, Mike," smirked Darlene as they passed through the doorway.

The Detective rolled his eyes at her, and made sure Katie was out of ear-shot before he said, "what do you think is the story with those two?"

"They were lovers," said Darlene.

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah."

"How can you tell?"

"Call it woman's intuition."

* * *

Katie came into the waiting room of Foster's office suite, to find John and Lark flanking the worn-out professor, and Lucas jumping up excitedly to greet her. They'd all been waiting there since the cops had finished talking with them.

She thought she'd ask the detectives one last thing as they came out into the room. "You're the experts on crime. Why do _you_ think he did it?"

"Maybe I can shed some light on that," came a different voice.

Burton's eyebrows visibly shot up.

Katie hadn't noticed her before but it became clear that Liana Hayes had been waiting with the others. The next thing she'd noticed was that the other's expressions were absolutely morose, and if she didn't know any better, she would have said they were directing their pity toward her.

"What's _she_ doing here?" asked Burton.

"I'm sorry, Detective; I let her in," threw over Foster's secretary from her desk, grimacing.

"She's with us," said John, patting the seat next to him. He beckoned to Katie. "Sit down, you need to hear this."

Katie sat. "Why do I get the idea I'm not going to like this?" She looked at all the others' expressions.

Liana's was the worst. "Last night Lloyd Moberly's headquarters were raided by homeland security." She winced, not wanting to give Katie the bad news.

"And?" said Katie.

"They found evidence that he was blackmailing Graeme Albright to do his dirty-work for him."

Now that she'd delivered the information, Liana sank back in her seat and watched Katie for a reaction.

The young woman's face flickered subtly through confusion to anger and bewilderment, but she didn't say anything just yet.

Lucas looked at her with concern.

"Are you Okay?" John asked.

"She's _not_ Okay... How could she possibly be Okay?" said Lark.

The detectives whispered among themselves, Burton muttering, "this adds an extra dimension," to his partner.

Katie coughed a little and did something quite unexpected. Slowly and thoughtfully, without any overt emotion, she said, "if they're going to blackmail someone, there has to be something to blackmail them with."

Liana sighed and finally spilled what she'd been holding back. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this... He bribed one of his students not to blow the whistle on his sexual predation, and she committed suicide. It turns out there were more women that he'd abused. He used his rank and his influence to - "

"Stop," said Katie, holding up a hand, "I feel sick..." She stood and began to make her exit, not wanting anyone to see her face at that moment.

Someone emitted a low whistle. Lucas thought it was John. He felt so bad for Katie, and his heart skipped a beat at the terrible discomfort of the situation.

There was not enough time for him to formulate any other thoughts on the matter, however, because something happened that they were all dreading; Graeme came into the room, hand-cuffed and held firmly by one of the police officers, yet still a slightly intimidating presence.

Katie froze.

Graeme froze when he saw the look in her eyes. The cop stopped too.

It was a stand-off for a few seconds. Seconds that felt like hours to those who watched, some of them not fully comprehending, and some of them totally comprehending, what may be just about to occur.

They were quite close together, and Katie took another couple of steps in order to square up to him.

Everyone wondered what she was going to do or say. This was a woman who was not easily mocked or humiliated, and when her righteous indignation was aroused she could be formidable.

"Did Christina kill herself because of you?" Her eyes flashed and she was almost trembling with anger. The others felt like they were spectating on a very privileged and sensitive situation. Graeme didn't speak; he just started at her, startled that anyone knew what he'd been accused of.

"DID CHRISTINA KILL HERSELF BECAUSE OF _YOU_?" she shouted.

Graeme flinched a little, giving away nothing.

"It's Okay," she felt a warm hand on her arm, pulling her away. It was John. "He's not worth it."

Suddenly Lark pushed them both out of the way and decked Graeme with a swift right hook. He went down instantly, dragging the cop with him, who yelled out, _"what the hell'd you do that for?!"_

It was the last thing anyone expected to happen; a petite young officer appearing from nowhere and assaulting someone who had twelve inches and one hundred pounds on her. She certainly knew the power of the element of surprise.

