Bottom of the Well

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

10/27/98:

It had been a week and I felt just as bad as the day we
burred her. It was like a large emptiness in my heart that
just wouldn't go away.

Even Rhea had felt it, as my three days as her that had so
so recently concluded, she really didn't do much. She keep
it slow, moving through the local wilderness, and not even
hunting. She knew how said I was, and knew that there was
nothing she could to do help it.

Funny, Rhea has become a friend to me. A close friend, we
some times talk at night about the things that go on in my
life. She's a good listener, even if in most way's she's
still a part of me.

For now though, I had decided to immerse myself in my work.
Spending the few days before I had been Rhea working with
Moriya at the Ship Yards. Since the announcement had been
made that we were the only Yards that could sell the
Council's power system (yet, a dozen so far have applied to
sell it as well) we've had almost three hundred orders for
all kinds of ships.

Right now though, all we had to sell was the Red October
class of ships. There was a new one on the drawing board. A
cargo ship, made to work with a pair of the Red October
ships. They would actually be able to dock in the hull of
the ship. One on each side.

Of course I was going to get the first one. We just needed a
name for the ship class, I guess I'm going to have to read
though my copy of the book to find another sub name.

Now, after having been back to myself for a day, I was
moving onto my other projects. Namely the IMF, a name which
I've already decided was far to silly, but it was too late.
It was already on all the paperwork.

Oh well, it could have been worse. Not by much, but it still
could have.

Which was why I was walking through the currently being
remolded lobby of the building for the new organization when
Jadith found me.

"Fox," she said, coming over to me and grabbing my arm.

"Hi," I responded.

"I need to talk to you, care to walk with me?" she asked,
pulling me back towards the doors I had just come through.

Why not, talking to her couldn't hurt much. "Sure." I said,
turning around and starting back outside. "What's on your
mind?"

She hesitated for a few seconds as we stepped out onto the
street. "I've been thinking over a lot of things lately.
I've come to a few decision as well."

"Oh?" I asked, raising my eyebrow as she hustled accost the
street.

"I felt so bad when I found out what had happened," She
said, her walk slowing slightly. I knew what she meet, there
was no need to ask for her to clarify it for me.

She sighed softly, "it got me thinking, about myself, and
about how I've felt about what happened with Rhea."

I nodded slowly.

She didn't say much more as we decided the ramp down into
the Hall. In fact she seemed more silent then normal, moving
quietly as we walked down the empty hallway.

I didn't press the issue. I knew how she felt about that,
how Rhea had won right under her fingers, while she was
trying to help. Even though I never blamed her, even though
she knew on an intellectual level that it wasn't hurt fault,
the guilt had driven her away. She had only moved into the
new house when Naomi had asked her too.

So I just walked along beside her, just as quite as she.

"I went to see my mother," she finally continued, maybe ten
minutes after her initial statement. "It's something I
should have do a long time ago. I miss home, but I like this
place, I think I now understand why I was always told that
my home and the multi-verse would be a juggling act."

I nodded slowly, I had been through much the same thing
myself once I had discovered I was a natural.

"I told her all that happened here, even the parts she
didn't understand. I've always known what happened with Rhea
wasn't my fault. I just couldn't accept that I had done
nothing, even if it meant believing that I had hurt you.
Mother made me understand that there was nothing I could
have done. It was going to happen, it had to happen, it just
happened under my fingers."

I patted her shoulder gently, but made no comment. My trying
to talk to her about this had made her mad once before. I
didn't think I needed a reoccurrence of that now.

"So," she said, then stopped, turning to look at me with her
pail-blue eyes. "I'm not going to move out. I'm going to
stay at the house."

I smiled a bit.

"Anyway," she said, casting her eyes down again. "I've talk
to Oriana about how you've been these past you days. It
sounds like you need all your friends close at hand."

I just hugged her tightly. Whispering a thank you into her
ear. She returned it just as tight. We stayed there for a
few minutes more before we finally broke apart. Jadith
laughing softly.

"Your beard tickles," she said, trying to force it back.

Reaching up, I ran the palm of my hand over my cheek. "It
does need trimmed a bit." I commented.

