“Like a fox. No. I’m a cyborg. We’ve gone all over the galaxy and are now floating outside of it. Nothing you’re saying sounds crazy. But, unfortunately, nothing you’ve said is a plan for how to get this back into the Milky Way, though I’m now with the cause a hundred percent.”
“So are the rest of us,” Jerry said in my ear. Kristie’s too, if her jumping a little was any indication. “I was going to ask you something when I heard you two discussing what’s going on and decided not to interrupt. It sounded important, so I broadcast it to the others.”
“Glad I didn’t say anything about my sex life.”
“Oh, we all know all about that,” Jerry said with a laugh. “But we all also agree with your assessment, the team still on Helix Noblora in particular. Because they did break the code and what you described is pretty much what they’ve just gotten translated via Butler and Mother.”
Kristie punched me gently on the arm. “Look at you, right again!” Realized I’d started thinking of her as Kristie, not as the Kristie-Bot. Yeah, she’d moved into the Friend Zone. And I’d correctly figured out how life in our galaxy had come about. It was a trip filled with stranger and stranger things.
CHAPTER 106
“ALL THAT’S NICE, but we’re still no closer to figuring out what to do.” My music changed to “Inside You” by Pop Will Eat Itself. Well, that was a duh. At least I thought I had this clue right. “Lilith, any ideas?”
Not really, and yes, I am sharing this with everyone’s minds, or all those on the call, at any rate. I could do some, but I cannot do all. To do this requires great power. Moving the ship with a Z’porrah power cube was one thing. I cannot contain the entire solar system. And there is a matter of rotation. The speed we will need to achieve to reenter the galaxy is great. I cannot do it alone.
But you could if Fairy Godfather ACE helped.
Jamie?
Yes, Mommy. Fairy Godfather ACE and I are just talking to you and Lilith, not the others. Not even Daddy, because we think it will upset Daddy to talk to him like this right now.
Oh, right you are, sweetie. But I can’t ask Fairy Godfather ACE to risk it any more than I can ask Lilith to risk it. And, as your mother, I have to say that you are not allowed to risk yourself in this way.
It is not a risk. This was ACE. ACE will not allow Jamie to risk. ACE will leave Jamie, as Lilith will have to leave Kitty, in order to assist.
Doesn’t that increase the risk for both of you?
It does, Lilith said. But it lessens the risk for you and your daughter.
I can do it, Mommy, Jamie said stubbornly.
I’m sure you can, Jamie-Kat, but you’re a little girl and that’s asking a lot of you. Of course, she hadn’t had ACE inside her when she’d time-warped from New Mexico to D.C. to save me, Jeff, and Christopher by holding a Z’porrah spaceship in the air and lowering it safely.
Stop selling your daughter short, Lilith said, right on cue.
Look, I’m her mother. I’m supposed to protect her, not the other way around.
The other kids want to help, too, Jamie said. Charlie has a good idea.
Perfect. Now my toddler son wanted to get in on the action. Jeff was going to flip out. Um, what idea is that?
Charlie says that he can lift the sun.
God forbid that he actually could. That’s not what we need, sweetie. We need to move the solar system back to where it was, not move it around where it is.
We know. Jamie sounded exasperated. Clearly I was missing her point. But Missus Denise says that when we all work together all the tasks are easier. We’ve been practicing, even Becky and JR.
Fantastic. Now I’d have Jeff and Christopher freaking out. Probably the other parents, too. I mean, I wanted to freak out, but had to control it. Oh? Um, good for all of you!
Mommy, you don’t have to worry. We know what to do. And we know we can’t do it alone. Fairy Godfather ACE says that what we want to do is be like Auntie Abby and Auntie Mimi were, and how Auntie Abby and Auntie Mahin are, only more so.
“SuperStar could move an entire solar system,” Tim said before I could mention that those women were full-grown adults and one of them was technically dead. Realized that the chat in my head was going a lot faster than I’d have figured. That had happened earlier, too. Presumed it was because Lilith was inside of me.
“But we don’t have anyone like that with us now. Our rabbits and the Most Weasels have telepathy thanks to the Nazez water and the Orange Scourge, but none are as powerful as SuperBun was.” My music changed to “Metal Heart” by Garbage. “We can’t ask SuperStar or Cradus to help with this—it puts them at too much risk.” The volume on my music turned up for a few seconds, then lowered. Algar really wanted me to pay attention.
“The only ones who’ve gone into a sun and survived are Kitty, Wruck, Lilith, and SuperBun,” Chuckie said. “I’m saying that before Kitty feels the need to remind us.”
“Oh, blah, blah, blah, dude. Besides you’re not quite right. The Anti-Mother went in and came out, too. Oh. Oh my God.” Thought about Algar’s current musical cues. Part of the chorus from “Hidden” was “everyone jump like the gators do,” and using alligators had been considered totally insane. And yet, they’d helped us save the day during Operation Drug Addict. But that had only happened because I’d gone with the crazy.
“No,” Jeff said strongly. “You cannot be thinking what I know you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that I need to do the craziest thing I can think of, and that’s talk to the Anti-Mother, yes.”
“It’s better to let this system float into the Deep Black and die than release that monster,” Christopher said. “You know that, Kitty. Why are you even considering this?”
My music changed again, to “Faith” by George Michael. Mephistopheles had repeated that he’d always have faith in me the last time we’d talked. Maybe I needed to live up to that faith. “I need to get up to the Distant Voyager.”
Everyone started arguing. The call shut off for me, though I could tell that it was still on for Kristie. I stood up. Kristie tapped her communicator and stood up, too. “You turned the call off, too?”
Nodded. “I have to at least try. Maybe I can get through to the Anti-Mother in some way. I was able to connect with her son, after all.”
“I’m in.” She shrugged at the shocked look I was giving her. “They all want to argue, but none of them have any ideas. This sounds crazy. But crazy is Code Name: First Lady’s specialty.”
Looked around. We were going to have to steal a shuttle, and that was not going to sit well with anyone. There is another way, Lilith said. Take hold of the cyborg.
Grabbed Kristie’s hand and felt something go around us, just like I had when ACE had taken us to Alpha Four during Operation Invasion. Felt the gentle tug and we sailed from the throne room of Helix Rime through space into the cargo hold of the Distant Voyager as if we were ghosts. There was something different about the system, but didn’t have time to figure out what it was.