Five days—that is how long Michael was under, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

The physical injuries his body had suffered were fixed and he should have woken up days ago, but he remained in a coma.

I made a recording of me saying wake up, and played it through his CEI on a loop. He later told me that he heard it, like someone trying to raise him from a deep sleep. It is the same thing the Excalibur’s MI did to me when I was in a similar situation not long after I was uploaded into the AI-Core, so I thought, Hell, it worked once.

I once explained to him that despite all the upgrades to his body, there was one thing I could not make more resilient. The human brain is the most complex organ, and it is essentially an organic computational machine; trying to mess with its internal structure can have dire consequences. Arguably, I did mess with one when I healed Anna, but that was just copying things that were missing using her sister’s brain scan as a template, and I am still amazed by how well that worked since that was a completely experimental procedure. (One of those high-risk/high-gain situations.) It was either that or leaving her in a vegetative state, so I took a gamble. Something I would not dare to do under any other circumstances.

It is still just soft tissue, and it doesn't take large kinetic energy transfers very well. What Michael experienced (when that Hellfire missile exploded), was like being punched in the head by the world heavyweight champion… for a day… repeatedly. The sad fact about that particular sport is that more than 90-percent of boxers suffer a brain injury of some extent during their career, in some cases—it is a permanent disability. I really hoped that wouldn’t be the case with Michael.

Despite all the things I learned, all the miracles this advanced technology is capable of, and the fact that my mind is now digital, the brain (and the mind it houses) still remains a mystery to me.

Alice would have to stay inside the AutoDoc’s sterile field for a far longer period since her injuries were far too severe. It is a miracle she survived at all, and without the medical nanites already in her body, she would have bled out in no time at all.

Now, rebuilding both legs and an arm was a daunting task and I wanted to do a perfect job, so she would be as she was before. Even if her injuries were far worse than Michael’s; her head wasn’t damaged that much, except in a superficial way, and that was easier to deal with.

Elizabeth would need a few more days for her skin and muscles to be… regrown. From the intense heat, her dress fused with her skin, and a considerable part of her musculature was carbonized. The recovery was prolonged as most of it needed to be removed and regrown. Making the sterile fields opaque was one of the best ideas I had. For a time she looked like one of those realistic medical dummies with all their musculature out in the open. (Actually, those dummies probably looked way better than her.) A deeply disturbing sight that can be a source of nightmares. I did not want anyone to see her that way.

The rest of the team (and all other people affected by the explosion) got out of the AutoDoc in a day or two.

The astronauts and their families were the least hurt since they were not in close proximity to the explosion. Not that any of them got away unscathed, but in comparison, they had minor injuries, easily treatable. I assigned all our additional guests some of the best family quarters on the Ascension to recuperate from the ordeal. The children bounced back in no time at all and were running around the Central Park, but the grownups were still shaken up. It is not every day someone tries to kill your entire family with a Hellfire missile, you need time to process.

Nobody took responsibility for the attack, not that it was expected. No electronic records remained about the drone being sold, or some other funny business that would show any clue. It was a military model, reported as destroyed in action in the Far East; the drone operator at that time suffered a heart attack after returning home… how convenient.

Ares hit multiple dead ends with his digital investigation; wherever there was some tangible lead, those who had done the deed, removed all traces. I am not talking just about erasing data (there are ways to recover that which had been deleted), but the physical destruction of servers and a few individuals involved. A scorched earth tactic, which has proven quite effective at stopping the investigation of my father’s murder. But I will never stop looking…

Then… twenty-four hours after the missile attack the troubles started, quite unexpectedly. Although being a student of human nature, I should have known that those idiots (a.k.a. Politicians) would do something drastic. But... the shock of my father’s death… the condition of Michael and the others… I was so fixated on my own pain and loss that I lost sight of the big picture.

We needed to issue a statement about what happened, since the world was expecting astronauts to return. Maybe it would have been better if we kept our mouths shut.

I was constantly receiving official requests for Michael to answer, and the best we could say was that he was still recuperating from his injuries. I guess they did not believe that story and thought he was dead. There were even a few accusations that we were just stalling for time when there were serious problems of international importance to be resolved. Mainly, all our technology they were hoping to get, one way or the other.

I could have faked the image and pretended to be him, but that felt wrong on several levels. Again, maybe I should have since those people decided to use a strategy so despicable—it was in violation of their own laws. (As was the gathering of American citizens of Japanese descent in WW2, but this was worse.)

The police started taking into custody families of our people on Earth. The moment I became aware of it, we organized to pick up as many as we could before the governments could get to them. The operation was somewhat successful, but they got most of them.

In some cases, we were just minutes too late, but the consensus we agreed upon was to not escalate things by going into any direct confrontation. The safety of the people they were taking was paramount, and the minute you introduce any kind of weapons in such situations, things have a tendency to go haywire.

Think about how many family members each of you have. Brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins… it is a staggering number. This measure was a sign of madness; it defied the basic principles of decency. In no time, the messages started arriving that their captives would be released if we would bring the spaceship back to Earth and exchange it for the hostages.

Ares and I listened to their internal conversation and realized the plan was to capture everybody on the Ascension when the ship landed and then milk them for every piece of information our people had. This was pure greed showing its ugly head, and there was no prettifying it with important-sounding words. Public safety, the good of humanity… those were the feeble excuses that were given for such deplorable acts.

I could predict what Michael's reaction would be when he woke up, so I made some preparations.

First, I started building Hammers, a lot of them. If they wanted to go to war with us, it would be a war they could not win, so I needed to provide Michael with options.

That was another reason why I decided to follow his lead, not to take the reins in my own hands. As a digital personality, I noticed that logic is far preferable to everything else, and since flesh and blood humans are sometimes allergic to logic, well… My first response would have been a few dozen Hammers to soften them up and then ask nicely if they would be so kind to do as I wanted or should I continue to replicate some moon landscaping to the surface of their countries. (I know, it is a bit extreme, but human idiocy is bothering me more and more, it is a strange thing.)

Maybe it is something primal within human nature that creates a desire to kick their opponent at the first sign of weakness, an evolutionary remnant of the time when our ancestors were competing against this world’s fiercest predators. A weak and hurt prey meant an almost assured meal.

Only in this case, they will discover that the object of their attack was not dead… the lion was just taking a nap.