Lark stood over Graeme, looking triumphant and psyching herself up for another lunge, as he clutched his split lip and the others recovered their senses. "Saving my ass... My _arse!"_

Burton stepped in to pull Lark away before she could cause any more trouble, capturing her struggling form with his arms around her waist. She was like a pit-bull terrier that didn't know when to give up the fight. The detectives busied themselves accompanying her out of the room, and the Professor covered his eyes, dismayed at all the chaos.

"Well, you did have that coming to you..." John said to the injured man on the floor, tangled with the struggling cop. "Disappointing, Graeme. Very disappointing."

"Please... Just get him out of my sight," said Katie to the astonished police officer.

* * *

Everyone sat in Foster's waiting room, stunned by what had happened in such a short amount of time. Graeme was in police custody at the station and Lark was being charged by the MPs for assaulting a prisoner. Liana Hayes had made her excuses and left; she had a story to write after-all. It was a mess, and those left behind were all struggling to come to terms with different aspects of it as they waited to be called into Foster's office.

"Who's Christina?" Lucas finally broke the silence.

Katie inhaled sharply, worried how Lucas might take this, but she explained nonetheless.

"She was a student officer back in the academy... Like me. She was my friend. No one knew why she did it because she didn't leave a note. But I guess we know now. I never figured out what he was up to, but I can understand why she never said anything. Why none of them ever said anything."

"That's the saddest thing I ever heard." Lucas told her.

But Katie hadn't said anything about what she was _really_ thinking; that Graeme had taken advantage of her in exactly the same way, when she was young and vulnerable - OK, maybe less of the vulnerable - but she'd accepted his attention, encouraged it even... And she never even grassed on a man who should have lost his job, or even gone to prison for it. It had never crossed her mind that Graeme's interest in her had been unethical, or illegal. They'd waited 'til after she'd graduated before they did anything… serious, after all. If she'd known then that she wasn't 'The One' and she was just the latest flirtation in a long line of victims, she would have done something about it. She felt sick. Dirty even. _Damn_ him for making her feel like it was her fault, even now. He had that kind of manipulative power over her, and as it turned out, others. But something had changed when she'd turned down his proposal. She'd realised that _she'd_ changed. She was stronger and wiser. Yes, she was strong and wise. She was rather proud of herself for that. But it wouldn't bring Christina back, or assuage the pain suffered by so many other young women.

"Are you going to have to go to court?" asked John.

"Not if he admits all the charges," said Katie. "And I hope he admits the charges, for the sake of all concerned."

Yeah, so that she wouldn't have to re-live their entire affair. She felt so... so... stupid. But it wasn't about her. It was about the people that had lost something they could never get back. Christina's family had lost their daughter, their sister, their friend because of one selfish, arrogant man. Katie had never really loved him, and she knew that she wouldn't shed any tears over this. But over Christina? Over _her_, maybe she would. It had been many years, but hearing about it from Liana had opened up old wounds, and took her back to a place before she learned to shut off her emotions, before Bobby, before… Ben.

Now all she could do was make a decision to put a brave face on it and get on with her life. What was it Ben always said? _As long as you're laughing, you're still moving forward._

She looked over at the Professor, who was staring into space, and was relieved when he shook his head and spoke with his usual undefinable confidence, almost like an antidote to her mood. He was the one that should be the most affected by Graeme's betrayal, yet he pushed through to garner something positive from it. "Do you realise what a breakthrough you've had, my dear? Breaking right through the boundaries of human-computer interface... Do you know how many doors this could open up?"

"I'm sure we're going to find out," said John.

There was a click as Foster's door opened, but instead of calling them into the office he came out and addressed the group right there. They all stood.

"The directors have all returned their vote on the continuation of the hyper-reality project," said Foster.

