Penelope Ann Montpelier had a lot of feelings for Grandfather. He had taken her in, adopted her, when his own children by blood had disappointed him so. He'd seen sothing in her. She had always known that she was special—far smarter than other kids her age, and their emotions so often seed focused on such petty and trivial things that she found them unfathomable. Grandfather had never told her the details, but sohow, he had discovered her, and given her a chance.
When she got sick, things changed. Doctor after doctor failed to help her. She would be dead in a couple more years, they guessed. After that, Grandfather had grown more distant. She understood that much of his caring for her depended on her growth and success. But there was still part of him that hurt, even when his ruthless heart caused him to give up on her. He would support her comfortably for as long as she lived, but he started looking for a new successor. She knew he was protecting himself from the pain of losing her, but it had still hurt her.
Then, the aliens ca back, and with them, hope for her. For a mont, she got to see the light in his eyes again when he looked at her. He wanted her to get well. He wanted her to beco his successor. But in the end, even the great Dr. Vickall didn't know how to save her.
Today, the call ca. Hadley told her over video, because it was all but impossible to do it any other way.
Grandfather is dead.
She had feared it would happen, when she heard about the waves of assassinations. Hadley had been concerned for her safety, but Penelope didn't value her own life very much, simply on practical grounds. Instead, she had worried for Grandfather.
She had even considered asking Nick Tomsun for rcy, just in case. But Grandfather had trained her to be ruthless, and to know when the other person was ruthless. For all that the 'Emperor of Earth' seed to be emotional and weak, his actions told a different story. She knew better than to ask rcy of such a man.
Penelope sat and stared at nothing for a long ti.
She knew she should be placing calls, consulting the lawyers, politicking with mbers of the Board, but for all of that, she had to sit with her complex feelings a while. Grandfather had said that it was understandable for her to have that weakness as a child, but that she would outgrow it. Patience with her emotions was almost strange behavior for him; that he would allow such inefficiency was one of the things that convinced her that he really had cared about her, even if she couldn't be his successor.
Almost idly, she watched news clips and read articles about it. The newspaper Grandfather owned of course was praising him in glowing terms, and the headlines called Nick Tomsun a 'mad emperor', 'traitor to humanity', 'mass-murderer' and more. They laid it on pretty thick, but then, as Grandfather was wont to say, so were their readers.
So many people...half the kids I've t are inheriting companies they don't know how to run yet. The lawyers will eat us all alive if they can. Grandfather had warned her repeatedly about the lawyers.
Then there was the threat of the public, the common man—there was always a danger that they would rise up to steal everything he'd built and 'kill anyone who knew how to make money.' He'd had a few different doomsday scenarios he planned for and taught her about. But none of them had been about a 'common man' getting godlike power from aliens.
Well, that isn't quite true, she mused. He'd talked about wild cards, and how to determine whether they could be used, bought, extorted, or if they had to be eliminated. But that was mostly in the context of dealing with any powerful person who didn't play by the rules. There are billionaires, and then there are billionaires, he'd said a thousand tis. You either play the ga right, or you're a hazard to be removed.
Nick Tomsun was obviously a hazard, but she'd have to gather more information before deciding what to do about him. He'll only be around for a month. Is he a threat to , now? Am I on his hit list?
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringent.
Penelope frowned, rembering so of Grandfather's lessons: Nobody is your friend. Everyone is either a rival or a tool. Poor people have the luxury of fooling themselves that there are more options.
That's what she had always been taught, but she had never quite believed it.
Penelope was a fairy-tale princess, in many ways. Locked up in a tower, not just by her family but by her own doing as well, because nobody was safe to be around. They all wanted her money, or her influence, or power over her in so form. Money was toxic to every relationship.
But the world wasn't completely the way Grandfather had described. He'd forbidden her Internet access as long as he reasonably could, and tried to restrict her online consumption to educational and informative websites. So, of course, she'd taught herself to program, and eventually found tips and tools for...disobedient actions. She had had to see for herself.
She was fourteen years old, and had made dozens of friends, real friends (she was pretty sure), via six different online personas. None of her friends knew that she was rich. One of them did figure it out, and so she had said farewell to that group of friends and deleted her account. After that, she did more lurking, less speaking. That was one of Grandfather's earliest lessons:
Most people love to talk, and knowledge is power. If you have the strength to keep quiet and listen, they'll hand you the keys to their kingdom without even realizing it. Hell, they'll thank you for the privilege.
Penelope had different personalities for her different personas, so she could try out a lot of things, and observed what kind of people wanted to be friends with her in each case. She checked the discussions her friends were currently having, and it was pretty grim reading. Most of them were celebrating the deaths of so many rich people, even though every mainstream site (owned by billionaires) called it treason against the Arican way of life, yadda yadda. The people were happy that soone was killing off a great many people she'd known. Her 'friends' were happy that Grandfather was dead.
She wanted to scream at them...but she knew better. She knew that they would never understand. And if the internet rumors held any truth, most of the targets for assassination had been very bad people. She wondered what Grandfather had done, that made Nick Tomsun condemn him to death.
Dr. Vickall ca by, interrupting her musing. Penelope wasn't even sure that the doctor realized that her grandfather had been killed, because she was showing her fangs in a wide smile.
"Penny, I've solved it!"
Penelope blinked. The words didn't really register. "Solved what?"
"The bioweapon used on you! I figured out where they edited your DNA, and I'm in the process of creating a virus to cure you. It should be ready by tomorrow."
Cure . It didn't sound real. She'd thought the doctor was stumped. "How?"
"It took a while to find the research on DNA modification, because it wasn't in the public sphere and wasn't in the military computers either. But John gave a tip that led to finding a lot of private research that included tags I found in one of your chromosos."
"John Throckmorton?"
"Yes."
What does he want in exchange, I wonder? Did he put the doctor up to dropping that tidbit as bait?
"Do you really think you can cure ?" she asked automatically, as she tried to process this new information.
"Yes. I said, I'm working up a cure." The Doctor sounded as if she thought Penelope was confused, not disbelieving. "I'll need to monitor you for a couple of days to make sure there aren't any complications, and to tide your body over until it starts producing the right enzys on its own. But you should be fully healthy and ready for rehabilitation training by..." There was a pause. "The end of the week, I think you call it? With access to our exercise equipnt, you should be up to human average before the New Hope leaves orbit."
Penelope's heart was pounding, as she looked for the catch, the trap, the bait-and-switch, and couldn't find one. "Thank you, Doctor," she said politely. "I appreciate your hard work on my behalf."
"Oh, it was a good challenge! Frustrating, but that made it all the sweeter once I solved it!" The red alien looked happy as she bustled off again to work on sothing else.
The emotional whiplash was imnse. She didn't know what to feel. She burst into tears, but they weren't tears of relief. It took a while for her soul to find the words for what pierced her heart.
A day.
A single day earlier, and I could have told Grandfather that I was going to be cured.
One. Day.
She gave herself an hour. An hour to scream, to rant, to sob, to howl her anguish in private, to feel...everything.
When the hour was up, she carefully composed herself, and started making calls. The lawyers, the Board mbers, she would handle it all. She would do it.
It was what Grandfather would have wanted.
I'll make you proud, Grandfather. I swear it. By all the stars in the universe, I swear it.
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