She laughed again, then taking my arm started walking again.
"Come on, we're going to be late."

"To what?" I asked.

She pulled me around a corner into a long barren hallway.
"Research and Development Lab 15, they called me this
morning, something strange had happened."

"I see, why you though?"

She smiled. "This is the type of thing The Organization has
been assigned to deal with."

I raised an eyebrow at the way she said that. "The
Organization, is that the official name?"

She nodded. "Yes, no one could come up with a good name, so
we just dropped the 'new' and keep it the rest as it was.
I'm surprised you didn't know about it though, it was in the
news last night."

"I haven't actually paid attention to the news sense Beca
was born." I answered truthfully.

She came to a sudden stop, pulling me back around to face
her. "You mean you don't know?"

I shook my head. She had a shocked look on her face, I
assumed the worse. "Did Grasion escape or something?"

"No," she said, shaking her head very fast. "Dwight went to
trial two weeks ago."

That felt like a shock went through my system. "That fast?"

She nodded. "They already had everything against him. It
only lasted a week, and the verdict came in late last
night."

I blew air thought my teeth, that was _very_ fast. He had
only been arrested at the start of the month. This was an
unheard of interpretation of the right to a speedy trial.

"You want to know what it was?" She asked, a small grin
playing over her face, which was reflected in her eyes as
well.

"Please," I answered with a nod.

"They found him guilty of six of the ten charges." She
answered, her grin becoming a full blow smile. "The sentence
was four hundred and twenty some odd years."

I laughed happily. "That's great, the S.O.B. deserved it.
Now I suppose I should deliver Elena's letter to him, before
sie visits him first." I paused, thinking of something. "I
don't suppose he told anyone who made him the Council Head
in the first place?"

She shook her head slowly, her hair flipping around a bit.
"No, no mention of it at all."

I blew thought my teeth again. "Well, it would make since
for them not to mention it in the news. If he did though, it
will eventually come back to you. It has too."

She shrugged. "You may never know. Come on, we're already
late." She then spun around and started back down the
hallway, a little faster then before.

I keep up with her, though not as easily as I would have
liked. "So, what strange thing happened that we're going to
check out?"

"I don't know," she answered with a slight shrug to her
shoulders. "They didn't tell me what it was, just that it
was."

I chuckled. "Ah, the good old days of being totally in the
dark. I harken back from my days of running around meddling
through out the multi-verse."

"When was that?" She asked casually as we turned a corner.

"Before my exile actually... which started almost four years
back now... and ended about three years back."

She ahhed. "I never knew you where exiled."

I nodded. "It's a long story... maybe now that I'm writing
out some of my adventures I should write that out as well.
Though it just wouldn't be the same with out Becky's pen."

"I understand," She said, stopping at an unmarked door
halfway down an unmarked hallway.

"This is it," She told me, rapping her knuckle on the door
frame.

The door popped open and a lemur stuck his head out. He
looked us both over, his black furred face almost
emotionless. Finally he broke into a smile. "Miss Jadith,
I'm so glad you could make it. We were starting to worry
about you."

"My fault," I said, raising a hand. "We got talking about
current events and lost track of time."

He chuckled, opening the door all the way and motioning for
us to come in. "I know how that is. Lost that bet myself."

I raised an eyebrow as we entered the front room of the lab.
It was pretty much a reception area, with a few chairs and a
single desk. "That bet?"

"Ya, I was off by a couple of years," he said, slipping past
us to the far side of the room, opening the other door. "The
pool was only a few hundred credits anyway."

"So," Jadith said as we entered a small hallway. "Care to
tell us what's going on?"

He stopped for a second, his black tail swishing slowly,
then tapped himself on his forehead. "That's right, I didn't
introduce myself did I?" He turned back around to face us.
"My name is N'taki. Though I don't know yours."

The last part was directed towards me. "I'm Fox Cutter," I
said offering a hand.

He took it in a firm grasp and started to pump my arm up and
down hard. "The Fox Cutter?" He asked, looking slightly
stunned. "Wow, I've read of your exploits but I never
thought I would get to meet you. This is just so amazing."
As he spoke he keep working my arm up and down even faster.

I chuckled. "Thank you, but could I have my arm back
please?"

