Inside the central hall, a meeting had been taking place, and we interrupted it. Queen Anza sat in a throne on a raised dais at the opposite end of the hall from the doorway. Her face fell when Beta, Omega, and I entered the hall. "What are they doing here?" she demanded.
"They are here to see me," Mom said. "This has nothing to do with you or the Forest Orb."
"That may not be true," I said. "Can we talk in private, Mom?"
She gave me an odd look, then walked towards a door near the back of the room. Beta, Omega, and I followed her into a small conference room containing a round table and eight chairs. Mom turned and sat on the edge of the table once we were all in the room. She crossed her arms and furrowed her brows, looked me up and down and said, "Well, this is a surprise. Not sure if it's a pleasant one yet."
"It can be," I said. "I've come for a couple reasons, one is about the Forest Orb, but the other is..." I took a deep breath, released it, and said, "The other reason is I wanted to talk to you."
"Do you?"
"She does," Omega said. "We talked about it on the way..." Beta poked him. "What, Beta?" He looked at Beta, then me and mom. "Oh."
"Yes, I do, Mom," I said. "I miss you," I said in a whisper.
"I'm sorry," Mom said. "I didn't hear that last bit."
"I miss you, Mom." Tears stung my eyes. "I blamed you for running off, and rather than talk to you about it, I made up my own reasons." The tears spilled out, and Mom's face softened.
"Come here, Alice," she said. She opened her arms and welcomed me into a big hug.
"Aww, group hug," Omega said. He wrapped his arms around Mom and me, then looked over his shoulder at Beta. "I said group hug, Beta. Get in here."
Beta joined the group hug and we all stood there for a couple minutes. When Mom and I were able to break apart, we both wiped tears off our cheeks. "I've missed you too, Alice." She took a couple deep breaths, chuckled a bit, put her hand on Omega's shoulder and said, "Now, what was the other reason for coming here? You know something about the Forest Orb?"
"I'm the one who has it, sort of," I said. I told her how we found it, how we took it, fought off Queen Anza and her two warriors, how Alpha went to study it and what he caused, and finally his current condition. "What are the little green creatures?" I asked. "They look like nanobots but organic ones."
"That's because that is what they are," Mom said. "The original Amazons created them hundreds of years ago as a way to protect Tanglewood."
"How?"
"Magic," Mom said. She even said it with a straight face.
I wasn't buying it. "Seriously, Mom? Magic?"
"I don't know of another word for it, Alice. Since I've come back to the Amazons, I've..."
"Wait," I interrupted her. "What do you mean 'come back'?"
"I thought you knew," Mom said.
"Knew what?" Omega said, echoing my thoughts. I felt I already knew the answer, but needed to hear her say it.
"I was born in this village. I didn't join the Amazons, I was always an Amazon," Mom said.
"Whaaaaaat?" Omega said. I glanced at Beta and his eyes were wide, too.
"I met your father when he came with a delegation to expand Arcadia Station. We fell in love, and I gave up this life for one with him. It wasn't until the High Council demands outweighed his need to be with me that I left him."
"I understand," I said. "Dad's time is spent with the High Council. I don't see him unless I have business with them." Mom put a hand on my shoulder. "But I've always been pretty independent, and now I have these guys," I said, gesturing to Beta and Omega.
"And Alpha," Beta said. And the way he said it, I knew he was trying to steer the conversation back to how we could help him.
"Yes, and Alpha," I said. "Which brings us back to the magic critters."
"Please don't be flippant," Mom said. "Magic is very real, but some of it is just knowing how to get the magic to work for you. Some people can and some people can't."
"Telepathy?" I said. "You control these creatures through telepathy and they do what you want?"
"In a way, though it is far more complicated than that."
"I'm not buying it," I said.
"You created three sentient robot dogs..." Mom began.
"Wolves," Beta, Omega and I said in unison.
"Fine. You, Alice, created three sentient robotic wolves, complete with nano-technology to repair them and keep them functioning, among the many other wonders you've created, and yet you scoff at the one thing that you have seen that works but you can't explain?"
"She's got a point," Omega said. I glared at him. He turned to Mom and said, "But the magic things are taking over Alpha."
Mom looked from Omega to me. "That's why we came here," I said. "The Forest Orb blasted a hole in Alpha, then in Arcadia Station, and when Alpha self-repaired, these magic things were all over his 'wound' and made him attack me."
Mom moved around the table and sat down facing the door. She gestured at the chair to her left. "Please sit." I sat in the offered chair. Beta and Omega sat on the floor next to me.
"The Forest Orb is a receptacle," Mom said. "It was created to help expand Tanglewood and increase our area of influence."
"How does that work?" Omega said. "How does an expanded Tanglewood mean an increase in influence?"
Mom looked from Omega to me. "You know we aren't the only Amazons." I nodded. "There is an Amazonian council. The size of the area covered by a tribe indicates how many votes that tribe gets in the council."
"Ah!" Omega said. "So the more forest you have, the more votes you have!"
"Yes, and with Arcadia Station expanding into Tanglewood..." Mom said.
"We've been losing votes in the council." Queen Anza stood in the doorway with the same two guards she had at the canyon. "While my mother was fine with that, I am not."
"You want to rule the council, not just have a voice," Mom said, standing so abruptly, she knocked her chair over. Omega set it upright.
"I do," Anza said. "And neither you or your daughter and her metallic mutts can stop me."
"You don't have the Orb," I said.
"And neither do you," Anza said. "Take them!" she said to the guards. They began to move around the table.
"What's on the other side of this wall?" I asked Mom, pointing to the wall behind us.
"Nothing, this is an exterior wall."
"Good. Beta?"
Beta, who had been sitting with his back to the wall, leaned forward on his front legs and donkey kicked a huge chunk out of the wall, enough to give us room to escape.
"Beta, take Mom. Omega, you're with me."
I jumped to Omega's back as soon as we were outside. Mom mounted Beta and the boys wasted no time in sprinting for the main gatehouse. "Seize them!" Anza shouted from the hole in the central hall.
Amazons leaped for us, grasping for anything they could reach. Beta and Omega dodged around them easily, or in at least one instance, leaped over a trio blocking the roadway. The guard at the gatehouse saw two metal wolves, with angry women on their backs, charging at her. She made the wise choice of opening the gates rather than letting us crash through them.
We reached the hover-truck without further incident. I fired it up while Mom and the boys strapped in. "Hang on," I said, and got us up in the air and moving towards Arcadia Station.
"That was close," Omega said with what constituted a grin on his metal snout.
I turned to say something to Mom, but before I could respond, an honest-to-god arrow pierced the wall of the truck and struck Mom in her left shoulder, pinning her to the side.
"What in the...?!" I said. I turned back to the controls and upped the speed. Looking out the windscreen I could see a handful of Amazons, but not Anza's Amazons, holding bows aimed at us in the hover-truck! I put the proverbial pedal to the metal and got us out of there fast. Two more arrows hit the hover-truck, but neither of them hit anything important, including us.
Beta unbuckled and attended Mom's wound. Even though she was in pain, she didn't let it show much. "Did you see who was firing the arrows?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Were they wearing tan and brown?"
"Yes. And the ones I saw had black hair."
"Then the Archers have decided to not let Anza have her way."
"Then why did they shoot at us?" Omega said.
"They didn't know we aren't a part of this," I said. "Right, Mom?"
"They wouldn't care," she said. "The Archers' only opposition to ruling the Amazonian council is Anza. And they won't let anything stop them from ruling."