"What was the verdict?" asked the Professor.

"The 'Ayes' have it." Announced Foster, triumphantly.

Basmanof sank back into his seat in relief.

Katie and John both started to speak at the same time.

"How come?" Lucas interjected, reflecting what they were both trying to say.

Foster was getting used to the teenager by now so he didn't scowl with his usual annoyance. "Apparently they all told the Director of Operations that if someone is trying so hard to stop something, it must be worth persevering with."

"So the _saboteur_ was 'hoisted by his own pettard'?" said Katie, knowing that Foster would agree.

"Indeed," he said, rather dryly. "Uh, Commander Hitchcock, would you be so kind as to join me in my office?"

"Of course." She followed him, looking back and getting a what's-that-all-about look from Lucas and John. She shrugged.

When they were inside and closing the door, Foster remarked, "Commander Keller and I have been in discussion about a few things."

"Oh?" she said, noticing that Scott was rising and offering her his seat. "Thank you, but I prefer to stand."

"Fair enough," said Scott.

Foster continued to speak to her from behind his enormous desk. "I know we've never really seen eye to eye, but I'm very impressed with the way you handled the... Uh... Situation today. It's a shame I don't often see that level of professionalism in any of my civilian staff."

"What he's trying to say is..." said Scott with a smile.

"I have an opening for a mission specialist now that Mr Albright is no longer in my employ."

Katie was lost for words. "Why...?" was all she could get out.

"Because," said Scott, "I haven't forgotten how you put your ass on the line for us back in the Montagnard territory."

"I was just doing my job."

"That's exactly why I think you'd be great at this," said Scott.

"I don't know what to say," said Katie.

"Say yes," said Foster.

"I have a commission to work out..." she thought out-loud.

"Understood," said Foster. "We're willing to accept a six month cooling off period."

She thought about it. Scott held his breath.

"No," she said, finally. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline... At this time."

Foster looked disappointed.

"I thought you'd say that," said Scott, "just do one thing for me?"

"What's that?"

"Don't tell Bridger I tried to poach you."

Her face cracked into a wry smile as he showed her to the door. "I promise. Thank-you, Commander. Doctor."

They both went back to their paperwork, and Katie went out to a trio of inquisitive males.

"Well?" said John, as they all joined her in the jaunt down the corridor.

"They asked me if I wanted to replace Graeme in the Neptune mission."

_"What?" _said Lucas, amazed.

"What did you say?" asked John.

"I said no."

"Are you crazy?" John continued. "Do you know how hard it is to get into the space programme?"

"You know me, John. I don't belong in space. My heart is stuck firmly at the bottom of the ocean."

Lucas rolled his eyes.

John said, "you sound like a God-damned James Cameron Movie."

The professor just smiled knowingly.

Katie could link arms with him now that she was technically off duty. "How about a drink."

"By all means," said the professor, "Non-alcoholic, of course."

"No-can-do, I have a date," said John.

They all looked at him.

"With?" asked Lucas.

"Carrie-Anne."

"You mean Sieder," said Katie disapprovingly.

"She's... Old," said Lucas.

"She's not old," said John, "She's the same age as me; thirty-nine for the fifth year in a row."

They all groaned as they made their way out of the building.

* * *

It was Monday morning, and Lucas was almost impressed with himself for making it through almost an entire weekend on minimal computer time. Kristin often joked that his devices were his life support machine and if he ever got disconnected, he would wilt like a lettuce in the oven. He was also impressed that he'd packed and tidied the room with such efficiency. Maybe some of the military discipline was rubbing off on him after all. Bridger would be proud.

There was a knock at the door. He shouldered his sea-bag in preparedness to leave.

"Ready?" asked Katie when he opened the door.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

She looked at him oddly. Sometimes he came out with the strangest things. "I was just being polite."

They walked down the corridor in silence for a while, but the tension was really starting to get to him. Whether she felt it too, or he'd imagined it, was anyone's guess, but he couldn't hold all his questions and frustrations in any longer.

