Chapter 21 Cyber Soul

Chapter 21

Cyber Soul

   As I leave Tim and Carter, smiling images of Kia suddenly flutter up in my mind. A sigh escapes my lips. I hardly notice the anti –grav incline has deposited me back on the first floor. Things are suddenly more difficult. Kia’s tender hand on my cheek would make me feel better, but I’ll never feel that again. There’s darkness on the horizon. Yet another group of malcontents threatens the fragile union I’m trying to forge between Chimeran and old humans. So much responsibility, so many people looking to me for guidance, so many problems. I miss Kia. I miss it being just us. Time to grow up and look around, I’m not alone in the world. I never was…

   Penny, I need to find Penny. The instant I wish to find her my microscopic Nano bots scan the mall find her and suddenly I know I need to go the a shoe store with an orange banner hanging over it archway entrance. Of course, it’s not really a store. More like a high-end storage facility.  

 Everything is free at least until the ship’s supply bins are empty, but that’s not really a problem. The Lunans need to get out and make their way on Earth. I know most of them want just that. Soon I find myself walking down long aisles of ladies shoes. After reaching the end of the aisle, I turn and spot Penny seated on a long narrow bench. Her boots are lying on the floor as she admires a pair of glittery sandals already cradling her slender feet in strands of silver and gold.

  “Penny, you ready to go?”

  She looks up at me grinning, “I just love these. Can I have them?”

 “Sure, but we have to go. Would you like to go back to Wayferra?”

 Penny looks up from her sandals. Her mouth is open, her face slack. Her eyes glisten with tears. “I’ve never been there, not really. I’d watch them on the Common from the water and dream of walking on the beach dancing on the common, seeing Kress’ treetop home, but it was just a fantasy, but you’ve made it real. Oh yes I want to go!”

  “I made it real; I guess I did in a roundabout way. Well we need to get going. I’m settling the Lunans near there and need to tell the Chimerans what to expect. ”

  She grins. Her face beams with approval.

  Not bothering with the vine-tangled hothouse of the jungle I whisk her back to ship directly from the exit. I was planning to inspect the apartment  living quarters that surrounded the mall, but more pressing matters pushed that back. Besides, I can always return and visit the ships occupant and make sure they are all enjoying their new apartments.  My hope is that they will all have homes outside the ship soon and peacefully integrate into Chimeran society.

   As I fly Penny back to my ship I can’t help but see how happy she is sailing through the air. Then, she’s not really in the air. She’s inside an invisible nanobot cocoon, but I can do better than that. Seconds later, we’re descending toward my ship. I feel her sigh, disappointed her flight was so short.

  “Would you like to like to fly,” I ask her as her we enter the ship.

 “The ship,” she asks as she heads off toward the sofa carrying her boots, which wind up on the floor before she even gets to the couch. I give her a slight stern look. She picks them up and shrugs an ‘I’m sorry’ then carries them to her room.

   I settle down on the sofa just before she returns. “You’d let me fly the ship?” she ask upon her return. Having already mentally set the coordinates for Wayferra, I look up at her giving her my full attention.

“Well I can teach you, but it’s linked to my mind, so I’d have to design manual controls for you, but that’s not really what I’m talking about.”

  She sits down beside me, “What are talking about then?”

 “Would you like to fly all by yourself, without me or the ship? I can make that happen….” Before I can finish my sentence, she jumps up.

 “You’re going to give me wings?”

  I was thinking more along the lines of an anti -gravity harness, but if she wants wings, if she wants to be Chimeran again, then that’s exactly what I want too.

   “Ah, yeah sure I can do that, but you’ll have to go back in a pod and undergo more genetic manipulation. It’ll take a while.”

  “I don’t care Kian, just so long as I have wings like Kia once had when you through!”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to go back and forth with this. It’s not good for your body, so once done it will be done once and for all.”

  “Please do it now. I want to fly with Kress. I’ve always dreamed of that.”

 My eyes suddenly water. I can’t give her back her family, but I can darn sure give her some silly wings.