Vendetta Protocol by Kevin Ikenberry

Author:Kevin Ikenberry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Published: 2017-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

White marble headstones stabbed through freshly cut green grass in all directions below her. All of it was familiar, and it brought an angry smile to Ayumi’s face. The tall, athletic girl she’d become had never set foot on these hallowed grounds. Irony, it was called. Her mind knew everything possible to know, inside the body of an innocent girl who had only a vague idea who she was or why she’d been brought back. And to be standing on the hallowed ground again felt as comfortable as she could have imagined despite knowing that she’d lost Kieran here. She’d observed as her companion died to gain the last shreds of his true identity. With certainty, her return to Mountain Home would surprise and maybe scare the ones who had torn him away from her.

The smile on Ayumi’s face widened. She brushed back a strand of hair and took a deep breath. The air was warm and moist. Dew sharpened the grass into glistening knife blades in the valley below. She left the remnant of a gravel road, letting the dew darken the leather of her boots with every step. With a contented sigh, she walked down the slope. Her body responded to every command naturally. She’d completed the takeover of the girl’s inadequate protocol and defeated her weak mind as well. The poor thing somehow remained like an ethereal conscience that Ayumi could not locate or eradicate. Being human, it appeared, came with challenges that she relished. The tale of a puppet who wanted to be a boy came to mind, and she catalogued it for future study. In one version of that story, Amy’s voice was represented by an insect, of all things.

Ayumi laughed, and the very sound of her new voice, through her new ears, brought a rush of emotional response she classified as joy. She knelt among the first row of graves and ran her fingers through the wet grass to relish the sensory data. Every moment brought new experiences. Every step brought her closer to her goal. It did not matter if they knew she was coming here. Amy’s appearance in this solemn place was expected. Part of the process of integration, she knew. All of the subjects would make their way from Sydney to the hills of what had been Tennessee. The girl had been close to knowing herself before Ayumi hacked her protocol. The girl’s prior life did not interest Ayumi, or so she told herself, even as emotion began to bubble in her chest and her throat constricted. How much of her reaction was based on memories she retained from Kieran’s visit, she could not be sure. The girl certainly knew this place as well, and her emotional response and Kieran’s were almost precisely the same.

Her eyes danced between the tombstones, looking at names, wars, awards, and the little details that described a life in service for all to see. The grave of a Major Edward Hoffman caught her eye, and she studied the carefully etched pilot’s wings atop the headstone.

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