"I feel awkward knowing what I know," he blurted out. "About you."

"Hey," she softened, "it's Okay. It's really Okay. So I'm human. You'll get over it."

He managed a small smile. "What's going to happen to Lark?"

She stopped, turned to him as they reached the elevator, and studied his face with such seriousness. He hoped that what she would see there, was his overwhelming need to understand all the things that had happened... And not bypass him as something too difficult to deal with, someone too difficult to handle, like virtually everyone else in his life always had.

"She's done it before and she'll do it again. I don't know what they'll do about her..." Then she changed tone a little. "Lucas, I'm sorry you had to see and hear all those things."

"It's Okay. I'm tougher than I look."

"I mean, I hope you know that the way some people behave is not normal, not acceptable, but it's a sad fact that people like Graeme are not unusual in this world. People who abuse their positions of trust and authority, and ruin other's lives. I just wanted to make sure you understood that. And I need you to know that I'm sorry for being a bad example."

"Look, I know you didn't sleep with the guy so don't sweat it."

She looked startled and a little uncomfortable at that. "Damn, why is the elevator taking so long?"

"I'm not stupid. I know more than you think. About a lot of things."

"Like?"

"Like the difference between love and sex."

Her expression changed to intrigue and more than a little amusement, so he tried to explain. "When I was learning to dive in San Diego, there was this girl. She was so fake-confident, it made me cringe. That week she slept with every single one of the instructors, at least I assumed from the way she was acting with them in the mornings. The way they all looked at each other... You didn't look at him like that, but you didn't look at him the other way either."

"When did you get so wise?" She narrowed her eyes at him, as the elevator bell dinged and they entered.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. I'm sure nothing can shock me any more, so fire away."

"Did you even, for just one second, like, when it was dark, wish that Ben was there?"

It was one of those moments you were glad the other person hadn't been drinking water, because if she had, Lucas would've been covered in it by now. Katie struggled not to look too aghast. Obviously, she _was_ still shock-able.

"_You're_ thinking about Schraeder now, aren't you?" she quickly filled in the silence that may have given away that the answer was yes.

"Kinda."

The elevator stopped and the door opened. Lucas did what was probably the longest double take of his life. _Where's Ben? _Li-Li had said.

"You guys still hang out together?" he asked suspiciously.

"What?"

"Why do you still hang out?"

"Why not?" she said easily.

They were in the parking lot now, outside in the fresh air.

"Uh, 'cause when you divorce someone it usually means you hate them."

"I know that's your perception Lucas, but actually we're both _adults."_

"Yeah, but _why_?"

Katie sighed, unsure how to explain. "Why do _you_ hang out with Ben?"

After a thoughtful second, he answered, "because he doesn't make me work hard to be accepted."

"Exactly."

"Can I ask you another question?"

"You just _did." _

"Why didn't you call Bridger and send me back to Pearl?"

"Because at some point, everyone's got to accept that the buck stops with them. And besides, you could have walked away at any time, done whatever you wanted. We're on dry land, Lucas, it's not the same as on a sub."

"Oh."

Lucas seemed satisfied with that. She hoped the conversation was over, but then she tensed, annoyed when he started to speak once more.

"Are you going to tell Bridger what happened?"

"Are _you_?"

"Isn't it keeping secrets that causes all the problems in the first place?"

"Hey!" she teased. They were nearing the main entrance to the center.

She expected him to laugh, but he was deadly serious, thinking about Ben. "You know, you think you can see so much, but some things you can't see at all. It's like you are looking through flawed glass, all distorted... Or colour-blind, or something..."

"Lucas," she warned, not wanting to get into a discussion about what she could and couldn't see, "you are way too intense. Go get your computer and don't forget to thank Keller."

He did as he was told, looking back to say one last thing. "Commander?"

"Yes, Lucas."

"I don't think I have a crush on you any more."


