One Good Soldier

sight.

'The root of mother's evil,' Sehera replied. Alexander stomped a boot on the thing, shattering it to pieces. He stomped it a few more times and twisted the ball of his foot over the plastic pieces until they were nothing more than a bloody stain rubbed into the hardwood floor.

'That was a prototype top-secret super AIC from over eighty-five years ago,' Moore said. 'And this used to be President Sienna Madira, until that damned thing went nuts and started taking over her mind. She became Elle Ahmi after that.'

'And she was my mother,' Sehera continued to cry softly. 'As I grew up, I saw her go through multiple personality periods and wild mood swings and amazing periods of brilliance and amoral evil. I always knew something was wrong with her, that she was more than just a terrorist. Alexander and I figured it out during the Martian Desert Campaign, while he was in the torture camps. Being a student of history, he recognized who she really was from things she said and mannerisms she had.'

'And it has taken us decades to figure out how to stop her.' Alexander put his hand on his wife's shoulder. 'How to stop it. And the crazy damned plans twisted around other plans within plans. There was always a glitch in the plans, though. Madira was still in there and was somehow fighting to hold the AI in check. And it looks like she finally won out in the end.'

'What did she mean about telling Dee who her grandfather was?' Thomas asked.

'Sehera's father was former Supreme Court Chief Justice Scotty P. Mueller, and Ahmi's partner until she killed him,' Alexander said. 'I guess she wants her to know who he was.'

'Scotty? There was a Scotty who helped me escape on that kamikaze battle cruiser for Luna City six years ago. Was that him?' Nancy asked.

'He let you go?' Sehera asked.

'Yes, he did. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead, and that ship would've probably hit Luna City. After Ahmi and this crazy doctor tortured me, he snuck in and cut me loose,' Nancy explained.

'That sounds like my father,' Sehera asked.

'You're why she killed him, then. She said he had betrayed her,' Moore said. 'And I bet I met that crazy doctor of yours forty years ago. I'd like a few minutes alone with that sonofabitch!'

'I killed him.'

'Can't think of someone who deserved it more,' Moore said with disdain for Ahmi's torture expert. That sadistic bastard had needed killing.

'Wait, wait. This is all too much. You talked to Elle Ahmi after the Battle for the Oort?' Jack asked.

'Yes, I did. We had to keep stringing her along until we found out how deep her Separatists were within the government. We've kept in contact with her and acted like we were part of her plans for decades,' Moore said grudgingly. 'I couldn't think of a better plan, DeathRay. We had a chance to stop her entire plan, not just her. We had to stay the course. And we had also simulated the outcome of just killing her. The colonies and Mars would have been thrown into a period where warlords fought each other for bits of the power vacuum that would follow.'

'I was just asking, sir.'

'Jesus, I've got a top-secret super AIC in my head, throughout my body. Could that happen to me?' Nancy asked.

'We've read your file, Nancy. The technology is decades ahead of what President Madira had implanted,' Moore told her. 'Besides, Abby really likes Allison and assures me that she is perfectly healthy.'

'Ahmi, or Madira, whoever, didn't say 'tell Dee who her grandfather was,'?' Nancy said as she lowered her weapon. Apparently, she believed Alexander and Sehera—or at least wanted to give that impression.

'What?' Sehera looked up at her sharply.

'No, Allison just played it back for me in my head. She said 'show Dee who her grandfather was,' and her emphasis was on the word show.' Nancy repeated the dead president.

'Abby says the same,' Moore agreed.

'She never said anything or did anything without it meaning something else, or having design.' Sehera rose to her feet. 'She was trying to tell us something without giving it away to the AIC.'

'Fan out. Look for a picture of Scotty P. Mueller,' Moore ordered.

'I saw it earlier.' Sehera walked over to the desk and picked up the ski mask. She held it in her hands briefly and then stuck it in her pocket. 'Here it is.'

She picked up the picture and examined it closer. It was in a very nice Mars cherry-tree-wood frame and covered with an antiglare pane of glass. The picture was of the newly elected Democratic president, Sienna Madira, shaking the hands of freshly congressionally