"You're a funny man, Fink." Ahmi grinned. "And either really brave or really stupid."
"I would be of use to you, ma'am."
"Let him go," Ahmi said and waved the soldiers off Fink. "Escort him out of the building and let him go for now. Become accustomed to our way of life here, General Fink. I'll call you soon, when I need you."
"You're welcome, ma'am. Good day." General Fink of the United Separatist Republic turned and walked away, with the soldiers shadowing him. As soon as the soldiers were out of sight, Dee caught some motion from her peripheral vision, and then a holowall turned off across the room. What had looked like a normal wall with a bust of some old bald guy in front of it wasn't. The wall and bust vanished. Five men in black armored uniforms stood with their weapons drawn. Clearly, they had been there all along. Dee realized that Ahmi kept her bases covered and for some reason wanted her to know that.
"At ease, gentlemen," Ahmi told them.
"I'll get you, Fink," Dee muttered to herself. Ahmi didn't pay any attention to her mutterings.
"Come with me, Ms. Moore." Ahmi held out a hand, leading her to the elevator. "I can remove those cuffs if you promise to behave yourself."
"I'll behave for now. But I'll make you no promises about when I'll decide to change my mind," Dee tried to say calmly, but her clenched teeth gave her anger and stress level away.
Ahmi laughed. "Indeed, you are your father's daughter."
"You're goddamned right I am." Dee almost spat the words.
"No need to be so crude, dear. I wouldn't have wanted you to be anything less." The terrorist mass murderer smiled through the ski mask at Dee. The smile unsettled her horribly. There was something both vicious and familiar about it.
The cuffs unlocked themselves, and Dee pushed them off and rubbed at her wrists. She had been either zip-tied or cuffed for more than a couple hours, and it was getting old. Her wrists had red marks. Dee wasn't sure what if anything to say, so she quietly stood there for the time being. What do you say to the most wanted mass murderer in history once they have kidnapped you for uncertain, but most likely sinister, purposes?
"It is an honor to meet you, Deanna. I would love to know more about you. Please tell me more about yourself." The elevator reached the top floor, and the doors slid open. Ahmi led her across a foyer and to another security door. The door slid open, and they stepped into a second elevator. This elevator was a transparent cylinder that only went up one floor. The door to the elevator was half of the cylinder, which slid around inside the other half. The two of them stepped out of it into a very large cylindrical room. The elevator door closed once they stepped free, and then the elevator itself sunk into the floor and disappeared.
"Lights please, Copernicus. Make them sixty percent. And make all the windows transparent. Our guest has never seen the rings rise over New Tharsis," Ahmi said out loud. Dee assumed that she was talking to her AIC.
Suddenly the walls turned transparent, as did the dome overhead. Other than a few structural members here and there, Dee suddenly felt as if she were standing atop a very tall building that was sitting on top of a very high peak. It was breathtaking, and she nearly lost her balance at first. To the east, the multicolored brilliance of the rings of the fourth planet of the Tau Ceti system filled the horizon. Two other moons were visible on the horizon as well. They were fairly bright. Dee wondered if either of them was the QMT facility she had seen earlier.
"Please, have a seat." Ahmi pointed her to the couch in her seating area. From the look of it, the crazy terrorist didn't entertain much. "Would you like some food or something to drink?"
Dee, the first rule of being a captive is to eat and drink if you get the chance, her AIC told her. You never know when you'll get that chance again.
Okay.
"I could eat. And I'm thirsty," she said. She made herself comfortable on the couch of the most wanted woman in humanity. Well, she wasn't really comfortable. In fact, she was shaking with fear and anger, and she just wanted out of there. But Dee was doing her best to stay brave.
"I'm having dinner sent up." Ahmi seemed more like a person entertaining a guest than a kidnapper talking to her victim. "What would you like? Do you have any allergies I should know about?"
"Uh, no, uh, allergies." Dee was almost bewildered by the way Ahmi spoke to her. Had she not been so frightening, she might have thought of the woman as nice. But Ahmi's reputation killed any such notions.
"Good. You should try our bison. It is amazing. Does that sound okay with you?" Ahmi asked her.
"Why am I here?" Dee blurted at her. She sat on her hands so they wouldn't shake.
"Well, you are straight to the point, aren't you? Good. Don't ever change that," Ahmi replied. Dee wasn't sure, but she thought the Separatist terrorist leader had just given her advice. "You are here because I wanted to meet you. And your parents and I have been at odds for so long, it is time we brought it all to a, well, a climax, if you will."
"What type of climax? You—you're planning to attack them, aren't you?"
"Oh, my dear, I guess you missed all the excitement today. You see, the Ross 128 system seceded from the United States today and joined me. Your father sent a ship to stop the secession, and today shall be the day that the Separatist Revolution is no longer considered a terrorist activity and will become the United Separatist Republic in the eyes of the rest of humanity," Ahmi explained. Then she zoned out briefly as if she were talking to her AIC. "Ah. Dinner is here."
That was fast, Bree thought to her.
Yeah. We don't get that kind of service in the White House.
Well, your dad isn't likely to shoot the chef in the head, either.
You never know.
The elevator slid up through the floor, and Elle retrieved the food tray. She rolled the cart over to the edge of the entertaining area of her office, next to one of the large windows, and uncovered it. Ahmi started setting the food out on a small two-person dining table butted up against the window. Dee hadn't noticed the little table before. It was very bistro-esque and actually, with the view, was probably one of the choiceest dining spots in the entire system.
"Come on, dear." Ahmi waved to her. "I haven't eaten all day, and I haven't had a dinner guest in, oh, six years."
"Uh, okay." Dee hesitantly joined the woman at the table. The complete experience was so surreal that Dee felt like she was having a very strange nightmare. She was frightened out of her mind, intrigued, entertained, and wasn't sure what to expect next.
"Oh hell, I forgot all about this thing." Ahmi reached up behind her head and fed her ponytail down through her mask and then pulled it the rest of the way off and tossed it on the love seat nearest the dinner table. She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, letting it fall on her shoulders. "I've worn that thing for so damned long, sometimes I forget I'm wearing it."
Dee looked at the woman's face closely and didn't have to study it at all to recognize her. The milky white skin, the long, straight black hair, her nose, her mouth, the dimples in her smile, her deep brown eyes, there was no better likeness of her mother other than her mother that she had ever seen. Dee felt faint, very faint.