	9. Epilogue

**_Epilogue_**

"How does he always find him?" asked Ben, tossing her the cold can of soda as he sat down on the sand.

"Something to do with echo-location," she threw back.

Out in the bay, Lucas swam with Li-Li, having the time of their lives, circled by the grey dorsal fin of a dolphin. All around them, the children and the holiday-makers could be heard squealing in delight, that they had been blessed by the arrival of such a special animal to their beach.

Both youngsters were clearly revelling in the attention that they and their delphine friend were receiving.

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"They have a bond, I'll give you that."

"She's great, isn't she?" he said, looking fondly out at Li-Li.

"So is Lucas, for that matter."

Ben fell silent as though he was thinking carefully about what to say next. She didn't get annoyed when he said, "you know, I didn't think baby-sitting was your scene, but Lucas hasn't shut up about how cool he thinks you are since we got back."

"Oh," she said, unconvinced.

"Hasn't put you off having babies for good, has it?"

"It's not babies that's the problem. It's when they get to be teenagers... Such hard work. How was your week?"

"Oh, you know. Same as usual."

"No sea monsters then?" She felt the mischief tug at the corners of her mouth.

"No." He dragged out the syllable, rising to the bait. "Doctor Young's experiment was a complete success, but I think El-Fordo is going to find himself in the principal's office over leaving the boat."

"I think I'll wait until I've read the report," she said, sensing that he was about to launch into one of his rants. The sun was high and her shoulders were beginning to sting a little. She raised herself up on her elbows and reached for the sunscreen in her tote, offering it in his direction. "Would you…"

He took it and began to anoint her tender, white trapezius without a second thought.

"Mmm, that's nice," she said as he lifted the cotton straps of her sun-dress to get better coverage. "Your hands are soft. Why are your hands so soft?"

"I work in an office, remember. Okay, it's an office that's two thousand feet below sea level, but it's still a desk job. If you like, I can callous them up a bit for you, make 'em a bit more manly. You like it a bit rough, don't you?"

"Oh, shut up - " she threw an empty can backwards but missed him. He carried on massaging the cream in, moving her hair of the way.

"It's like basting a chicken," he said playfully as he finished up.

"Oh, you just had to go and spoil the moment, didn't you - "

"Moment? What moment? We were having a moment? I thought I was just preventing you shrivelling up like the wicked witch of the East."

She turned on him, preparing for the ritual tickling, the play fight, then she would finish up exhausted and happy in his arms, but of course it never came. They just stared at each other. _Oh, yeah, that's right,_ she reminded herself. _It's not like that._ He smiled a smile he reserved just for her, and if he knew what she was thinking, he didn't let on.

"What are you doing tonight?" he said resuming his position in his dent in the sand.

"I don't know yet. Probably call my Mom." She felt the back of her neck, checking that he hadn't missed a spot, but really trying to understand the way his touch made her feel. She tried to appear satisfied that he'd done a good job.

"I have a proposition for you. How about you, me and a bottle of tequila; it'll be like old times."

She let out a long sigh. "Ben, it'll never be like old times."

"We'll make _new_ times."

"I can't, remember?" she said tapping her temple. "It slows down my synapses."

"OK, then. I'll drink, you talk."

"The only reason you're hanging out with me is you can't get a date."

"I can get a date. I just don't want to get a date."

"You _don't_ want to get a date?"

"Why would I want to get a date, when I have one of the most dazzling conversationalists in the world sitting right next to me?"

"You'll probably _never_ get a date. Your powers of persuasion are wearing off with age."

"Less of the age. What about that blonde friend of yours? She likes me. What's she called? Goose?"

"Lark."

"I knew it was some kind of bird."

_"_And she doesn't _like_ you; she _tolerates_ you. There's a fine line._"_

"'Tolerates' easily develops into 'interested'."

"You're delusional and she still prefers women, so don't even bother."

"I could be a woman."

