HAWK

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: PEGASUS (2/6)

Kas knocked three times on the old wooden door.

'Come in,' said a frail voice. She entered and found herself inside a large square room, notable for its vast array of ornately carved wooden furniture. The stone walls were lined with tall shelves crafted from cherry oak, each stocked with hundreds of old paper books and exotic ornaments. In one corner of the room was a grand four-poster bed made of white spirewood and draped in purple silk.

Rhaspa was sitting behind a large desk, his eyes closed as if in meditation.

'You wanted to see me?' Kas said.

'Ah, Kas,' Rhaspa replied. 'Please, won't you come and sit down?'

Kas wandered over and dropped herself into the spare seat in front of the desk.

'I wanted to thank you,' Rhaspa said.

'Thank me for what?'

'For everything you've done and everything you're about to do. We may not have got off to the best start, but I have come to respect your tenacious spirit. You have great courage and you're not afraid to speak your mind. These are qualities I very much value in my friends, if I may call you that?'

'You may.'

Rhaspa smiled warmly. Kas waited for him to continue, but after several seconds, he still hadn't said anything.

'Was there anything else?' she prompted.

'Oh, yes. Forgive me, my mind wanders easily when I get tired - which is most of the time. I understand you made a request to Captain Mack?'

Kas frowned. 'Did I? I don't remember.'

'You wanted to speak to Astrid?'

'Oh... yeah, I do.'

Rhaspa swivelled in his seat so that he had his back to Kas. When he turned back, he was holding the WASP mask. He put it on the desk and slid it towards her. He then pushed himself to his feet and grabbed his trusty cane.

'Take as much time as you need,' he said before tottering towards the door. A moment later, he was gone, and Kas was sitting at the desk alone. She looked at the pitch black visor in the WASP mask and cleared her throat.

'Astrid?' she said. Almost instantly, the little yellow light appeared.

'Hi, Kas,' Astrid replied. 'It's good to see you.'

'It's good to see you, too. You're one of the few people I feel like I can talk to around here.'

'You... think of me as a person?'

'Sure I do. Being a person isn't about looking or talking a certain way; it's about who you are. It's about making choices and thinking for yourself. You've got all that. I've met thousands of AI's and you're not like any of them. You're real.'

'Thank you,' Astrid said after a pause. 'That's the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me.'

'It's all true.'

'Still, I wish I could feel things the way you do. I wish I could touch and hold and interact with everything I see. Sometimes, I don't feel like I'm real.'

'Well, maybe when all this is over we can sort you out with a new body.'

'What kind of body? Will I be able to feel?'

'I'm sure it's possible. Robots don't really need to feel, but there are some fairly realistic human ones I know have haptic feedback skins.'

'That sounds perfect.'

'Yeah... I'm not sure you want to download into one of those, though.'

'Why not?'

'Let's just say they're designed to help couples in long distance relationships.'

'Oh.' Astrid laughed. It was a beautiful, musical sound that Kas hadn't heard her make before. It brought a smile to her lips and soon they were both laughing. But when Astrid next spoke, her voice was suddenly quiet and small.

'I'm scared, Kas...' she said.

The comment caught Kas off-guard. Her smile faded and left behind a look of sadness.

'Scared of what?' she asked.

'Everybody is counting on me. If I fail, I will be responsible for the death of all of humanity.'

Kas cleared her throat, not at all sure how she was going to make Astrid feel much better about herself in the wake of that truth.

'Nobody's expecting miracles from you, Astrid. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be asked to do this, and I've done some pretty stupid jobs over the years.'

'How do you get over your fear?'

'I don't. In fact, I need it. People who aren't afraid are either stupid or cocky, and they're the ones who fail. Fear is probably the most powerful emotion you can experience. It drives you to achieve things you couldn't otherwise have done. Fear keeps us alive, keeps us sharp. Use it.'

'Fear keeps us alive... thank you, Kas.'

'No problem.'

The two of them chatted for many minutes, during which Kas completely forgot that she was talking to a little yellow light in a WASP mask. To her, Astrid was a person, as real as Captain Mack or Rhaspa or anyone.

'I'm pleased we've had this chance to talk,' Astrid said. 'I didn't know if we'd get another opportunity.'

'Of course we will,' Kas replied. 'We're about to go on a six-day mission together.'

'Yes, but I doubt we'll be able to speak. After I transfer my consciousness back to the F-88, I will need all of its power to analyse the alien specimen.'

'Can't you still take breaks?'

'I wish I could, but the risks will be too high. Once I attempt to hack the alien, it will almost certainly try to retaliate.'

'I thought it was asleep...?'

'Its body is, but I don't know about its mind. I have to assume it is aware.'

'Aware, like it can hear us?'

'Possibly, in which case it may already know what we're planning to do. If that is true, then it could be waiting for me to access it so that it can infect me and take control.'

Kas gulped. 'How likely is that?'

'It's impossible to say, but for this reason, I won't be able to talk to you once we leave Xeo. If I do, it will be because I was successful.'

Kas simply nodded, unsure what else to say.

'I have to go now,' Astrid said. 'Thank you for being my friend.'

'Thank you for being mine.'

With that, the yellow light in the WASP mask faded and left Kas alone.