“We don’t know again,” Hughes said. “We were all discussing possible directions when Mother said that something was wrong. Drax and the hackers went to work on it.”
“They did not arrive in time,” Mother said. “They are safe, but they were not able to stop this malfunction.”
“So, where are we heading?”
“As near as I can tell,” Mother replied, “across the galaxy.”
“Of course we are,” Jeff said.
“Are you sure that this isn’t the original coordinates resurfacing somehow?” Tito asked.
“Yes, I am certain. Expect warp in three . . . two . . . one . . .”
Felt the slamming back in your seat feeling of going into warp. “Remember,” Tito said calmly, “deep breaths and don’t fight it.”
We all did better this time, which was nice. What wasn’t was that the pressure seemed to be going on for a long time. “Um, Mother? When does the pressure stop? Again, asking for a friend.”
“And again, she’s asking for me,” Tim said.
“I have no idea,” Mother said. “I am not in control of the ship.”
Let that sit on the air for a moment. “Excuse me?” Jeff asked finally. “You told us we were going to warp.”
“Yes, because I could determine that was what the ship was doing. But I have no control right now.”
“Think the hackers screwed something up, intentionally or accidentally?” Tim asked.
“Only if Drax wanted his prized creation ruined,” Jeff said. “Per Brian, Drax oversaw everything the freeloaders did, and Drax has a lot riding on the Distant Voyager. I find it hard to believe that he’s sabotaged his own ship or allowed anyone else to do it right under his nose. If he wanted to go visit somewhere, all he had to do was tell us and set the coordinates. And unless we’re heading for Vatusus, I don’t buy it.”
“We are not, as far as I can tell,” Mother said.
“The hackers don’t have anything riding on the ship,” Tim said. “And they snuck on.”
“They snuck on because it’s the coolest thing ever and they’re idiots in some ways. But sabotage like this isn’t like them, honestly, and I’ve known them all a long time. So has Chuckie. If these guys weren’t a hundred percent loyal and then some, Chuckie would have already had them taken out. And before you argue, yes I mean that seriously, yes they’re his friends, and yes he’d still take them out if they weren’t trustworthy. I know for a fact he still has them all wearing the self-destruct watches and I also know that Dulce hasn’t been allowed to remove them.”
“It’s kind of miraculous that he doesn’t have us all wearing them,” Walker pointed out.
Rightly, as I thought about it. Maybe Siler had been correct when we’d talked about this at the end of Operation Fundraiser—Chuckie trusted more people than he liked to let on.
However, he didn’t trust them without a lot of proof and background checking, so I remained unworried about Hacker International’s loyalties. Jeff might call them freeloaders, but they were living in the best setup of any of their lives and I knew they never wanted to do anything to lose said setup. And betraying us would lose it faster than anything, and they all knew it. Plus, they loved living in the Zoo, hanging out with Chernobog, and getting to feel vital and important every day. No, Hacker International were not traitors or saboteurs.
“True, but this discussion isn’t solving our current situation,” Hughes replied.
“This feels like outside influence,” Mother said. “We confirmed my programming and the ship to be fully intact before we left the Nazez solar space.”
“What if it’s the black chlorophyll?” I asked. “Could that have done it? Or even the regular chlorophyll? It was from a foreign planet. From a foreign body on a foreign planet, really.”
“The black chlorophyll has not been used yet,” Mother said. “And we ran several tests before utilizing the regular chlorophyll. All seemed fine and as it should have been.”
“Only we get a spaceship that can’t control itself,” Jeff said. “I mean that seriously. I’m confident that other planets and, frankly, other people get ships that work as expected.”
“I apologize again,” Mother said, sounding ready to commit AI suicide.
“It’s not your fault,” Jeff said reassuringly. “We’re in this together, Mother.”
“It feels like my fault,” Mother said.
“Jeff’s right, it’s not. None of this is really . . .” It wasn’t. From the very beginning Mother had been manipulated by others, starting with Ixtha. And, speaking of Ixtha, how had she found us all in the DreamScape anyway? Had she managed it alone, or had she had help? And if she’d had help, had that help come from the same source as Jamie’s passenger list? And, per Algar, the current situation?
“I recognize the way you just stopped talking,” Jeff said. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing concrete yet.” At least, that I could say aloud. Because Algar had been pretty clear about my needing to figure out who’d given Jamie her list of spaceship travelers by myself. I’d thought it was to protect whoever the culprit was. But now I wasn’t so sure.
Now I had a feeling that the people being protected from the knowledge were on the ship.
Thought about what Algar had said just a few minutes before—what I’d felt was a big ol’ Algar Clue. He’d said that Jamie could keep a secret.
She was a little girl, so what possible secrets could she be keeping? Looked around and caught my reflection in the windshield. And gave myself a great big ol’ “DUH” for this one.
Because there was indeed a gigantic secret that Jamie had been keeping for years now. Several secrets, really, but they all related to the main one.
Which was that Naomi was still alive out there in the cosmos. And she was watching over us—throughout the multiverse.
CHAPTER 47
IN ORDER TO SAVE several of us, and to protect Jamie, aka her beloved goddaughter, Naomi had taken far more pure Surcenthumain than a hundred people could have handled. It had brought back the powers she’d lost saving D.C. from the Z’porrah attack during Operation Destruction—but it had also killed her.
Only, she’d become so powerful that her essence hadn’t died. Her body was gone, at least the one she’d been born in. However, she was still out there. And no one—the remaining Gowers and Chuckie in particular—could ever know this, because it would destroy them, in different ways.
The moment I thought of what was going on as filtered through Naomi, though, things started to make sense. Well, some sense. They might have made more sense if I could have talked about this aloud—I thought a lot better when running my yap and sharing the wonder that were my thought processes with others—but that option was definitely not available in this situation. So, I’d just have to make do and do my best in terms of silent yap runnings.