"Yes, I know, we talked about this - "

"I'd make a great woman - "

"Ben - "

"I can pretty much do anything a woman can - "

"Ben, I know - "

"There's one in the eye for sexism."

She began to laugh. "Yeah, I know, backwards and in high-heels, just like spring break - "

"See, there's hope for me yet, so you may as well give up."

And they laughed together, just like old times. For a moment she forgot who they were and what had happened to them to make them dislike each other for a while. "Oh, I missed you," she said without thinking, "I mean this, I missed this."

Ben recovered his breath at these sobering words. His gaze seemed to last forever. _Don't say it,_ she thought to him as loudly as she could, _don't say what you want to say and ruin this, because we'd just end up back at square one again. It doesn't work; you and me._

Fortunately, any possible exchange was cut short by Lucas and Li-Li appearing and standing over them, blocking out the sun and dripping.

"What'cha talkin' 'bout?" asked Lucas.

They ignored him and continued to stare at each other. She saw the fleeting smile of regret flicker over Ben's face and then it was gone.

_"Can we get ice-cream now?"_ asked Li-Li.

"Sure, honey," said Ben, squinting into the light, "but why are you asking me?"

_"Because then it'll be you that gets in trouble with my mom, and not me."_

"Good point," said Lucas.

"They learn so quickly nowadays," Ben said sideways to Katie.

"Go on, get out of here, both of you, and don't make yourselves sick," she said to the kids.

They promptly skipped down the beach, not even bothering to dry off.

"You'd think with all the brain cells flying around the place, there'd be some more intellectual pursuit than stuffing their faces with dairy products." Ben gathered up their empty soda cans and arranged them in a group, not quite sure whether he should seek out a trash receptacle or wait 'til later.

"Ben," Katie said after a few minutes silence.

"Yes."

"There's something that's been bothering me for a while."

"Oh God, why do I not like the sound of that?" Nevertheless, he leaned over and grasped her hand tightly. It wasn't a romantic kind of hand holding, it was just that she seemed to need it and he was always a very physical person. She obviously didn't find it uncomfortable or weird because she didn't tear her hand away…

She took a deep breath and said it quickly, so as not to bottle out. "Is - Ben, is Li-Li yours?"

She thought for a moment that he was going to get angry, fly off the handle, or something, but he didn't; he just searched her face for a moment, holding her hand tightly. She wasn't sure what he was looking for. Then he smiled, a combination of incredulity and… _what was that? Yes,_ she was sure it was pity.

"What the hell? Why would you think _that_?"

"I'm sorry - " she began.

But he stopped her;

"That is the weirdest question - "

"Which you haven't answered. Please… just tell me the truth."

"No," he said, very seriously, "she's not my daughter. I wish she was, but the truth is; I promised Rick I'd keep an eye on them. That is why I always go back. God, did you think I was screwing Candy, like, sixteen years ago?"

"I know, I'm sorry, I didn't th - "

"Jesus, Katie," he let go of her hand and rubbed his eyes in disbelief, "I was _nineteen_ when I first came here."

"Are you saying it's not plausible? It was a fair question. The way you are with her, I - "

"Why would you think that? What is this, deal with all your excess baggage on the beach day? What has gotten _into_ you?" He looked her very bravely in the eye. "What… what happened in Hilo?"

"Same as usual," she said, looking down.

"Someone kill a puppy? You haven't been yourself since - "

"Just drop it."

"Katie, I know you well enough to tell when something's seriously wrong."

"Then you should know me well enough to know what happens if you push me," she said, raising one eyebrow in threat.

"Come on. You can trust me, I'm your friend. I was your friend before I was – well, anything else, I - "

_Flawed Glass. Looking, but not really seeing. Okay, then… _"I fell out with Graeme."

"Ah, well. Am I allowed to say, 'I told you so'?"

"Don't rub it in."

"When I said you'd find Mr Right, I didn't mean you should go for Mr Always Right."