He stopped, looking down at his paw that still was still
shaking my hand. "Oh, I'm sorry." He said, finally letting
go. "Some times I get a bit over excited."

I grins. "I know how that is, I've done it myself." I said,
remembering the time I had meet one of my favorite authors
back on Earth. I could hardly contain myself then.

"So what is going on?" Jadith asked, her hands on her hips
and looking slightly annoyed.

N'taki drooped his ears slightly. "I'm sorry." He paused,
licking his lips. "We've had a theft of sorts."

"Exactly how 'of sorts' do you mean?" she asked.

He paused again, I could see that behind his eyes his mind
was working out how to phrase this right. "It appears that
someone as been using the technology we've been developing
here illegally."

"Keep going," I prompted.

"Oh, well... you see, for the past few years we've been
working on developing a new type of bio-drone. One without
the limitations of the current models. It's basically a
direct clone of the donor body, grown without a mind. We
implant an AI that has there full memory patterns, and let
them lose."

I nodded. "Just as long as the AI doesn't go off the deep
end."

He chuckled. "So far during our testing we've done extensive
screening on all the AIs we've hired."

"Hired?" I asked, sounding a bit astonished.

"Yes," He said, a puzzled look on his face. "Third basic
tenet of the Council. No slavery of any intelligent being,
that includes artificial intelligence. There all free, and
there own person inside the influence of the Council."

I sighed, with a slight smile. "I'll have to tell my ship
computer that."

He nodded, then look back at Jadith who was glaring at the
both of us. "I'm getting off track though. We have ten
birthtanks we use for this project. For the past three
months one has been listed as inoperable. Well three days
ago one of our people found that it was not only working,
but had a full grown clone inside. It didn't filter down to
me till this morning, by that time I got a call that the
tube was now empty."

"Are you sure it was ever actually occupied?" Jadith asked.

"Oh yes," he said with a nod, starting back down the hall.
"And that's not the end of it."

"What else is there?" she asked.

He stopped in front of a large door. Tapping a few numbers
into the keypad he slid open into the wall. "This," He said,
stepping to one side.

The room he reviled as a small thing, about ten foot long by
five foot wide. Laying along the center of the room was a
large glass topped tube. A series of computers lined the
walls, each connected into the tub in some fashion.

What struck me as odd was that the whole room, from waste
high down, was black. Every part of it with the exception of
the glass on the tube, and a set of paw prints leading into
the room.

I bent down to the floor, swiping my finger though a small
patch there. The black stuff came up, clinging to where it
had touched. I sniffed it slightly, then whipped it off on
my pants. "It's soot."

"What caused this?" Jadith asked N'taki.

He shrugged. "We don't know. No one's been in here sense I
was called about it."

"Then who's footprints are those," She asked.

"Jen's," He answered, "She's the research assistant who
found it this morning. She called from the console next to
the tube."

"So where did she go?" I observed.

"I noticed that too," He answered. "No one has seen her
sense, but there's no way she could have gotten out."

She sighed softly. "Do you have anything else? Computer
records or something?"

He shook his head. "No, they've all been wiped clean. All we
know is the report we had when it was first noticed that it
was being used. The person in the tube was a human female,
but it was Jen who saw her, so that's all of the description
I have."

"All right, you go get me Jen's file."

He nodded, slipping off deeper down the hallway.

"So," She said, looking to me. "What do you think we'll
find?"

I laughed. "Nothing I would say. Jen was probably a part of
this... she was removed with the body, and the prints maybe
fake."

She nodded. "I agree. We'll put a flag on Jen's numbers,
we'll be told if she tries to get a job any where in the old
Council's space. I'll also bring a team in, check out the
soot and the tube, but I doubt will see anything at all."

I snickered softly. "Great, first official day on the job
and here you are with your first X-File."

She gave me one a sharp look. "X-File?"

"Yea, basically unexplained, unsolved, and on the whole, not
worth much merit to pursue."

"I see," she said with a nod. "X-File... hum... I like that
name."

I groaned softly, placing my head in my hands and shaking it
slowly.

-----

This story is (c) 1999 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.
Elena is (c) 1999 by Chris Bradford.