“The circuitry?”
“Yes. They embedded my body with a new neural network. It controls millions of nanite antibodies in my blood that keep the cancer from returning. But without it, I would have no immune system and no nervous system. I live, but I am as much machine as woman.”
“But you live and that’s something.”
“It is,” Kaihime said. “After my parents found my cure, they freed me from my slowed time statis. I was approximately eleven in my own frame of time reference, but they spent over thirty years finding the answers they sought. I watched my parents age every time they visited me, far faster than anyone should. By the time I joined them, they had already made the decision to remain in the Aerie until they died. I stayed with them, learning about your world through our connection with your computer networks and your television.”
“You’ve watched us.”
“My parents were scientists for a group known as the Court of Shadows. They were a secret society of men and women that sought to protect humanity by controlling it from the shadows. They did this by hiding technologies they considered humankind not ready to handle. My parents researched this technology and they stole it when they built the Aerie to save my life. They eventually died for it when the Court found them during a supply run. I watched them die from my home as my mother cut off the portal between worlds. I was left alone in The Aerie with my only escape wired into my own hardware. And I knew I had a purpose. I had to stop the Court of Shadows from hurting anyone else.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Alli said. “But what does any of this have to do with me or Marilyn or the others?”
“The Court of Shadows has many branches though in my research I’ve learned they are only one of many such societies seeking to force their influence over mankind. But one of those branches is a research group called Genetic Enhancement and Neurological Improvement Systems Analysis Group. They call themselves GENESIS, because there is nothing the Court loves more than a good acronym.”
“I don’t think I like where this is going,” Alli said.
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