"Alright, alright... I've learned my lesson and it was a hard one. Please don't - "

"Seriously. What happened?"

"Graeme… I… He proposed to me."

Ben choked on his fresh can of coke. "He did _what_?"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a proposal, it wasn't like that. He… Actually I think he was having a psychotic break."

"Of course he'd have to be psychotic to propose to you - "

"Don't. It's not funny."

"I'm deadly serious. I don't feel like joking at all now. It has a lot to do with the fact you just spoiled my day off by asking me straight up if I'm secretly Li-Li's dad."

Oh, God how it made her cringe when he said it like that. "Yeah, I know, and I said I was sorry - "

"But it got you thinking about us," he confirmed to himself, "and what went wrong."

"Uh, yeah," she said awkwardly, apologetically. "And I hate that he ever came between us, I - "

"It's Okay, I think I'm over it by now, considering what - "

"No, that's not what I mean. Oh, God, I'm making a right hash up of this." She laughed humourlessly. "I was never any good at this stuff."

"What are you trying to say?"

"What I'm trying to say is… Back then I was only interested in him because he was older and I thought wiser. But I was looking for approval in the wrong place."

"Wow, all that therapy has really paid off."

She ignored that. "And I couldn't see the wood for the trees. You were always there for me. You're one of the good guys, Ben, I was glad you were there and I… I'm glad you're here."

He smiled. "It's my pleasure. I guess we all need someone to understand what we've been through. Pleb week, Doctor Chen's all-nighters, that kind of thing."

"And I really am sorry about that little outburst. When I look at her I can see she's Rick's child, I don't know what came over me."

"Yeah, well, it's an easy mistake to make. Luckily, I'm not the type to hold a grudge. I think we can still go about or daily lives and still look each other in the eye. But seriously, Candy?"

"What? What is wrong with Candy?"

"Uh, nothing. But she's a little old for me, she has a shaky grasp of the English language at best and she tries to force-feed me spam."

"Okay, well, maybe I should try to set you up with someone a little more suitable."

"Great, my ex-wife playing matchmaker, that's all I need. Are all your friends as uptight as you? Oh, wait, you'd only set me up with people you hate… Or what about - "

"I said not Lark. You'd never survive her. She'd break your heart."

"And that of course, is the worst thing that could possibly happen. I think not. See," he said, picking up the paperback he had been reading before Katie made him get the Coke, "this is exactly the kind of thing we should be discussing over tacos and tequila. Maybe not the whole illegitimate children thing. You need to give me fair warning next time. 'Cause that was just… You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"You're not going to tell anyone any of this are you? Because everyone still thinks I'm a full metal bitch with no heart and that I hate you."

"Of course not. Your secret is safe with me. We can't have anyone thinking you're all human and vulnerable and God forbid, need a little reassurance now and then." He gave her hand another squeeze.

"Thanks."

"Christ, we are fucked up, aren't we? Don't you just love it?"

"What do we do now?"

"What, you mean, now that we've got all that off our chests? I suppose we just get on with our lives, go back to normal."

Katie watched him and the easy way he just went back to the status quo. She knew then that everything would be alright between them and whatever it was that they had, wasn't that easily shaken and he wouldn't hold it against her. In fact, she thought he'd found the whole thing rather amusing. Time to change the record. Move on. "Okay. But lay off the biological clock jokes."

"Would I?"

"Yes, you would. Remember what happened last time?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to _alarm_ you."

"Watch it mister." She narrowed her eyes, only really pretending to be annoyed. She was reluctant to admit it, but his teasing was kinda comforting. It made everything normal again.

"You're _ticked_-off, aren't you?"

"Stop it."

"Am I _winding_ you up?"

"I swear, one more joke and..."

"You know I've got a clock named after me, right?"

"And which one is that?" she played along.

"Big Ben."

"If you don't stop right now, you're going to be _Little_ Ben -"

The End


End file.

SeaQuest, Adventure, Mystery